Go time!

DAVE DUNCAN IS, above all things, a man of action. Whether it be a raging kegger, a kill backyard kidney or a brimming buffet table, the course of attack is always clear for skateboarding's resident rock and roll land pirate. "It's go time!" For Duncan, it's about living in the now--full bore, no regrets, carb count be damned.

"Fuck bro, I've already outlived my dad!" he'll tell you. "That means right now I'm in the bonus round!"

Though simple sounding, it's a remarkably profound approach; this go-for-it, every-jam's-the-finals-style of living. Go Time is what turns a get together into an epic bash, a road trip into a hellride, a crooks into an over-crooks. It's the difference between an Anthony Ogelsby and an Anthony Van Engelen, Trackers and Indys, Masonite and concrete. Go Time is an attitude; the attitude of Duncan. And it was both the inspiration for and downfall of the Flip team on the 2005 King of the Road.

TEAM FLIP LOS ANGELES CHALLENGES

Go to the X-Games and perform a coffin across the street course

Get kicked out of 10 spots in one hour

Pose for a nude drawing by Ed Templeton 

LOS ANGELES, CA

FLIP WON LOS ANGELES, CA, as their departure city so I met the team at Geoff's house in Huntington Beach, finding the troops assembled on the front porch beneath his heavy wooden front door that he had spray-painted with a Flip target and some inspirational pro-KOTR slogans. Appleyard had broken his arm a week earlier (and was handing his slot off to Arto), but was there making some last minute Magic Marker shirt graphics for Geoff. In addition to Geoff and Arto, I was pleased to find Bastien, Alex Chalmers, new team rider Shane Cross, Videog Ewan Bowman, and Team Manager Luke McKirdy all at the ready.

We knew we needed to be in LA to open our first city envelope, but after lurching for 45 minutes in I-5 gridlock hell we ditched the Wilshire rail plan and pulled over in a parking lot just past the city limits sign. A toast, some high fives, and the dudes started battling the flatground tricks on what may have been the roughest surface in Southern California. Chalmers snagged a Casper flip, Luke fakie ollied a late shove, and Geoff pulled a 360 inward heel before we decided to forget the LA traffic and head back down to Skip's ditch for a wallride and ditch sesh that went late through the night.

Starting the next day in the OC, it almost felt like a regular skate day--that is--until Chalmers was standing naked in Ed Templeton's backyard. As a stuntman, Chalmers is always ready to put his body on the line, which may have been why he was the most willing to do one of the more heinous KOTR challenges: pose nude for a Templeton drawing.

"Ah man, I was hoping it was gonna be Arto," Ed said, as Chalmers plopped down on an inflatable pool chair. He then snapped a few incriminating photos while Alex got situated. Meanwhile, Geoff had managed to track down '80s Vision legend Marty "Jinx" Jiminez for the over-40 kickflip, which he pulled with ease in Ed's driveway.

We knew the LA kick-out challenge would be a breeze, which was why it was so strange when, try as he might, Geoff could not get himself kicked out of the carpeted walkway in front of a swanky downtown hotel. Manuals, heavy foot ollies--nothing would raise the ire of the tuxedo'ed doorman. Finally Geoff had to go in and do a few tricks in the lobby to get told to move along. Though every skater has gotten kicked out of a spot at one time or another, it was interesting to see the varied reactions when you purposefully try to get the boot.

At ARCO, the gigantic security guards surrounded the dudes with military precision to escort them off the property, while down the street at the Mariano ledges the lady guard could barely put her sandwich down long enough to tell us to split. Some guards had a healthy "gimme a break, guys," attitude, while others came at us with gang-banger-style bravado. "You trying to step, fool?" One man in a suit even gave me the finger.

We went ahead and got kicked out at 11 spots just to make it solid and then headed over to the X-Games for the coffin challenge. Pushing in through the long lines of Metal Mulisha maniacs and mustache-donut dads, Geoff wandered through anonymously while we squeezed onto the closed "street" course. The horde of pleated shorts security guards didn't recognize him either, and soon we were surrounded by visors and walkie-talkies corralling us back into the line. Christian Hosoi was there that day and, as luck would have it, had recently been ordained a minister--perfect for the ollie-a-man-of-the-cloth challenge. A quick call to Dave Duncan and the Rocket Man met us out front for a quick ollie and some fellowship, cut short again, by security.

Lance Mountain suggested the Brooklyn House ramp for the spine challenges, and we met him, Steve Olson, and Hollywood's Scott Caan for a rousing spine session where Chalmers, Luke, and Bastien pulled everything but the fakie heel. All said, it was a great first day.

Sunday started at one of the spawning grounds of modern street skating, Huntington Beach High. The walls practically ooze skate history (and, not coincidentally, are actually skate proofed following a severe wallride fever outbreak in the late '80s), and Geoff avoided several near-Primos and ankle rolls before clattering through a solid caveman darkslide down the seven-stair rail.

Next we headed down to San Diego, CA, in search of rails and pools and, after getting directions from Lee Dupont, found ourselves on the ass end of a Zero session at a small rail in Linda Vista, CA.

"Oh shift There they are!" I gasped, as Thomas' impressive mane came into view.

Though Lee claims he didn't know they were there, I can't help but suspect he purposefully cooked up a head-to-head showdown between the two heaviest KOTR teams.

Jamie was cordial, but quickly gathered his troops while I hit their photographer, Joey Shigeo, with some gentle prodding for a trick count.

"You know I can't tell you anything," he said under his breath.

"I know," I said through stiff lips, "hut if Cole did the 270 lip just blink your eyes twice!"

He laughed nervously as he packed his bags.

Shane Cross is one of those kids, though he can pretty much do anything he wants on the board, who only does so when he's pretty sure he can land it first or second try. This turned out to be a little bit of a hindrance at some points in the trip, but at the popular Brooklyn rail it meant he rattled through front Smiths, front feebles, and a first-time-ever frontside nollie lip with the ease of a veteran. His streak continued that night at the Pala pool where he doled out a clean frontside rock, while Chalmers and Luke polished off most of the rest of the moves. Figuring the cat was out of the bag after Ed's portrait, Chalmers went ahead and snagged the 50 nude-dude points with a couple naked (and barefoot) rock and rolls while the troops toasted his health and avoided looking at his balls.

PHOENIX, AZ

WE HAD TO BE out of California by Monday at sundown, which meant we were finally hitting the road. Aside from all the nudity, it hadn't really felt like a KOTR until we left the familiar confines of SoCal and headed out on the long road to Dallas, TX. We stopped in Phoenix, AZ, where a recent rain had cooled the air down to the mid 90's, but it was still a sauna when we got to the Tempe park. The ledge tricks were a lot harder this year so it was a big deal when Bastien unloaded the kickflip backside lip shove-it and the fakie 5-0 to fakie helicopter. Chalmers found a little buddy for the piggy back kickflip (totally dangerous), and then we all got a big boost when Bastien not only pulled, but pretty much learned one of the new 100-point Fucked Up tricks: the nollie heel to late shove-it.

"I think maybe I can do this over a pyramid," he said as he landed one after another.

Having read a lifetime of letters from girls lamenting the hardships of being a female skater, I was a little worried about the focus-a-girl's-board challenge. High on his 100 points, Bastien asked for an inspection of a local lass' stick, and then brutally destroyed it. Seriously, he must have jumped up and down on that thing 30 times, leaving it in something between six to eight pieces. Fortunately for us, the girl seemed more shocked than upset, and just stood there with a plastered grin until we apologized, explained it was nothing personal, and escorted her over to the van for an extensive shopping spree. The usual van lurkers were bummed when they saw how much free stuff she came away with.

"Dude, you can break my board next!" they said hopefully.

The skies cleared the next morning and our faces practically melted off at the Ahwatukee park where Geoff darkslid, Arto grabbed the longest front board fakie, and Chalmers busted the longest channel hop in the 110-degree heat. We limped into the van and over to Cowtown Trent's mini-ramp (luckily indoors), where McKirdy made quick work of the backside boneless revert, Bastien got severely cheated out of a Dave Duren, and Shane coasted a stylish back tail frontside revert (after we tortured him into trying it).

Dallas was still a few days' drive away so we decided to stop in Albuquerque, NM, a very popular KOTR city, and skate with Rocky Norton, a very popular KOTR figure. Rocky's still very fit, though these days he's been flexing his artistic muscle and was along largely as a fine-arts-style photographer. Though we would have been best served by trying to knock off tricks in the book, when Geoff remembered the school with the big white hips it was definitely Go Time and the team went berzerker, pulling several moves in the blazing sun. Indian School ditch was next, and, again, the dudes were on it like Duncan on a mini pizza. Neither spot got us points, but when it's Go Time, what else can you do?

THE FIRST TIME I ever went to Albuquerque, Rocky showed me this big curved rail and every time I go there I've tried, in vain, to get someone interested in skating it. This is one of the creepier parts of my job, showing potentially head-smacking terrain to would-be assailants. But sometimes, like on the KOTR, it works out. Though young Shane had rarely ventured from the van in the last 24 hours, the sight of this curved behemoth distracted him from his thoughts of Australia's Gold Coast long enough to get him to put on his shoes and give it a go.

"I don't know. It's kind of weird," he says about everything.

"Just grind it, grindy!" I called back.

A few goes into it he was looking good, and then out of nowhere something went terribly wrong. He slipped out, did a sort of half-twist, half-dive, and smacked his face and head directly into the dirt to the right of the rail. This could have been the end, what with the dirt in his ears and eyeballs, but I guess it was soft dirt. As he slowly gathered himself, I tried to think of something encouraging to say.

"Well, it won't get much worse than that!" I called.

For once my advice seemed to help, and three tries later he was cruising away, into the high fives of his team and the arms of the world's strongest skater. Another great night.

TEAM FLIP DALLAS, TX CHALLENGES

Get Jon Comer to do a one-footed ollie

Ride the mechanical bull at Gilley's

Film a line in front of Dealey Plaza from the Grassy Knoll

BIG IN TEXAS

AMARILLO, TX was our first stop into the Lone Star State and we found the new Grindline park where Geoff was received like a returning war hero. Forget the spoiled brats from California, in towns like Amarillo kids still get very, very excited when a pro comes to town, and they circled him enthusiastically but politely. Being a skater in a small Texas town still makes you sort of a weirdo, and the scene at the park was pretty interesting. While the new, mostly street-skating kids hugged the small street course, the much larger bowl and full-pipe was left vacant save a few BMXers and one older skater who was very much disliked by everyone there.

"I was sittin' on the edge and he ran right into my feet!" one mother noted.

A few minutes into our visit a kid showed up in an elaborate Hot Topic-style Slipknot get-up, complete with gigantic pants, bondage belts, fingerless metallic elbow-length gloves, and many, many pieces of jewelry. He spoke with a thick Texas accent and carefully handed off each accoutrement to his comparably dressed girlfriend as he prepared to rip, eventually removing his large trousers to reveal a pair of mesh Dallas Cowboy shorts.

Chalmers blasted all over the place and Geoff talked to kids and signed autographs. Newly bearded, Arto was able to slip by incognito. I can't wait to go back to Amarillo in a few years and see how many rippers that park will have turned out.

We finally made it to Dallas and opened our second envelope. The heat was oppressive, and after a quick trip to a local park we returned to the La Quinta for swimming pool and naptime. I called Jon Comer and he met us at a local tattoo shop, where Ewan chose a Skate and Destroy design.

Every year I worry that I'm the one that's going to have to get the Thrasher tattoo. It's not that I'm not down for life, it's just that I don't have any tattoos and I don't know if I want to start. I've gone through several excuses in my head, should I ever be pressed to get one. I've decided that if it should come down to me I'll tell the team the same thing a cable guy told me one time when I offered to trade him a tattoo for free HBO.

"There's only one man gonna put a tattoo on me and that's my brother. And he's in prison!" he said.

And that's what I'll tell them. And if they call bullshit on that, I'll get a skategoat next to the heart-a-gram I'll get on my bikini line.

JON COMER is totally awesome and he and his wife took us out to eat and then we all went over to Dealey Plaza to film the line from the grassy knoll. At the top of the knoll, a possibly crazed conspiracist rattled through a monologue over and over like an animatronic Abe Lincoln and stood guard over a booth running a loop of Zapruder footage and offering videos and pamphlets supporting multi-shooter theories.

Comer blasted a curb-cut one-foot and offered us an even gnarlier challenge: drinking a beer out of his prosthetic leg.

"People have done it," he explained.

We politely declined, but don't be surprised if it pops up in a future KOTR.

Realistically, the next thing we should have done was get on the hunt for a killer rail or source out a sweet set of stairs. Unfortunately, we still had the mechanical bull challenge to contend with, and, seriously, how are you gonna ride a mechanical bull in a cowboy bar unless you've got a few in you?

Having bull riding experience (of course), Chalmers mounted up first and, after several minutes of briefing from the attentive staff, held on for a good 15 seconds.

A few Shiners later and each of us were taking turns, with the coaching from the staff and speed at which they cranked up the bull stepping up exponentially. By the time I was up I didn't get so much as a howdy before getting bucked off onto my ass.

Luke's wife was in town and, being a Texas gal, whipped me around the dance floor a few times before chasing some women into the john to see if they (a) were over 40, and (b) wanted to make out with Ewan. In this case they were more like 18, and though they didn't seem like they wanted to make out with anyone, one of them took a ride on the bull where even the people working back in the snack bar could see up her very short skirt. From there things got stupid as we took cabs down to the Ybor City of Dallas, an area called Deep Elum.

I swear to God, when I'm all hammered I think I'm the best street photographer in the world. On that night I was totally fearless, demanding--and getting!--group photos with packs of thugs, charging up to three-hundred-pound women and getting them to smile for the camera, sticking my camera into the open windows of a Hummer limo--whatever pleased my critical eye. It was going to be epic! Predictably, what I got back (and typically get on such nights) is more akin to that shot in the movie Sixteen Candles when Anthony Michael Hall gets his friends to take a picture of him and the drugged-up prom queen. That and a lot of blurry garbage. The fun didn't stop back at the hotel where I sought a little free medical advice from Luke's wife, who is a licensed chiropractor.

"But what do you actually do to people?" I asked.

"Do you want to see?" she replied.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Get down on the ground," she commanded.

Next thing I know it's 4:00am, I'm shit-can loaded, and getting a full spinal adjustment on the floor of the La Quinta. I've never slept so soundly in my whole life.

The next day we drove non-stop through the rain, stopping at a hotel in the middle of nowhere before arriving the following day in St Louis, MO, for a quick session at some spots with my friend Todd Schweinbold. Geoff tried to ollie eight big stairs bare-footed, which we all thought he'd be a natural for considering the thickness of the shoes he typically jumps off the universe in--but he got scared and kicked the board out shortly after take off.

"What am I thinking?" he asked in the air.

TEAM FLIP LOUISVILLE, KY CHALLENGES

Pick up Mystery Guest

Show up with Mystery Guest at Louisville park by 10pm on Aug. 15th

Nominate one member to compete in the sticker pasting challenge

EVERYONE must perform a benihana somewhere at the Louisville park

LOUISVILLE, KY

WE WERE RUNNING out of time to get to Louisville, KY to pick up our mystery guest, so we drove through the night, seeing some brilliant lightning storms the sort of which don't exist in California.

"When the going gets weird, the weird gets Duncan!" Arto kept saying. And in Louisville we decided that, instead of one of us doing the Dave Duncan challenge, the best way to intimidate our competition would be for all eight of us to do it. Everyone was stoked to hear we were getting Dogtown legend Eric Dressen and, while shopping for vests and shades at the Super K-Mart, we picked out a kit for him too. Before that, however, I got a little of the Go Time spirit in me and decided to take it in the nuts for the team via the much-maligned Don Rickles challenge. The tricks this year were super hard and having forgone the tattoo, I knew the only way I could really help the cause was with a retarded haircut. And that's just about what I got.

In all fairness, I didn't really give him strong guidelines before he picked up the clippers, but the haircut that Ewan gave me ended up looking less like that of a naturally balding man and more like the style of cut you'd give a mental patient just before you applied me contacts for a round of state-sponsored shock treatment.

Though we've met many times, Dressen didn't seem to recognize me with my new fucked look but seemed glad to be joining the Flip team.

"All I knew was that I wanted to be on either Flip or Zero," he told us.

We ran into the Zero team at the airport as they grabbed Tom Knox and saw that the rumors were true: both Tommy and Rattray were in arm slings.

"Those guys are killing themselves for this," somebody remarked, and it reminded us that we needed to get down to business if we were going to have any chance of winning.

We returned to the hotel to trick out our Duncan vests and mentally prepare for the showdown. Rolling up to the park a few hours later, I was greeted by a small group of buck-toothed yokels all talking frantically.

"They gawt Phelps! They gawt Phelps!" they cried.

Earlier Jake had called me from the park to ask when we were coming and give me some updates.

"So how's it going?" I asked.

"Great. There's bottle rockets flying everywhere!" he answered.

Now, it seems one of the fireworks had hit somebody and Jake had been fingered as the culprit.

"Yeah. Sounds like you need to go bail out your boy Phelps," Lance Dawes told me happily.

"I'm not bailing out shit," I replied.

An hour later Jake called. He was out, but was forbidden from returning to the park. Fortunately Tony Trujillo was in town and would stand in as the judge for the sticker-pasting event.

Despite a pulled groin, Ewan heard the call for Go Time and blasted a benihana to make Austin Seaholm jealous. After 20 minutes of bails, I finally put one down, too, while the rest of the team and Dressen easily launched to victory moments later.

The pipe-pasting event was a little rag-tag in organization, with me trying to run the riders' meeting and the judge taking a few runs in the middle of it. First thing, we had to figure out which wall of the pipe everyone wanted to put their stickers on; point being, if they were all over the place it would be harder to tell which was highest.

"So, we need to decide which wall you want to put them on," I'd tell the group.

"The backside wall!" Fred Gall yelled.

"No, I mean which side," I'd say.

"The backside wall!" he yelled again. I think he may have had a little Duncan juice in him.

"No, which side of the pipe, which wall of the pipe?"

"The BACKSIDE WALL!"

In the end it didn't matter anyway, as Freddy didn't even enter. Stefan Janoski took his place. Knox went high, but Chalmers won by a mile. And even though I told him there was a cash award, it turns out I was wrong. Sorry, Alex.

TEAM FLIP DAYTON, OH CHALLENGES

Build a quarterpipe and session it at Rob Dyrdek's skate plaza in Kettering

Build a four-man skateboard and with four men riding it, jump a four-stair

Take a member of Rob Dyrdek's family out for steaks

DAYTON, OH

DAYTON, OHIO was our last official city, and we opened our envelopes to discover that almost all our challenges dealt in one way or another with Ohio legend Rob Dyrdek. By sheer coincidence, Rob was in town, which made wrangling his family out for a steak dinner all the more easy, and after throwing together a makeshift quarter-pipe at the nearby Surf Ohio skateshop, we hauled it over just in time to meet them.

The locals gathered around the ramp looking at it with wonder like it was some sort of exotic bird, then hooting in excitement when Dressen went up for a killer tail block. For many who had grown up at the Skate Plaza, it was probably the first time they had seen real transition.

The shock must have been too great for a few, because while we were sidetracked trying to get four dudes down the four-stair on a plywood skate raft, the local law enforcement came and collected the quarter-pipe. It seems that in the land of the Skate Plaza, even the slightest transition has been officially outlawed. Oh Dyrdek! Is there no end to your power!

Young Shane blunt slid the 12-stair hubba ledge (as dangerous as the real deal), and Chalmers cruised the perimeter for chicks, or, in this case, a 56-year-old mom.

Much has been made of women like Cher and Tina Turner who remain hot, hot stuff well into their 60's. The woman who Chalmers sucked face with that day at the Skate Plaza was not one of those women. The fact that he barely escaped an unfiltered Kool to the eyeball should have been seen as a warning sign, but still Alex pulled her in, this veritable Golden Girl, for a quick session of unrefereed tonsil hockey. The crowd shuddered, her teenaged son giggled uncontrollably, and Mrs Dyrdek shielded her eyes. It was one of the gnarliest things many of us had ever seen.

"I can't believe you did that in front of my mother," Rob sighed in exasperation.

We made amends at a local steak house, though Mrs Dyrdek chose to go home, and then returned to the plaza to light up the regulation-sized six-stair rail. Though no more effort was required to shore up Chalmers' VIP status for the Flip team, he joined Shane on the rail, pulling a Barley grind with his 60 mm square Powell wheels. Cross again exceeded his three-try limit and unloaded the nosegrab 5-0 and the nollie 180 fakie nosegrind with style and ease. Meanwhile, Dressen went to his '70s roots with a few 360 spinners.

TEAM FLIP NEW YORK CITY CHALLENGES

Turn in footage to Jake Phelps Aug. 19th between 11:30 and 11:59 pm in Times Square (Broadway and 7th in front of the jumbo-tron)

NEW YORK, NY

WE HAD TWO DAYS LEFT and went to Philly, PA, which was pretty much a total waste of time except for Dressen getting some sweet slappies and Shane ollieing some stairs barefooted. Chalmers made one last push, snagging two sweet over-40 make-outs at the X-Games park (a nice change, since the skateplaza mom looked like Janet Reno). Then we had to get to New York City so Chalmers could fly out the next morning to go to a Mountain Dew contest.

Long story short, I got lost in New York, made a series of wrong turns, and when the guys got out to pee in a rat-infested alley we got rushed by an undercover swat team and they all got tickets for public urination. All except for Ewan, who got one for public urination as well as indecent exposure. As an added bonus, they're all required to return to New York for a court appearance. When we finally made it to the hotel (after being pulled over by more cops on the way to the parking garage), we all thought about what Duncan would do and Go Time turned into Go Get Good and Drunk Time.

A 4:00pm departure the next afternoon meant we had just enough time before dark to get to the big set of blocks to see that the landing was practically a lake--so much for Bastien's biggest half-Cab flip--and a last-minute stop at Brooklyn Banks had us looking at each other thinking, "OK, who wants to try the switch flip wallride?" Despite all our good intentions for a last-minute NYC push, it was pretty obvious that the KOTR 2005 was over for the Flip team.

"Well, when the going gets weird ..." Arto offered.

And with that, we all went and got Duncan. Very, very Duncan.