Mail drop.

Enlist every twisted, brass-fisted, crime witness at: Mail Drop c/o THRASHER PO Box 884570 San Francisco, CA 94188-4570

FASHION FLICKS

I am the unconventional Thrasher reader. The kind of reader who, instead of spending all free time skating spends all free time taping pictures of good composition on my walls. I am a photo obsessive. Thrasher has the occasional fantastic photo in every issue and I'm there, scotch tape and scissors ready every month at the mailbox. My year of subscription will be up soon and I am regretting it. None of my friends like skating, so they giggle at the halfpipe and pool photos by Luke Ogden that cram in with the pictures of John Lennon, Bjork, NIN, and other bands and pictures that are simply appealing to me. I became a fan at the height of the Tony Hawk-induced craze when I was 13. I got a skate for my birthday shortly thereafter. This Santa Cruz board was my pride and joy I didn't even care that I totally sucked...and how I did. I gave up. I stopped watching skating specials on ESPN 2. The board now serves as a fashionable weight to keep my cat from opening up the top of my gecko cage. I like it this way I'm no t a poser because I'm not a skater--I'm an educated bystander. What freak doesn't skate but buys the magazine and can name most skaters just by face? Me. I read the Mail Drop section when I need a good laugh and flip straight to the Comix, Yep, I'm that weird. You could say that I read Thrasher for all the wrong reasons. I wouldn't think so, do you know why? I'm a girl. At least I'm giving Thrasher money and I'm not ignorant. I don't waste time dissing people because the people that do are just funny I think that they are goddamn idiots, especially the dumb asses that restate the clearly obvious with an enormous amount of obscenities and the words "sell out" on every page. But, like I said, it's all for a good laugh. Maybe someday I'll become a Thrasher editor. You guys must laugh your asses off all the time. Either that or puke because of all the bullshit. Sounds like a fun job.

Brieana Sandoval

San Jose, California 

Luke's in the darkroom, Come oven T-ed

DAY TRIPPER

So, I washed down three peyote buttons with a pint of 151 and had a vision (no doubt, you say?) of the future of skateboarding. Some might say that I was just tripping balls, but I have complete faith in my hallucinations. Skateboarding has evolved so fast in the past decade.

It boggles the mind as to what the next 10 years might reveal. Everything that has been done normal stance has been replicated switch (except kickflip b/s lip on the rail). Thirteen-year-old kids are flipping sets of 15, so what's next? I'll tell you... Suicide hammers! Make JT's Leap of Faith look like a queen on rollerblades! I see Greco switch frontside flipping off a skyscraper with a crack pipe in his mouth. SPLAT! Reynolds collects his bet money and says: "That was hi-jinx, dude."

Oh, yeah, also in my vision... something about Vallely bullring up 50 pounds and becoming a heavy weight boxer (and Cab turning into a neanderthal), but that's when I was coming down so it might be bullshit.

Todd Zack

Branford, CT

BAD RELIGION

After a recent experience, I felt compelled to drop a line about my personal revelation! I started skating in the mid-1980s and skated until the early 1990s. Later in my life, around the Y2K, I had an urge to pick up a board and skate again. Having been out of the scene for nearly 10 years, I was amazed to see just how big skateboarding had become, and was under the impression that all the "skate activism" I was involved with on a local level in the l980s had in some way paid off.

Living out in the sticks near a small town, I discovered the perfect spot to get back my lost skills: an empty hockey rink with mini street course on a cement base. The best thing was that the park had no rules! Not wanting to embarrass myself in front of the younger crowd, I decided to visit the pseudo-skatepark early on Sunday mornings so I could crash and burn by myself without an audience. In time I also brought my twin boys, starting at age two, with their boards-- real set-ups, not toy store junk--to let them roll around and have fun, again having the spot to ourselves with the exception of the local church-goers who would all converge upon the parking lot across the street and march into the huge building up the hill. This went on all summer and concluded when the snow started to fly and the rink was iced. This spring the boys and I went to our favorite spot again, early on Sunday morning, but this time it was different. At the entrance of the rink was a new big green sign with the new "RULES."

I've read the gripes about them in Thrasher and other mags, but thought that such rules were only for big city parks with many more users--however, I found out different that day.

The sign read "Helmets and full pads required," and the new times were listed, which were "three days a week" and only "four hours per day." However, most interesting to me was the last "rule" on the list. It read: "NO SKATING ON RAMPS BEFORE NOON ON SUNDAYS". I knew that this final "rule" was directed towards me and my boys because we were the only ones there, and the only people who ever saw us were the church idiots!

This proves that the government, in this case the local town government, is a pawn for organized corporate religion, particularly Christianity, which only serves to execute its agenda and maintain its control and influence! It's time for all of the brainwashed born-again fools to wake up and realize that throughout history religion has been an oppressive system of control, responsible for death and destruction to those who opposed its tyrannical rule, from Rome to England and now in the good ol' land of the GREED and the home of the SLAVE! Church associations are nothing more than money laundering fronts who are given tax exempt statuses in exchange for the promotion of the "control agenda" which uses guilt and fear to keep the "herd" under its control!

What is the solution? For me and mine, first we plan to build our own private skatepark by starting with a halfpipe and adding to it as time and money allows. We are fortunate to have private land in the country on which we can build anything we want and skate whenever we want without our pads or helmets if we choose. An idea for other skaters who may want their freedom from pads and time limits would be to get together a small group of friends and build you own park, even if it means portable street ramps. At least it's yours and it's free from control -- corporate, religious, or governmental (which are all one in the same)!

Erik Johnson

Lindstrom, Minnesota

I am writing to you for help -- not for me but for a kid who was a really good skater but is now on the streets. I met him about five years ago when he was 19, homeless and addicted to heroin. I didn't feel there was much I could do for him, it kind of freaked me out to tell you the truth, but I gave him some money in return for being able to photograph him. We sat on 8th street out in the East Village and we talked about life. He told me how he used to skate, that he knew Larry Clark, that he was in the background somewhere in the movie Kids. I don't know how he ended up in the situation he was in, but I'm guessing it probably had a lot to do with the drugs.

REGGAE MUSIC

I have recently been in touch with Larry about Billy. He said that he had seen him just a couple of years ago looking great and skating down that same street. That he had been attending college upstate somewhere. I was so excited. I was even planning to come to New York from London to meet up with him, to give him this picture as a reminder. A reminder of where he had been and where not to go again.

If you see Billy please buy him a copy of this magazine, buy him a coffee and a sandwich. He can be seen walking the streets of New York again, wearing two left shoes and begging for change. Maybe he would like to skate again but has just forgotten how.

Anonymous

London, England

The world is my graveyard. T-ed