Tampa AM 2006.

THE NEW TRADITION of going to a Tampa contest and spending the week either before or afterwards in Miami is interesting, because you get to see the very best and very worst of the state Homer Simpson famously and accurately referred to as "America's Wang."

DESPITE THE ABUNDANCE of shiny-shirted New Jersey Guido playboy-types and over-cooked, top-heavy, would-be trophy wives, South Beach, Miami is actually really, really nice. It's as close as you can get to Europe or South America in the United States, and if you avert your eyes from the occasional yellow Hummer or Burger King, you can imagine yourself on the French Riviera, taking a dip in the gently rocking azure Mediterranean, half-cocked from a sixer of 1664s.

Of course, leave the beach area and you'll run smack dab into Florida--the real Florida--the sweaty, broke-down, Cheetos cheese stuck in the corners of your mouth Florida. It starts just over the bridge from South Beach and ends somewhere near Alabama.

SHUTTERBUGGERY

AN EXCITING NEW SUB-GENRE has emerged in the world of fine art photography, sure to vie for attention alongside the romantic idealism of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the painstakingly technical masterpieces of Ansel Adams, and the gritty realism of Larry Clark. It basically involves going out to bars at night, getting shit-faced loaded, and taking pictures of other drunk people with a point-and-shoot camera. Although the world is your canvas, popular subjects for this new art form include:

* YOUR SKINNY DRUNK FRIENDS

* YOUR ONE FAT DRUNK FRIEND

* PEOPLE GIVING YOU THE FINGER

* BUMS

* OLDER DRUNKS

* PEOPLE PASSED OUT

* PEOPLE BARFING

* BARF

* PEOPLE PEEING

* PECKERS

* BUTTS

* TITS

* PEOPLE FIGHTING OR WRESTLING

* PEOPLE MAKING OUT

* PEOPLE TAKING PICTURES

* PEOPLE TALKING ON CELL PHONES

* COMBINATIONS OF ANY OF THE ABOVE

Okay, so, yeah, a lot of kids are shooting this kind of stuff and maybe some people are a little over dramatic about its value, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with taking pictures of the late night freak-out scene. It's really pretty fun when you get into it. I call it "mining for photo gold," and on this trip, Leo and I had our pickaxes and lanterns in the form of the Olympus Epic and the Contax T3. Though a basic understanding of composition and how a camera works is helpful, the real key to striking photo gold is quantity. You've got to get out there and shoot like Sylvester Stallone in the movie Cobra. Anything that moves is fair game.

The danger of this style of photography became apparent the last night we were in Tampa. First, Leo and I burst into my room where my roommate, Emerica TM Jeff Henderson, had been sleeping for hours. We pretty much scared the shit out of him. As the flashes fired, he sat straight up in the bed and shouted out, "Whahh! Whaaahh!" with a five-second break between yelps. It was really funny, but really, really lame at the same time. Sorry, Jeff.

Next, we started tearing around the hotel, running through the halls taking pictures of all the late night party bros. We turned a corner as the cops were kicking out Vans' Ohio Dave, and while I crept passed with my head down, Leo marched straight up to the fuzz and shot a series of photos, which irritated them to no end. "Who are you? Where are you supposed to be?" they asked as he slipped off down the hall.

I went to bed, but Leo's lust for documentation could not be quenched, and he soon found himself in a fight with a bunch of jacks who didn't like the fact that he happened to pop into their open hotel room and shot a photo of one of their girlfriends.

"Fuckin' erase it, dude!" he demanded.

"I can't. It's film," Leo answered.

Next thing you know they hauled Leo in front of the same cops and demanded he be arrested for whatever it is they were mad about. Familiar with the troublemaker, the cops were very receptive to the idea. At the precise moment it looked like Leo would be going downtown, a guardian angel in the form of a Tum Yeto sales rep showed up and, using the sort of logic that only makes sense in late night party scenarios, assured the cops that Leo was a very good kid and just excited about using his new camera.

"I'll make sure he gets to bed right away," he assured them.

And he did. And Leo got to keep his film.

I WENT WITH A CONTINGENCY from the Emerica program, and we were fortunate to pick the week before Tampa as our Miami time, because apparently the week after was chockers. The only other team we ran into during our week was a strange crew from Ice Cream shoes, who seemed to have more filmers than skaters.

Kevin Long and Leo Romero were the older guys on this trip, which was weird, because I still think of them as the new kids. The new-new kids were Victorville's Marquise Preston, the East Coast's Brandon Westgate, flow sensation DJ Fort from Missouri, and Pig Wood's Eric Hamamoto. Braydon Szafranski was with us, too, and even though he's an am, I think of him as one of the older guys like Leo and Kevin. Braydon's also special because he looks exactly like the dudes my older sister used to date when she was a stoner teen in the late '80s. He's definitely the type of man who can pull off leaving the house for the day with no shirt.

THE SINCLAIR WEIGHT LOSS PLAN

I'VE KNOWN MIKE SINCLAIR for five years or so now and he's always been, if not fat, at least a little swollen looking.

"When I ran out of that trick, I felt my titty jiggle," he once reported sadly.

Other warning signs were his tendency to lie down and take a nap when we went to the skatepark and a series of fat-dude injuries where he kept slipping out and sitting down on the coping really hard.

"Jamie offered Mike $2,500 and two week of vacation if he could lose 50 pounds"

A little while after that, Mike got hired as the Fallen footwear team manager, and soon Jamie's critical eye looked not just at Mike's computer screen, but the large gut positioned just beneath it. Always looking to streamline, Jamie offered Mike $2,500 and two weeks of vacation if he could lose 50 pounds by Halloween 2005--six months away.

Before any of you fat guys reading this think you couldn't pull it off, I'd like to add that I have never seen Mike with a piece of fruit and he eats Del Taco for lunch at least six days a week. He also continues to put away corn chips like a motherfucker. The only part that some of you might have a hard time with is the fact that Sinclair doesn't drink, so beer calories were not an issue. The Sinclair Weight Loss Plan works like this.

1. NO BREAKFAST

2. NO SODA (MIKE REALIZED HE'D BEEN DRINKING A TEETH-MELTING 11 PEPSIs A DAY AT HIS PEAK)

3. NO SNACKS OR SWEETS

4. ANYTHING YOU WANT FOR LUNCH (BUT NO SODA)

5. A SENSIBLE DINNER (THE EARLIER THE BETTER)

6. NO PIGGING OUT

7. SKATE

Mike pulled it off with flying colors--shrinking from 212 pounds to 160--and placed second at this year's Old Man Bowl Jam, earning a three-liter of generic diet cola. recent weeks I've witnessed him whipping out hot moves like kickflip 50-50s on the pyramid ledge and ollies down the eight-stair at the new Zero park--stunts the fat Sinclair would have never done. Weil, at least not until after his nap. Pretty inspirational stuff. Go for it, fat dudes.

BELA LUGOSI EATS PIZZA IN YBOR

DESPITE BEING in the heart of Spring Break country, Ybor's Goth club, The Castle, pulls it off pretty convincingly. There's a pirate's dungeon bar on the ground floor and a spooky upstairs dance zone complete with foxy go-go dancers and giant screens showing Lost Boys and Johnny Depp's Sleepy Hollow on a loop. Despite being scolded three times by the six-foot-plus she-bouncer for violating the club's strict no-photos policy, I was having a great time taking pictures of all the Duffels and Duffel-ettes and was even called over by a gal in a fishnet ensemble to have me get some shots of her doing a sort of reach-around dance-and-grope on another woman. I've often wondered what people who dress full time as Dracula or Fonzie do for work (they can't all give tattoos or be telemarketers), and a post-photo chat with the Mrs Busy Hands and her husband (who, unbeknownst to me, was standing inches away the whole time) gave me a chance to find out.

Turns out their fangs and capes only come out on the weekends. For the rest of their time, they both make their living--no shit--as United States Army recruitment officers. After that shocker, I got caught up in conversation with a 45-year-old man dressed as Peter Pan who had previously been dancing with an outright elderly gent dressed as Nostradamus and a 200-pound woman in a bumblebee outfit. Peter Pan gave me his card. Turns out he's got a website.

THE MAIN EVENT

THE 2006 TAMPA AM was like every Tampa Am I've been to since 1998--tipping maniac kids, the most dangerous best trick event in skating, and the World Industries Typhoid Challenge in the muck puddle out front. I've always liked these placing-by-placing contest wrap-ups, so here it goes again.

11. TOMMY SANDOVAL I really wanted him to win, just because it would be nice to see the trophy used as a hood ornament on the 1992 limousine he drives. Tommy looked like a caveman on wheels, tearing through 360s down the double set and backside noseblunts on the rail like they were a freshly killed mastodon. Purists will be pleased to hear he also included a manual trick in each run.

10. ROBERT LOPEZ-MONT This guy is really, really good, though it's up in the air if the skate public is ready for a favorite skater with a hyphenated last name. You remember how poorly that Garcia-Hirata thing ended up. Regardless, Lopez-Mont is a wrecking ball. He gapped the biggest pyramid to back lip on the rail all through practice, only to gap the same pyramid to full-contact reverse sack in his run. If not for that, he might have won.

9. VINCE DEL VALLE One of my favorites in the finals, Vince hauled balls and threw in frontside 270 lips on the big rail like they were boardslides. The long ledge in front of the judges got battered with a super long backside Smith and back tails. This dude shreds.

8. IAN GOW On flow for Anti-Hero, Gow's got a no-bullshit approach and plenty of raw moves. Go Gow!

7. DOMINIQUE JOHNSON Dominique's magic trick was the frontside flip to fakie nosegrind down the pyramid rail, which he did all weekend long, except in his runs in the finals.

6. ANTOINE ASSELIN A skinny Canadian with a handsome head of hair, Antoine back lipped the big rail and caught hella air on the QPs.

5. DAVE BACHINSKY A week after the contest, Dave kickflipped El Toro; therefore, anything I write here is sort of irrelevant.

4. TOREY PUDWILL An industry favorite, Pudwill has a lot of tricks and a loose style. Switch flips and 360 ollies down the double set and backside Smiths popped out on the flatbar.

3. WILLY AKERS Willy has a style like a looser-limbed Suski and skated every bit of the course instead of concentrating only on the rails or pyramids. Backside noseblunts up the wallride and frontside noseblunts down the big bar. Despite having an impressive beard, Akers is also still a teenager.

2. KEEGAN SAUDER Like Rattray and McCrank, Keegan has varied terrain knowledge coupled with natural fluidity that makes him an instant favorite, a real ripper. Backside tailslides up the wallride, Halterman grinds to fakie and big lien to tails on the QP, kickflips over the long pyramid, and much, much more. In one run Keegan went raw street and even ollied the entire manual pad from the flat. Real nice.

1. CODY MCENTIRE The most noticeable thing about Cody, aside from his fantastic consistency, was that he was wearing a Ghetto Gown--a gigantic white T-shirt. There's certainly nothing bad about the gown (the entire population of Philadelphia can't be wrong, for shit's sake), but wearing one certainly skews the crop of potential sponsors for a dude who just won the year's biggest amateur event. Just as white women's pants and a scarf might scare off Chocolate, the gown might cause you to get overlooked by a company like Foundation or Zero. Or maybe none of that would matter when you have runs as good as Cody's. Nollie heels over the pyramid, nollie big spins down the double, and a can't-miss nollie Cab heelflip over the hip. Nope, probably wouldn't matter. Congrats, Cody. You won!