Youth gone wild: Tampa Am 2004.

THIS YEAR'S TAMPA AM ARTICLE has been broken down into group-specific sections, Now all you have to do is just find the heading that best describes you and start reading. No more beer articles for the kids and no more trick lists for the old guys. Just the information you want and need. How's that for bad ass?

FOR THE KIDS

ALRIGHT KIDS, LISTEN UP. I'm almost 30 so I'm going by memory here. but I'm going to try and think of everything I saw at the Tampa Am that you guys would be interested in Are you still into Jamie Thomas? If so you'd probably like to know that I saw him at the contest and that his hair looks even more luxurious in person than it does in the magazines. There were some other pros in attendance as well. Like Brian Howard. He even stayed in the same room as Michael Burnett and me. But I guess you guys probably don't care as much about him since he doesn't own any bandannas or '80s concert t-shirts. Dune was there, too. You know, the guy from Stereo who kept skateboarding while the other dude was out becoming a Scientologist. Uh, whom else did I see there? Oh yeah, Kevin Staab. Oh wait this is the for the-kids section. I mean, I saw Cairo Foster. Yeah. Cairo. Let's see, you kids like snacks, right? Well I'm pretty sure the snack bar had those Flamin' Hot Cheetos because every other little fellow I saw down there had a film around their mouths like they'd just sucked off some sort of a lava monster. Damn. what else are you tykes into? Oh, Bam, right? Well he wasn't there but the skateshop was fully equipped with all of his newest merchandise. All those pink hearts and vines and staff. It's not really my scene but it's sort of hard to talk shit if you've owned a Velcro strap Vision Street Wear" beret at some point in your life. I know what else I was going to tell you about: the flee shit. There was this thing called the Moat Race that World Industries organized, where 10 kids raced through the vile piss- and bacteria-filled drainage canal that's in front of the skatepark. The winner of the race won eight decks, eight sets of wheels and diphtheria. It's always cool to see what kids are willing to do for free product. If I get sent to cover the Tampa Am again next year I think I'll bring a bunch of boards with me and have my own contest thing. Maybe I'll hand out razor blades and ink and see who can give themselves the best homemade tattoo in under five minutes. That way, even if you don't win the contest you still get to go home with something new. And speaking of going home with something, they had millions of free stickers there with Tony Hawk's last name on them. And speaking of Tony Hawk, what do you guys think about his new fast food sponsor? Oh wait, that sentence was supposed to go in the next section. My bad.

FOR THE DRUNK DUDES & FOR THE FASHION DUDES

DUDES! I'm having a hard time writing this article about the Tampa Am contest because I can barely remember being there. I got dropped off at the airport in Austin on a Thursday and I went straight to the bar and I didn't stop drinking until my plane touched back down in Texas on Monday evening. Fuck, that's not true. I kept on partying after I got back. Fuck man. I'm partying right now. Hell yeah! But not as hard as I was partying in Tampa. Every morning there I woke up totally hungover and as soon as I started to feel even a little bit normal I'd crack open a tall boy and jump on the bus back to get shitty city, And every night the skatepark had events planned at bars so I could go directly from the contest to the bottle with zero time in between for eating or resting or any of that pansy shit. Oh man, it was so awesome being drunk and drinking and shit. Some of the bar highlights include some dude puking in his own hair and a couple of other dudes pissing in cups and throwing them on people. Fucking A, man! Booze!

OKAY, HERE'S THE BREAKDOWN. There were basically three fashion categories at this year's Tampa Am. There was the hip-hop look, which Consisted of tapered plan B pants, a pair of I-Paths or any other three-quarter top shoe with a Velcro strap (unlaced, strap undone), and a brightly-colored NBA hat that complemented the color palette of the shoes, The Whole ensemble was topped off with he ol' two t-shirts took--the outer shirt using roughly the amount of fabric that you would need to sew together a twin-sized sheet. When "rocking" this look, it is important to either pull down your shirt or pull up your pants just before you try a trick. Hardflips just don't look as good if your gear is all junked up. The second look was the average guy look. This one doesn't need too much description. Semi-baggy, slightly-tapered jeans from the GAP, a logo t-shirt, and some skate shoes. Maybe a hat, maybe not. You know, the just-another-dude-at-the-mall style. This is also what I refer to as the "non-marketable" style. The third look was what I would call the Flock-Of-Trujillos look. If you aren't familiar with this style, then I've got to ask you: why are you reading a skateboarding magazine? No, I'm serious. If I wanted to write for the general public I would have gotten a job with Newsweek. Seriously, get the hell out of here. Quit appropriating our culture. Go read a snowboard magazine Those kids have more money anyway.

FOR THE BITTER OLD GUYS

MUCH LIKE MIKE VALLELY never wanted to run through a graveyard, I never wanted to go to the Tampa Am. I don't have anything against the guys in Tampa; it's not really my scene. Two-hundred kids trying to kickflip their way to stardom? Jesus. I don't understand why this younger generation feels the need to spin their boards all over the place in order to be considered good. I mean, I'm good and all I can do is frontside grinds and sweepers. Oh sure, I used to have a little heavier sack of moves. But now that I'm older I realize that the only reason I ever felt compelled to try tricks was because I obviously had self-confidence issues and I was attempting to make myself feel better by trying to impress others with my physical prowess. These days I'm pretty secure with who I am, so I don t feel the need to put my neck on the line just to get a few "yeahs" from the onlookers. So anyway, back to the contest. It was pretty much just a bunch of teenagers with baggy pants jumping on the rails and trying to kickflip the pyramid. The only saving grace of the weekend was the old man bowl jam that they had one morning. Fucking grown-ass men frontside grinding their souls out, riding skateboards like they were meant to be ridden. None of this switch inward freestyle routine bullshit. Just carving and slashing and a couple of backside D's thrown in for good measure. The bowl in the park was only four-feet deep though, so I still had something to complain about. Shit, what else do you hitter old guys want to know about? Probably nothing, huh? You're probably just as over reading this article as I'm over writing it. Fuck it. I'm gonna go watch Streets On Fire and knock back a sixer.

FOR THE DUDES WHO ARE ONLY READING THIS TO SEE IF THEIR NAMES ARE MENTIONED

ALMOST all of the people in the contest were good, Still, being good doesn't mean that you aren't boring. That being said, here s a list of guys who I found enjoyable to watch; Philip Trotter: Kurtis Colamonico, Trevor Dunnett, Grant Taylor, Adrian Mallory, Anthony Shetler, Jared Brantingham, and Sierra Fellers (whose last run was as climactic as Rocky beating up that Russian guy in whatever Rocky that was in). I'm sure there Were other guys out there who rode nicely, but I forgot to bring a pen with me so I just going by memory. If you feel like you should be added to that list, just pen your name in on this line--. Oh yeah, Dan Pensyl skated pretty shitty, but he's my homeboy so I told him I'd put hid name in this article somewhere.

FOR THE SERIOUS GUYS

THIS WAS the 10-year anniversary for the Tampa Am contest. Why should you care? Because what we're dealing with here is a skateboarder owned and-operated event. No ESPN, no cell phone companies, no fast food companies. And why does that matter? Because as skateboarders we should support the efforts of those individuals within skateboarding whom--I'm sorry. I can't write like this. If you go pick up a copy of Trans Skateboardering Mag you can get the gist of this Section of the article.

FOR THE VERT GUYS

APPARENTLY TO ENTER this year's vert contest you either had to be over 30 or under 15. It was sort of like watching a bunch of dads playing basketball with their kids, except most of the kids could dunk and dad was missing his lay-ups. I should mention that my analysis only comes from watching the vert practice. I had planned on watching the entire vert contest but halfway into the first run one of my friends asked me if I wanted to go with him to the liquor store. Please refer to the "For the Drunk Dudes" section for further elaboration. I do know that Steve Revord placed second, which I though was quite a feat since the night before he had no less than three beers in his hands at any given time. And apparently he wasn't able to finish the last beer of the night, because it fell Out of his pocket during one of his runs. No shit. A full can of beer was in his pocket While he was skating. I think you should get extra points for that. Steve also won a special place in my heart for performing sticker checks on me throughout the weekend That's where you have a friend make sure that nobody has stuck any dumb-ass stickers on your back in an attempt to make you look like an asshole. So even though he got beat by a kid half his age, he's still a winner in my book. That is so fucking corny. Or I could end it like: So even though Steve placed second in vert, he's number one in this guy's opinion. Christ

FOR THE GUYS WHO USED TO SKATE

OKAY, SERIOUSLY. It's time to stop acting like you have anything to do with skateboarding Maybe I Should be nice to you guys in case you actually bought this magazine, But I'm guessing you're hanging out in Barnes and Nobles drinking a latte wearing your DCs and your Indy sweatshirt, and reading all of the latest magazines so when you go out to the bar tonight you can act like you still relate. I suggest you go home, shave off your goatee, take a took at yourself in the mirror and repeat alter me: "It's over." Go ahead and peel the Sublime sticker off your truck while you're at it. That dude's dead, brah.

IN CONCLUSION

I HOPE that you found the article format helpful. If you went ahead and read the article straight through then I'd like to thank you. If you only read the Section that was pertinent to you then I'd like to ask you to go back and read the rest. Jesus, how lazy are you? I work my ass off writing this shit and you can't even take five minutes out of your day to read my article? What else do you have to do? You know what? Forget it. I quit. Unemployment pays the same as Thrasher anyway.