Thrasher Magazine

Nick is a rare breed of pro skater. He’s thoughtful, but not in a pretentious way. The Long Beach lifer can talk to you about Karl Marx and Noam Chomsky, or he’s down to get a dice game going. A guy who can hang with both sides of the brow, you know he's got some good lists about reasons not to skate, despicable slang, Element Alumni and more—as seen in our February ‘22 issue.


A touching tribute to his mom, Nick's new Element part is one of the best performances of his career

• Kevin Romar
• Julian Davidson
• Marcus Carr
• Don Luong
• Darien Brown

• Arms flailing
• Bussup
• Dave missed it
• It was too dark ’cause it took me too long
• Get too giddy and try a flatground trick after landing and miss it

• Old school kickflip
• Early grab 360
• Backside no complies feel cool
• A satisfying firecracker off a curb
• Powerslide into a pole and make that cool “ping” sound

Double-barrel hippie jump, ollies are overrated     Photo: Seidler

• Carl Sagan
• Karl Marx
• Leonard Cohen
• Robert Mapplethorpe
• Noam Chomsky

• French exit
• Houdini
• Smoke bomb
• Go for a smoke, don’t come back
• Pass out on the couch

A magician never reveals their tricks, but damn, this one doesn’t even have a name 

• Cool Hand Luke
• Vanilla Sky
• Lost in Translation
• The Stoned Age
• The Life Aquatic

• Tony Tave
• Brent Atchley
• Julian Davidson
• Evan Smith
• Chad Tim Tim

• Julian’s name done by him
• Dave’s name done by him
• David Reyes’ name done by him
• Any of my friends’ names who wanna tattoo on me
• One for mom

Rooftop 180 to switch crooks—go ahead and call the cops     Photo: Seidler

• Bribery
• Beg with puppy-dog eyes
• “Just call the cops”
• Run a diversion
• Ask for forgiveness, not permission

• Dave Hoang
• Don Luong
• Mike Manzoori
• Jon Miner
• Ricki Bedenbaugh

• Bag of Suck
• Baker 2G
• Mosaic
• The 917 Video
• Cherry

Nick's bag of tricks needs its own Rosetta Stone to decode, fakie nosegrind body varial 5-0 180

• Traffic
• Air quality
• Being somewhere where driving isn’t necessary
• Change of scenery
• It’s a big world and I wanna see it all

• Skate or just sweat in general
• My dogs
• Talk to my grandpa
• Talk to Julian
• Good music and a good cry

• Street 720
• Double loop
• Roll off to grind a steep handrail
• Vert varial on street
• That frontside flip revert thing Kremer did, but backside

Grinding the blues away with a front feeble on the far side     Photo: Pires

• You’re making each other miserable
• Different plans for the future
• Unforgivable offenses
• Picky eating
• Habitual line stepping

• Pet a beaver once
• Close bear encounters one day in Sequoia
• Punked for my snacks by a mob of monkeys in Sri Lanka
• Skating behind a circus in Japan, had a cool one on one with a giraffe
• Dad caught a huge snapping turtle once and we spent all day seeing what it could break in half

• Phone charger
• Skate tool/blade
• Gulf Wax
• Backup contacts
• Coffee (or Red Bull when coffee isn’t an option)

• Books
• Nice candles
• Ashtray
• A lighter that shocks you— mixed in with normal ones
• Dice

• Let’s go
• Cap
• Most weed slang
• Frick or frig when said in earnest
• Saying things are “gay”

Wallie to Indy corkscrew in Las Vegas, bet on that     Photo: Seidler

• Always thought it was weird they didn’t show bin Laden’s body
• The two-party system is an obvious manipulation tool
• Kennedy
• Simulation theory
• The nuke on Japan wasn’t necessary

• “This is my life”
• “Fuck” (but with your voice cracking)
• “I’m literally about to cry”
• “This is supposed to be fun”
• “See what happens when you fuckin’ look at me” —Ethan Loy

• Lunchables
• All Dressed Ruffles
• Sour Belts, preferably strawberry
• Riesen chocolate
• Goldfish

• Road trips with grandpa Wally
• Building PVC flatbars
• Shoplifting whole BBQs worth of food
• Running from cops
• Playing board games with mom

Back salad to fakie into the friggin’ ribbon ride     Photo: Seidler

• Ankles
• Reset button
• Heat
• Family time
• Seeing someone get hurt badly usually ends my day, too

• My friend EC knocking people out
• This guy was eating out of the trash and Julian gave him some money for food. Minutes later he was eating out of the trash again
• Every time Dave skates
• Drunken midnight session with my homie Keegan Walker, RIP
• Hellbomb always goes off

• Patti Smith
• Slowdive
• Ray Barbee
• Chief Keef
• Sabbath

Front tail kickflip to 5-0, Nick's insane and sports a mohawk. The same can be said for Travis Bickle, but in a much different sense

• Rob G
• Danny Montoya
• Chad Tim Tim
• Dave Hoang
• Julian Davidson

• Miss your flight
• Try to switch up the seating arrangement
• Drink the piss bottle on accident
• Get injured while not skating
• Go to jail

Russian boneless in the Nevada spillways, fusion skating at its finest      Photo: Seidler

• Appleyard and I got his room key from the front desk and flipped him out of his bed
• Watching him take the heaviest slams I’ve ever seen and still get up and land it
• When he was real young he got mobbed by a bunch of kids in Costa Rica and they were trying to rip his dreads off
• Listening to Cole Mathews give him shit
• One time he strangled me really hard in a club but it was somehow endearing

• The Backwards Man from Freddy Got Fingered
• This ship will have sailed by next year, but an Irish version of Island Boys—Ireland Boys
• The guy with no shirt (Randy) from Trailer Park Boys
• Anything where a whole group of people are involveD
• Baker-era Jim Greco

Pole-jam tuck-knee overcrook—NBD or WTF?      Photo: Seidler

• Brian Gaberman
• Jake Darwen
• Jerry Hsu
• Richard Avedon
• Robert Mapplethorpe

• Deep Purple “Child in Time”
• Mercyful Fate “A Corpse Without Soul”
• Laura Branigan “Gloria”
• Big L “Devil’s Son”
• Dystopia “Hands That Mold”

• Become bilingual
• Live overseas for a bit
• Drive to Alaska
• Learn to drive stick shift
• Skate for as long as my body will allow

Long-distance pole jam into the ditch in LBC, Nick Gar is gnar. Now go watch his new part again!     Photo: Seidler