Thrasher Magazine

Take another look at Supra's UK residency with the article from our October issue by David Broach. Click any image to enlarge.




This grumpy old guy was trying to stop the show in London, but no old man was going to get in-between Dee and his 5-0

Some people think Stonehenge was used by Druids as early as 3000 BC for rituals ranging from the sacrificial to large-scale orgies. There are Celtic records stating that Druids were white-robed “seers and knowers” that could stop a battle by a single Druid stepping between armies. Some so-called “scientists” have proven this theory to be incorrect, but just like the non-believers of climate change I say science be damned! I will believe what is convenient for me. I’ll believe what I damn well want to believe! The Druid theory of mass gang bangs and blood is way cooler than thinking of the place as a big clock. I gotta call bullshit on the clock theory. I mean, seriously. What dipshits would have spent all that time and energy lugging huge stones around when they could have just looked at the damn sky? Or in terms of seasons, just assumed that winter was coming when they started getting cold!?


I believe I can fly. Spencer Hamilton spreads his wings and heelflips the rail from the fourth step up


Muska found this spot to ollie but Oscar swooped in and got there first. Little whippersnappers are quick these days, Chad!

Oscar Candon and he English-Face Problem

Oscar Candon is a Frenchman who should be held in highest regard. He’s a straight-talking honest ripper. One day on our trip, Oscar pointed out what he coined as the English-face problem. For the most part, the women in England are pear shaped with weird faces. If you spotted a good one in the van from a distance, odds were when you were close enough to see her face you’d be disappointed. This became known as the English-face problem. Yes, of course they have some beauties, but for the most part it’s slim pickings.

I think the explanation for England’s violent past boils down to one thing: they have very ugly women which made them mad. Now I know I might have my balls cut off for pointing out this harsh reality, but it might explain why at one point the British people felt it necessary to leave their little island of ugly women and sail all over the world colonizing and enslaving different countries. Sure, they made good money by pillaging and I’m sure it boosted their Kings’ egos. That said, I think the real motivating factor was that they just really wanted to find some decent looking broads. In the olden days, England had the largest navy ever known to man, and I’m pretty sure it was just built in order to seek out some nicer female companionship.


Hey, when you’re the Switch God the light shines down upon you. Keelan, switch heel in Manchester


One of the best Frenchmen out, Oscar gets up on a tall-ass 50-50 shortly after making one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our time: the English-face problem


Old mule man was the MVP of the trip! Ellington shows the young bucks how its done with a real impossible. Watch the wrap, kids!!

Erik Ellington: 37-Year-Old MVP

Ellington was the MVP on this trip— no question about it. We would be at a spot for hours while someone almost half his age worked for a trick. After sitting and waiting patiently, Erik would quietly get up and land his trick within 15 tries.

One of the things I’ve always liked about your skating is that it seems like you work hard for your tricks. It’s definitely not boring watching you skate because of this. The battle you go through is sometimes just as impressive as the actual trick. You don’t give up unless you can’t walk. Pure Braveheart shit! Do you think going sober at 37 helped you with getting your tricks faster, or did you just have some good
luck in England?
No, no. It helps! I’m still 36. I just always add a year to my age. It makes it easier as you get older. Yeah, being sober has definitely helped me. Just being sober helps you be more on point with everything. I don’t have to relearn tricks every time I go out because I had a week long bender or just didn’t feel like skating for a couple of weeks or whatever.

So are you more motivated to go skate being sober?
Yeah, of course. It’s because I have more time now, really. Being sober, I don’t lose out on so many days having to recover from drinking. It leaves me more time to do everything, really. Skating has never been easy for me. I always have to put in a lot of work—physically and mentally. Even if I do something fast, there was a lot of mental work put into it, you know. I’ve pretty much been heavily drinking from the time I was 17 or 18 until now. So it’s opened up a whole new door for me now that things work that much easier. I was fighting a battle for really no good reason. I mean, I had fun drinking and everything, but as you get a little bit older you start to think: why am I adding more of a challenge to my life when things can be challenging enough as they are?

Have you been treating yourself better in general these days? I noticed you were stretching a lot on this one. Any secret super diets or calisthenics to talk about? Didn’t you build a roller at home?
Well, I built the roller just because I thought If I put the time into building something I would use it more. Like, it would motivate me to use it because I took the time to build it. It’s not like it was hard. It’s just PVC pipe from Home Depot. I never really did anything like that before this trip. I just never really took care of myself. I always tried to eat right because my mom was into that kind of stuff, and I grew up with it. But that was about it. I try not to eat shitty even though I’ve developed a crazy sweet tooth: ice cream, chocolate—any kind of desert is mandatory now after a meal. I’m coming up on being sober for a year. I’ve been told that when you lose the sugar from alcohol you start to crave sweets. Your body needs the sugar fix. You fiend for them. I have a sugar fix that I need to fill now. Aside from that I try to stretch and take better care of myself in general. That’s all new. When I was drinking, I just thought I could go out and do it. You know, you’re not warmed up and you’re not 20 anymore. You’ve been drinking for a few days or weeks or whatever it is and you think you can do it. At a certain age you can’t just jump down something and not feel it anymore. I feel pretty fortunate in a way where I feel like my feet have toughened up over the years. That said, I know thing’s can go wrong so you need to do what you can.

I know in the past you have gone on and off with being sober. Is this time different?
This time is different. I did it before on a bet that me and Lizard had about five years ago. It showed because I felt like I skated better than I ever had. This time is different. I got myself into a situation where I got in a bar fight. I was facing years in prison over it. Even though I wasn’t in the wrong, drinking led me into the position that I got into. When I took it all in and I asked myself: is drinking worth my life? Obviously it’s not. I had a good run with it, you know. And I had a blast doing what I did for so many years and being carefree about it. But there came a time in my life about a year ago where I came to the realization that my family, my life, business, skateboarding and everything that life has to offer is far more important than drinking.

How has it helped outside of skating?
Being more available; being more effective at what I do. Whether that be from the littlest thing—from building something in my front yard—or the biggest thing—to being a good role model to my kids. I think it’s made me a more effective person with everything and I’m available at any time. It’s opened me up and gives me double the amount of time I used to have. A lot of the time when I wasn’t drinking, I was recovering from it. Your mind’s in a fog for a while the next day. That said, a lot of people can do it and be fine, but for me, I couldn’t do it. It’s given me more time and put a new spin on everything. Being sober has given me a new perspective on life and has basically changed everything for me in a positive way.

Time for a necessary generic question: what was the best part of your stay in merry old England?
This trip was my first skate trip being sober. I think I enjoyed this one more than any other trip I’ve ever been on. I don’t want to make this all about not drinking or anything, but I think that had something to do with it. Being outside of London and in Bristol and getting lucky with the perfect weather we had. Go Skate Day was amazing; the skateshop Fifty Fifty was really hospitable. The people were really friendly; that was the highlight for me. Manchester was really rad, too. Getting to hang out with Ben Grove was really fun. I think he’s a rad dude to hang around with. Plus we got to see Stonehenge and that was really amazing.

Is Dustin the last Piss Drunk standing?
I think he likes to think he is, but there are a lot of unsung PD heroes that aren’t in the spotlight that are still doing it big!


Sweet and tender hooligan, Jim Greco, three flips the ancient bricks


Can’t understand a word this fella says but you can definitely understand his skating. Tom Penny is a walking legend and time capsule from 1998. Where do you think he still finds those brim beanies? Melon in Bristol

Who Da Fuck Da Smiffs?

Manchester is known as one of the musical meccas of the world, and it has put out some of the world’s saddest music to date. I’m sure its sorrowful tunes are responsible for countless teenage suicides—way more than Ozzy. Satan’s got nothing on English melancholy. The amount of 80’s and 90’s sad-song bands from the area is too long to list, but the most wellknown would have be The Smiths. There’s not a lot of tourist destinations in Manchester, so we were kinda scrounging for landmarks to visit, The Smiths’ wall being on the top of that list. The band posed in front of the Salford Lads Club in 1986, and the now-famous photo was printed in the centerfold of the Smiths album The Queen is Dead. The site has become a must-see destination for Smiths fans, worldwide. Seeing Keelan, Boo, Dee, Nick Tucker, Spencer, Neen and the rest of the guys against that backdrop was pretty funny. It made no sense. These guys are polar opposites of the Smiths. Keelan had no idea what we were doing there. I think he thought we were checking out a skate spot when he got out of the van. “Who da fuck da Smiffs?” was the question he asked while standing in front of the wall getting his photo taken. “Just some really sad British dudes,” was my reply. “Lame,” he said.



This ollie was at the beginning of our trip, so the great fat off had just started. This is a big ol’ fat Lizard getting some cardio by ollieing into a skinny ledge


Lizard threw his weight around and found himself perched on top of a beefy backside disaster. It’s okay to lean on your toes in this situation

Lizard’s Great Fat Off

Why did you get so fat?
That’s fucked up, dude! That’s a heavy hitter right off the bat. Dude, I seriously didn’t see that one coming! For the record, I’ve lost 12 pounds since that trip.

Really!? So you’ve only got 12 more to go then.
Oh my god. Fuck you, dude! I got so fat because I knocked up a chick and I hung out and fed both of us constantly. I pretended like I was having a kid, too.

They call that sympathy weight, right?
I guess I felt bad for her. If your bitch has to stock up some pounds you might as well, too.

Did you end up gaining more weight than her?
She gained more weight than me, but I feel like I was more emotionally distraught then her about the weight.

Wait, so you were more upset with her for getting fat while she was pregnant than she was about gaining the weight? That’s fucked up!
No! Not that she was getting bigger but that I was because I have to be physically active for skating and it made skating harder. Imagine
strapping 25 pounds to your gut and then going skating!

What was the fat off?
Me and the Supra TM got a scale and made a bet on who could lose the most weight on the trip. For the first couple days I didn’t take him serious, so I just drank whiskey and ate whatever I wanted. Then Ellington made a side bet against me, so then I took it dead serious and tried to lose as much weight as possible. Ellington bet against me! When you’re drinking non stop your body swells up, so I looked even worse than I actually was. You know those fish that blow up? I was like a blow-up lizard. I could blow up and intimidate people, but really it was all just fat and swelling. We would weigh in every morning. But with the scale, if you leaned on your toes it would make you weigh more and if you leaned on your heals you would weigh less. I think he was leaning every time and I just stood on the fuckin’ thing. I feel like I manned up to my weight everyday, and he was just leaning! Saying shit like, “I’m losing pounds non stop.” No way. I’m taking it as a tie. If it helps him emotionally I’ll let him think he won, but in the real world it was a tie.

So how’d you go about losing your sympathy weight? Got any secret tips?
I’d say the first way I went about it wasn’t very correct; drinking whisky and eating whatever I wanted didn’t really work. Then my knee started hurting, so I had to get serious! Now I’m using what I call the cow diet. I just eat things that taste like grass and have no flavor: fruits and vegetables and stuff that tastes like crap because it has no fat or anything good in it. When I was on the trip, I just got fatter and had the hugest gut, so then I went on the cow program. I just started mowing down the grass. I was as fat as a cow so I thought I should start eating like one.

Now that you’re back down to your fighting weight, how do you plan on keeping those pounds from creeping back up?
I’m still losing weight! I’m not back yet! I’m at 147 and I’ve weighed 135 my whole life. I was  at 162 or 163 before the cow program. I’ve been riding bikes with my dad in the morning. I put on the full-blown Spandex and everything! Before the trip and before I knocked up my chick, I also broke my ankle, so I hadn’t skated in forever. So doing demos and trying to street skate was insane. My belly wouldn’t stop jiggling!

Now that you are officially a dad is it okay to let yourself pack on some backyard BBQ lbs?
No, no. If I eat a bunch of shit I will punish myself and go on a 30-mile bike ride the next day. That’s the new move. When I eat, I’ll have a little bit of pasta, a little bit of fish and then I have to stop eating. I just get up and walk away.

What’s your low-calorie solution when you’re trying to get hammered but not put on booze weight?
I’m on the couple-of-beers program if I go out to drink. No more faded Lizard because faded Lizard gets fat.

Is that because you’re a dad now, or is that because you don’t want to get fat?
I just don’t want to get fat. I’d rather be able to skate.

Did you break more boards when you were fat?
No, because I didn’t even skate.

Who’s your favorite overweight skateboarder?
Fred Gall for sure.


Lucien Clarke skating in his native UK environment. A proper heelflip from a proper English gent in Manchester


Money makes you thick, but wallride click outs make you The Muska


This rail needed a lot of prep work to fix the cracks in the run up. With two beer cans, some duct tape and a stolen sign from a Dominos down the street, Dee was able to deliver a boardslide within 30 minutes or less!

Along with getting to see Stonehenge, the trip was a blast: we got to watch Lizard get real fat and then lose some pounds; Erik Ellington play the role of MVP; we figured out why the English have such a violent and bloody history; we visited the edge of the edge in Manchester and we actually met a Frenchman from Paris who wasn’t an asshole. And to top it all off everyone was able to get some epic skating done.


Taking a break from the mundane, day-to-day monotony of chilling on yachts and poppin’ bottles in the hottest clubs, Stevie joined us in the streets of London and got his Duffy on with a switch heel in the rain