“There’s a pubic hair in my grits goddamit!”
The Denny’s waitress scurried away from our table to get the manager. With a mischievous grin, Chris had plucked a clump of pubes from his groin and sprinkled them into our almost finished breakfasts. This scam was used often, but we always cringed as managers apologised profusely before giving us our food for free.
It was 1993, arguably skateboarding’s peak of critique. A defining era when clothing, board and wheel size, and trick choice could make or break a career. Even something as simple as boardslide scratches on a deck’s belly could ruin your street credentials with the wrong crowd.
Wayward Chris, on the other hand, did not give two fucks. While he happily flung mind-bending Sal flip noseblunts, shoeless wave parting stink bug grabs and other out-of-date stunts on 55s and a board measuring at least an inch wider than the ‘93 rulebook, we secretly hoped other skaters wouldn’t know we were with him. If all this wasn’t enough, patches of his bare arse poked through a ripped pair of brown dickies and his insistence on singing that Danzig line “Mother. Tell your children…” at the top of his voice were his “chick magnet moves”, as he liked to call them – or deal breakers, depending on how you looked at it. While we ashamedly conformed, desperate for acceptance, Chris was carefree and having fun.
His zero fucks attitude, however, didn’t sit quite so well with the general populace.
His self-proclaimed crowd pleaser, aka The Whirlybird, involved lasso twirling while mimicking riding a rodeo bull. This particular showstopper had us kicked out of many establishments.
The final straw regarding our association with Chris happened while driving north up Pacific Coast Highway from Huntington Beach to San Jose. Somewhere near Santa Barbara, Chris laughed from the back seat of our VW bus.
“Yo dudes, check it out!”
Turning our heads, Chris, lying on his back with the brown Dickies zipped open and his bare feet on the roof, was vigorously shaking a soda bottle containing a vile shade of yellow liquid, which he then cracked open while shouting, “Champagne Shower, Brah!” Spraying the van’s interior with a frothy mix of soda water and his pee, we were left speechless and saturated.
We continued driving north, terrified of what he’d do next, but were beyond relieved when he jumped out in San Luis Obispo to visit his mom and thus disappeared from our lives forever.
Well, that is, until we recognised him a few years later, now going by the name of Party Boy and rollerblading in a jockstrap on a show called Jackass.
First published in Manual Magazine, Issue 75, May 2026.
