jackassworld

Since we have music issues with past and future Big Brother videos (licensing, $$$, etc.), we decided, “Hey, why don’t we make our own crappy music?” We’re no C & C Music Factory, but, you know, there’s a few of us here that know our way around a guitar.

So I was charged with the duty of writing the lyrics to the first skate rock song. I got to it immediately. With fervor. There’s nothing like skate rock. Take this line from The Faction’s “Skate and Destroy,”

The cops are coming after me, their sons are BMXers
They always try to stop me but urethane is faster than boots

Genius! I penned a few and ran them by the master himself, Chris Pontius. Chris replied simply with the entire lyrics to Token Entry’s “Jaybird.” Never heard of them before, but it’s obvious they, too, are masters of skate rock. And it’s not hard to see their influence in Chris’ life:

Drop in layback air or catch a grind
backside air, axle stall, whatever comes to mind
got enough speed to reach the sun
annoying all the neighbors, but it’s all just for fun
if you bail, knee slide out, it won’t hurt at all
just come sliding right up the other wall
grab your board try again, it’s not just a game
ollie to tail, totally insane
all that I wanna do is skate.

Ollies to tail are, indeed, “totally insane.”

Shortly after this, Chris arrived in town and assumed the responsibility of the skate rock lyricist. I don’t know why we didn’t put him in charge in the first place. He’s been writing nonsense to music longer than any of us. And indeed, in one evening, “Slash Grind City” was born.

But as I said, we need music, plural: musics. So I went and finished my song, “Grind Tough (Or Go Home to Mommy).” The inspiration comes from an infamous little fella named Donald McKeckney, aka “Skullman,” from the early ’80s San Jose skate scene. Donald was of an indeterminate age and was your typical malnourished homeless skate punk. He was a character straight out of the movie Suburbia. He kept a rat in his pocket. Even when he skated.

“He was the first real ‘punker’ I ever really saw in action,” Mark Waters remembered. “We’d seen the haircuts and the flannels and the bands, but at the first of the two DeAnza shows—Los Olvidados, Whipping Boy, Social Unrest, etc… In the student union/cafeteria area, he fully rocked the candy machine until the whole thing fell over with a huge crash. He grabbed as much as he could and took off running as the cops rolled into the room. From that image a lot of things from the punk lyrics I’d heard started to come together for me.”

Donald’s only “occupation” appeared to be fabricating homemade “Generic” lappers and copers which he’d hustle at skate shops.

“Generic lapper,” Mark Waters said. “He would always come into California Surfer, where I worked, and sell them to us. He’d make them out of thick PVC himself and seal them with such a rad, little yellow generic label. The whole thing was so DIY way before that was cool, and we all ate it up.”

The other thing he was well known for was his tag, “Skullman,” which was everywhere. He was especially fond of San Jose’s public transit system. At one point a hefty reward was offered for his capture because he had allegedly left his mark on every single County Transit bus. EVERY bus. Quite an accomplishment in our minds.

Donald was a weird dude and he had even weirder style when he skated. For one, he enjoyed making sound effects when skating. I likened it to martial arts, or women’s tennis. He’d make grind noises to accentuate his grinds. He was just a noisy dude. And he loved noise so much, he went and blew up a bomb on Foothill Blvd.. Not a big firework, but a real, honest to goodness, bomb.

“I had always thought that guy a clown,” my friend Thomas remembered, “but after the bomb, I truly feared him.”

Whatever our relationship with Skullman was, it came to an end when we came home and found him skating our ramp. That, alone, wasn’t cool, but he had also spray painted in big black letters across the whole wall, right under the coping, “GRIND TOUGH, OR GO HOME TO MOMMY.” In hindsight, it’s pretty funny, but at the time we were furious and we banished him from skating there ever again. My guess is that Donald was totally serious when he wrote it, and I imagine he probably thought we’d be stoked on it. What’s even funnier is the coping on our ramp was PVC. Real tough.

The rumor is Donald died a couple years ago. The way he lived, I’m surprised he made it out of the ’80s. Still, it makes me a little sad. So this song, “Grind Tough (Or Go Home to Mommy)” is dedicated to the memory of Donald McKeckney.

Yes, I actually made the slappy, but as we all know, there’s nothing funny about me making a slappy. My fat ass going down in flames, on the other hand, is mildly amusing.

Grind Tough (Or Go Home to Mommy)
All music and vocals by Carnie

You skate like a pussy
You can’t even grind
All you do are kickturns
You’re a fuckin wussy

GRIND TOUGH!
Or go home to mommy!

Grinders are for men
Copers are for fags
I love metal on cement
Your mom’s a fuckin hag

GRIND TOUGH!
Or go home to mommy!

You skate like a pussy
You can’t even grind
My trucks are craving some coping
That’s hot and juicy

GRIND TOUGH!
Or go home to mommy!