That’s right, we gave former pro skater Danny Gonzalez his own column to “talk about old skate video parts,” which basically means, write whatever the fuck he wants. Each week or two, Danny will post up a forgotten video part and add on a little commentary. He might praise it, he might shit on it.. hell, he might just tell you a crazy tour story from the good ol’ days. Who knows. All we are really sure is, it’s Danny’s column and were gonna let him do what he wants. And if it sucks, feel free to write us some hatemail or a spam or two.

This Week, Dustin Dollin in Baker 3:

“A long ass time ago (1998), Mickey [Reyes] and I saw this kid skating at Tampa Am and we had a conversation about putting him on Stereo (Flow). Mickey said to me, “Hey Danny, which one of these guys should we hook up?” I pointed at this guy killing it. I’ll never forget Mickey’s response. “Him… Why him?” Neither one of us really liked his style but you could tell he was really determined. I told Mickey, “Well, cause if we don’t, someone else will and we’ll regret it later!” Mickey knew I was right.

Later that night a few of us went to the van to chill and he came along with us. The funny thing was, I don’t think he knew the do’s and don’ts of a team skate van. The holy of holys, a place to get away and relax – everyone had spots in the van that were called shotgun. In different corners of the van you had your shit lying around and no one touched it. Basically it was a fucking man cave on wheels!

Once the doors opened to the van it was like letting a Tasmanian devil loose inside, I couldn’t believe it! He was scouring through our shit; kicking shoes around and looking for anything he could put his dirty little hands on. From the back of the van as if baiting him, Mickey said, “Hey, you want a shirt?” In no time his head spun like a fucking top, “HELL YEAH!” he said in a raspy voice. When I turned to look at him he must have seriously time warped from one end of the van to the other cause he was already putting on his new T-shirt. I stood there thinking, how in the fuck did he get back there so fast!

Standing there wearing this new ugly ass shirt, he said, “Hey man, lets get some beer and go find some girls!” I thought, Girls? What the fuck girls are you gonna get? You’re short, you have beady little eyes and you’re the devil incarnate. At 17 the dude was already a wastoid. Later that night when we bar hopped, I kept either seeing or hearing him yelling and screaming for not getting into the bars. I thought, god, this kid’s fuckin’ crazy.

The next day at the airport we were talking about the night before and his name came up. I vividly remember one of the guys on the team, Keith Hufnagel I think, saying with a very puzzled look on his face, “God, who was that guy?” I couldn’t stop laughing as I said, “His name is Dustin Dollin, we just put him on Stereo (Flow)” – Danny Gonzalez

Words: Danny Gonzalez
Original Illustration: Lauren Kolesinskas
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