Someone made the mistake of giving me VIP credentials for the Skatepark of Tampa’s 2008 Pro Party Saturday, but I’m not one to complain. Other than bucket-loads of free Redbull and Vodka, and the absence of a bathroom, the VIP section was just a smaller version of the Cuban Club’s courtyard: an alternative crowd buzzing around the bar and huddled under umbrellas against the rain.

The only way I could tell it was VIP was because our cameraman Joey kept pointing to guys in hoodies and whispering vaguely familiar names. I recognized a few names, like Eric Koston and Reese Forbes, from the copies of Thrasher I used to cut up and tape to my walls during my era of skating, but their identities were always masked behind the tricks they were turning. Paul Rodriguez explained how the majority of pro skaters were rarely recognized outside of skateparks or contests. This was a bit surreal coming from a guy who had his own signature brand of Nike shoes (which Joey happened to be wearing). Most of them just looked like the skater kids in every high school, except their diamonds were real and their skate brand clothes were free. I was surprised how eager many were to be interviewed. Of course, they may have mistaken me for an obscure TV personality who hosted a show in some place like Australia. 

"We’re astronauts" a scruffy man named Casey said grabbing his buddy in a matching plaid blazer who he called The Captain. The previous day I caught the pair skating in the VIP street tournament in blue jumps suits that looked suspiciously like janitors’ outfits ornamented with iron-on NASA patches. It turned out they host a program on Fuel TV called The Captain and Casey Show that’s a cross between Wayne’s World and a skate video. Of course, being the thorough, and relatively snockered, interviewer that I was, I just assumed I was talking with two lunatics who seriously thought they were astronauts. Regardless of who they were, the interview covered several pressing issues regarding space travel: the ethics of sex with aliens, the secret to training for zero-gravity (beer) and the pairs’ involvement in a revolutionary scientific study regarding condoms in space.

This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2008.