SanFransisco Chronicles
Photos by Dan Zaslavsky

Photo: Greg Millions | Frontside Flip 

GREG MILLIONS
I like living in San Fransisco because there are a bunch of unique spots to skate. Instead of the same boring spots.  All it takes is a drive through the hills in residential neighborhoods and you can come up on spots all the time. Thereís a good vibe up here, not too hot, not to dry, good cronic.   There are a lot of lurkers around the certain spots though, like that spot Three Up Three Down, you donít really want to skate there. Thereís a lot of guys all cranked out sitting on the steps talking to themselves.The other day we were skating this church with marble stairs, the church had just been sold to an art school so all these people that had been going there their whole life were protesting.  This 90 year old lady grabs me and starts screaming at me, ìGet the hell out of here.î  Sheís like stabbing me with her nails.   We didnít say anything to her but this guy, says to us, right in front of her, ìJust wait until she is dead before you start dancing on her grave.î That was weird.

Sequence: Brean Delatorre | Nollie Backside Shifty

BRIAN DELATORRE
Experience wise, SF is great.  From the skating, to the ladies, to the weed, to the people, to the food, SF has everything a skateboarder could ever wish for.  Itís got a lot of crackheads and crazy homeless people though.  Hereís a story, I woke up one morning and bombed Mission Hill.  Some crackhead hears me coming and he does like a karate kick right at my head as I roll by.  I get off my board, cause I was like hauling ass.  The dude was like,  ìWhat the fucks your problem?î.  And I was like, ìWhat?î.   This guy really wanted to fight me. I pick my board up, like Iím getting ready to swing it and the crazy son of a bitch is like ìHIT ME!î He puts his hands down and is like, ìHIT ME!î  And I was like, ìOh my god, you know I could kill you right now, you know that?î He was like one of those suicidal guys.  And then he just starts swinging at me. There are a lot of violent crackheads out there.  Just everywhere. Iíve got some other shit but Iím about ready to smoke some weed so you think you could call me back in a little bit?

Photo: Forest Haggerman | Over the arch Front Feeble.

FORREST HAGGERMAN
One time I was on the train with my friends and there was this normal looking lady wearing a raincoat.  She looked like she was coming home from work.  She all of a sudden just started swearing at us.  She was just laying into us, making fun of us.  Picking out every one of our faults.  She was just going off on us for no reason, ìYou FUCKING DICKHEADS, YOU CUNT, why did your mother dress you like that, sheís probably some fucking bitchî.   I was so surprised.  She was just one of those crazy people you meet in San Francisco.  Dan, Jeremy and I were driving down on market and 6 and some bum, talking to his 2 friends, took about 5 steps towards the curb on market and pulled his pants down then took a crackhead style shit without wiping he went back over to his buddies and they all shared a  group hug. Nothing like bum love. 415, got love it.

Robin Baker |Kickflip

ROBIN BAKER
While Dan was shooting this kickflip my board shot across the street to the apartment next door and I went to get it out of this little hallway and there this like 400 lb. lesbian chick on her break from her security guard job.  Her girlfriend was just waking up.  They were just like going at it right there in front of me.  She was on break and just tying to get a piece of ass before she has to go back to work watching some parking lot, or something. In SF wherever you go and try to skate people are always distracting you.  Thereís always all this random shit going on.  A lot of the spots are at peopleís houses and you never know how they are gonna react.   Some people are like ìYour fucking ruining my houseî and other people are just loving it.  You just never know.  The cops in SF are so unpredictable also. A lot of them are worried about more serious shit than skateboarding but others are just out to get you.

Wil Harmon | Backside 180 to Switch Krooks

WIL HARMON
So there were like 4 of us at my friendís house in the Tenderloin.  We decided to leave his house and skate downtown. We bomb down Leavenworth, and run this light in front of a cop. He starts running after us, but its obvious he canít catch us because heís on foot and we are skating. So we see him radioing in as we skate past him, and at the bottom of the hill a cop car is there to greet us. We dodge left up a one-way street, jump off our boards and duck into a bar on the next corner. As soon as we enter the bar these Guardian Angel guys with red berets and jackets grab us and yank us outside the bar. They had been listening to the whole thing on a police scanner! So the cops finally drove by the bar, and took our boards and gave us tickets.   Another time I was skating the library with Kenny Reed, and his roommates Shawn and Kyle. We decided to leave to head downtown, and skated off towards the civic center. We were manualing down these small maunal pads near the civic center. Kenny was about 50 feet in front. Suddenly he skated by a cop, and the cop smacked him in the face, and pushed him off his board. I swear the cop hit him a few times. No one was sure what to do, go intervene, or just keep a safe distance. We could see the cop yelling at Kenny, and after a minute or so, Kenny got up off the ground and walked off. The cop walked away as well.  It put a bad taste in my mouth for the SFPD.

Danny Fuenzalida | Backside Smith, Backside 180 Out

DANNY FUENZALIDA
Iíve got a funny SF story that happened four years ago.  I used to live with Poncho Moler in the middle of Mission.  We were going to this Halloween party one time at Pat Duffyís place.  Duffy used to live in the Hunterís Point area, a really ghetto area of San Fransisco.  Poncho used tell me that when he live there and he would get robbed everyday, like he couldnít even walk down the street without getting shook down.  His pockets were always empty.  But we went to the neighborhood to go to this party and we dressed up like Rastas.  We painted ourselves completely black and had like dreadlocks on and Rasta hats.   At the end of the party we ended up not having a ride and it was like 5 in the morning.  We just started to walk back through this gnarly neighborhood, looking like we are making a mockery out of being black.   We were just about to get rolled and luckily, some guy was leaving the party in a pickup and he picked us up.  But that was just like super sketch, like, I donít think I will ever be with midget, like, dressed black, in that neighborhood again.

Danny Gotimer | Switch Tail

DANNY GOTIMER