It's [Chris] Miller Time...

So, back when I first started skating in the Summer/Fall of 1985 there weren't too many skate mags, I just skated for fun withe the kids from the neighborhood that got me started. We [friends & I] didn't have magazines, I didn't know there was a dedicated mag just for skating back then. We would of course try to ollie, one of the kids I skated with had a cousin who skated and showed him the ollie.

We'd just try to do things on mai patio block behind the house for the next year.

Not knowing waht to do we just tried railslides, but had a hard time coming out of them so I just started letting the board take its course and turn out fakie.

I began to get them really good frontside and backside.

I remember the first time I saw the above pic soemthing clicked in mai head that told me this was waht I have been waiting for. This was waht I wanted to do from now on.

All those other sports sucked to me growing up, if you fell and got a cut you were babied by adults and coaches to sanitize the cut and sit out for an inning or wahtever, that suck as a kid I wanna keep playing.

Even though skateboarding, to me, was not playing. If you fell, you have to pick yourself up... you and you alone were your own coach, adult, and goal.

After all it was just blood dripping. It'll dry, scab, and heal. Just put soem water on it, and if you didn't have that... spit.

In the spring of 1986 our Xmas boards were still pretty new (because you can't skate much in a Midwest winter at 12 yrs old) so the next thing was to try and ollie up the block. That was pretty hard even though the patio step was maybe 8 inches tall. We figured out if you tried twisting frontside you could get the board to get a lil moar height, so we tried doing 180's up the block before we could even ollie straight up it. It was then that I started getting hurricanes, not knowing it would become a late 80's staple trick, I thought I was just fucking up on succeeding at a 180. So when they later became a trick a adapted quick.

It was around this time that we got our first magazines. The August 1986 issue of Thrasher.

The "Streetplant Issue" w/the Metallica inset. 3 of us bought them on the saem dei.

It was an activity, and this picture was my proof. A whole dedicated magazine for mai new lifestyle, a whole new direction to look at music, skating, and the world.

 After seeing mai first pic of Chris I looked up to him from then on.

His style, the look on his face zoned out from life just thinking about the trick, skateboarding.

The one above mesmerized me, just staring at how he got that grind in a tube...

I had this frontside nosebone hanging on mai wall, even though he's focused crisp, he's also cut from the pic top & bottom, the composition is not on the trick or him, but moar on the shadow of the trick in the background with the photographist and his cammy boom.

Another stare pic for kid freshly in his teen years laying in bed on a rainy dei.

This cover shot is pretty much the saem shot as the first one, but the mom friendly version.

He's all safetied up with a nice gauze wrap.

Still gnarly to an 80's 12yr old, but just Mom friendly.

I always like his style and the way he skated, never saw him skate in real life only in still life, to let your imagination run wild.

Remember that?

Imagination...

(nothing was spelled out for you back then)

Your mind came up with a million different out comes. 

Stoked is the word when I go this issue, another fucking cover by one of the dudes I idolized.

If I still had it I'd scan from it, but basements and water backups are a bad mix.

If you don't know who Chris Miller is or have had any doubts as to why old fart Barney's talk about him so greatly, just watch the video clip below from the 2009 Pro-Tec Pool Party and that is waht all the fuss is about.

Dewd just PWNs that place, and has PWND for 30+ years.

As of the end of this post I am Currently listening "You're All Alone" by Picture from the album "Diamond Dreamer" released in 1982.