Big Bear|29 palms|Teenager in a skate team|Part 4

That night turned out to be one of the weirdest nights of my life.

After the kid got hit by his uncle and we being kids did not know how to deal with, we chose to do what most kids do and we ignored the situation.

When we got to the main cabin the uncle played our voicemails so that all the younger kids could listen to us and laugh , all the little kids had no idea that we were all dealing with a person that was a little off or maybe a lot .

The kid got sent out to a part of the cabin that we did not have access to...(really weird now that I think of it)

We were sent to out cabin were all the older teenagers would sleep.

And the uncle stood with the younger kids uphill at the main cabin.

An hour into our supposed to sleeping time the uncle came in ,we were all messing around trying our hardest to settle down because the long and crazy day that we had so far.

He told us that we were punished and because we were punished we had to give him all our blankets,pillows,jackets and stuff and that we were not allowed to have any comforts because of the trouble that we had been to him and that we should of never called him to come get us and that it was the only rule that he made for us and how could we not even follow that rule, he even took the phone.

We just wanted him out of the room so we agreed to his terms and he left. We had a rough night that night trying to keep warm in the middle of a mountain with only the mattresses to keep us warm....we built a fort made of the beds and laid in between them and tried our hardest to keep warm.

In the morning we were all angry and could not believe that we were made to survive in the cold like that.

So some of us, skated down the mountain to a store that we found and called our parents to come pick us up.

My parents came to get me and some of the other kids got rides back but there were still a few kids that were left behind that either did not want to call their parents or were not able to get their parents to come and give them a ride.

It was a really weird experience, we all just told our parents that we just did not want to be there anymore but I am pretty sure none of us gave our parents any details for fear that they would never let us out unsupervised again or at least thats why I did not tell my parents about it.

The skate team continued to form and I would see the truck full of kids heading out to the cabin every weekend and then one day they all came by to pick me up saying that the uncle bought a really big property in 29 palms and they were going to build a half pipe there for the skate team.

But I never went with them again, I knew things were not the way they were suppose to be with that kids uncle and made sure to keep my distance.

This survival skill kept me safe from alot of things in City Terrace and it is a tool that I still use in my everyday life to keep me well away from trouble.

If my gut says no then it Means "Hell NO!!" and stay away far, far away.

Always wondered who that guy really was and if he really was that kids uncle and I also wonder why this guy kept buying far away places to take all these kids to.

That's it , Thanks for reading...now to post some not so sour stuff if you know what I mean...


Evilchavo Out.

Big Bear|29 palms|Teenager in a skate team|Part 3

So the kid called his uncle and told him around where we were....

The kid was frightened, we could tell and this did not seem normal to me...the amount of fear that this kid was showing made it seemed like he knew that he should not of called and that by him calling he had just something terribly, terribly wrong.

We could hear the truck before we saw it and we knew that it was not driving at a safe speed we all ducked out of the way when the truck came around the bend to pick us up.

He told us all to get in the back of the truck and yelled at him to get in the front, when he tried to explain that he got lost he was told to shut up.

As we drove off, The uncle hit the kid straight across the face...hard....this guy was big, not fat just thick like a bear. We all scattered across the back trying to figure out what happened and why the kid got hit so hard.

We were all from the neighborhood and all knew about violence, we grew up in it..but it was different this time...something was wrong...we knew that this was not the fantastic journey that it had started out as.

To Be continued...

Evilchavo Out.

Big Bear|29 palms|Teenager in a skate team|Part 2

So , all the teenager got geared up and after listening to some Violent Femmes for inspiration, we headed down the paths to the center of town with the kid that knew his way around.

He was a teenager also so he was allowed to go with us , he took us down a path by a lake that we all skated down.

On our way down the path that is bordered with pine trees and air that smelled so clean and was so cold , we all realized that we in our cargo shorts and skate t-shirts were not properly dressed for Big Bear but did not care and our sense of adventure was the only thing on our mind.

We headed down the way to the center of town walking up to it and past all the weird houses with confederate flags and us flags flying high in the sky.

We felt like the only Mexican kids and did not feel weird about it , in fact we were glad that we were the only ones there that seemed Mexican and enjoyed what seemed like alot of attention.

As we walked into town with our skateboards in our arms the local police man drove by to say hello and we all said hello and laughed at the fact that he was so weird looking and weak compared to the bad ass La cops that we had to stare down on a daily basis.

We walked past all the tourists looking in the stores at stuff that we could not afford and wondering where the best spot to skate in this town would be and found basically nothing.

Nothing except for some other kids that were super excited that there were other kids in town their age that skated and they introduced us to the only two skate bettys (Chicks that dig skaters) the holy grail of girlfriends for us in those days.

We skated around for a while and then they all gave us a ride down to their house so we could party...was like 5 or 6 of us from City Terrace riding on the hood, trunk and crammed into this kids tiny little car.

We drank and had fun and I think one of the guys made good friend with one of the skate girls.....the kid got drunk and we did not know our way back to the cabin.

It was like 3 in the morning and we were all cold and tired and the buzz was fading and the kid with the car was gone and we had no idea where we were but did not want to go and wander around in town or the woods so we forced the kid to call his uncle, we called several times and left messages and he finally got a hold of his uncle.

We knew that this was something we were not suppose to do but did not see what the big deal was, The kid after talking his uncle sobered up real fast....He was scared , really scared..he turned really pale and told us his uncle was on his way.we did not know what he had been told but we assumed that he got yelled at and that his uncle would just come and pick us up.

He did, but that is not all that happened......To be continued

Evilchavo Out.

Big Bear|29 palms|Teenager in a skate team|Part 1

I was a pretty good skater in my teens and I always skated at Robert F. Kennedy Elementary school in City Terrace it was my skate spot.

It had fiberglass benches and stairs and tables that we could skate all day and was always the place we would meet at before heading out to look for skate spots.

One of the guys that lived in the hills came by with a kid , kinda shy that had never been there before and was learning how to ollie so was not very good yet.

But as always if you could keep up ,you could go on the long trips with the more experienced skaters.

This kid was o.k. and could keep up but did not want to go anywhere with us and would always meet us at the school and would always leave when who we thought was his dad would come by in a pick up truck to pick him up but he said it was his uncle.

This kid always had money though and would always buy us soda or chips or whatever we wanted....he never went to the store with us...he would just give us the money and we would go and get him whatever he wanted....Mercado Hidalgo was just down the street so it was no big deal.

One day (When I was not around) they all went to the house of the kid and talked to the uncle who I thought was the dad and he said that he would sponsor them and that day they formed a skate team.

I don't rememder the name of the skate team anymore it was only a short time that I was in that skate team due to our trip to Big Bear.

So one day all the guys came over and told me that we were all going to Big Bear and that we were going to sleep over and be over there for three days .

My mom never let me sleep over anyones house , she always would say ..."I don't care what time you come home but come home"

We all got together and talked to my mom and stepdad and after lots of promises to clean the yard and the house and the car I was allowed to go but only after they met the kids uncle.

The uncle came to our house and talked to my parents and they deemed him trustworthy after he told them he would keep a close eye on us and make sure that none of us got into any trouble.

I was so excited, I had only gone back and forth to Mexico and never anywhere out of Los Angeles for anything and thought that this was an awesome thing to do....we of course convinced ourselves that we were and awesome skate team and that we deserved to be going on tour to have a demo and that no one in Big Bear skated and that we would be bringing skateboarding to a new place.

We all loaded up the truck with skateboards and parts for the skateboard and backpacks with clothes and got picked up by this kids uncle.

He drove and the kid sat right next to him for all of the trip and a few of the other friends but the rest of us sat in the back anticipating the awesome things that we were about to experience in this mountain lake area most of us had never been to.

We got there and it was a big parcel of Land with a main house by the roadway and another down the hill of what looked like a forest.

We were all gathered at the main house and told that we were going to have a meeting and that the kids uncle needed to talk to all of us at once.

He told us the rules.....basically I stay here with all the young kids cause they need supervision and all the teenagers stay at the house down the hill and could do whatever they want...there was one rule for us teenagers and that was if you go into town...you can't call up for a ride and if you do everyone will be in really big trouble.

It did not make much sense to us but we did not care all we wanted to do was skate down to the center or town and have fun. So we agreed and went on our way.

To be continued....


Evilchavo Out.

Ranking out|Vision Psycho Stick

I still remember it vividly, that Mini Vision psycho Stick.

When I started skating I would admire all the kids at The elementary and their skating of the school, I was happy just skating....no tricks needed.

But this was in the 80's were we were transitioning from old style skating to street skating and during this time launch ramps were very popular, everyone was just learning how to ollie.

They were about 2 1/2 feet tall and 4 feet x 8 feet...cause that is the size of a sheet plywood and most of the time these ramps were built with whatever scraps of wood could be found and then everyone would pitch in and buy a sheet of plywood for the top to make a smooth transition.

On this day I took my brand new Vision Psycho stick with awesome neon color cut up grip tape, tracker trucks,sawblade wheels, Rib bone, tail bone , coppers and side rails... that my mom bought for me after I taught myself how to skate (see sk8 label for that story) I rode on up to the school by the kindergarden area that had an incline that they would roll down then launch of the ramp into the grass.

I completely stood out...I did not look like any of the skaters...with my cords and irregular converse....I was also riding a brand new board which meant I was new, while everyone else was riding Powell and G & S skateboards that were well worn from constant use.

Superchicken, (which I have written about before just click on the superchicken tab for those stories) anyways, superchicken and I were not friends yet and he was really good at launching of the launch ramp and so were all his friends(Doing method airs and landing on the grass)...they were all older that me and the younger kids like me were just looking which is still the case when you are around someone that skates better than you.

It was an initiation of sorts...if you skated down the incline you were o.k. cause at the bottom of the incline right before the ramp was a 3 inch seam in the concrete that if you could survive and still keep going on meant you could skate around at least, if you made it past the bump and at least rolled fakie onto the ramp of turned on the middle of top of the ramp then you were really good and if you were really brave and went past the bump onto the ramp and then jumped off the board as you were in the air...then you would be considered part of them....and you could ride with them.

I rolled down the incline and fell , but tried it again and made it and to me that was a great achivement....Supechicken saw that I was scared to do the ramp and in an effort to encourage me to no be afraid made me bet that If I did not try the ramp then I had to give him my new Vision Psycho stick.....

I said I would do it , to be cool and fit in....hoping that I would have the huevos to do it and not lose my board....after trying to get over my fears and rolling down the incline several times and jumping off my board right before the ramp....I finally had to admit to being defeated......I could not give my board up.

I did the most cowardly thing that my 12 year old mind felt was the best way to salvage my reputation as a man of my word and not have to give up skating which was the most important thing in my life (Until I started dating :)

I gave Superchicken my brothers brand new Vision Mini Psycho stick with thunder trucks and powell wheels and cut up neon grip tape, set up was pretty much like mine except for the trucks and wheels...I did !!, I felt bad for what I did to my little brother and have carried that shame with me until recently.

My little brother would always bring it up when he wanted to hurt me and I had recently I started skating again and bought a second board of Ebay for myself....it was an awesome board, great deal on Ebay.

Brand new Steve Caballero Orange Dragon reissue with custom grip tape (Has a 1964 Lincoln cut into the grip tape) that I did because I have a 64 Lincoln, Independent Trucks and sector Nine wheels with Swiss Powell bearings.....and I gave it to him for Christmas...It was the perfect setup and I loved that board. What happened was that one day, when I was skating on it thinking about how awesome my new set up was...it struck me...this board needs to go to my brother....it is what I have to do.

He was very grateful , when I gave it to him....we drove over there to visit ( He lives in San Jose Ca. and I live in Phoenix Arizona)....He instantly got on it and started skating down the street around the block and did not come back until after a while......he still uses it everyday.

It is never to late to mend the wrongs ...sometimes it takes a little bit longer( It took me more that 20 years!!) for some of us to understand the impact that our actions cause..



Evilchavo Out.

(This video below kinda shows what that enviroment was like (FOund it on Youtube, pink border cause neon colors were in! :)

Lance Mountain| Real Role Models

I was thinking about Lance Mountain.

I was a Sk8er....I skated mostly street.

Lance Mountain lived in Alhambra behind Cal State La.

I did not personally know him, but I knew of him.

When I was a kid in City Terrace, my friends and I would have skate demos in our elementary school....Just and excuse for us kids to get our skate on...and hopefully bring in some people that skated that we did not know about already.

We would get our flyers together and passed them out at school hopeing that we could get some new faces in our neighborhood or maybe even some girls.

Anyways I was thinking about Lance Mountain because when I was young....and we had skate demos.....he actually came to one....that we had in El Sereno...this was in the late 80's when Lance Mountain was in The Bones Brigade and a superstar in everyskaters mind.

He skated for a little while....he gave out stickers....a used board ...some new wheels ....some autographs and left.

No one ever came to our side of the woods...for anything....unless they were looking for a vote or money....so it has remained a very special event in my life.

I found this video on google...that shows the way that he is....

I must give respect...when it is earned.

sk8 or die




He is still skating.....Here is with Grosso and Cab



Evilchavo Out

Skating the City Terrace park pool

We were not pool skaters.

We had streets and curbs and ramps that we made.

So everywinter , we would skate the pool at City Terrace Park.

It was not all cool like in the skate videos or like in the movies.

We had to jump the fence , try and sweep up as much chlorine as possible.

But that pool was layered in Chlorine, so when skated the trail of chlorine would trail behind us, it was super toxic.

I was not very good in those days but felt that these type of opportunities were not always available.

So I would always try out my vert skills, but I was a street skater so it was just not that much fun for me.

The street skaters would always eventually get bored and go find stuff to skate at the park.

My friend that had just moved in to the neighborhood climbed the fence to the roof of the pool .

And we all started skating the roof.

This is what it looks like today.



It was so fast.(It runs from the park pool all the way down to the other side)

But the best and fastest spot is from the pool to just past the restrooms in the basketball court.

If you are ever in the area, and have your huevos on.

This is a fun place to sk8 (The pool was fun)

But the rooftops , fun ...fun...fun....

Watch out for the chota, cause they don't play.

Evilchavo sk8 the roof!

The adventures of super chicken part 3

My friend Superchicken jumped off a bridge.

He survived (He was not defeated)

His parents did not want to tell me where he was.

He went AWOL from the Institution that he was in.

He stopped taking his meds.

He came to pick me up one of the many times he went AWOL and we went skating.

He told me that I needed to get him a skateboard.

The kids down the street where skating.

My friend asked(More like told) the kid if he could borrow his skateboard.

and off we went.

Took the 70 to the General Hospital .

He said that he found the perfect spot for skating.

We went up to where they had the Institution and down to the service entrance of the hospital.

We skated the Hospital, the hallway...it is a short incline and then its all down corridors (you go thru the hospital from one side to the other) Fast....

All I remember is being scared of hitting someone, people were being taken back and forth on gurneys and doctors and nurses were yelling at us, security guards chasing us......but we did not get caught.....we were way to fast......it was one of the best experiences ever.

We went back to my house...he gave me the skateboard and told me to take it back to the kid.

When we got off the bus.....He crossed the street.

I asked him where he was going and he said that he had to go back to the institution...he took the 70 back to general hospital.

He told me he needed to make sure he got me back home safe .

sk8 or die Evilchavo out.

The Adventures of Super Chicken part 2

SuperChicken never let me do any drugs and rarely let me ditch school, he always stood up for me and never let anyone talk down to me or hurt me.

SuperChicken had a rough childhood , he sniffed spraypaint and never told me to participate.


SuperChicken would come to me when he was stressed out and I would always calm him down...


(He would never talk about what happened at home)


But I knew he never wanted to be there and when I was not around is when he would go see his old friends and sniff spraypaint.


One day I was in Mexico with my parents when he came around (Crying according to the neighbors) and that same day he tried to jump off a bridge.


I saw him when he went AWAL from the Institution they put him in after he healed from the fall.


He was gone, they had him so drugged up that he only seemed like half of the guy he used to be.


I saw him a few times after that and the last time (He just kept talking to himself) when I asked him who he was talking to he said that they didn't think I would understand.


On his last visit I gave him my Sk8board (He did not have one and I knew that was one of the only things that he still enjoyed doing and kept him away from trouble)


He got on the board skated away and he looked just like in the old days (Badass) .


It was towards the end of my days in City Terrace, I have no seen SuperChicken since.


I have asked old friends about him and the ones that are left don't even remember him.


Everyone else has moved away as have I , I hope he is good wherever he is, I hope he is sk8ing.

Evilchavo Sk8 or die

The Adventures of Super Chicken part 1

When I started skating, I was overweight, a very insecure kid.

I learned about confidence and how to carry myself not from my Dad (he was not around)

Or my Stepdad( He was not around at that time either,Until Later)

But from my friend Super Chicken (His Nickname, he had big pointy nose)

My Friend Super Chicken was a few years older than me and I remember seeing him down the street at the Mercado Hidalgo ( BreakDancing )

During the big break dancing craze alot of the neighborhood kids would turn into crews and breakdance.....my friend was one of them...they would lay their cardboard down in front of the Mercado Hidalgo and break dance against other crews.

When I started Sk8ing he was one of the first people that I saw sk8ing at the school.

After I thought myself how to sk8 I met him, he laughed at me cause of the skateboard that I had and called me a poser.

I did not even know what that meant but everyone started laughing at me...so I said " I am not a poser"

He said you skate like a poser...what is a poser? I said...then my mom called me in and I left.

I lived by the Elementary school (actually all you had to do was jump the fence to get to my house)

The next day he was on the street yelling out my name....I did not have any friends at the time so I was shocked that anyone was calling for me.

I came out and there he was , he asked if I wanted to skate and I said yes.

Then we went skating.....all the way to the Wedge (skatespot) by Montebello....7.3 mi – about 21 mins per google ( I had only sk8ted at the school by my house, street in front of my house and nothing else!)

I was overweight and not that good at skating, but my friend kept asking me if I was a poser when I would say "No" he would tell me to keep going.....when I wanted to quit he told me that I was a mommas boy and if I wanted he could call my mom.....so I kept skating.

When we finally made it there , I watched him skate cause there was no way that I could do anything at the ditch and then we went home on the bus.

Superchicken paid, I never had any money.....but the next weekend he came around again and off we went...but before we went...I was having an identify crisis....I felt Like a poser I did not have the right gear....so he said that he would tell me what to wear so that I did not look like such a poser.

He made me wear two different kinds of shoes, I wore them all day and felt so weird at the end of the day he told me that I should never worry about what other people think and to just wear what I wanted , He said to never let anyone tell me what to do.

SuperChicken taught me alot of lessons, how to talk to girls, how to fight, how to do laundry, how to cook churros,how to skate,how to make friends.

I will write more about all my adventures with SuperChicken and the lessons that he forced me to learn.

Evilchavo Out.

Why I did not become a Cholo

Being a cholo in City Terrace was not an easy process to go thru.

You had to know certain people and you had to prove that you were down for the neighborhood.

You had to get jumped in(get beat down by several of your soon to be homies), shaved down (get your head shaved all the way down to a bald head) and you had to do work (represent your neighborhood no matter what) for your neighborhood when necessary.

I have never been a good team player and could not understand the reasoning behind taking orders from people that were full of aggression and only acted when in groups.

My mom (single mother at the time) bought my first skateboard a Variflex complete ($45, a fortune) at a sporting good store .

I was scared, I did not want to fall in front of people.

When I did not open package for about a week ,my mom tagged along with our neighbors and we went to the park (Whittier Narrows) there is a very private section of the park by the freeway , away from the soccer field.

The kids at the school skated all day and they made it all look so easy.

I took the complete Variflex board out of packaging , put both feet at the same time on the board and stood on it (in the grass) and I thought to myself (I can do this)

Put the board on the walkway, put both feet on the either side of the board and......smack

Fell on my face.

Then I tried to pedal down this small hill and the board zoomed out in from of me and ....smack I fell again...did the splits this time.

Did it again and my back foot just missed the back of the board and ....smack fell on my hands

I fell so many times that by the end of the day I was sore and bruised and all my clothes(Cord Huskies, Pumas, black T shirt) were dirty.

Got back to where my mom was and they had been looking for me for about two hours and as I walked toward them I could tell that she was furious but when she saw me she must of thought that I got run over or something because she just checked me over to make sure I was o.k.

She asked me what I was doing and I answered "soy a skater Ma'"

Un skater ma'?

Que es un skater mijo? Translation : What is a skater son?

Then I showed her ,I rolled down the parking lot..... she was so impressed.

She told the neighbors I was un Skater.

To which they replied "Con que se come" Translation : What do you eat that with? (Phrase used when you have no idea what someone is talking about)

Then I showed them I could skate. They laughed and said it was a "Patin del diablo"

I lost alot of weight in the following months ,got better gear and started hanging out with the local skaters that were a few years older that me.

We started going on field trips to Monterey park (Atlantic Square) to skate, to Whittier( The Wedge) , Pasadena, Hollywood, Downtown....all over the place.

When there was no money for bus fare we would skate there....when we had no money for food we would just drink water or hit the 7 eleven by the (closed along time ago) Sundown drive in (right before EastLa College) and drink the soda when no one was looking.

I was in Junior High (Belvedere) when I started skating and once I lost all the weight the local gangs would always try and recruit me.(but I could not be a part of that world I had my own skateworld that they could never touch) They would always tell me "Skate or Die" "Skate or Die"

Little did my mom know that her gift would give me so much freedom and that it would keep me away from gangs for the remainder of my time in City Terrace.

Gangs and being a cholo seemed like a really bad thing to be when I was young, but I have met many ex-cholos/as that have turned into great friends and have been in positions as executives to many companies that I have worked for and they have always recognized me as one of their own and have helped me in one way or another.

So you can't judge anyone by who they were because you never know who you are going to be working for when you get older or when you will need someones help or backup.

Evilchavo sk8 or die.