Slap Magazine, September & December 1997

People told me that these covers were to clean and boring, but that was exactly our intentions.

Clean and "simple" was a hugh change of pace for us. These two covers were also the ones that

had Mike Carroll mad at me. Chico had just gotten on DVS, but in this photo he's wearing DC's. No big

deal, right? In those days everyone was riding different company boards, or blanks, or different

shoes and clothes from companies they didn't ride for. And for me, I'm just shooting the photo. Who

you ride for or what you were wearing didn't mean shit to me. As soon as this issue came out Mike,

(for those that don't know Mike is co-owner of Girl/Chocolate skateboards and Chico rides for

Chocolate), called me saying how fucked I was, and I shouldn't have put Chico on the cover, and if

DVS was pissed it was my fault, etc... And I always thought it was a good thing to be on the cover of a mag.

To make a long story short, a few months later this cover of Guy Mariano came out and I got the

same phone call from Mike. Now it's a conspiracy, right?! Guy rode for Axion but is wearing

something else on the cover- can't remember what. To me, it was a treat to shoot something

of Guy and rare to have him on the cover. After it was all said-and-done everyone liked the

covers and no one got kicked off their shoe sponsors. It took Mike a solid year to stop being mad

at me. It's funny to look back on those times- we were all growing up and figuring out who we

were and how the world worked. Me and Mike can laugh about those times nowadays and only

remember the good stuff.