San Diego, building place for The Spirit of St Louis (Charles Lindberg's plane) and Tony Hawk's hometown. But enough on the history lesson; Charles didn't even skate, and if he had, he probably would have sucked! You would think that since Tony is from San Diego, all the locals had already seen him skate and probably wouldn't show. Definitely NOT the case! More than 1,000 people were on hand to witness history in the making.

Encinitas Y.M.C.A. -- the place is so legendary they even wrote a song about it. The Y has an insane extra large bowl, a super-fun street course with a ton of different elements and, of course, a tailor-made, Hawk-style vert ramp. I think that we should change the name of the vert ramp to a Hawk ramp, being that Tony is basically a vert god.

Mike Vallely

The boyz arrived around 1 p.m. on the day of the demo; the crowd had been waiting for about an hour collecting all kinds of free swag from the tour sponsors and were very pumped. Some of the guyz were still feeling the effects from skydiving the day before -- all except one Alex Chalmers. A-Chalm said he wasn't very impressed. I know some of you are saying, "How could you not be stoked on skydiving?!" You see, Alex is not only a professional skateboarder but a stunt man as well, so he is used to doing burly, phat stuff. Mike Vallely said he was feeling kind of queasy for about three hours after touching ground. The good news is all the guyz made it back in one-piece, which also made Barry the trainer very happy!

Bam Margera was hyping the crowd with all his pyramid tricks like switch flips, big spins and nose grinds. Mike V. was defying gravity by trying to pull these 5-0 grinds up a handrail (correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to do them DOWN handrails?). Birdhouse ripper Steve Berra was blowing minds with all of his technical skating, sometimes leaving the crowd speechless. Brian Sumner couldn't keep himself away from all the rails the Y had to offer. Mike Escamilla (aka Rooftop) was destroying the street course with aggression on his B.M.X. Bike.

Sal and Bam

Meanwhile, Mat Hoffman spotted a roof above the DJ tower about 16-17 feet above the street course and decided to jump off it. 900 films TV Producer Morgan was getting nervous that one of his main dudes would be hurling himself off a 17-foot roof, but this wasn't just any dude -- this was Mat Hoffman, the Condor. Mat has logged more airtime than the stork that keeps visiting Tony's House. The Condor pulled it off clean as can be and trainer Barry put his ice away for the time being.

The demo was going good until some freaked out Y.M.C.A neighbor decided to call the police to break the demo up for noise violations. To make it worse, this guy was wearing Dolphin Shorts and an Izod shirt. (Kids, if you don't know what those are, check out your Dad's closet - I'm sure he shopped at Miller's Outpost once or twice.) This guy didn't care that the demo consisted mostly of kids; he was more bent on shutting it down just to be a dick! He even threatened to have the park manager arrested and all the ESPN gear confiscated; I guess he still believes skateboarding is a crime. My favorite part was when my boss, Tom Steel, told the clothing-challenged weasel that he had earned more bad karma points then anyone he had ever met. Some people just don't get it. He was probably a former rent-a-cop that used to bust skaters and eat donuts.

Shaun White

The vert demo was -- pardon my French -- un-fricken-believable. Fourteen-year-old pro snowboarder Shaun White was on hand busting 540s like they were kick turns. Tony said he probably learned them in about 15 minutes, meaning this kid is good! Shaun impressed the crew so much that he has now been invited to join the Tour for our next two stops. His mom's only request is that he keeps up with his homework; sometimes you forget this kid is still in school.

Jason Ellis was airing out of the vert ramp to a fence then doing a boneless of the fence to the street course about 13 feet below. Ellis slid out a few times. He even melted his shorts on the slide -- the guy must have a screw loose, and I'm not talking on his skateboard.

After the demo, we all went to Tony's house for a party. Partying at the Birdman's house was pretty cool: good grub and drink, and lots of women as well. Three stops down and eight left. Funny, that's about how many brain cells I have left.

Next stop: Sacramento, the capital of Cali. Log on and tell your friends.

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