How Jake Phelps became the guardian angel of the skateboard bible
Arriving at 5 a.m., to my haven of fortified delusion, the downtown Miami night club Goldrush, was desolate. The lingering haze of Aqua De Gio and Romeo Y Julietta’s was reminiscent in the breeze of swamp coolers. The year was 2006, and this petty palace, this watered down drink hole, is where South Beach muscle heads, Puerto Rican gangsters, independently wealthy euro-trash, and celebrity knock-offs congregate to throw money around like it grew on trees. They chat in million dollar fantasies, sometimes making them thousand dollar realities.
I felt relieved to have missed the party. I paid the $7 for a Red Bull, bought a $9 pack of Marlboro Reds from the cigarette machine (they never had American Spirits) and took a seat where I had full range of club view. A few early morning regulars were at the bar talking to the shot girls and a group of four out-of-towners were tipping the older but pretty Dominican-plastic-surgery-gone-boo-boo dancer who was pleased to entertain them on the pole.
The out-of-towners said they were from San Francisco and on tour with their band Bad Shit. I chose the one who looked the most important and straddled him. He was slouched down in a leather arm chair with exaggerated Buddy Holly glasses covering his face, a puffy vest, no shirt underneath, and a straw safari hat. He smelled like he sweat Northern California out of his pores. We spent quality time in VIP, where mysteries are revealed, and dude said he was the editor of Thrasher Magazine. Very funny. Couldn't he think of a better lie?
“The worst thing in the world is to be a liar... you get caught up with your lies and then you have to catch up with them again...” Jake Phelps 2010.
I called Jake Phelps’ office late February this year, almost four years after we became somewhat familiar with each other. A voice that sounded like Jake’s answered.
“Jake Phelps, please.” I said.
“Who is this?” The voice said.
“This is Sunny. I was wondering if I could have an interview with you.”
“This is Jake’s assistant. Call back next week.” Click.
I called back exactly a week later. Jake Phelps answered. He wanted to meet in an hour.
I left work early and ran to Peet's Coffee in the rain. I thought about all the times I had seen Jake since Miami; Bust or Bail 2008, where Ryan Sheckler collected $1000 out of Jake's beefy fingers, the Nike Skate Video Premiere at The Paramount Theatre (Jake told me once he would never use a Nike Ad in Thrasher) and The Annual Chili Bowl Cook Off at Potrero Del Sol Skate Park (someone put dog food in the chili).
I was soaked upon arrival. Jake Phelps was slumped over his ‘coffee with an added shot’ like a hand puppet of himself without a hand in it. He seemed to slightly awaken from his meditation as I sat down. He leaned in toward me and peered through his black framed glasses like a school teacher.
"Do I know you from... where do I know you from? Tell me now." Jake inquired
"I met you in Miami."
"This is that girl? ah my gawd..." Jake grunted, irritated. "That’s not usually my modus operandas but I was on a Miami bender. I wrote a song about it actually. I wrote a song about you."
"No you didn't." I was flattered.
"I did too, Miami Crime Scene." (I couldn’t track the lyrics online, although I did find a blog post titled, Miami Crime Scene on the Bad Shit myspace page.)
"Do you still skate?"
"Believe it or not I suffer through it." Jake, now 47, says with a sly grin.
In '77, Jake left middle school to skate demos for Pepsi and they paid him $500 a week. He has done horrendous things to his body in the name of skateboarding, including being pronounced dead several times.
"You need content. People say 'What do you think, Phelper?' I've been doing it so long, I'm a fixture at it." Two years after starting a distribution job at Thrasher Magazine, in the late 80s, Jake Phelps became the editor of the entire publication. “They knew I was a real skateboard person, I always say what's on my mind. I don't ever pull punches."
Jake continues to keep it real, claiming to have burned down a skate park in Austria because they wouldn't let his band skate it. "There's never gonna be a ride like I got. No way... plane tickets... trips.. I do what I like to do." Jake talks openly about anything he wants: his court date next month in Texas, the Hep C medication that caused him to lose his long term sweetheart, some dude who looks like Skeletor and owes him money, his favorite place on earth, Easter Island: "I don't sleep so I can just sit there on the airplane and drink." Jake leans back against the wall in his seat. Jazz piano is playing abnormally loud via Peet's surround sound, the milk steamer whistles and the tapping of the espresso grinds make a beat. "Did you see the George Clooney movie 'Up In The Air'?" he says in a fake Bostonian accent.
"No."
"No." Jake mocks me.
"It's a story about a guy-he never-he never comes down-he never lands...and I've been on the road for 30 years so it's like..."
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