Thrasher Magazine / January 2008

By: Michael Sieben

I've been reading skateboarding magazines for about 20 years now, so I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert on skateboarding. And if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about skateboarding it’s that to get really good at it you’re going to have to dedicate a ridiculous amount of time to it. That equals not dedicating a lot of time to those other things in your life that might take time away from your “on board” time. One of those little life distractions is school. So what are you going to do? Kindly ask your parents if you can drop out so you can practice your switch back lips? Hell no! You’re going to have to get creative if you want to remove yourself from that lockered-hall prison keeping you from pro status. Get on it.

1. Make a parrot costume and wear it to school with a jam box Duct-taped to your chest and play Jimmy Buffet tapes at full blast all day long. When asked to stop, just scream, “You can’t stop
the future!”

2. Climb to the top of the flagpole with your skateboard and do a boneless onto the sidewalk while screaming “MEGA RAMP!!!!” Even if you don’t get kicked out of school, you’ll still get to go home for awhile.

3. Make an eight-foot-tall sock monkey and carry it around with you all day long. Refuse to leave him at home by explaining that “He keeps the spirits from touching my swimsuit parts.”

4. Go to the library and make a fort out of books and climb inside of it. Then get a megaphone and start forcefully whispering into it, “Dracula stole my chopsticks.” Did I mention undressing before climbing into the fort?

5. Make friends with the janitor and convince him to give you a copy of the key to the school and
then go up to the school over the weekend and fill it full of mayonnaise. Like, floor to ceiling full. And then add the raisins.

6. Make a body suit out of old band-aids that you’ve collected from your local public swimming pool. You know how old band-aids smell, right? If this doesn’t work, try smothering your upper body with maple syrup and anchovies for added potency.

7. Get a tattoo of a face on your face. But not just any face. Get a tattoo of your principal’s face on your face. And then go around acting all sucky and telling everybody to get their behinds to detention. And make sure your pants pockets are full of old hamburger meat.

8. Join the football team and become the star quarterback and start dating the head cheerleader and then at the State Championships when you’re about to win the game, jump on your motorcycle and put on your leather jacket and start doing donuts all over the field and then grab a microphone and tell everybody you secretly want to do it with some husky girl who’s in band.

9. Catch a wild raccoon and train him to live in your backpack and to urinate on everything that moves except for yourself. And uh… Make a fake mustache out of grape jelly and wear a helmet made out of peanut butter? I’m sorry. This is getting even more ridiculous than usual.

10. Truthfully, I don’t really have any good advice on how to get kicked out of High School. I was a member of the National Honor Society in High School and I have a Letterman’s Jacket for Academics. And I made the Dean’s List pretty much every semester I was in college. I’m just bitter that I was never good enough to be a pro skater so I use sarcasm as a defense mechanism. Sorry dudes.