The Nude Bowl

We arrived at the concrete slab. It was right below the hotel remains and it was overflowing with trucks, cars and people. Everywhere that I looked, there were people sitting on sleeping bags, smoking, drinking & laughing. It was unreal. We got our gear out and headed up a short path to where we could see lights. A generator growled somewhere in the distance close by. We stepped up onto the deck. A huge kidney pool was spread out before us with at least thirty skaters milling about the decks and shallow end.

Graffiti was splashed and scrawled upon-virtually-every surface, in every color.  Most of it was unintelligible, but one that caught my eye and has remained with me over the years, was located on the hip just inside the coping. It said, "Friendships never die at the nude." The old nudist hotel building was a pale shadow if its former self. It rose gaunt and skeletal above the pool and squatted obscenely in the waning light. I could smell weed burning and happy faces greeted my roving eyes.

This was  Mecca! I watched Dave Reul- hair dyed blue-push into the pool and frontside 50-50 the entire face wall. I watched Andy frontside blunt, then follow it up with a front rock near the hip. I saw people I can barely remember doing insane things I will never forget. I hadn't seen anything like it... anywhere. A cute girl walked up to me and offered me a beer. I waved her away and started skating.

Twister pulled a sick frontside grind, Rhino crailed the side wall, and Jonathan 'Bacon' Hobbs made a sick frontside air, which was greeted by howls from those watching. It was sick! We skated for hours and hours. People came and went, moves were pulled, girls were discovered, friendships and love were made. The deep night faded into half light. Dawn glowed in the distance. I watched the sun come up over the Nude bowl that morning and I will remember it my whole life.

The Nude is gone now. Someone was stabbed at a party out there in the late 1990s. It wasn't a skater that performed such a heinous act. It was a scumbag wanna-be punk. His stupidity lost us one of the great gathering places for skateboarders everywhere. Remember the Nude bowl. Thanks Andy Mac, JGrant Brittain & Doug Kinkade for the images. Skate-Ozzie