Redstar Dysfunctional in Detroit

Dysfunctional in Detroit 3 Days with Red Star

Dysfunctional in Detroit 3 Days with Red Star words

Cephas

Benson

photos

Will

Jivcoff

A

fter a long crazy summer this year, we decided to plan one final team trip. Photographer Will Jivcoff had mentioned to Paul Machnau just how many spots there were in Detroit. We all wanted to check it out but not everyone had passports at the time, so we decided to make a mission out of it.

It seems to be a cliché in skateboarding to say your team is like a “little family,” but in our case, I would say it’s a very tight, dysfunctional family. I’m the odd older uncle, Paul is the influential big brother, and the rest of the team are our younger nephews and brothers…

As I pulled up to Grant Patterson’s place in the big tour van, I thought to myself: “Shit, here we go again. I hope we make it back safe and sound.” From there Grant and I drove into Toronto to pick up Cephas Benson and filmer Devin Guiney, then off to the airport to grab Paul and Chad Dickson. Before long we snatched up Will and Red Star’s new flow guy, Tyler O’Grady, before hitting the road to the “Motor City.”

Back to Detroit… we started with a shop signing in nearby Windsor to warm things up and spend one last night in Canada before crossing the border into the abyss. Before those fateful few days in Detroit, Paul and I were watching TV and landed on a show about jails in Detroit and I thought: “Man, I hope we don’t have to deal with any crazy people like that in the Motor City...”

—Dan Opyc

CEPHAS BENSON, FAKIE 5-0 Concrete skateboarding

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PAUL MACHNAU, FRONTSIDE BOARDSLIDE SHUV

“It feels like half the population gave up and moved away.”

CHAD DICKSON, 360 FLIP

The trip started off on a funny note. The man in charge, Dan Opyc, is scared to death of big bridges, and since we drove to Detroit from Windsor, we got to witness him nearly have a fear-induced heart attack while crossing the two-kilometre Ambassador Bridge into Detroit. As funny as that was, once over the bridge we got a nice taste of U.S. hospitality at the border by getting sent to the inspection station. Paul claims it was Dan’s over-the-top enthusiasm and nervous laughter that made the border police grow suspicious, and I agree. After 20 minutes of them searching the van and trying to get us to admit we smoke weed, we were on our way to check into a couple pimp suites at the Holiday Inn downtown.

walk from the hotel, so we hit the streets in our best button-ups for a fun night out. But five minutes into the walk things started getting a little scary. Almost everyone we walked by seemed to be a crackhead or a badass gangster-looking dude. We remained rather quiet and eavesdropped on peoples’ conversations, which was pretty entertaining and intimidating. Finally we made it to the liquor store after getting lost a couple times, then walked back as fast as we could. It wasn’t until we were back at the hotel that Chad and I both admitted we were scared shitless the whole time.

We decided that from there on staying in was probably a good idea, and for the remainder of the trip we only made it to the hotel bar. Pretty much, that was the extent of our “trip nightlife.”

Detroit is a unique and strange place. So much of it is abandoned, it feels like half the population gave up and moved away. It makes you wonder why the other half stayed. Downtown, huge buildings and hotels stand empty, and driving away from the core it appeared houses and buildings were left vacant. The good thing about abandoned buildings is the complete lack of security, but the bad thing about them is the scary feeling you get when you realize anything goes, because you never know who might be lurking in the shadows. In certain areas the police seemed to be more worried about our safety than us skating on private property.

One night, Grant Patterson, Chad Dickson, Devin Guiney and myself were getting a nice, mellow buzz on in our hotel room.

Grant and I both suffer from the hazardous disease known as “Drunken Shit Talking.” I don’t remember who started it but let’s assume it was Grant. We got into our usual drunken chirp battle, and for some reason we ended up in each others’ faces and decided to go at it. It turned into the funniest fight I’ve ever been in. I must weigh almost twice as much as Grant, so I decided to wrestle him. After tossing him around for a bit, I pinned him down and gave him a nice smack, at which point he screamed: “I’M IRISH, CUZZZ!” I proceeded to die of laughter because his explosion of anger and subsequent WWE “fake truce” tactic didn’t result in anything but me tossing him to the floor on repeat.

After our first day of skating, Chad and I felt like grabbing some beers. Turned out the nearest liquor store was about a 15-minute

Concrete skateboarding

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grant patterson , front shuv nosegrind backside 1 8 0

“Detroit appears to be really sketchy, but nothing really sketchy actually happened.�

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Concrete skateboarding

t y ler o ’ grad y , switch frontside 3 6 0 Since we were only there for three nights, we decided not to hold back and skate as many spots as possible, whether or not they were in sketchy areas. Thanks to our amazing tour guide, this goal was not a problem. He actually printed out a spot book for us with pictures and directions to about 50 spots. Thanks, Jim Tumey. Paul led the way at every spot—he was on a never-ending mission to skate and kill everything we came across. He got tricks everywhere, whether he was seriously trying to get a photo or just trying to hype-up the rest of us to skate. Because of this, we managed to get some decent stuff done in the short time we had.

Once we found ourselves heading back across the Ambassador Bridge to Windsor, we realized that yes, Detroit appears to be really sketchy, but nothing really sketchy actually happened when we were there. The people were extremely friendly and helpful; even the cops were chill. That’s when we realized the citizens of Detroit have a good reason to stay. It’s a friendly city in the rebuilding stages so, why leave?

Visit concreteskateboarding.com to watch footage from the trip.