Mid-Eastern Skateboard Series
I moved back to Tennessee from California in the summer of 1985. Before I left California, I was already organizing another skateboarding series. I had joked during an interview at the end of the '84 series that I was planning to change the format of MESS to the Mid-Eastern Skateboard Sessions because I was tired of contests. Yeah, right.
The 1985 series was called the Eastern Blowout Series. I decided it was time to move beyond the Mideast and take on the entire Eastern portion of the U.S. I should have called it the Eastern Burnout Series. The next year, the National Skateboarding Association (NSA) held a pro-am contest in Chicago called the Chicago Blowout. Coincidence? I don't think so. I would have sued, but I became the head judge for the NSA in 1987.
I called some of the usual suspects (Robert Taylor and Joe Polevy) for Blowout
contest locations and scoped out some new possibilities. The first contest
was supposed to be a streetstyle event in Asheville, NC. I pissed off the
locals by canceling the event due to a Mt. Trashmore contest that was planned
for the same weekend. It also revealed my less-than-enthusiastic attitude about
streetstyle contests at the time.
I can't remember the order of the contests after that, but there was one in Kingsport, TN, on a great ramp built by Robert Taylor and company. Mike Taber and Steve Gee, both long-time MESS skaters, organized a contest way up in Mishawaka, IN. I remember having a lot of fun at that contest, but I don't remember much else, except the drunken backseat car ride with Joe Bowers (Lyle was sober at the wheel).
Another contest was held in Greenville, SC, at the same site as the MESS '84 finals. I do remember being hassled by the Atlanta crew for dissing their previous contest and getting splinters in my ass, which somehow must have been related.
I realized after the Eastern Blowout that I should stop organizing skateboard series immediately. It was no longer the MESS—it was just messy. I knew that if I kept trying, it would become work, so I moved back to California and got paid to work at Transworld Skateboarding Magazine.
So what happened to everybody? Plenty of skaters stayed put and kept building their local scenes. The MESS also inspired a new generation of skaters. I recently took a chance with Google and performed a search for Mike Kays. He ran MESS #3 (1984) in Elizabethtown, KY, the only MESS contest held in a trailer park and a great contest, despite the low turnout (the urban skaters were too scared to attend).
As I scanned down the results, I saw one that mentioned skateboarding. It was a link for the PASS—the Pacific Amateur Skateboard Series in Hawaii. Hmmm, sounded a bit familiar.
I
sent an inquiry asking if this Mike Kays in Hawaii was the same one who ran
a contest in Kentucky in 1984. The reply came quickly and in the
same friendly, easy-going manner I remembered back in '84. Yes, it was the
same Mike Kays (that's him to the left). He also built a massive wooden
bowl on a military base. [2024 edit] Mike's oldest son, Chris, was featured in a Louisville
photo essay in a issue of Transworld. Mike now lives in Sandy, Oregon, and owns a skate shop
and screen printing shop. He ordered, printed, and set up an online order form for the new
MESS t-shirts.
And, of course, there were the MESS skaters who turned pro: Ray Underhill, Bill Danforth, Jeff Kendall, Marty Jimenez, and Bob Pribble from the core MESS founders. There were also Tom Groholski, Henry Gutierrez, Alan Midgett, John Grigley, and probably a few others who competed in the '84 series. Many skaters got sponsored during the MESS, including myself.
Mike Hill and Chris Carter started Alien Workshop. Joe Bowers joined them as an employee after working for Skate Rags for many years and now works for Eastern Skate Supply. Jeff Kendall works for NHS. Ray Underhill was working for Eastern Skate Supply when he passed away. Bryan Ridgeway has been a consultant for many different skate companies. Brian Beauchene opened his own skate shop in Knoxville.
After the MESS, skateboarding took off again. Our old ramps rotted. People moved to California. Some complained about it and moved somewhere else. A few stayed and got involved in the industry. Some of us kept skating, some of us stopped, some of us cursed the thought of it. A few of us stayed in contact.
After I originally posted the site in 2002, some people talked about a getting together in 2003 for a 20-year MESS reunion. It never happened, but that hasn't kept many skaters from getting together anyway. The Huntington, WV, crew gets together almost every year. Lyle Donoho sends me photos whenever he goes skating with Brett Martin or the Knoxville crew. I also heard from Alan Butella, Steve Schick, Cleo Coney (pictured here), Donny Myhre, and a few other people who participated in the MESS and who still skate with others who did.
Now that I've finally added the results, fliers, and photos for the 84 contests (in time for the 30-year anniversary), I hope it will spark some new interest. I deleted the individual skater pages because there weren't many and they were out of date. I took some of the comments from those pages and combined them into one page. I could use more photos from the '84 series, especially for the Ohio contests. Maybe in another ten years, I'll have some more stuff to add.
— Britt Parrott, July 2002 (updated in July 2012)
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