Boys Will Be Wetboys

It was fun while it lasted — but now MTV wants to mainstream Colorado's weirdest skateboarders.

Comments (0) By Jared Jacang Maher Thursday, May 1 2008

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Saba keeps trying his trick. He almost lands it once, but his board shoots into the street and traffic. Cars slam on their brakes as the board rolls under an Element, hits the wheel of a parked delivery van and bounces back into the hands of Saba, who is dodging passing cars.

He eventually sticks it, riding his wheels like a washboard down the stairs and maneuvering around an older woman waiting for a bus. "Nice!" Naughty cheers. "And you made it smoothly by this lovely lady right here."

Chris Sessions

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The woman smiles. She tells Saba about her grandson, who likes to skateboard. "He's not as good as you, though," she says. "Or your friends."

"Yeah." Saba seems unsure how to reply. "It's fun."

Now all they need are some fresh spots.

Get wet with Jerrod Saba: I think all of it is evolving into an older, more mature version of what it once was. Especially since the whole party-line, weird kind of skating has gotten way played out. I just saw an Arizona crew battle video from this year, and you can just see so many people doing it. Which is cool, but it seems like it's not our shit anymore. It's standard. It was a gimmick, sort of, but it was our gimmick, our way of having fun with each other. When everyone else does it, it's like, who are we?

A lot more Wetboys have jobs today than they used to. It's scary. I don't know. I guess it feels good to see some dudes trying to do well for themselves. Even me, I think it'd be cool to find jacked-up houses and fix them, resell them. Like sort of the opposite of what we did at a Wethouse.

But sometimes I see people doing the same kind of fun skating, like younger kids, and I think, "Awesome, I love that." We all still feel that. So, yeah, definitely — if it doesn't suck, this reality show could get things re-sparked for the Wetboys. It could be like even gnarlier than it was before. We could actually get some funds to do all the weird ideas we always talked about. That kind of love never goes away.

Seventh. You can't buy a Wetboys T-shirt. You can't buy a Wetboys skateboard. But the Wetboys still have their imitators on YouTube, where young skaters from across the country show their videos inspired by the Denver crew. One post shows a group of teenagers in France doing their best to re-create the "party line"-style skateboard run created by the Wetboys. Dude does a trick and then kicks the board to his friend, who does a trick of his own. In the background, someone does a cartwheel. "It stinks because it doesn't have technical tricks," complains the sole post, in French. "It's badly filmed, it shakes, not professional, it's not at all professional!"

Boys will be boys.