Mark Losey Facts

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• August 11 2004
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While shooting the cover for issue 35 with Cory Nastazio, I forgot to close the top of my camera bag.When I looked back at my bag later, Nasty’s dog was digging a hole in the ground right next to it, and all of the dirt was going directly in the camera bag-perfect.

In issue 36, Rick Thorne interviewed the band Rancid for us, and the band members were happy to shoot the breeze with Rick for about an hour. Once the interview was done, Marty Wendt, our Assistant Editor at the time, had to try to decipher the tape and type everything up for the magazine; needless to say, that was not a fun couple of days for Marty.

Issue 36 contained a poster from my scariest photo shoot ever. Jay Miron was doing his 360 seatgrab no-footed can-can over the Schwinn box, and from the angle I was shooting, it looked like he was throwing his bike at me every time. He never chucked the bike, and the photo came out great. To this day, that’s one of the best jumping tricks I’ve witnessed.

While shooting street with Josh Heino in Rhode Island in 1998, he crashed hard on a curved aluminum rail and gave himself a concussion. When this happens you need to take it easy, but instead, Heino loaded his car up and then drove all the way to New Jersey for a 2-Hip contest.

While at the Interbike tradeshow in 1998, I saw a rail behind the convention center and asked Taj Mihelich if he was interested. Taj gave the rail a go, and his third attempt resulted in a serious crash. When I asked if he was okay Taj looked up and said, “I can feel blood rushing through my stomach.” Mat Hoffman had told him what a busted spleen felt like, so Taj knew exactly what was up. I ran inside the convention center and found Brad McDonald’s wife and she got her car so we could get to the emergency room. Taj figured he was okay with medical insurance, but unfortunately his policy had just lapsed, leaving him with a $35,000 medical bill. Thank God for Medicaid.

At the MTV Sports and Music Festival in 1999, Gonz completely lost his mind. He took a bus for three days to get to Memphis, TN, from Phoenix, Arizona, for the event, and he brought one very important item with him: a chicken suit. The night before the event began, MTV held a riders’ meeting where Gonz got on the microphone and said, “I have a few social issues I want to talk about,” and then he rambled on about Chicken McNuggets for ten minutes. Later he went to the MTV Real World house, hung out in the hot tub while still in the chicken suit, and then he ended the night by running down the street naked. The story doesn’t end there. The next day Gonz went to the motocross jumps, got naked on top of a landing, and then got punched by MXer Mike Jones. Gonz got banned from the rest of the event, but he still managed to get beat up by Danny Way before the weekend was over.

Blink 182 played a concert at a K2 Woodward contest in 1999, and it was filled with as many swear words they could fit in. Then about halfway through the set the band was forced to apologize for their language since Woodward has a strict “no swearing” policy. The band continued swearing for the rest of the set, but they just didn’t use the microphones, to stay out of trouble.

The Phoenix scene report in issue 39 brought Gonz, Ratboy, and Smoker Dave to the forefront of street riding. There was one more guy involved named Chris Toth who had no fear. He slid any rail, did any gap, and didn’t care what anyone thought. While being politely asked to leave one spot, Toth looked at the lady and started yelling, “We’re doing this for a magazine! We’ll be here as long as we want!” Let’s just say the lady was less than receptive.

When I was getting ready to fly to Phoenix for the same scene report, our video producer at the time, Ryan Young, decided to go too, so he said he would drive to Phoenix and meet me there. To everyone else it sounded like I should have just driven with him, but then my return ticket wouldn’t have been any good and I’d have no way home. So, I flew to Phoenix in an hour while Ryan drove for six hoursand then he basically picked me up at the Phoenix airport. The Phoenix guys didn’t let me live that one down for a long time.

While in Athens, Georgia, shooting a scene report in 1999, I met a rider named Scot McElwaney. Scot was a nice guy and a good street rider, and a few months later he was hired as the Associate Editor of Ride, where he stayed for three years.

Drake Miller made his way to California in 1999 and said he was down to shoot photos. I found a good rail in nearby Costa Mesa, so we went to give it a shot. There was only one problem-a motorcycle was parked at the bottom of the stairs with a lock running through the wheels. So we did the only thing we could: pick up the motorcycle and move it out of the way.

While shooting street in Greenville in 1999, we were on campus and security was not psyched. Eventually everyone took off in different directions, but the cops got on Mike Laird’s tail and would not back off. After a good chase Mike finally got surrounded and gave himself up. As he was getting booked one of the cops asked him, “Why did you run? We were just going to ask you to leave campus.” Laird spent a few hours in jail before Keith King and the Eastern crew bailed him out.

In 1999, I got a call saying that Jason Enns would be in Southern California for a few days. I didn’t really know Jason at the time, but I picked him up at Greg Walsh’s house one morning and then went to a local park called RSA to see what we could shoot. Jason delivered so much good stuff, including the 360-toothpick-to-half-barspin over the spine. To celebrate a good photo shoot, we hung out at my house and ate Hamburger Helper that night.

While trying to find something to shoot for his poster in issue 43, Matt Beringer came across a kinked 4×4 rail that he could grind down the middle with all four pegs on the rails. The only tricky part was figuring out how high to bunnyhop, so he put a sticker on the front of the rail at the exact height his wheels had to clear. Then he just stared at that spot, bunnyhopped in between the rails, and went for the rollercoaster ride of his life.

One morning while at an ESPN contest in Beaverton, Oregon, we made a trip out to the Burnside park. I had plans to shoot with Bruce Crisman, and while I was at the park a rider named Mike Shirley was destroying the hip-so high with so much style. I still wound up shooting with Bruce, but a photo of Mike doing a one-handed flatty ended up as the Table of Contents photo for issue 46.

For issue 46, I went to Bethlehem, PA, to do a story called “The Garbage Man and the Janitor” about John “Luc-e” Engelbert and Joe “Butcher” Kowalski. When I got to town I drove to Luc-e’s apartment, but it took 45 minutes of calling his phone and yelling outside until he finally woke up. I had shot plenty of photos with Luc-e before, but I wasn’t sure what to expect from Butcher. I was actually expecting some crashes, but what I got was precision. Butcher assassinated everything, including the first gap-to-second stage crooked grind I had ever seen. After Butcher pulled the gap-to-crooked some rollerbladers started dancing down the rail, and I had to yell at them since they had no idea the how dope the feat they had just seen was.

I always thought Gonz was crazy, and while shooting his interview for issue 51 it was confirmed. One night while we were at his apartment at two in the morning, he was playing all kinds of instruments through a loop machine while chanting, “Do you love Satan?” Half of what Gonz does is just to mess with people, but I can honestly say that he freaked me out. A few years later we did a story about dads and asked pros to send in photos of them with their kids; Gonz sent a photo of his son that looked like he was dead in an alley.

I went to Alabama to shoot photos for Seth Kimbrough’s interview in issue 53, and while I was standing on a log to shoot Seth doing airs on his mini, I lost my balance, tipped the log over, and then ate crap while Seth and Corey Martinez laughed in my face.

While shooting photos with Mike Aitken at a park in Utah, I started having serious trouble focusing the lens on my camera. No matter what I did, everything looked super hazy, and I could only hope I was getting the photos I needed. I got my eyes checked when I came home and found out I had a huge cataract in the eye I used to look through the camera. I eventually got surgery to correct my vision, but the hardest part was learning to shoot with the other eye. It sounds so easy, but it was a pretty awkward couple of months.

When I was in Greenville years ago Dave Mirra said he wanted to tailtap a ladder on top of his vert ramp. Nothing came of it for a while, but when I was in town for the Greenville scene report in issue 58, he had a ladder nailed to the top of the ramp and was ready to get it done. The ladder was super-wobbly, so Allan Cooke volunteered to help brace it. After trying the trick a few times and eating shit super-hard, Dave said he wasn’t sure if he could pull it off, but it wasn’t long before he nailed it. Usually a tailtap wouldn’t scare a rider like Dave, but when the trick requires an eight-foot set-up air on a 12-foot vert ramp, it’s a different story. After he pulled the trick he was so psyched that he threw his bike off the ramp, and came within a few feet of taking out his girlfriend.

In 2001, Gonz came by our office and said he wanted to shoot an x-up fakie footplant on a wallride in Huntington Beach. The only thing wrong with this scenario was that he didn’t have a bike. To him, this wasn’t much of an obstacle, so he went over to S&M and “borrowed” Chris Moeller’s bike for a few hours. Gonz was riding for S&M at the time, and he’s the only rider I know that would steal his boss’ bike.

Mike Escamilla got really into the idea of lighting himself on fire for photos and video in 2001. It started with a shoot at Real Ride skatepark where there were professional stunt coordinators on hand to make sure everything went okay, and it came to a head at the Volume warehouse where Mike did run after flaming run while getting doused by fire extinguishers in between. A wallride ran as the poster in issue 59, and the video footage all ran in Mike’s section in Etnies’ Forward DVD.

Around issue 60 we moved into a new office complete with a warehouse big enough for some type of ramp. We talked about all kinds of ideas, but nothing was set in stone when I left town for Road Fools 7. One day I needed to get some information from the office, so I called Keith Mulligan who said, “Know what I’m doing right now? Riding our new ramp.” While I was gone, Troy McMurray and Leo Dumlao came by and constructed what I claim to be one of the most fun spine ramps around.

On Road Fools 7, we drove into Atlanta and as soon as we started riding Van Homan spotted a big ledge that would be a great gap-to-manual. That’s not usually the kind of thing you do first trick of the session, so Van looked at it for a bit and decided to come back later. We all pedaled away, but we only made it 50 yards before Van turned around to give it a go. On his second attempt, he pulled it perfectly.

For issue 62 I wanted to do a trip with Allan Cooke and Corey Martinez, and the only place it wasn’t raining was Louisiana, so that’s where we went. We came across the road gap that Nate Wessel and Van Homan had done on an earlier Road Fools and Allan gave it a try. He found a board to smooth out the take-off and then was able to do nothings over the road with ease. A few months later while filming for a Fox video, Allan went back to Baton Rouge with a launch ramp and flipped over the same gap.

When issue 63 was wrapping up, I got two phone calls from Josh Heino. The first was for the Weinerschnitzel wallride, and the other was when he planned to ride off the roof of the Ricoh building. This was something every rider in Soutped the log over, and then ate crap while Seth and Corey Martinez laughed in my face.

While shooting photos with Mike Aitken at a park in Utah, I started having serious trouble focusing the lens on my camera. No matter what I did, everything looked super hazy, and I could only hope I was getting the photos I needed. I got my eyes checked when I came home and found out I had a huge cataract in the eye I used to look through the camera. I eventually got surgery to correct my vision, but the hardest part was learning to shoot with the other eye. It sounds so easy, but it was a pretty awkward couple of months.

When I was in Greenville years ago Dave Mirra said he wanted to tailtap a ladder on top of his vert ramp. Nothing came of it for a while, but when I was in town for the Greenville scene report in issue 58, he had a ladder nailed to the top of the ramp and was ready to get it done. The ladder was super-wobbly, so Allan Cooke volunteered to help brace it. After trying the trick a few times and eating shit super-hard, Dave said he wasn’t sure if he could pull it off, but it wasn’t long before he nailed it. Usually a tailtap wouldn’t scare a rider like Dave, but when the trick requires an eight-foot set-up air on a 12-foot vert ramp, it’s a different story. After he pulled the trick he was so psyched that he threw his bike off the ramp, and came within a few feet of taking out his girlfriend.

In 2001, Gonz came by our office and said he wanted to shoot an x-up fakie footplant on a wallride in Huntington Beach. The only thing wrong with this scenario was that he didn’t have a bike. To him, this wasn’t much of an obstacle, so he went over to S&M and “borrowed” Chris Moeller’s bike for a few hours. Gonz was riding for S&M at the time, and he’s the only rider I know that would steal his boss’ bike.

Mike Escamilla got really into the idea of lighting himself on fire for photos and video in 2001. It started with a shoot at Real Ride skatepark where there were professional stunt coordinators on hand to make sure everything went okay, and it came to a head at the Volume warehouse where Mike did run after flaming run while getting doused by fire extinguishers in between. A wallride ran as the poster in issue 59, and the video footage all ran in Mike’s section in Etnies’ Forward DVD.

Around issue 60 we moved into a new office complete with a warehouse big enough for some type of ramp. We talked about all kinds of ideas, but nothing was set in stone when I left town for Road Fools 7. One day I needed to get some information from the office, so I called Keith Mulligan who said, “Know what I’m doing right now? Riding our new ramp.” While I was gone, Troy McMurray and Leo Dumlao came by and constructed what I claim to be one of the most fun spine ramps around.

On Road Fools 7, we drove into Atlanta and as soon as we started riding Van Homan spotted a big ledge that would be a great gap-to-manual. That’s not usually the kind of thing you do first trick of the session, so Van looked at it for a bit and decided to come back later. We all pedaled away, but we only made it 50 yards before Van turned around to give it a go. On his second attempt, he pulled it perfectly.

For issue 62 I wanted to do a trip with Allan Cooke and Corey Martinez, and the only place it wasn’t raining was Louisiana, so that’s where we went. We came across the road gap that Nate Wessel and Van Homan had done on an earlier Road Fools and Allan gave it a try. He found a board to smooth out the take-off and then was able to do nothings over the road with ease. A few months later while filming for a Fox video, Allan went back to Baton Rouge with a launch ramp and flipped over the same gap.

When issue 63 was wrapping up, I got two phone calls from Josh Heino. The first was for the Weinerschnitzel wallride, and the other was when he planned to ride off the roof of the Ricoh building. This was something every rider in Southern California had talked about since the building with a huge wedge on the side was right next to a freeway. We headed to the building on a Sunday morning, but the security gate was closed and it looked like there was no way in. Just as I was ready to give up, a janitor opened the gate on his way home, so Josh just drove his van in. Once inside, Josh ran up to the top of wedge to make sure it would work, but there was something wrong, so he had to change to the other end of the building. Things still weren’t easy, because he had to bunnyhop onto a narrow ledge before bombing into the bank. Once he got himself psyched up he came through on point and we got out of there before anyone said a thing.

During the “One Day Photo Blitz” photographers around the country had to go out and shoot photos on the same day. Mike “Big Island” Castillo went to shoot with Mat Hoffman, but Mat didn’t want to do anything he had done 1,000 times before. So he hooked his daughter onto him with a harness and then rode vert with her strapped to the front of him. The photos were unbelievable, especially the one where Mat did a no-hander while cradling the baby. Upon closer inspection, though, it wasn’t really his daughter. It was a “Chucky” doll from the Child’s Play movies.

When I went to shoot the Start spread photo for Ride 65, Byron Anderson took me to a full-pipe in Riverside. We had to make a little dam to keep water from flowing through the pipe, and Byron spotted one more thing that had to be moved. Someone had gone down in the pipe, dropped their pants, and left two piles of human shit on the tranny. I got as far away as possible while Byron flicked the shit out of the way with a piece of cardboard. Riding the full-pick was cool, but shitting in it was truly sick.

The night before the Dave Mirra Super Tour started, Ryan Nyquist’s ramp saw one of the most incredible sessions ever. Dave, Nyquist, Osato, Darden, McCoy, Mackay, Laird-so many people were going nuts. The highlight, however, had to be Mirra doing a giant carving alley-oop 360 over the spine while Ryan did a double-peg over and back on the spine underneath them.

It’s common to get harassed by cops and security while shooting street, but one of the strangest incidents came during Road Fools 8. A cop in Madison, Wisconsin, stopped us all and began asking, “Why are you here? You’re here because of the Internet, right? You saw this place on the Internet and that’s why you’re here, right?” We told him that the Internet had nothing to do with it, but he never believed it. He eventually let us go, and went off in search of some other cyber shredders that would own up to a Net connection.

On a West Coast trip in issue 67 I got my first taste of a Kris Bennett explosion. He was attempting to fufanu a tree in Fresno, and when he didn’t pull the trick he lost his mind. There were cars driving by and he was flipping them off, screaming-the works. The most bizarre thing was that his fit only lasted for ten seconds, and then he was back to riding like nothing happened.

While at the 2001 X Games, Alistair Whitton said he found a rail he wanted to do, but the only catch was that it was backstage in the arena where the contest was being held. There was security everywhere, and the rail was right down the hall from the heavily-trafficked athlete lounge, but Ali didn’t care. It took two tries and then we got out of there with the Table of Contents photo for issue 68.

While in Salt Lake City for the first Vans Triple Crown of BMX, Keith Mulligan and I had to drive to the airport to pick up James Ayres. On the way we came across a wild scene: an old guy on a motorcycle with a dog on the back, and the dog was wearing a Harley T-shirt and goggles. While Keith maneuvered the car, I dug a camera out of the back seat and then we followed the guy for a few miles shooting photos. This may not have been a BMX photo shoot, but it was still fun. The pho