dawes just sent along this photo of phil, towards a video project schmitty is working on that i'm helping out on a little. something about this photo always captured phil's style to me- just going huge, looking like it's no big deal, so relaxed... the guy looked good on a board, plain and simple. beautiful, really.

i've been thinking about phil so much lately. tomorrow is 10 years since he died (also my birthday- thanks for lining that one up, phil...), and yesterday was 10 years since the last time i saw and skated with him. that day after work (my second week at SLAP, he was working at thrasher while he was rehabbing his knee from surgery), he, diego bucchieri and i went and bombed hills in SF, got some dinner and a beer while out skating. it was a lot of fun, and i guess about as fitting a last session with him as i could have wished for. well, maybe not- that'd probably have been skating mitchell park in palo alto with phil, paul, mike, dave and me- our little hometown posse circa mid-90s- but whatever, i'm glad i got to skate with him that one last time. that night he left on a road trip up the west coast. after we said goodbye, i remember so clearly watching him and diego walking down the street towards the corner store to get a drink- the sun was starting to go down, and there he was, walking off into the sunset.the corner of rhode island and 23rd in san francisco. i even stopped to watch them walk for a second because it seemed like a moment. i moved on to rhode island and 25th about a year later, but that's a whole other set of stories...

anyhow, he left on the trip that night with a few guys. the next day they skated up near humboldt and went to a party that night. phil split with some girl from the party who he'd never met. she was gonna give him a ride somewhere. along the way on that ride, she fell asleep at the wheel (she'd been partying), lost control of the car, and went off the road. phil died in the crash, she survived unscathed. i remember that when the cops came she was so disoriented that she told them she was alone in the car and so they didn't find phil in there for awhile, mainly because the girl was just about to move back into the dorms at the university and so her car was filled with things that spilled out and cluttered her car all up in the crash. i've wondered if there would have been time to save him if she'd told the cops he was also in the car, but there's no sense in wondering about that, and i actually prefer thinking that he died real quickly in the accident. as i recall, phil's family didn't want to press charges against the girl, and so i think she was in jail for a minute but ended up just doing a lot of community service, talking about driving drunk. i'm not sure about that though, i've never wanted to know anything about her.

phil's passing was such a surprise, such a shock to me. definitely the hardest and closest death has ever struck with me. i've lost some grandparents and some acquaintances, but phil was one of my best friends and we did so much together, it just hurt more. it still does when i really think about it. and i do think about it, especially lately. but what i try to remember more, and what i do remember more, are all the awesome times we shared, all the good times, the funny times...

watching him take 3rd place at his first pro contest (back to the city in 1993) and just being SO stoked when christian hosoi came up to him afterwards to tell him he had good style...

when he got so drunk one new year's eve that he got alcohol poisoning and was just barfing his guts out into a garbage can, stopping to look up at me and a couple other friends holding him up, saying with all this love in his eyes "my friends... my friends" over and over again.

the slam he takes at the beginning of "Damage" where it looks like he gets completely wrecked locking up on a smith on a bump to bar but he was actually laughing as soon as he hit the ground because he already knew how funny it looked...

watching him skate with drehobl...

seeing the proud little smile on his face after he did a smith grind at china banks...

driving cross country with him on tour and seeing kids just in awe of him as he crushed vert in shorts and then went to the street course and killed it there, too...

i could go on and on, but i won't. i just want to say that i'll always have big love for my friend, that i miss him, and value every second i spent with him. god speed, PAS.

did you know there's a photo of him doing a f/s bluntslide on a curb on his headstone? forever shredder.