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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Local Scene Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us September 14, 2005 Traveling skaters stake out park Group pitches tents in city’s skate park before moving on By Alan Panebaker Tidings Correspondent Michael Carfagna peers over the hood of the 1979 brown Datsun he and Cyrus Andrade, left, call home. Alan Panebaker | Ashland Daily Tidings Waking up with the sun to break down camp deep in the bowl of the Ashland skate park, Michael Carfagna brought his belongings up to the brown 1979 Datsun station wagon he and his friend Cyrus Andrade have called home for the last month. “The cops came and woke us up and told us to get out of here,” Carfagna said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be up so early.” Carfagna and Andrade have been friends since elementary school in Hawaii. Locals of the island of Kauai, they came to Oregon because “all the skateparks in Hawaii suck,” Andrade said. Yearning to hit all the best parks in Oregon, the two packed up everything and flew to the mainland. And by everything, they meant everything that can fit in the back of a Datsun with room enough for friends in the back seat. Dressed like they are on their way to see Slayer (Carfagna’s favorite band) play a death-metal concert, the duo wakes up every morning wherever they may have camped the day before and go skateboarding. “We don’t have any plans except going to the bum shelter to get food,” Carfagna said. Andrade and Carfagna have been in Oregon for about a month now. They flew into Portland (Andrade beat Carfagna here by about a week), bought the ’79 Datsun and started traveling around the Northwest hitting all the best skate parks from Rainier to Ashland. Camping in fields, abandoned lots and anywhere an old road takes them, the two have been living simple lives revolving around skateboarding. They don’t have the latest in skate shoes, trucks or boards, but pardon the slang, they kill it. Riding old-school boards and wearing tattered threads, the two shredded the Ashland skate park this morning. Now that the two have made their way down to Ashland, though, they are thinking about staying somewhere for a little while and perhaps getting jobs. “We haven’t found any work yet,” Andrade said. But for the time being, they are a little more concerned with finding sick bowls to skate than settling down to find a real job. Their plan for the day: maybe drive around Ashland and skate some more in the evening. The only dilemma: finding a new place to sleep, since the Ashland Police Department is not too keen on skaters homesteading on public property. If there are two words that could describe 19-year-old Andrade and 18-year-old Carfagna, they would be “punk rock.” Sporting a jacket with patches of bands like Black Flag and the Misfits, Carfagna is not the type of character one would confront about advice on where to go during the Shakespeare festival. However, he and Andrade, along with another friend from Hawaii who is coming out to Oregon, are not strangers to performing arts and music. In fact, one of their reasons for coming out to Oregon was the possibility of playing gigs in Portland. The two describe their band, Tweakin’ Like Matty, as pure death metal punk. “We’re like punk or thrash metal,” they said. So as Ashland residents hustled to get their recycling done at the center next to the skate park, Andrade and Carfagna loaded up the Datsun and headed off for their next adventure. They don’t know where they are staying tonight or even how long they will be in Ashland. But that doesn’t bother these Hawaiians. The future, for them, is wide open. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Merchant Account Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams