Boys Will Be Wetboys

Since the early '90s, videos had been skateboarding's primary mode of communication. The big-time videos would usually add the so-called "mess-around" tricks — the wacky stuff that the pros might do between difficult shots — behind the end credits. But the Wetboys integrated this silliness throughout their production and backed it up with great skating. "This vid is a great example of the beauty of skateboarding, innovative, creative," says one viewer on YouTube, where the clip continues to receive thousands of hits a day. "Makes me want to start skateboarding again," says another.

"It was just their presence on screen," says Spencer. "They had flair, the way they skated, style — and a lot of stuff they put in the video was interesting and kept things moving. The editing was really good."

The start of the Wetboys' 2006 contest submission has them exiting a moving car and "ghost-riding the whip" while they do tricks on the street, after which they climb back in and drive off. They won the title again that year. But some of the competition grumbled that their win was based more on hype than substance.

The backlash was beginning.

Get wet with Don Naughty: I'm from Texas originally, then I moved to Arizona when I was young, young, like eight. I've been skating since I was a little kid, because of my uncle. I saw him skating or something. I met Styles and Jerrod and all the friends when they visited down south. I came up to Denver to check it out and loved the hell out of this city.

We've gotten into some crazy shit. I admit it. Peeing on fools. I pissed on Chalky; that's how he got initiated. Thomas dumped a forty on his head and I peed on his feet and made him dance. Like, "Dance, you sumbitch!" He got it pretty easy, actually. I made out with some fucking dudes. It's gnarly. But if you like guys, I guess it's not gnarly. But fuck. At first people won't do it, but once you get drunk, they're like, "Whatever," then they're like 'Rawwr!' That's the only way to do it.

Back in the day, we'd only work at a job just to get a paycheck and then quit. Shit like that. I worked at a pizza place, and when I went in for my check, I walked in with a T-shirt that I wrote "I QUIT!" across the front. They told me about it later. I was blacked-out drunk. Right now I got a job busing tables. I'm mostly couch-surfing now. You know, saving up.

I don't really think about the Wetboys as a thing. We're just a group of people who found the right group of people. Nothing else. We were all in the same shit, just having fun. It's skateboarding, dude.

Sixth. Some Wetboys don't kiss and tell. Paul, for example. He's sitting on a keg shell in the back room of the Lion's Lair, which is reserved for employees and Wetboys. Tonight is $2 U Call It night, also known unofficially as Wetboy Wednesday, when the tribe convenes to burn through their hard-earned tip money and get "stupid drunk" as efficiently as possible. Ever since last summer, when they moved out of the "Wetboys Compound," a row of houses on Capitol Hill, bars have been their gathering place.

Paul, who just broke up with his girlfriend, doesn't even want to think about making out. He rubs his beard and looks like he might tip over, like one of those balancing rocks in the Utah desert.