Boys Will Be Wetboys

Even as their reputation as hard-core skaters and partyers spread beyond Colorado's borders, it became clear to the Wetboys that their making-out ritual had crossed some line. A 2005 article in Automatic, an Orange County-based skateboard magazine, promised an interesting look at the Wetboys, but quickly degenerated into a snarky, innuendo-filled rant. Skaters from Kansas on tour in Michigan had to endure hours of Wetboy jokes just because they were friends with skaters in Denver. Mark Spencer got anonymous phone calls from out-of-state skaters threatening to beat the shit out of the Wetboy faggots. Skateboard teams touring through town were reluctant to meet with the Wetboys, thinking they were some clan of crackhead queer skaters who might, like, try to rape them or something. Big-name professional skaters who'd formerly professed their allegiance covered up their Wetboys tattoos.

The Wetboys became the bogeymen of the skate world.

"It was just like high school all over again," Micah recalls. "Part of skateboarding is that you're not the jocks. Skateboarding was supposed to be a scene that accepted all the outcasts, was more tolerant."

Drunk girls making out for a room full of guys is now a Girls Gone Wild cliche. No one assumes that smooching sorority sisters are actual dyed-in-the-wool dykes ready to write off men forever. But for boys, even Wetboys, the standards are different.

"But our thing is that we aren't gay, we aren't faggots," Paul slurs. "I bet we get more chicks than anybody. Really. We don't really make out with dudes anymore. It was kind of a phase." Paul recently adopted a puppy from a friend. He named it Rufio, after the red-haired Lost Boy in Hook, the one who took over when Peter Pan left, who couldn't fly but could fight and skateboard. He says he never considered the connection to Micah's Bangarang! company, but just liked the name.

Naughty bursts through the door, screaming that his dance moves are the best: "I'm a walking, talking dance par-tay!" Naughty often makes such proclamations — about his moves, or how he likes the way his boogers smell, or how just once he'd like to do it to a really, really old lady.

"But if we had to put down someone else into the crew," Paul says, his eyes closing and head bobbing, "we'd for sure have to get our kiss on."

Hearing this, Naughty starts to laugh, but the whiskey he's pouring down his throat gets in the way. A mixture of vomit and bad liquor sprays out his nostrils and onto the floor. "Ugh, I'm okay," he says, pauses. "I'm fine."

He uses a rancid bar towel to wipe down his flannel. "I forgot that I hate whiskey," he proclaims. Then he heads back out the door to find some chicks to dance with.

Get wet with Dave Davis: I always say that I'm the redheaded stepchild of the Wetboys. That's why I call myself "The Dry Girl." I met Styles years ago, when he first moved here from Arizona, but I also knew Trevor and Saba before that. Just hanging out, drinking with them, skating. I've had these open warrants on me for the past four years, so I haven't been able to skate anywhere but the skatepark. But now I got them cleared up, so I can start hitting up the streets again.

They don't give a fuck, and that's good, because I don't give a fuck. It's the way we live life, day by day. It was just a bunch of kids that didn't give a fuck about life. I don't think I had to do an official initiation, but I've definitely been intoxicated a few times and gotten wet as fuck. Made out a while ago with Gordy and other fools. I crashed at a few of the Wethouses. I had a room at the one on Capitol Hill; it was gnarly. You'd wake up wondering who the hell is sleeping next to you. Who the hell is this girl, and where did she come from?

The filthy bathroom was the worst thing. The downstairs one was clogged and had shit overflowing for like a year. Shit on the floor. We just shut the door and never went in. I swear there was a shit monster living in there. I heard it breathing once. It just sat in there and ate shit.