Nick Garcia: Five Greats

NickGarcia 5Greats Header
Nick is a rare breed of pro skater. He’s thoughtful, but not in a pretentious way. The Long Beach lifer can talk to you about Karl Marx and Noam Chomsky, or he’s down to get a dice game going. A guy who can hang with both sides of the brow, you know he's got some good lists about reasons not to skate, despicable slang, Element Alumni and more—as seen in our February ‘22 issue.


A touching tribute to his mom, Nick's new Element part is one of the best performances of his career

NickGarcia subhead 1
  • Kevin Romar
  • Julian Davidson
  • Marcus Carr
  • Don Luong
  • Darien Brown

NickGarcia subhead 2
  • Arms flailing
  • Bussup
  • Dave missed it
  • It was too dark ’cause it took me too long
  • Get too giddy and try a flatground trick after landing and miss it

NickGarcia subhead 3
  • Old school kickflip
  • Early grab 360
  • Backside no complies feel cool
  • A satisfying firecracker off a curb
  • Powerslide into a pole and make that cool “ping” sound

NickGarcia DoubleHippyJump LongBeachCA KyleSeidler DZDouble-barrel hippie jump, ollies are overrated     Photo: Seidler

NickGarcia subhead 4
  • Carl Sagan
  • Karl Marx
  • Leonard Cohen
  • Robert Mapplethorpe
  • Noam Chomsky

NickGarcia subhead 5
  • French exit
  • Houdini
  • Smoke bomb
  • Go for a smoke, don’t come back
  • Pass out on the couch


Nick Garcia Gorilla Grip 50 50 750A magician never reveals their tricks, but damn, this one doesn’t even have a name 

NickGarcia subhead 6
  • Cool Hand Luke
  • Vanilla Sky
  • Lost in Translation
  • The Stoned Age
  • The Life Aquatic

NickGarcia subhead 7
  • Tony Tave
  • Brent Atchley
  • Julian Davidson
  • Evan Smith
  • Chad Tim Tim

NickGarcia subhead 8
  • Julian’s name done by him
  • Dave’s name done by him
  • David Reyes’ name done by him
  • Any of my friends’ names who wanna tattoo on me
  • One for mom

NickGarcia 180SwCrook NewportBeachCA KyleSeidler DZRooftop 180 to switch crooks—go ahead and call the cops     Photo: Seidler

NickGarcia subhead 9
  • Bribery
  • Beg with puppy-dog eyes
  • “Just call the cops”
  • Run a diversion
  • Ask for forgiveness, not permission

NickGarcia subhead 11
  • Dave Hoang
  • Don Luong
  • Mike Manzoori
  • Jon Miner
  • Ricki Bedenbaugh

NickGarcia subhead 13
  • Bag of Suck
  • Baker 2G
  • Mosaic
  • The 917 Video
  • Cherry

Nick Garcia Fakie Nosegrind 750Nick's bag of tricks needs its own Rosetta Stone to decode, fakie nosegrind body varial 5-0 180

NickGarcia subhead 10
  • Traffic
  • Air quality
  • Being somewhere where driving isn’t necessary
  • Change of scenery
  • It’s a big world and I wanna see it all

NickGarcia subhead 12
  • Skate or just sweat in general
  • My dogs
  • Talk to my grandpa
  • Talk to Julian
  • Good music and a good cry

NickGarcia subhead 14
  • Street 720
  • Double loop
  • Roll off to grind a steep handrail
  • Vert varial on street
  • That frontside flip revert thing Kremer did, but backside

NickGarcia fsfeeble long alexpires DZGrinding the blues away with a front feeble on the far side     Photo: Pires

NickGarcia subhead 15
  • You’re making each other miserable
  • Different plans for the future
  • Unforgivable offenses
  • Picky eating
  • Habitual line stepping

NickGarcia subhead ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS
  • Pet a beaver once
  • Close bear encounters one day in Sequoia
  • Punked for my snacks by a mob of monkeys in Sri Lanka
  • Skating behind a circus in Japan, had a cool one on one with a giraffe
  • Dad caught a huge snapping turtle once and we spent all day seeing what it could break in half

NickGarcia subhead Successories
  • Phone charger
  • Skate tool/blade
  • Gulf Wax
  • Backup contacts
  • Coffee (or Red Bull when coffee isn’t an option)

Nick Garcia 5 Greats subhead SHIT TO KEEP ON THE COFFEE TABLE
  • Books
  • Nice candles
  • Ashtray
  • A lighter that shocks you— mixed in with normal ones
  • Dice

NickGarcia subhead DESPICABLE SLANG PHRASES
  • Let’s go
  • Cap
  • Most weed slang
  • Frick or frig when said in earnest
  • Saying things are “gay”

NickGarcia Wallie360Grab LasVegasNV KyleSeidler DZWallie to Indy corkscrew in Las Vegas, bet on that     Photo: Seidler

NickGarcia subhead CONSPIRACIES THAT MIGHT BE TRUE
  • Always thought it was weird they didn’t show bin Laden’s body
  • The two-party system is an obvious manipulation tool
  • Kennedy
  • Simulation theory
  • The nuke on Japan wasn’t necessary

Nick Garcia subhead THINGS TO SCREAM WHEN YOU’RE MAD
  • “This is my life”
  • “Fuck” (but with your voice cracking)
  • “I’m literally about to cry”
  • “This is supposed to be fun”
  • “See what happens when you fuckin’ look at me” —Ethan Loy

Nick Garcia subhead BULLSHIT SNACKS
  • Lunchables
  • All Dressed Ruffles
  • Sour Belts, preferably strawberry
  • Riesen chocolate
  • Goldfish

NickGarcia subhead CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
  • Road trips with grandpa Wally
  • Building PVC flatbars
  • Shoplifting whole BBQs worth of food
  • Running from cops
  • Playing board games with mom

NickGarcia Salad180 BarcelonaSP KyleSeidler DZBack salad to fakie into the friggin’ ribbon ride     Photo: Seidler

NickGarcia subhead REASONS NOT TO SKATE
  • Ankles
  • Reset button
  • Heat
  • Family time
  • Seeing someone get hurt badly usually ends my day, too

NickGarcia subhead CHERRY PARK MOMENTS
  • My friend EC knocking people out
  • This guy was eating out of the trash and Julian gave him some money for food. Minutes later he was eating out of the trash again
  • Every time Dave skates
  • Drunken midnight session with my homie Keegan Walker, RIP
  • Hellbomb always goes off

NickGarcia subhead LIVE-MUSIC EXPERIENCES
  • Patti Smith
  • Slowdive
  • Ray Barbee
  • Chief Keef
  • Sabbath

Nick Garcia Kickflip 5 0 750Front tail kickflip to 5-0, Nick's insane and sports a mohawk. The same can be said for Travis Bickle, but in a much different sense

NickGarcia subhead long beach legends
  • Rob G
  • Danny Montoya
  • Chad Tim Tim
  • Dave Hoang
  • Julian Davidson

NickGarcia subhead WAYS TO BLOW IT ON A TRIP
  • Miss your flight
  • Try to switch up the seating arrangement
  • Drink the piss bottle on accident
  • Get injured while not skating
  • Go to jail

NickGarcia RussianBoneless2 LasVegasNV KyleSeidler DZRussian boneless in the Nevada spillways, fusion skating at its finest      Photo: Seidler

NickGarcia subhead MOMENTS WITH NYJAH
  • Appleyard and I got his room key from the front desk and flipped him out of his bed
  • Watching him take the heaviest slams I’ve ever seen and still get up and land it
  • When he was real young he got mobbed by a bunch of kids in Costa Rica and they were trying to rip his dreads off
  • Listening to Cole Mathews give him shit
  • One time he strangled me really hard in a club but it was somehow endearing

NickGarcia subhead COSTUME-PARTY OUTFITS
  • The Backwards Man from Freddy Got Fingered
  • This ship will have sailed by next year, but an Irish version of Island Boys—Ireland Boys
  • The guy with no shirt (Randy) from Trailer Park Boys
  • Anything where a whole group of people are involveD
  • Baker-era Jim Greco

NickGarcia PolejamOvercrookGrab PasadenaCA KyleSeidler DZPole-jam tuck-knee overcrook—NBD or WTF?      Photo: Seidler

NickGarcia subhead PHOTOGRAPHERS
  • Brian Gaberman
  • Jake Darwen
  • Jerry Hsu
  • Richard Avedon
  • Robert Mapplethorpe

NickGarcia subhead SONGS TO HYPE UP THE SESSION
  • Deep Purple “Child in Time”
  • Mercyful Fate “A Corpse Without Soul”
  • Laura Branigan “Gloria”
  • Big L “Devil’s Son”
  • Dystopia “Hands That Mold”

NickGarcia subhead PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
  • Become bilingual
  • Live overseas for a bit
  • Drive to Alaska
  • Learn to drive stick shift
  • Skate for as long as my body will allow

NickGarcia PoleJam LongBeachCA KyleSeidler DZLong-distance pole jam into the ditch in LBC, Nick Gar is gnar. Now go watch his new part again!     Photo: Seidler
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