Gonzo's Red Bull Story Article at Skatepark of Tampa

Gonzo's Red Bull Story

Posted on Monday, November 3, 2008 by Gonzo

Words by Gonzo
Photos and Captions by Porpe

This was the only photo I remember taking this night. This open bar menu was the reason for a whole bunch of ruckus that went down
At first the inside of the place was empty and it was really easy to get drinks. John and I lurked in the empty room for a while taking advantage of the free alcohol. I had no idea what I was in for after a couple hours of pounding Jack Daniels and Red Bull Cola
I think the only reason I took this photo was because this dude has a crazy resemblance to both Schaefer and Clements, don’t you agree?
Gonzo doesn’t have his drunken face on, but Furlong and BGP dude definitely have it on
Jereme Rogers was in the house, along Brent Ringenbach from Fuel TV. If I recall correctly I was giving both of them career advice. I told Jereme he shouldn’t be in the so called rap game, but later that night he ended up getting arrested, so I guess that gives him some street cred, right? Surprisingly for how generic Brent Ringenbach looks on the Weekly Update, he is actually a down-to-earth, cool dude
Ryan Sheckler jocking-out mid punch. From the story I got from Ryan’s dad the next morning, this is supposedly one of his homies. And from the story I got from Peter at Red Bull, Ryan was trying to fight everyone that night including me. He must have not liked the career advice I was giving him. After this incident I vaguely recall a big brawl outside with me getting head-butted by Kurtis Colamonico. Thank you Red Bull for the hotel, free alcohol, and sore jaw
First of all, I’d like to start out by saying that the most difficult part of writing this or any other story for that matter for me is always the length. I like to go into detail and no matter what the topic, I seem to go on and on and on until it’s like I’m writing my life story. No matter how hard I try to implement the term “short and sweet” into an article, when it comes to getting it done I just can’t limit myself. I’m like the fat kid at the buffet that has to get that last plate. I have to squeeze in that last sentence no matter how redundant or unnecessary it may be, until the story is so over-saturated that I have officially lost the attention of even that last patient reader that has only made it this long because he or she feels like they have come so far that if they abandon me now, all the patience that enabled them to continue reading up to this point would have gone to waste. This is probably the reason why I’ve already been told numerous times that I need to just do a quick re-cap of what happened so people get the gist and be done with it. No rambling on! So on that note here we go. This will be my most stellar attempt thus far. This will be under a page for sure! I swear!

I tried to wake Jorge up for at least an hour on Friday morning prior to 9:30am. Keep in mind we spent the night in Orlando courtesy of our fine friends at Red Bull and we were supposed to be back in Tampa for work at 9am. So I decided to try to fool him, “Jorge wake up man, we are late as hell! Clements is here and he wants to talk to you. He sounds pissed!”

Jorge’s reply before going back to sleep for two more hours taught me something and transformed the intense hangover and results of a blurry, intoxicated night before into a worth-while learning experience that will change my writing forever. This was genius and helped me come to the realization that to get the point across you don’t always have to give your readers a descriptive background, engage them with clever metaphors, or even supply them with the information they need in order to know exactly what happened. He taught me that sometimes to get the point across, all you need is one blurted out, unconscious, totally innocent, spur-of-the-moment statement that, if it’s the right one, is worth more than one hundred other meaningless words.

So what was Jorge’s genius response to the angry invisible Ryan Clements in our hotel room to justify to him why his assistant was still in bed and not at his desk working?

“Gonzo, just tell him we raged.”

Thank you Red Bull for the good times and hotel room, Barak for the opportunity, Ryan Clements for letting us keep our jobs, and Jorge Angel for almost 10 years of friendship, non-stop laughs, and the naïve, care-free, and genuine attitude that even through thick and thin has always, and will continue to, keep us the best of friends.

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