Southern California Pools

“It was 6pm on a Saturday night and I was headed down to LA from Tahoe to meet up with Zach Cusano and Chuck Pontone who flew in from Denver. Got down to LA by 2 am, slept a few hours and then we were off to hit some pools bright and early. The first day we hit a few pools in the LA and Hollywood surrounding areas bartering weed and beer for permission to skate from a tweaker and some construction dudes as well as one barge. Next day we met up with Peacock, Tristan Rennie, and CJ Collins at Peacock’s house and headed south towards the border.


Filmed by Zach Cusano and Chuck Pontone
Edited by Johannes Hirschmann @dr_schmanski



Josh brought us to this really rad spot just about ten minutes from the border. It was the perfect place to take photos. Bee boxes everywhere, a sick background with some desert mountains, a graveyard of old cars scattered all over, and a gnarly pool with some thick loaf and a sick euro. The last day the Danglers had to leave on a late flight so that gave us just enough time to hit one last pool. We got to this pool and it was a real shit pit. Scum lines and scum water all in the deep end. We drained the pool, dried it up, and got to skating. We had 30 minuets to get the tricks and to get the shots or else the homies were going to miss their flight. In the end we made it happen. Chuck and Zach got their tricks and I got the shots. Three days and eight pools. Three homies from the east coast meeting up in LA and getting it done. Everyone got their own and everyone killed. Rad times and rad people. Big thanks to Zach and Chuck for telling me to make the trip down, and to everyone who made the trip possible. We made the Westside Connection.”

Words + photos by Andrew Sergeant

Zach Cusano. Andrecht.

Zach Cusano. Tailblock

Margaret Cutter. Backside grind

Zach Cusano. Invert

Chuck Pontone. Fingerflip lien to tail

Chuck Pontone. Invert

Chuck Pontone. Blunt to fakie

Zach Cusano. Pivot fakie

Zach Cusano. Crail on the hip

Chuck Pontone. Nosegrind

Chuck Pontone. Indy fastplant to fakie. Hollywood, CA

El Centro, California. Near the border of Mexico.

Zach Cusano. Crailslide

Chuck Pontone. Backsmith over the ladder.

Chuck at El Centro.

Tristan Rennie. El Centro.

Chuck Pontone. Frontside invert at El Centro

Tristan Rennie. Blunt in El Centro.

CJ Collins backside early grab off the loveseat at El Centro

Tristan Rennie. Backside disaster. El Centro

CJ Collins. Ollie over the old diving board. El Centro

Zach Cusano. Backside boneless over the loveseat. El Centro

CJ Collins. Front blunt on the loveseat at El Centro pool

Tristan Rennie. Rock n Roll on the vert hip in El Centro

Chuck Pontone. Frontside nosegrind tailgrab at El Centro