Editor’s note: If you’ve had a chance to check out the Alliance 10-Year issue, then you probably know how crazy of a year 2009 was for Chris O’Shea. If you haven’t seen the issue yet, go find it ASAP. To put it simply, Chris-O’s stories from that year were so long, extensive, and crazy that we didn’t have close to enough room in the magazine for them. Thank goodness for the Internet! Here, in his own words, is Chris-O’s recollection of the craziness that took place in and around Brostock 2009. Kids, there’s a valuable lesson (or two, or three) in here. Don’t try this at home.

2009 was a year unlike any other for Chris O'Shea

Brostock was definitely a wild experience for me that year. Danny Harf took the cake once again. It was the biggest prize money event I have ever been involved in and I actually almost didn’t even get to ride this event because I ended up going to jail on the first night. Long story short we were all just having a few drinks and I ended up jumping on a jet-ski to go visit some friends on another houseboat when the cops came out of nowhere and nabbed me for being intoxicated and operating the ski. They were super bitter and just not cool at all with the whole scene of Brostock, so off to jail I went.

Powell is in the middle of the desert and I was in a cell the rest of that day and all night with all these crazies who were tripping on peyote and this one dude was puking all night and it was just super gnarly. The next day they moved me to a cell with all these huge Samoan dudes and the cops were saying I’d be there for like two days. I decided to have a shower while I was there and got all soaped up just in time for the Samoan’s to start waking up and there I was frantically trying to rinse the soap off, but the shower only gave you like a squirt of water each time you pushed the button so I was fully freaking out. Luckily I escaped a horror story there and got back into my orange jumpsuit. The crew from Brostock convinced the helicopter pilot (who was there to fly for the cameras) to fly them up to the prison to get me out. When they got there the authorities refused to release me so I was stuck for a while longer.

Finally I was released, but I had missed my helicopter ride back to the event and had no way of contacting anybody because there’s no cell service on the lake. So I was literally wandering through the desert in nothing but my boardshorts: no phone, no wallet, nothing. I thought I was going to die in the desert with no idea which way Lake Powell was. Eventually I found a service station and asked like 50 people to help me out but no one was very enthusiastic about helping out the kid with long hair and a beard with nothing but boardshorts who was just wandering through the desert. Finally I found this one super religious guy who just came back from some sort of church mission in Australia so he felt like it was his duty to help me out, so I finally made it back to Lake Powell and caught a ride back to the houseboats.

When I got there they were literally about to scratch my name from the running order because they knew I was in jail but I surprised them all and literally showed up, threw on my board and then went out and killed it. I made it through the first round and ripped again and before I knew it I was in the finals. I ended up making some decent money in the event, which helped to pay for all the court fees and other crap I got from being sent to jail. I actually had to go back to jail after the event for another 58 hours where I got thrown into this one cell with 30 people in it. Then they assigned me to another cell with a bunky (bunk bed) and as they walked me in everyone was yelling and making all this noise as I walked through. Through the bars I saw my cellmate had “NO HOPE” tattooed across his fists and the first thing he says is “I got this f@#$%& for a cellmate!” I’m just standing there freaking out thinking I can’t bitch out now, I gotta stand up for myself so I don’t get the crap beat out of me or raped or something. So I looked right back at him and said, “F$*& you, you f#$*&%@ c&*$!” That more or less caused a fight to break out and this dude was getting his head smashed against a pole… gnarly stuff. It only got broken up by the cops because they started shooting at them with these little bean bag bullets.

After my time in jail I finally got release only to get dropped by Hyperlite right after, so shit was going really bad, but then I got the call saying I was the Rider of the Year which was a HUGE dose of encouragement that I needed badly at that point. 2009 was like the best and worst year all in one.

Chris-O throwing down at Brostock 2009 after hitchiking to the contest from jail