chrome ball interview #176: rick ibaseta (2024)

rick i and chops sit down for conversation... again.

Tell us about the night you got shot.  

(laughs) That’s a crazy one! 

 

Well, it was the spring of ’93 and I was in New York, about to go spend my summer in Europe. I’d just flown in and had a little layover to visit some friends. I was staying at Eli Gesner’s house and had gone to hang out with Peter Huynh and Kevin Kessler up at their place on 113^th. When I get there, Kevin’s like, “Let’s go get some weed. I got this little bodega that I typically go to. You’re gonna love it.”

 

“Alright.”

 

Because I knew that I was about to go to Europe, I decided to leave all of my money in my bag. I really only brought enough with me for a nickel bag or something. Not much at all. 

 

Unfortunately, by the time we get there, the bodega was closed because it’s already, like, 11 o’clock at night. “Alright, I guess we’re gonna have to go to this other spot just up the street.”

 

You gotta remember that I’m totally looking like the California kid right now, with my skateboard in my hand. Totally out of place uptown. But we’re walking to the spot, which is another two blocks up. We get there and Kevin goes in, but he tells me to stay outside because we’ll get a bigger bag that way. 

 

So, I’m standing outside by myself, when out of the corner of my eye, I notice these guys down the block. I didn’t really think too much of it, I just keep looking up at the window. Next thing I know, this guy is on me. Just like that, boom, and he’s got a gun to my stomach.

 

“Don’t look at me. Give me your money.”

 

I give him all my money… but the problem was that I’d already given most of it to Kevin for the weed. So, I’m basically giving this guy, like, two dollars. “This is all I got. Take it.”

 

He takes the money but doesn’t leave. He just repeating himself, “Don’t look at me!”

 

He starts looking around… then backs up real quick and pulls the trigger. Takes off running. 

 

Holy shit!

 

Right!?! At this point, my ears are ringing, but I’m still standing up. What is going on? My first thought was that it was a cap gun, but then I look down and see all of these little dots on my elbow. Gunpowder burns, because he’d fired from so close. That’s when I see the bullet hole in my shirt, and I’m like, “Oh my god, did I get shot!?!”

 

I start touching my stomach and checking my hands to see if there’s any blood, but there’s nothing. Somehow, the bullet had gone through my shirt and came out the other side… he missed me! And he was only a couple feet away, basically at point-blank range. It was crazy, just like that Wu-Tang lyric, “Shoot me at point-blank range but only grazed me.” 

that's where rick got shot. photo: tobin

 

So insane. But if this was ’93, you were probably wearing a double XL. Might’ve saved your life!

 

(laughs) I still have the shirt! It was baggy, for sure. 

 

But yeah, I just remember running back to Eli’s house after that. Jumping on him and telling him about how I almost got killed. 

 

You had to be shock for minute, right? Possibly on some Jules Winnfield/Pulp Fiction shit?

 

I’m sure that I was for a minute, but more than anything, I was just happy to be alive. To this day, Eli still calls me “The Bullet Dodger”, but it was totally luck.  

 

Well, going back to a more innocent time, talk about growing up skateboarding in San Francisco. Are you just roaming around the city as a little dude? Hanging out in Fogtown and hitting up those Golden Gate Park launch ramp sessions?

 

I mean, it all starts as cruising down the street, right? Then you see a couple videos, which Future Primitive was the big one for me. Once I saw Tommy ollie that bush, I was hooked. That’s when I realized that other things are possible and there’s more fun to be had. 

 

That part opened our eyes and made us start looking at our environment a little more closely. Like, what can we ollie ourselves onto? How fast can we go? How many garbage door lengths can we slide? That was a real thing for us back then. My friend rode Mini-Cubics wheels. He would slide as much as he could so his wheels would end up being the same size as his Tracker Sixtracks with copers, like a lowrider. We’d skate from one end of the city to the other, Sick Boys-style. It was just so cool, man. Those days were different, but a new skater coming to the city for the first time would understand it immediately. 

photo: duarte

 

Did you have a sense of being in the center of so many things as a skate kid in San Francisco? 

 

Honestly, it never really felt all that special. We were just skating. I didn’t really think about stuff like that. 

 

Right, but you brought up Future Primitive, that TG part was filmed just a few blocks away. Not to mention having Thrasher Magazine as a staple in your city. That’s a much different experience than most, myself included. 

 

I know what you’re saying, but we were still so young. We were just hyped on everything. Like those Golden Gate Park launch ramp sessions? Those were what you waited all week for. Sure, you skated with friends during the week, but you always knew that shit was about to go down on Sunday. People would come in from wherever, all over the city. And it was during that time when you knew who everybody was and where they were from. It wasn’t as popular as it is now, which is actually how I ended up meeting a lot of my friends back then. Because everybody would be there. Guys like Arco, Ken Takeda and Camden Scott, who was a fucking ripper. Ray Meyer and his crew. East Bay dudes, like Bryan Ferdinand and Wade Speyer. And occasionally, Tommy would show up and let everybody know how it was done. The right way. But yeah, all of these people influenced how I skated. 

 

I remember Mike Carroll skating there. He was only, like, 11 years old, but he could already ollie off a jump ramp super high. Almost as high as Tommy, actually. He was seriously like a child prodigy, for sure. He’s always been the prototype. Prodigy, prototype… everything just came naturally for him. 

photo: duarte

Didn’t you teach Carroll how to kickflip? 

 

Well, I showed him the motions of how to “ollie flip”. But his kickflip ended up being much different than what the rest of us were doing. I can’t take credit for that at all. But yeah, he had gotten into a fight with his brother and called me up afterwards, like, “Dude, I’m fuckin’ running away.”

 

“Alright, I’ll meet you at the bus stop. You can stay at my house.”

 

He ends up staying at my house for a week or so, and we’re skating all over the city. It was one of those days, we were waiting for the bus and he was trying to learn kickflips. He was so small and the board was so big, he was switching his stance because he was kicking so hard. But yeah, I still remember him making one and looking at me with that “I just landed my first kickflip” face, you know? And I’m like “Yeah, dude!” (laughs)

 

He could just do them after that. 

 

So, you taught Mike Carroll how to kickflip after he ran away from home? 

 

Yeah, my pebble in the rain... And my sister gave us both flat-top haircuts, too. 

photo: duarte

 

(laughs) When did you realize that you and your buddies were becoming the next generation of street skaters? And not just sponsored kids, but really leading the charge?  

 

Oh, I saw that in Mike and Jovontae early on, for sure. Because those dudes were always so good. They were always on it. Like, I remember them going to skate camp one summer in Santa Clara or Visalia or something. They ended up meeting all the H-Street dudes and basically came back sponsored. I remember thinking “You guys go away for one week and come back sponsored? What the hell!?!”

 

It was just this thing. We’d go out to a contest and Mike would win it. Like, whatever. It’s wild to think back on, but that’s just what we did. Then we all started skating Embarcadero together… which, I don’t know what it was about that place. It just ignited shit. Going down there and seeing what everybody was working on, pushing each other. Suddenly, we were all progressing at this crazy rate. That was all because of Embarcadero. It became the center of our little universe. 

 

I first got sponsored when I was 16, and when shit started showing up at my house, that’s when it got real for me, personally. Because I didn’t have to bug my parents to buy me boards anymore. That helped me out a lot. 

 

What’s funny is that I’ve never made a sponsor-me tape. Those other guys did. Mike and Jovontae did, but I never made one. It’s crazy how it worked all out, because so much of my shit was just through word of mouth and people vouching for me. Like, we all got on FTC at the same time, but I wasn’t even there that day. Kent had a little jump ramp jam in Japantown, but I couldn’t make it. I had homework or something. But Mike and Jovontae went and they both got sponsored by FTC… and they got me on! They called me up that night, like, “Hey, you’re sponsored by FTC now!” 

 

“What do you mean?!”

 

“Kent said that he wanted to sponsor us and we talked him into putting you on the team, too!”

 

And that’s how I got my first sponsor! It was pretty crazy. I ended up going with them to the shop one day and Kent broke it all down for us. We got one board per month, one pair of shoes per month, maybe a t-shirt, and some griptape. 

 

And he’d never even seen you skate?

No! Those guys were just like, “You gotta put Rick on, too!” (laughs)

photo: dawes

So, how’d you got on Shut, being all the way out on the west coast? 

 

That was through Coco, Danny Sargent and Shrewgy. There was a contest at Thompkins Square Park that they all went to check out. Danny and Shrewgy met up with Coco there, who we all knew from when he would fly back and forth to San Francisco all the time. He had a lot of family in the city, so he would always spend his summer here and we’d skate a lot together. We actually used to go skate Embarcadero a lot back then, before it became EMB. We had our own little crew going. 

 

But yeah, they were all at this Thompkins Square contest when Bruno and Rodney started talking to Shrewgy, saying how they wanted to get somebody for Shut from San Francisco. Shrewgy goes, “I know somebody. You should hook up my friend, Rick.”

 

Coco vouched for me, and that’s how I got on. Shut had never seen me skate, either. They just took Shrewgy and Coco’s word for it.

 

This is insane. When did Shut actually see you skate? 

 

They ended up flying out here. Rodney and Bruno came out to the city to skate because there was a skate camp that summer, right in the heart of Fillmore. That’s the first time I met those dudes, and they also took me to Studio 43, which was the first time I ever got to skate there, too. Bryce’s ramp. I even had a broken wrist at the time, but I didn’t care. I was stoked!

 

But yeah, it worked out. I ended up skating for Shut for almost a year. And I’m pretty sure I was their only West Coast rider back then, like the long-lost cousin or something.

photo: dolinsky

 

How were the boxes? 

 

Well, the gear was awesome. The shirts and stickers, everything about that stuff was so different. It was “street” back when there weren’t lot of graffiti graphics. Maybe Jeff Kendall and Bryce’s “BK” Madrid graphic, but that was about it. I loved it. 

 

They’d send mad boards, too, but Shut boards were really different. They had that bowl concave up front with a semi Tri-Tail? It was a different type of concave, for sure. They didn’t have the upturned kicknose that was just starting to happen. They never really got into that, which was a big setback. The boards were rad, it’s just that concaves had moved on from that. The upturned nose, man… that shit needed to happen.

 

You brought him up earlier, but what was Coco like? I’ve always been so curious about that dude. 

 

What’s funny is that he always used to get kinda jealous of Carroll. Not really “jealous”… probably more annoyed by Carroll than anything, because he was so good. Carroll was like his archrival or something, and I don’t know if Mike even realized it. But honestly, Coco was just as good, just in his own way. They skated so differently. Like Carroll wasn’t carving the bench at China Banks. He probably still hasn’t done that to this day. We should set up a clip day and try to get him to carve it! (laughs)

 

That would be awesome! 

 

Right!? But no, Coco killed China Banks. Backside ollie reverts, kickflips over the channel, tailslides… stalefish to tail on that thing? Dude was crazy with it. Coco was like a grown man skating in a kid’s body. He didn’t fuck around. Even back in the jump ramps days, he would always be pushing 100. Going so fast… and he could just destroy anything, on command. Like, I remember us hopping into our friend’s car to go skate some pools. San Carlos and the Olympic Dive Pool at Cappuccino High down in wherever that is? He killed it. I mean, dude taught me how to drop in at Hunter’s Point Ramp way back, and he was already doing backside airs and rock’n’rolls then!

photo: tobin

Speaking of China Banks, what about that gnarly Tobin photo of you rolling in? Was that your first photo in a mag? 

 

It was. Tobin shot that for an SF article in Transworld. And looking at that nose, I’m definitely riding a Shut board there.

 

That was always our thing at China Banks. Roll in, carve the bench and do a couple grinds. And then in the back, you could just go around in circles. Pump around on the banks and wallie off the side. That spot was always fun. 

 

Rolling in is pretty sketchy, though. It’s pretty high up there. 

 

Danny Sargent, Ken Takeda and Bryan Ferdinand were all early rollers at CB. Those guys would just go for it. And with dudes like that around, you wanted to prove that you could hang, too. 

 

You’ve said quitting Shut was one of your biggest regrets. Why? 

 

I don’t think it’s one of my biggest regrets, but I do regret quitting when I did. Just because they were the first company to really hook me up, you know? And I know they wanted to do more for me, but their hands were tied. There was all kinds of stuff happening with them.

 

Yeah, they were with Cow Skates Distribution by that point. 

 

Yeah, and I didn’t really know what that meant at the time or how that affected the back end for them. All I knew was that I suddenly had this other team interested in having me ride for them and they were in California. It was still Schmitt Six at the time, which was through Vision and seemed like they were capable of doing a lot more than Shut could back then. It wasn’t New Deal yet.  

 

The thing is when I quit Shut, I thought it was to ride for Schmitt Six. They never even said anything about New Deal. So, when I get my first box, there’s all this other stuff in there. The New Deal. New shit...but what the hell even is this? It was awesome, but also kind of a surprise. But that shit just took off. 

 

Was that all through Danny Sargent? 

 

Yeah, Danny hooked that up, for sure. And once again, no sponsor-me tape. Just Danny vouching for me. So crazy. And what’s even crazier is that I got The New Deal Promo video in my first box from those dudes and I’m in the video! Like, what!?! I didn’t even know that was happening. I guess Danny and I had gone out filming with Tobin or Luke Ogden at some point and they sent my footage in without me even knowing it. I might even be riding a Shut board there, actually.

 

It's been a long time since I watched that thing, but it was crazy to put that video in and actually be in it. I was still just an amateur at that point, so I was only in the montage… but still. That whole thing was pretty crazy. “Oh, what’s this new company? Wait, I’m in the video!?!” (laughs)

 

So how did you go about filming for Useless Wooden Toys? 

 

Well, Useless was all with Jake Rosenberg. I want to say that was two days of filming. Jake came up on two Saturdays or something, and that was pretty much it. 

 

I remember him showing up and asking, “Well, what are we doing?”

 

“I don’t know. What are we supposed to do?” (laughs)

 

I had no idea. 

But that was your big breakout part! That part changed your life! 

 

It really did, but I was just doing all the tricks I normally did. Trying to film as much of that as I could. Jovontae was filming for Now N Later at that time, too, so we went out together… or I tagged along with him. That played a big part for me in getting things done. 

 

That was the first time I met Jake. He came up and we met at Embarcadero. We filmed a little bit there and kept it going. He had a car, so we’d just drive around to different spots all over the city. 

 

There was also one day when Ed Templeton and Christian Kline came up to skate. They came to SF with an SVHS camera, which was fucking gigantic. We only had maybe an hour or two to film, but we made it work. I met them over at Fort Mason and got a couple of things for the video. Pop shove-it nose wheelie and that ollie off the curb cut to noseslide. 

 

Do you remember any big battles for that part? Or was this before the days of battling in front of the camera? 

 

I probably wouldn’t even call it a “battle”, but the only thing that stands out is that ollie at the end, over the sidewalk. That was really it, though. 

 

The one in front of all those dudes? 

 

Yeah, I had told Jake about wanting to ollie that thing and while I’m trying to do it, those guys happened to walk by and kinda forced me into doing one. 

 

Had you ever done that before?

 

No, but they called me out, you know?  So I ended up doing it and then I think we might’ve filmed another one.

 

That was actually at a gas station James Kelch used to work at. He worked there with my friend, Matt, who was “Kold Blue”.  

 

The dude that did your song in 1281! “Last Friday, bought an eighth of weed!”

 

Exactly! They both worked there. 

 

It’s wild that your sidewalk ollie is the last shot of the video, and the lady yelling at you is the first shot of the video. 

 

Oh shit, I've never thought about that! Weird!

 

Yeah, that was Jake and I on that second weekend of filming. Just some random SF mess speaker. Like, you know how you’ll be skating and something will just pop into somebody’s head who just happens to be walking by? And they start ranting to you about whatever? I guess she saw us skating and decided to let us know that she never wanted a skateboard. 

 

Okay, whatever. It’s not like I’m gonna sit down and have a conversation about it with you. 

 

I feel like you hit almost every SF spot in that part, even those old school steps in the avenues with the front shuv and that one foot. 

 

Yeah, on 33^rd! I was stoked on that. Jake would probably remember better than I would, but I feel like those were just some quick ones we picked up that day.

 

Unfortunately, you can’t skate those steps anymore. I can’t even imagine what would’ve gone down over those things by now. 

photo: ogden

 

I love the boardslide to backside 50-50, too. 

 

Yeah, Sears Curb! I’m pretty sure Jovontae was there that day, too. That one came out good. 

 

And that’s not an easy trick to make look good. 

 

It was just that time, man. That’s what we were doing back then… Just pop it up! Like, Jim Thiebaud would always be at that spot. Pop it up, Jim! (laughs)

 

This was around the time when Jim and Tommy started Real. We’d meet up for breakfast and go skate, which was cool because it’s Jim and Tommy, you know? That’s how you get better at skating, by skating with people who know what they’re doing. Studying their approach to certain things. And it was cool just to be invited. Like, damn, I guess this is what we’re doing now. 

 

Eddie’s?

 

Yeah, we’d go to Eddie’s, but it was maybe even a little bit before that, too. We’d always hit up the Spaghetti Western in Lower Haight as well. 

 

How often would you do that spiral move down Black Rock?

 

That was seriously the only time I ever did that. I just remember asking Jake what I should do on that thing for the camera and that’s what I came up with. But no, I’d never done it before. I guess I probably should’ve done something on my skateboard, but whatever. Fuck it, put it in the video. Use the clip of the brown guy sliding down the thing. (laughs)

You turned pro right after Useless, right? 

 

Yeah, I still don’t know how that happened, but I’ll take it. 

 

Did you feel like you were ready? Because you’d only been on the team for maybe six months at that point. 

 

Looking back, I definitely wasn’t ready. Because you’re right, I’d basically just gotten on the team! I might’ve thought I was ready at the time, but honestly, none of that even really mattered. The opportunity had presented itself, like, “Okay, here. You’re next.”

 

“Next for what?”

 

“We’re turning you pro next.”  

 

It’s not like I’m gonna say “no”, you know? This is all I have going for me. I’d already dropped out of high school. I can’t go back. I guess I’m doing this now. That’s just how it was. 

 

It was pretty crazy, because I was in Hong Kong with Andy Howell and Justin Girard when my board came out. They never even told me. I just remember seeing it on a flyer first, and then later on in a shop, like, “Woah!” 

original art by Andy Howell

Were you involved in that tugboat graphic at all? 

 

I was involved a little bit, because I like fishing and the tugboat symbolizes the Bay. I love SF, obviously, so we just went with that. Andy Howell drew it. Our idea was to make it like “The Little Engine That Could” but with a boat… which is crazy, because that story kinda parallels my career. It goes out into the world all young and fresh faced, and then ends up coming back all fucking damaged and crazy from it. That’s basically what happened to me! (laughs)

Well, after blowing up in Useless and turning pro, did you approach 1281 any differently? 

 

Not at all. It was actually easier, because by that point, people were always down to film me. “You want to film something? Let’s go.”

 

It just became a matter of thinking of spots and figuring out what I could do there. Like the switch 180 into the bank? No one liked to skate that thing. But I remember it being a full-on mission that day. Having the idea and wanting to go do it for the video, because that had never been done before. In Useless, I ollied into it, which was also my first FTC ad, actually. But now I’m going back there to do something a little harder for the new part… which, that spot kinda became a thing afterwards with Justin and I think Ed Devera skating it in the Mad Circle video. 

 

I imagine you filming longer than two days this time, right? 

 

Yeah, 1281 was a lot of footage from that summer, touring in Europe and Hong Kong. And I think I went out with Tobin or Luke for one day to film around SF. That’s when I got the Civic Center stuff and that backside 180 flip in the parking garage. Just wanting to pick up some things real quick. 

 

The fakie ollie over the fire hydrant was just down the street from New Deal. I remember filming that while we were editing because I didn’t have enough shit. What do we do? Well, there’s a hydrant down the street, let’s go check it out. (laughs)

 

What were your thoughts on all the crazy tech in 1281? That video felt like the birth of all that crazy backfoot pressure stuff, but you never really seemed to get into all that. 

 

All that stuff was cool, I just felt like it was for somebody else. It wasn’t my thing. Pressure flip were cool whenever other people did them, but I like popping my board. Scraping my tail like that always felt kinda weird. I did like late shove-its, I just couldn’t really do them. Ollie impossibles were cool, but no, I never really got into all the crazy pressure stuff. I just knew what that stuff would do to my shins. (laughs)

 

Sometimes you gotta sit things out. That stuff was a little too much for me. 

photo: dawes

Besides, front shuv nosegrinds are a much better trick. 

 

(laughs) Yeah, that was during my one day of filming with Luke or Tobin. That was something I definitely wanted to get for my part. Because I came back from Tokyo with a couple things in my pocket that I learned on tour and that was one of them. Some new shit! (laughs)

 

I remember learning it at a demo in Japan in front of Tower Records. The only things they had set up was a long slider bar in the middle and a bank at one end. It was honestly pretty rad, dude. Just a row of kids sitting up front, watching us skate a slider bar. And we were ripping, too. I remember backside nosegrinding the whole thing first, and I had been doing regular pop-shuv nosegrinds by that point, so I did a few of those, too. After that, I figured I might as well try a front shuv nosegrind and it worked out. I learned it at the demo that day. I was fuckin’ stoked on that one. 

 

That was a great day, man, because Andy and Justin were both ripping at the demo and I just learned a new trick. Then I go back to the van to grab some shit and Guru from Gangstarr is standing there! Just leaning on our van! Because we’d been blasting “Step Into The Arena” for the entire tour, he heard us playing his tape at the demo and was stoked! We couldn’t even believe it! So yeah, he invites us all to the show that night and we end up chilling backstage. It was awesome. 

 

Yeah, that’s a good day, for sure. 

 

Most definitely. I remember as we’re leaving, Guru says, “Keep doing your thing and pretty soon, you’ll be driving a Benz with a pinky ring.”  

 

“What!?! Okay!” (laughs)

I know you’re sick of being asked about the Barley Grind, so I’ll go ahead and say you did it first. 

 

(laughs) So, here’s the thing about that video: There’s the one on the little slider, which was a regular 180 to switch smith, and there’s the one on the bench in Madrid. That’s a switch 180 to smith. 

 

I can’t say that I invented it, though. I mean, Gonz did that 180 switch feeble in Video Days. Allen Losi and Buster Halterman used to do them on vert, too. That was just my interpretation. Monkey see, monkey do. 

 

How did Allen Losi and Buster Halterman play into this? 

 

Well, there’s the Losi Grind, which you can kinda see how that would inform it, right? It’s in that same ballpark. And from there, I feel like Buster did an alley-oop Losi Grind or frontside 180 into it in his Now N Later part. I’m pretty sure he does one in a barn or something. But yeah, I feel like that’s what really got me thinking about it, but instead of alley-ooping it, I just went over frontside 180 from the front of the bar. 180ing off on the same side at the end. 

 

As far as the switch 180 smith, my original intent was to actually half-cab into a frontside smith but I got frustrated, so I tried switch 180ing into it instead and it worked. But that was pretty much the only time I did that trick. I think I did it first try that way, too. (laughs)

 

But who cares? The score keepers? Names for tricks are crazy. Like, I can see Steve Caballero for the Caballerial because that shit was mind-blowing back then. Can’t be called anything else, but whatever. Basically, any trick before ’85 or ’86 should be named after those dudes… the fuckin’ Smith Grind, the Andrecht, the Caballerial, the Monty Grind. But everything after that? No one really cares.  

 

I have to imagine that double flip line stemming from Gonz’s influence as well, right? 

 

Oh, for sure. He did that double flip line in Video Days that was fuckin’ sick. I wanted some of that! Gotta pay my respects! (laughs)

 

I only did that because Gonz did that.

 Half-cab flip boardslide transfer at Safeway was awesome, too

Yeah, that was an interesting one. Why? Because here we are at Safeway, trying to film stuff, but it just felt like everything had already been done there. What else is left? Well, they gave me this fucking Everslick board to skate, might as well put it to good use. 

 

Safeway was awesome, but it was totally a different beast of a spot. You never knew who was going to be skating there or lurking around. And you never knew who was gonna show up either, because it was pretty much at the bottom of Corbett Hill. There was always be a constant influx of skaters coming through because people would take the bus to the top of the hill, bomb it, and end up at Safeway. 

 

That, and Safeway just happened to have the perfect two piece. Throw down, ollie the grill and hit the curb. And if you wanted to make a three piece, there was another curb on the building side. You could put together whatever you wanted. 

 

Was there any weird beef between that Safeway/Hellride crew and EMB back in the day? 

 

No weird beef, but people would often give Embarcadero shit because a lot of kids only skated there, like they only knew how to skate that one spot. But most of us grew up skating all over the city. Embarcadero was just another place for us to go. Skate, hang out, and see some shit. 

 

If anything, those dudes probably didn’t like that Embarcadero was getting all the attention. Not that we intended it to be that way, but it was a thing where Embarcadero kinda became the focus of everything. But you’d still see a lot of those guys down there, too. Once the clock struck midnight, there’d be a lot of dudes showing up that you might not expect to indulge in the bricks. It was magnetic.  

photo: ogden

 

What’s your favorite memory from down at Embarcadero?

 

Cutting school on a rainy day, going down to Embarcadero and seeing all my friends… because they had the same idea. Just hanging out. We couldn’t skate anywhere — it’s raining, but we’re down there anyway. All of us under the stage, doing flatground or even some streetplants in that dry little circle. Eventually, we’d head over and try to skate the BART station and get kicked out. Go skate a parking garage or something. But those times under the stage are really special to me. Just the friendships, you know? It took all those people to make Embarcadero happen. All those different talents and personalities to push each other. 

 

How did you deal with the Embarcadero explosion in the early 90s? Were you hyped or did you start shying away from basically doing demos for 200 kids every day? 

 

That was a weird one, because it was always our spot. For years, we went down there to skate and hang out, and it was all so organic. But then it just seemed to get more and more popular, with people coming in from everywhere. I increasingly started to feel like I didn’t want all these people, who I didn’t know, watching me skate. I wouldn’t call it “stage fright”, I just didn’t always feel like skating in front of people. Sometimes, you just want to go out and skate, you know? And not feel like you have to put on a show or something. Because I’m not that guy. I know that was kind of my livelihood, but not every single day. 

 

I started missing when I could just go down there and skate with my friends. So yeah, a lot of us started skating other spots. And for me, that’s when traveling really started coming into play. 

photo: tobin

Kind of a deep cut, I always loved your Indy ad with that ollie photo. Such a great shot, and a pretty bold choice to run an ollie in teched-out ’92. 

 

Yeah, Tobin shot that. That was on Taylor Street, and if you know anything about that spot, you know that as soon as you land, you’re going Mach 90. You’re hauling ass down that hill. I feel like that photo is one of those “less is more” things. Because what am I gonna do? I don’t want some photo of me kicking in the air, looking crazy. Doing something that you can’t even tell what it is. I want my feet on the board. 

 

If you look closely at my board in that photo, there are all these different colors. The nose has one color, where you do lipslides is another color, and where you do boardslides is another color. And the tail is a mix of all three. I meant for it to be like that. Hitting different painted curbs and ledges. We actually went out to get those marks on my board before we shot the photo. Only Sam Smyth knows that, because he was with us that day. 

 

Were we art directing there? Maybe. (laughs)

There’s been a lot of rewriting the Underworld Element origin story over the years. Didn’t that stem from you and Andy touring in Europe? Were you a co-founder along with Andy?

 

Yeah, I would think so. Because Andy could skate and paint anything, right? We were in Europe together and starting to feel like New Deal was getting too big. Too many riders. So, we came up with this idea to possibly start something a little different, albeit under the same roof. Just a different vibe, you know? We wanted a company that would consist of underdog skaters from different metropolitan cities, holding it down.

 

As Andy and I got talking about this new thing, I wanted to call it “something Element” and Andy wanted to call it “Underworld”. Fuck it, “Underworld Element”. 

 

I knew a graffiti writer in SF named “Mr. Element”. He did my second New Deal graphic, which was intended to be a precursor to us starting Underworld Element, because it’s signed by him as “Element”. I wanted him to do some more graphics but it never happened. 

 

My idea for the name “Element” actually came from the architect who built Embarcadero Plaza. His quote was “Embarcadero is the perfect environment when all of the elements come together.” That’s where I got the name “Element” from, way before we were ever gonna start a company. I’ve never told anybody that before. 

Amazing. Talk about those early days when the team went down to Atlanta for a month. Was that just to get together ideas? 

 

Yeah, that was crazy. We were still trying to figure out who all was going to ride for it. We already knew Pang was down, Chris Hall from New Deal, but we needed another person. It just so happened that Julien had got kicked off SMA around that time, and for whatever reason, nobody was really messing with him. It was a weird time, but still, it’s Julien Stranger! So I call him up, like, “Julien, fly out to Atlanta with me. We’re starting a new skateboard company and we want you to be part of it. Andy is gonna call you.”

 

We fly out to Atlanta and end up filming that promo video down there. Skating all over the city. It was a super exciting time, figuring everything out.

Was that when you guys shot those mugshots? 

 

Yeah, we shot those with Chris Ortiz one night down there in Andy’s little office. 

 

“36-24-36” on the slate.

 

(laughs) I don’t know what I was doing, dude. We just had to come up with some shit we liked for the little slate thing. That was all Andy’s idea. He got it from that Geto Boys album cover, the self-titled one. That album had just come out and we were listening to it constantly. Hip hop was still so fresh at the time, it was like the new punk. That’s what we were all into. 

photo: tobin

Didn’t Andy get you all pagers?

 

Yeah, that’s where the whole Skypager concept came from for the video. They bought us all Skypagers. I remember getting that box one day in the mail, already paid for. “Now we can page you wherever you’re at in the world.” 

 

I was hyped. 

 

What about some of your graphics back then? Like the Aeon Flux or that classic cop graphic.  

 

The Aeon Flux one came from Andy showing us that animated MTV show down in Atlanta. I was pretty hyped on that one. 

 

I actually had two cop graphics, and there also a slick bottom and regular one. But we got the more popular one from a Ralph Steadman book, and the quote is a lyric from Main Source’s “A Friendly Game of Baseball.” Because we fucking hated the cops back then. I mean, Jim had an anti-cop graphic, too! Those guys aren’t your friends. Yeah, they’re gonna want to talk to you about your kickflips, being all nice. Whatever. Don’t listen to them. They’re a bunch of jerks. (laughs)

 

Any good Pang stories from back in the day? 

 

Oh, Jeff was a huge influence on me back then. When I first met Jeff and Peter Huynh, I remember thinking to myself, “Fuck, these dudes are just like me.” 

 

They saw skateboarding the way I do. Their backgrounds are similar to mine. Straight up, I just knew we were gonna do some shit together. It was inevitable. But with Pang and Pete, everything was all kung-fu and hip hop. That was their whole deal. Like, I remember one night, we got all drunk and started talking about the one-inch punch. So, of course, Jeff and I started doing it to each other for the rest of the night, all on the same arm. Dude… we woke up the next day and our arms were fucked! Totally black and blue. Such a stupid idea.

 

Another time, Jeff and I were at Larry Clark’s house and somebody got the bright idea to start catching darts. Like, one guy would throw darts at the line while another guy stands to the side of the dartboard, trying to catch them. So stupid!

 

The problem was that all of this was captured on video, and I ended up sending it into Underworld for Skypager. There wasn’t even any skating in it, just all this crazy shit. And I honestly think that might’ve been part of why we got booted off the team. I still have a copy of it, although I can barely even remember what’s on it. I’m almost afraid to look. 

photo: tobin (incredible)

 

Is Underworld Element why you started going out to New York? Because a lot of CBS Ledges and Bubble Banks popping up in your footage around this time.

 

Because those spots are fun! That’s why! (laughs) 

 

Honestly, it was just nice to skate new terrain. Something different. Because I would always hear about those spots, especially when I skated for Shut, like the Harlem Banks and Jersey Barriers. All of this crazy street shit that I’d never seen before. 

 

It just so happened that right when Underworld Element started, Jeff was like, “I need to drive my sister’s car back from Malibu to New York. I don’t know how to drive manual but I’m going to teach myself. You want to go?”

 

“Well, I know how to drive manual and I have a permit. I’ve never been to New York before. Let’s go!”

 

Jeff doesn’t even have a license but he’s totally set on doing this. I hit up Julien to go with us and he’s down, too. We end up picking the car up in Malibu, and it just becomes this crazy cross-country adventure with this rotating cast of characters. We start off towards Arizona and pick up Randy Colvin. We teach Julien how to drive manual on a freeway ramp somewhere along the way. Like, “Just get it to fourth or fifth gear and don’t worry about the rest of it. Just keep driving until we have to stop.” That was literally his entire lesson!

 

We stopped in Chicago and met up with Mark Gonzales, who was having an art show but he ended up skipping that and hopping in the car with us. On to New York. Like I said, I’d never been to New York before, but I loved it from the minute I got there. Just being able to walk into a store and buy a beer without them carding me, I was, “Okay, I’m moving here. This is where I need to be.”

Give us your best Harold Hunter story. 

 

Dude, I have footage of Harold skating China Banks! It’s awesome! But my favorite Harold memory is when we went to Chicken’s pool. He’d just carve around and heelflip out of the deep end into the shallow end. It was just such a Harold thing to have done.

 

That and I remember this story he told me one time after we sent him a box. He said he walked in the door of their apartment, the box was open, and everybody was wearing his clothes. (laughs)

 

I miss that guy. 

 

What were your expectations for Skypager? Did you know that it was gonna be this mixtape-type of thing with shared blends?

 

I didn’t, actually. I think Andy mixed it. I honestly can’t remember if the audio was always supposed to be like that or just a happy accident. Because I remember editing it with Josh Friedberg, but I can’t remember if we were actually editing to sound. 

 

But that intro with me walking out the door? That was actually us editing the video. We needed a little lead-in, so we shot that real quick in the editing bay. I want to say it was right before 411 started, that same office. 

You’re going all in on some ledge tech here. The frontside flip tailslide as well as that frontside shuv-frontside 5-0 at Fort Mason were both way ahead of the curve. 

 

What can I say? I didn’t like pressure flips, bro! I had to do something! I told you I like to pop, I guess I’ll stick to this ledge shit! (laughs)

 

(laughs) And I’ve always liked that long noseslide clip through the double-set. 

 

That was Tommy Toys, a fancy Chinese restaurant at the bottom of the Transatlantic Building. That ledge had been there forever, but never been skated. There was only one way to hit it: Ollie up the curb, jump down the little set and go. Most of the time, people would only skate that last part, using the long landing as a runup. Nah, I’m gonna do the whole ledge from up top.

 

Were you around for most of Julien’s filming for Skypager? 

 

Yeah, we were skating together a lot during that time. It’s funny to think about now because he’s not really known to like filming, but yeah, we’d be out filming all the time back then. 

 

Were you there for that sick tail bash over the driveway thing? 

 

Yeah, ollie to tail at the Nanglee Street Bump… I think that’s what it was called. I don’t think you can skate it anymore but I was totally there for that. Honestly, that was Coco’s spot. He was the one who originally found that shit. You know that right? Julien hit it later.  

 

Dude, I’ll tell you right now, there are so many spots out there that you’d see in videos… I found that shit. A lot of them! Straight up, Tobin would always end up taking other dudes there to get tricks. (laughs)

 

But how did that trick even come together? It’s so gnarly… and his feet come completely off his board!

 

I mean, Julien’s not the guy to try a trick all day at the spot. He’s just not that kind of person. I’d say that was probably within five tries, tops.

 

Is that you screaming in the background? 

 

I don’t know… It does sound like me, huh? I don’t care, that was rad!

photo: bryce 

What about your back 50-50 Thrasher cover photo with Bryce? Is there footage of that?

 

No footy. And that photo is a weird one, because I honestly don’t know what made me want to go to that spot. Maybe Bryce wanted to go there? I’m sure we met up at Safeway prior that. Maybe it just came from skating around… let’s hit this thing. 

 

There’s a photo of me nosesliding it, too. That was kind of the warmup, then we got the backside 50-50, which did take a while. That was a battle, for sure. I definitely remember thinking to myself, “I gotta make this now because there’s no way I’m coming back for this shit.” (laughs)

 

photo: bryce

Didn’t someone recently reissue the beanie you’re wearing in that photo?

 

Isn’t that wild? What a crazy thing! Yeah, the guys at Dancer did it, this shop in Copenhagen. Because everyone always wanted that beanie, even back then. I remember trading Chris Hall something for it. I don’t know where he got it from, but I think he popped the little puff ball off the top. I rocked that beanie for the entire winter, and just happened to get the cover of Thrasher while wearing it. It went really well with the Gonz shirt I’m wearing there. I ended up losing that beanie somehow, but I still have the shirt. My daughter was tripping on it. 

 

But yeah, a few years ago, my friend Sean sent a photo of the beanie that those Dancer dudes had reproduced and it was so rad. Completely out of the blue, but I was so stoked. I had no part in it, they just did it on their own, but it looks almost exactly like the original. And randomly, I’d been going to Copenhagen, where Dancer is, with my daughter for some of her school stuff. So I had Sean put me in contact with the guy who runs the shop and told him that I’d be back over there in January. Let’s meet up.  

So, I get over there and the shop is super cool. He hooks me up and invites me over to this local contest they’re having, which was awesome because I get there and everybody’s wearing my beanie! It was crazy! And not only that, as I’m walking in, they start playing Celski over the PA system. I was like, “What the fuck!?! This is amazing!”

 

That felt really good, man. Shout out to those dudes, they’re super rad people. I still have people asking about that beanie, trying to find one. I don’t know, man. I wasn’t involved in any of it. I’m just glad they exist. 

Incredible, man. But a month after that Thrasher cover with the beanie came out, didn’t you also get that TWS cover with a front 50-50, too?

 

Yeah, it was back-to-back. I shot that cover with Tobin, which that spot is now gone, too. It was right across the street from where SOMA Park is now, under the freeway. It was this really grimy, industrial spot. I honestly don’t know how many people actually skated it, but we’d always look at it… until one day, Tobin’s like, “We need a photo.”

 

“Alright, fuck it. Another 50-50, let’s do it.”

 

So you have two covers back to back… and then Underworld kicks off you? How does that happen? 

 

They actually kicked me off in-between my two covers. The Thrasher one came out and two weeks later, right before the Transworld cover came out, I got booted.

photo: tobin

But why? This is back when magazines were the best coverage you could get!

 

Honestly, I think they might’ve felt like they couldn’t control what I was doing off my board, know what I mean? That, and they were clearly wanting to take the company in a different direction. They were wanting to drop the “Underworld” and do something else, which I wasn’t really down for. 

 

I remember when they came out with that hip hop series, “Slick Rick” and all that, we didn’t have anything to do with that one. We all thought that shit was wack, which might’ve been another reason why they kicked us off. Because all of a sudden, a lot the original guys weren’t on the team anymore, and it all changed pretty drastically after that. Whatever. 

 

And let’s not forget that you were also a Slap Pal, which technically makes a third cover during this same timeframe.

 

Wow, it was around that same time period! Look at me! Cover guy! (laughs)

 

What am I even doing in that photo? Carrying a box? I guess it counts as a cover, but not really. Lance Dawes hooked that up. 

 

How did Stereo enter the picture? I would’ve loved to have seen you in A Visual Sound.  

 

Stereo came about from skating with Mike Daher and Paulo. I ended up going to Europe with Jeff Pang, Jason Lee and Chris Pastras that summer… that’s actually where I was heading when I almost got shot in New York. It was a European trip with Chris, Jason, Salman and Jeff, skating all over Europe. Riding around on trains, taking a ferry across the English Channel. It was awesome. This was super early on with what they were trying to do, but Stereo seemed like a good fit at the time. 

It's kinda weird that you’re only listed in one ad and that’s it. 

 

Yeah, my one Stereo ad. 

 

…Where do you think they got all those spots for A Visual Sound? I showed them all of those! And then they kicked me off! I guess they just wanted me for my spots. I see how it is. (laughs)

 

Just kidding.

 

Might as well talk about your other big offer around this time: Menace. 

 

Yeah, that was through Billy Valdes. Billy and I raged together one summer in SF. The following winter, I was staying down in LA and Billy’s like, “Ride for Menace! I think Kareem is down to put you on…”

 

I think they were wanting to put Mike Daher on, too, but I honestly don’t know how that all would’ve worked out. I don’t know how far it would’ve gone or if it would’ve even happened. There were talks, for sure, but I decided to go with Stereo and Deluxe instead. 

Any other offers? 

 

Zoo. When Pang went over there after Underworld Element, Rodney (Smith) asked if I’d like to be on the team, but by that time, I was more interested in doing Cream. 

 

…And then I ended up taking Jeff with me. (laughs) 

 

photo: dawes

How much did you film for A Visual Sound? I know your line in Cao’s Heads Blow part was originally slated for Stereo, and Meza said something about a switch noseslide on that Sheffey white ledge he back 50’d?  

 

Hmmm… don’t remember the Sheffey thing. Maybe in Pacific Heights? I didn’t film much for Visual Sound, dude. I might’ve had a few other things, but not very much at all. I don’t think the rest of it ever came out… I might still even have it. I’m not sure. 

 

But the Cao stuff was funny, man. Proof that you should always have a professional filmer shooting your stuff. Because we were using that Canon Hi-8 with the side handle? The one with the zoom button right by your thumb, which is a terrible spot for it. 

 

Mike and I were out skating this churchyard one day. I filmed him a little for his Mad Circle part and then he starts filming me for the Stereo video, right? I start trying this three-trick line, and he’s yelling after every trick, like “Yeah!”

 

I finally get the whole thing, and I’m like, “Let’s watch it!”

 

We go to watch the tape and you can see my first trick perfectly, but after that, all you see is the camera zooming straight into the ground. His thumb hit the zoom and you couldn’t see shit after that. He’s still filming, though. You can hear me landing everything and him hyping me up, but you can’t see a damn thing. (laughs)

 

“I guess I’ll do it again.” 

 

Why was it a different color like that?

 

There was an orange filter in front of the lens for artistic purposes. 

(laughs) So what happened with you and Stereo? Another “change in direction”?

 

Yeah, kinda. I think they wanted me to skate in that Vancouver contest, Slam City. And I did end up driving up there with them. Two vans and a bunch of dudes. It was insane, but I was a fuckin’ wastoid the entire time. Smoking weed and drinking. I don’t even think I skated in the contest. Maybe one run or something… in practice. Not a good look. 

 

I think Jeff Klindt actually tried to talk to me about it at the contest and I might’ve snapped at him. It’s all a little blurry. That was a long time ago. 

 

After the demise of Embarcadero, what were your thoughts on Pier 7? 

 

I wouldn’t say that it was worst spot in San Francisco, but I hated going down there. 

 

You called it “lame” the last time we spoke. 

 

(laughs) Did I say that? Well… yeah!

 

What didn’t you like about it? 

 

I don’t really know! Because the spot was cool. It was an early skate plaza, just like Embarcadero. I just didn’t like going there, which probably had more to do with where my head was at and not the actual spot. My mind was just somewhere else. By the time Pier 7 became popular, I really wasn’t sure about still being pro anymore. The whole “skating for a job” thing just got to be a little much for me. 

 

It’s not that I quit skating. I was always skating. I just didn’t want to be pro anymore. 

Looking back now, were you just burnt out? 

 

I just didn’t have any focus, man. I mean, I always enjoyed filming and shooting photos, but I hated feeling like I had to do it. I didn’t want that. Skateboarding had become a job for me and I didn’t like how that felt. 

 

It basically became a battle with myself. Getting into my own head and overthinking things, which is a problem. You can’t overthink skating or it shows. Like, if you start overthinking a trick, you’re not gonna land it. Start overthinking your style and it’s gonna look terrible. You just have to know the motions and commit. You gotta keep your head out of it.  

 

I was also becoming the fuckin’ party guy. Just too burnt. That fed into everything else and only made things worse. Self-doubt starts creeping in and after a while, it can take over. You start wondering how much longer you can even do this, instead of just skating like you used to. But the thing is, you can do this for the rest of your life if you’re smart about it. A lot of people do. Just don’t overthink it. 

 

Skateboarding is a chosen lifestyle, and it still is for me. One could always walk, I guess... I just never wanted skating as a job. It was never the thing that I wanted to make money off of. I just wanted to skate. 

 

I know you were skating a lot with Jovontae back then, too, who was never the most career-minded pro out there. Do you think his career approach might’ve worn off on you? 

 

Not at all. To be honest, I just don’t think we gave a fuck.

 

(laughs) Fair enough. Why weren’t you in any of the FTC videos? 

 

Because at the time, I didn’t want to be in any videos. With how I got to be about filming, I didn’t want to film at all anymore. 

 

…which is funny because now, I’m like, “Hey, get this!” (laughs)

 

So, how did Cream come about? Did you always want to run your own company? 

 

Oh, for sure! After Underworld, I knew that I had a really good crew going with Pang, Pete and myself. Us three. And then we got Joey Alvarez, too? Let’s do this. 

 

The original backers for Cream were Experience and Pure Wheels, who eventually started Profile and then Fit. We were all under the same roof. That and a lot of people might not know this, but Kent and FTC was a silent partner, too. 

 

A lot of people got burned by Roger at Experience over the years… 

 

I honestly don’t know because we never let it get to that point. My perspective was always that I’d rather fold the company than have to sell it or let anybody else do it. I was protective of it like that. 

 

My biggest problem with Cream was that we didn’t have complete control over certain things. Like, never in front of me, but the second I walked out the door, people would always be taking shit. I get that people are struggling and trying to figure out where the next one was coming from. If you can grab a couple boards and sell them real quick, you’re going to. But I guess the bigger problem was that I didn’t fully trust my partner. There were some things that weren’t quite adding up, then I’d show up at a spot and see kids selling Cream shit. 

 

Not to take away from it, though, because Cream was a cool experience. It was a solid two years and I think we made some cool stuff. Some sporty stuff and then we got a little avant-garde with it, too. It was just all stuff we were into. We were into hip hop. We were into kung-fu. And also, just some unique art shit that wasn’t the same old shit. 

 

I remember the first series we did, people were like, “What the fuck?” We called my board “Up In Smoke”, which had my name in the clouds. Jeff’s board was “Monkey Style”, which was this rad design we took straight from a kung-fu book of dude getting into form for a front flip. And we had the team board, which was that paper to dollar sign transformation. 

Backstabs, banks robbed and extortions. 

 

Exactly. That was the vibe for us. Because we were all into John Woo movies, like A Better Tomorrow. Gangster films like The King of New York. All that shit. David Lynch. 

 

I was also in New York during this time, with all kinds of shit going on around me, all of the time… it was just an exciting time for me, personally. That’s what I think about whenever someone brings up Cream. 

 

Were you designing all of this stuff? Peter Huynh? 

 

Peter was the creative director for Cream. He was the one putting our vision to paper. Our apparel stuff was more collaborative, but the graphics were all Pete. He’s the one who made that happen.

How did Joey Alvarez get into the mix? I always loved his style.  

 

Joey was just one of those younger dudes in New York that we always skated with. He was always in the mix with Maurice Key, Jeff Simmons, and, of course, Javier. Joey was just a solid-ass skater. He had some heavy-ass feet, know what I mean? You notice that shit. He broke hella boards, but that dude had pop and could stomp some shit. He was rad.

 

Was there anybody you asked that said “no”? 

 

Nah, we were too cool. Fuck that, you can’t ride for us! (laughs)

What about the overall look and tone of Cream? Because for only being around two years, you guys seemed to have a lot of different looks for the brand. 

 

Yeah, we went from a sporty look on the first run, to what we called “street military”, which was a little more avant-garde. If you remember, my graphic was a camouflage bear, which would end up becoming the UXA logo years later. We had the “communications tower”, spreading out propaganda. And Pang had this crazy Bauhaus green-and-red military graphic for that drop… which we really must’ve been feeling because the following drop was basically all Bauhaus-style. The season after that was this play on dots and stars, which was meant to be look at from a far. It was just whatever we were into at the time.

 

We just had all of these great ideas. I guess it was a lot to put out in just two years. I mean, we only did four or five season total, all with almost completely different looks. Looking back, I can see how that might’ve worked against us. 

So what happened? I feel like Cream was just getting started. 

 

Honestly, I probably shut it down too soon… but we were done. I just couldn’t hang anymore. If I could’ve maybe taken Cream somewhere else, I would’ve kept it going. But as-is, I was just too frustrated with where it was at. 

 

I mean, Carroll wearing that CRM sweatshirt in Penal Code alone could’ve probably pushed you through another season. 

 

For sure. And honestly, that clip kinda threw everyone for a loop, like, “Why is Mike rocking that Cream shirt?”

 

Because we’ve been friends forever! Of course, he’s on the flow team. 

 

I could’ve maybe been a bit more business-minded with it. Like, maybe it should’ve been me out there selling boards at the spot? I’ve just always preferred to hook people up, you know? Oh well. I have no regrets with it, because we definitely sparked something. 

 

…Actually, we probably sparked too much. (laughs)

With all this talk about kung fu, I have to ask about your short stint as Jackie Chan’s stunt double. 

 

(laughs) Well, it was only for one day. I only donned that costume for one day. 

 

How that went down is Golden Harvest, the production company that made all of Bruce Lee’s movies, reached out to my friend’s shop in Hong Kong. They were looking for skateboarders to cast in a movie, and my friends were like, “We know just the guys!”

 

From there, Golden Harvest ends up calling FTC, looking for me and Justin Girard. They explain to Kent what they’re looking for, and Kent’s like, “Well, I have a bunch of skaters in the shop right now. Do you want me to see who’s interested in going?”

 

“Please do.”

 

Kent ends up yelling out to the entire store, “Hey, does anybody want to go to Hong Kong?” 

 

Who’s gonna say no to that? So now, we got a full-on crew flying out there. Jovontae, Henry Sanchez, Andy Howell, Aris Voulkos… and then Justin shows up with a bunch more people. It was sick. And we all got contracts. $3,000 just for showing up, then $300 every day for 10 days with open plane tickets. It was awesome. 

 

I remember showing up for the first day of shooting and meeting Jackie Chan, only to find out that he can actually skate! He’s totally pushing around and doing little kickturns. This is gonna be fun! 

 

We go to shoot the first scene where Jackie has to skate down this little pathway toward the camera. The rest of us are all dressed in black with baseball bats and hockey sticks, like a little street gang. We’re supposed to chase him. I can’t remember if it was the first or second take, but we’re chasing him down that little path and they’re all calling “cut”, but Jackie’s still going. 

 

“CUT! CUT! CUT!”

 

So, you know when you try to jump off your board sometimes, but your feet kinda stick to the griptape and you never really make it off? That’s basically what happened to Jackie. He jumped, but his foot never really left the board, and he ended up sitting on it. 

 

We’re all looking at him, and we know what just happened. Jackie looks at me and starts skating his head. He’s hurt. They’re giving him medical attention, and he starts talking to the director and the producer. They’re all huddled up. And I’m just standing over there with my friends, but I notice all of the movie guys are starting to look at me. One dude makes a b-line over to wardrobe, super fast. Next thing I know, he’s standing in front of me with Jackie’s outfit and a wig. Henry and Jovontae just start cracking up. They know what’s about to happen: I’m gonna be Jackie’s stunt double. 

 

So, I put everything on, and there’s photos of all this floating around. But all they had me do was skate across this bridge and jump down some stairs. We shot a little b-roll around this plaza, too, but for whatever reason, they halted shooting after that. At this point, we’d already been there for seven days. We only have so many days left on our contract, but for now, we’re just kinda hanging out. 

 

Three more days go by, and they’re taking care of us, dude. We had access to everything in the hotel. Everything was free. We have all this money and there’s all of this electronics around. Henry Sanchez and I end up buying brand new dual cassette CD players… with remotes! He got the Aiwa, I got the Sony. And we are hyped! We were actually roommates on that trip, so we’re blasting music the whole time. I remember sitting on my side of the room, like “Listen to this!” and blasting music. Then he’d be like, “Oh yeah? Well, listen to this!” and blasting music from his side of the room. It was amazing. 

 

But by the eleventh or twelfth day, I was starting to feel like we’d been there long enough. I needed to be at skate camp in Woodward anyway, so Jovontae, Aris and I bounced. Because we’d already gotten paid, and we weren’t gonna be getting paid anymore. We’re gone. But I do know that some of the other dudes ended up staying back and doing the rest of the movie. You should probably check it out. You might recognize a few faces.  

 

What’s the title again? 

 

It’s called City Hunter. 

 

34 years after turning pro for Useless, how do you look back on your skateboarding career?

 

Dude, I don’t even look at it like a career. It was more like a life-learning chapter in all of this… just a part of my skateboarding experience that’s still going, really. But I wouldn’t change a thing. I mean, I was making a ton of money at 18 years old! Those first two boards on New Deal went off, basically allowing me to travel wherever I wanted.

 

It was such a crazy experience, and it all happened so quickly. That’s my one piece of advice to the kids out there: If someone asks you to ride for them, take advantage of that shit. Don’t be all super picky about whatever. If a company is gonna pay you, hop on that shit. Because it’s not gonna last forever and if it’s not you right now, it’s gonna be somebody else next week. Ride that shit, for real.

 

Skating has always been so special to me. And I actually enjoy it more now with my mind versus body versus age… the scare factor is real. I don’t need to trip or be so serious about it anymore. Because a few years after I stopped being pro, nobody knew who I was anymore anyway, so I could just go back to having fun again. (laughs)

 

photo: deckaid

What would you say is the proudest moment of your career and your biggest regret?  

 

My biggest regret is probably not skating as much when I should’ve been. Because there were a few years there that I kinda let slip by… but even then, you’re always doing things for a reason. You can’t fuckin’ dwell on that shit. You just gotta learn from that and build on it.

 

But as far as my proudest moments, I’m just happy to have been there for certain things. Like being there when Mike Carroll landed his first kickflip and seeing where he took it. We all know he’s somewhat responsible for the look of modern kickflips, know what I mean? In my opinion, he’s one of the reasons why we all wanted to catch it with the backfoot. You saw how he did it and that became the new standard of how kickflips should be done. Witnessing that progression was awesome.  

That, and having the chance to work with some of the greatest photographers in skateboarding. And at that time, ending up printed on the cover of a magazine? That’s like a dream come true. Because I always felt like it was different for me because of who I skated with. I had a lot to live up to, you know? I gotta somehow stand out next to Jovontae and Carroll. What do I do? Simplicity, trick selection, and terrain. Just try and make it flow... and all it worked out somehow. 

 

In the end, we built bridges. Traveling to different places and sharing skating with people who also didn’t care about falling or failing. The lifelong friendships we’ve made... Peace out. 

big thanks to rick i and jon constantino.