mark and eric's pack of lies

Mark:

Matt Hensley absolutely embodies all that H-Street was and represented. Nobody else on the team quite summons the era and vibe as well as he does, although at the time the strength of H-Street seemed to lie in its army-like numbers. In retrospect, there are just a handful of H-Street alums who became absolute legends, but when it was at its peak it felt like Colby Carter, Steve Ortega, Brennan Schoeffel, Markus Wyndham and many of the others who didn’t were just as likely to as were Danny Way, Mike Carroll, Sal Barbier, Matt Hensley and the others who did.

One of the guys who obviously ripped during the Hokus Pokus days but wasn’t an obvious legend-in-the-making until after he left H-Street is Brian Lotti. Though they don't skate all that much alike, Hensley and Lotti seemed to come from the same place of an average guy skating an average parking lot and getting really good while doing so, like Chops said. Where Hensley was compact, almost hunched over, working hard and charging it, Lotti stood tall, moved fluidly, and never seemed to be in a rush. Again, you could see it in his H-Street and Gullwing (Full Power Trip!) footage if you were paying attention, but when he departed H-Street proper for the H-Street off-shoot Planet Earth and soon thereafter put out his monumental “Now N’ Later” part, you couldn’t not see if you tried.

As a whole, that video was great and represents what skateboarding in 1991 really looked like. Amazing skating. The huge power and finesse of Chris Miller, the obscure wizardry of Barker Barrett, the now near-forgotten speed of James Frazier and vertical stylings of Buster Halterman, and of course the OMG, out-of-the-blue, debut full part from Jovantae Turner, unveiling the leviathan of style that he was. But it was Brian Lotti’s part that still has people talking about it a full 20 summers later. A whopper-length part, especially for then, it was his masterpiece and what he is most remembered for. His graceful innovation on board is visible through the entire thing. The manual section alone set a wildfire that still burns today- that part seemed to be the first one to really highlight technical manual tricks in a serious way, and even though it was only four of them filmed in one session, the way they are presented in super slow-mo and the absolute ridiculousness (hi, Dyrdek) of them was enough. I mean, opening with a b/s 180 fakie manual fakie 360 shove-it? There’s hardly anybody today who could pull that off, and NOBODY else in ’91. For the evolution of manuals after that part, well, it said it right there in the song- things cannot and will not be the same. And he did it while wearing a Smiths shirt.

But for me it was his lines. These lines that just went on and on with tricks you’d be lucky to do one of. And he did them so effortlessly. What really stood out even then was that he seemed to be thinking about how the pieces of his lines relate as a whole, how the tricks that come before and after each other will look together. There was always a symmetry of movement, a conscious completion of a circle, or a mirror-image idea. What I mean is that the b/s 180 one-foot was immediately be followed by the switch f/s 180, completing the circle of motion. The bigspin would be followed by the fakie big spin. The 360 shove-it, the 360 ollie. It was artfully arranged. Nothing was choppy or jarring. Later, when most skating got even more technical and herky-jerky, he even managed to get it down to even more of the essence: his one line in the “Friends” section of Plan B’s “Virtual Reality” ran: kickflip, nollie flip, f/s pop shove, b/s pop shove, then the banger (f/s noseblunt slide nollie b/s 270 transfer). So simple, so balanced. His lines felt complete.

And then just when you thought he couldn’t get any better, he didn’t. His switch to Blind never realized itself with much footage, and then all of a sudden he was just straight absent. Disappeared. Poof! His sayonara came via a beautiful ollie executed in a yellow jump suit, and then he was gone. At the time, I gotta say he wasn’t missed immediately. Skating had changed a lot between ’91 and ‘93, and the way guys like Lotti, Hensley and Jason Lee skated had become overshadowed by the pop shove-it late double flippers. I’m sure Lotti could have done all that and made it look as good as humanly possible, but I’m glad he didn’t. It’s nice that he didn’t really demean himself with that crap.

I don’t think anybody knew why he split or what he was doing next back then. A few rumors here and there. Skating was evolving quickly and not a lot of attention was paid to anything “old” for awhile. But knowing now the reasons he left, I am nothing but impressed. He has said that he moved on because he realized he only knew how to relate to other humans through the lens of being good on a skateboard and he wanted to get past that barrier. He wanted to be more of a person. He wanted to be able to connect with other people on a deeper level. So he left what he knew behind to go explore. That’s heavy. His “existential quandary” lead him to investigate Zen Buddhism seriously for quite awhile. He moved to Hawaii to study it. He began painting more seriously. It’s all still kind of mysterious, but I think I get it.

Skating moved on. Girl. 20 Shot Sequence. Stereo. Eastern Exposure. Anti-Hero. Zero. Swishy pants. Muska. D3s. Lipslides on rails. The return of skull graphics. Tiltmode. And then in the fall of 2002, quite unexpectedly, On Video released sort of an ode to Lotti. His whole “Now N’ Later” part with a collection of some heavy-hitters talking about how important Lotti was. He had been resurrected. For those who had been there to witness and appreciate Lotti’s prime, it was gratifying to see that he had not been forgotten, that he would be passed along to a new generation. Another year or two later, and the man himself would re-appear (thank you Kenny Anderson!). But this time he was not armed with technical wizardry of the curb-height sort; instead he came with a simple vision. A reminder, really. Skating with your friends is fun. Enjoy the roll. Together.

Since then he has seemingly been content to dabble in skate endeavors, and that is just fine. I get the sense that he is where he needs to be in his life, that he is happy. And that makes me happy. At this point in my life I don’t need to see him out there killing it. I need to know that somebody who once brought me so much inspiration has found a place of contentedness in their own world. That’s what inspires me now. Thank you, Brian Lotti.

This concludes the maiden voyage of our little experiment. I can't thank Mark enough for taking the time to do all this. Truly an honor. 

Regular Chrome Ball posts will resume on Monday. Thanks everybody.

mark and eric's pack of lies

Eric:

Filming flatground with a clunky camcorder on that infamous sidewalk stroll, the 1990’s got a jumpstart the second Matt Hensley went to the store. The rockstars on their vert ramps with their flashy over-budget films had run their course... skateboarding was leaving the backyard and hitting the streets.

But as visionary as Natas and Gonz were with laying down the initial foundation, they were still products of a larger-than-life marketing mentality used tirelessly prior to pimp the likes of Ken Park and Rob Roskopp on unsuspecting 10-year-olds. Be it Gonz or Gator, there seemed to be no difference within Dorfman’s vision. Just slap a beret on it and call it “psycho”.

It’s actually our friend Ray and his fabulous Rubber Boys that would signal the sea change a few months prior in Public Domain; skateboarding was about to experience a shift toward the familiar. The everyman. Tired of being talked down to, kids were starting to want pros they could relate to. And every skate rat could relate to Hensley.

Truth be told, Shackle Me Not was barely more than a home movie... filled with tons of great street skating. But it gave us all a peek inside Matt's world, one that wasn't all that different from our own. He hated school and ate at McDonalds... he went to camp and even had crappy little ramps in his garage. He was just like us! You wouldn't find him lounging with Warhol and Marilyn in some metropolitan city, our guy was out sessioning a parking lot somewhere, fucking up his shins and slurping a slushee.

He just happened to be really REALLY good at skateboarding. So good that we all sat back and watched him progress to the point of damn near perfection by the time Hokus Pokus would arrive. The kid that had stolen the show in Shackle Me Not had become the show in it’s sequel. One-foot backlips, tre flips galore and that handrail 50-50 grab thing he always did... the age of the McTwist was over. The Kaupas/Gonzales seedling had finally sprouted and was bearing fruit, already forging new paths in a decade that would become synonymous with exploration.

But there was a method to it. What made Hensley's ascension so enjoyable to watch was that we got to see him combining tricks to create new ones right before our very eyes. Simple mathematics. Each month brought new magazines featuring Matt doing something else totally mindblowing... yet completely logical from his last feat. One ad would be a kickflip, the next month's a melanchollie... making the third month's ad pretty obvious in hindsight (he just needed to invent it first). It was all laid out right there in front of us. Every trick was added that one extra component... because he wanted to. Because he could.

Yet as his skating soared to new heights, he began to lose that relatibility that initially drew us to him. Through no fault of his own, the awe we experienced of his 360 one-foot tailgrabs and 540 ollies soon carried over to the man himself and Matt was put on a pedestal. All of a sudden, everyone had a shaved head and the Hensley look was born: chukkas, chain wallets, cargo shorts and those little striped socks. Cheeks were puffed-out on-purpose and the man grew uncomfortable. It had all become too much. Larger-than-life was never his style, he just wanted to skate. But the sun peaking through that stained glass window had become a little too bright and Matt was forced to look away.

In only just four years time, the quiet kid from Vista who left a king-sized footprint of innovation (even down to his “retirement part”) would be forced to go underground. Hensley would abandon superstardom at the height of his career in an attempt to reconnect with why he had started riding his board in the first place. Not for the industry and not for his fans but for himself. The man who had inspired so many by just being one of us wanted to reclaim that feeling again. To find that real skateboarding that he could relate to.

He’d be back. But on his own terms.

mark and eric's pack of lies

Mark:

If Lance Mountain built The Firm as his vision of the skateboarding world, Ray Barbee was his Original Man. Ray was Lance’s first recruit, and his longest running team rider- from day one until the sun set. Although their careers were built on very different kinds of skating and they established their legacies independently of each other, Ray instantly comes to mind when I think of Lance because of the support they gave each other for so long.

Despite an incubator period on Alva, Ray Barbee’s official entrance into skateboarding’s consciousness is the Rubber Boys section of the 1988 Powell Peralta video,“Public Domain.” A shared part with three other skaters, it was meant to showcase Powell’s up-and-coming recruits out tearing it up in the streets, but what it really did was serve to make the other three look totally blah compared to Ray. Over the four-minute part, we see the other guys doing a series of ollies, boardslides and wallrides while Ray is doing 360 no-complies and kickflip 50/50s on benches. This was 1988; it would be several years before flipping into tricks would become commonplace. But it wasn’t so much the tricks he was doing that made people take note—over his 20+ year pro career, it’s never been just the tricks that have kept him in the spotlight and in people’s hearts—it is the fluidity, the endless bounce, and the smile on his face that made him so notable.

There have been a lot of people who are amazing to watch just going down the street: Tommy G, Matt Hensley, Ricky Oyola, Natas, etc., but what puts Ray at the top of that list was his next part, in “Ban This.” Roughly 20 years before the current slow-mo craze hit, “Ban This” saw a nearly all slow-mo part of Ray (in a Bangles shirt and those Vision Street Wear shoes that Powell made him cut the tags off of), focusing on him passing down completely average streets, often with nothing but flat. What you come away with is the sense that Ray is dancing. That might sound funny, but as he spins, twirls, glides and hops his way down these empty stretches, it’s like he’s dancing across a stage. His speed is steady, there are few pushes but constant movement. It’s somewhat mesmerizing, and after it came out, there wasn’t anybody who didn’t like Ray.

As skating progressed at warp speed over the following years, Ray seamlessly followed suit. From launch ramps to double flips to ledge tech, Ray was never behind the times or trying too hard with the trends. Looking back at it, it’s pretty remarkable to think that a street skater who was pro in the ‘80s was still wining contests in the ‘90s, putting out their most progressive video parts in the ‘00s, and being a universally acknowledged, respected and still in-demand vet getting mag covers another 10 years on. Not many people can claim that, but Ray can. It’s been his always-smiling and easy-going approach coupled with his smooth style and always-developing bag of tricks that have made him a timeless classic and not a dusty relic. Yeah, he’s the undisputable king of the no-comply, but his f/s 360 heelflips are just as awesome.

There are so many other noteworthy things about Ray: the fact that while he wasn’t the first African American pro, he was a huge pioneer and opened the door for the following generation of street skaters who were much, much more ethnically and racially diverse; the fact that he can hold very deep religious and moral convictions without anybody having to worry about getting a sermon when hanging out with him; his ridiculous musical skills which have grown tremendously over the past 15 years, to the point that he is as gifted a jazz guitarist as just about any I have ever heard; his late-blooming obsession with film photography which has resulted in images every bit as refined and beautiful as his music and skateboarding, though he has only been doing it for a few short years. But what is truly Ray’s legacy place-holder and what has held him high for so long is that he represents fun. It is as simple as that. No freak-outs, no board throwing, no ADD melt-downs at the top of the stairs. With Ray, its just jump on your board, smile, and go.

mark and eric's pack of lies

Eric: 

I guess this is the obvious route here…

In many ways, I’ve always seen Lance as the more accessible version of Neil… though I hate the way that sounds. Seemingly cut from the same cloth, Lance is every bit the renaissance-type Blender is. The only difference being where Neil took a left for a more abstract/cryptic approach, Lance decided to paint doughboys and invent fingerboards instead. Simply put, we were able to get Lance as there never seemed to be any pretense with him. He’s always just laid it out there in front of us, no deciphering necessary. And as brilliant as Lance has proven himself to be in any/all of his endeavors, he could always bring it back down to earth with a heavy dose of self-deprecating humor and a goofy face or two.

The fascination with Blender lies largely in the enigmatic unknown he’s always operated in but I think it’s the exact opposite with Mountain. He’s always worn his heart on his sleeve and been honest about who he is and what’s important to him. Be it his religious beliefs or taking pride in his family, Lance has never tried to be anything he’s not. And what’s even more evident over the course of the last three decades is that this is a guy who loves skateboarding. It’s that simple. Regardless of fashion or politics, skateboarding has always been at his core, permeated through every fiber of his being and I doubt he’d want it any other way.

Pushing damn near fifty, Lance still skates everyday and has the progression level to prove it. It’s that type of dedication that guarantees there isn’t a single skateboarder alive who isn’t poolside cheering him on. I honestly don’t think it’s quite as simple as how Stecyk and Peralta portrayed him in those early Bones videos but they were correct in that I can’t think of another skater that symbolizes more of skateboarding’s positive base of unadulterated fun than Uncle Lance. From those classic frontside inverts to his recent pool ladder hi-jinks, Lance’s innovations were proof positive that this is a lifestyle, fuck a bunch of “training.”

You see he was never supposed to have been pro. Stacy had already handpicked him to be team manager when his starring role in the Bones Brigade Video Show yielded demand for a model. And he’s never looked back. But it’s this outsider’s perspective that’s truly nurtured his appreciation for skateboarding and his place in it. Effectively crashing a party for longer than most pros have been alive will do that to you.

I remember reading somewhere how proud Lance was after being asked to join the Flip team because it was the first time someone wanted him as a pro based solely on his skating ability. I was admittedly surprised at first by his sense of pride in pointing out such vindication as I figured that this had long been water under the bridge. But the humanity involved with him recognizing such a fact made me respect him that much more and really look at his storied career a bit differently.

I think it speaks volumes about his character that no matter how much success Powell achieved during its glory days, he never let his ego get out of control. No matter how many classic video parts made or number of contests won, there was never a time in his 30-year career where you thought to yourself, “Damn, Lance is blowing it.” His perceived “temporary lease” wouldn’t allow him to take skateboarding for granted because first and foremost, Lance is its biggest fan. Through out all his many years in this crazy industry, he never felt entitled and he never quit. How else could you explain the Firm, Lance’s early 90’s offspring that barely scraped a profit despite 10+ years of operation? “I just wanted to be around good skateboarders.” Pure and simple.

So it only makes sense that it was Lance who would end up in the Bones Brigade, taking Neil’s spot and leaving him to his own creative devices over at G&S. And while it’s always fun to imagine what avenues Blender could’ve taken that fabled franchise down given the freedom to do so… a hypothetical on-par with the near-reality of David Lynch directing Return of the Jedi. The fact of the matter is that not only did Lance help us find Animal Chin, he helped build the ramp too.

Lance Mountain is skateboarding to me.

Happy Birthday, Murray

mark and eric's pack of lies

Mark:

So speaking of Blender…

I know, I know, each dot should lead to another new one, but there’s just too much beauty and mystery and straight-up magic in Neil Blender for me to just move on immediately. But I’ll do it with focus- his part in “Footage” from G&S.

By the time 1990 rolled around, Blender had already been there and done that. All of it. He was a vert legend by the early ‘80s, contributed OG street innovations (no-comply, anybody?), ushered in the era of mini-ramps, been a figurehead in the DIY board graphics movement in skating, given all the best names to all the best tricks, and generally been a unique and ultra-creative personality for years upon years. What all that seemed to add up to was a part featuring some of the most “I don't give a fuck” (in a good way) skating and speaking ever captured on video. Blender seemed like he couldn’t care less about being cool or doing anything related to what the cool guys were doing (note that this part was post-Hocus Pocus, post-Rubbish Heap), and as a result, he was the coolest ever. That’s kind of a cliché, but he epitomizes it. Some notes from the epic and savagely under-appreciated seven-minute part…

1) It opens with an illustration of possibly a seated kangaroo playing a lute for some cats? The tone is set.

2) Scene two finds him in the bathroom at a Super-8 motel with some cheap toy top, a cup, and a sink full of water. I want to pause on this fact for a moment. This is obviously down time on some tour. Rather than partying, getting chicks, shopping, buying weed, or whatever else most pros on the road would do with their precious down time, Blender has chosen a toy, a cup and a sink full of water. It’s these little moments that become the nuggets of both confusion and attraction for me, as memorable or possibly more so than most tricks in video parts. Anyhow, the top goes into the water, and his reply: “I hate that game.” What? This is a game you’ve played before? So many questions! How is the water supposed to factor in? Argh, the mystery has already begun.

3) “That’s the stuff people put in their coffee.” Lighting non-dairy creamer on fire in the street? Enough said.

4) Rocket tailblock on the ramp in the woods. Have you ever tried this? Just thinking about it is difficult.

5) “Guh-duls… guh-duls!” Imagine trying to use that call to actually get girls. He had the weird, vaguely eastern European accent down pat a solid decade before Borat emerged. I call to my two daughters this way at least once a week.

6) Fakie manual on a mini-ramp. People were not doing this in the streets yet.

7) OK, now the incredibly quick scene where he walks up, drops his bag and gets into an attack crouch in front of a group of young kids… this might be the single most mesmerizing thing in a skate video I ever saw. When this video came out, my parents had just gotten a new VCR that had a slow-mo function, and I used that button literally hundreds of times while watching this scene. He moves like a graceful hunting cat, and the children are actually frightened. Look how they scatter. Why does he do this? Why do I need to see it over and over? Why is it so captivating? It’s like a scene out of Twin Peaks or something.

8) Back to the mini. This whole segment blows my mind. He does tricks that nobody ever did before and nobody has done since. If I could choose between doing the tricks he does in this part or the tricks Daewon and Haslam do in Cheese and Crackers, I would not hesitate a moment to take Blender’s quiver. The shopping cart/push manual, the fakie sweeper, the pendulum f/s rock, and on and on, all done by a 6-foot+ man on a three-foot mini while wearing full pads.

9) “Trip out, trip out.” Another moment I cannot explain my fantastic attraction to, and another phrase I utilize regularly whenever something is supposed to be weird but actually isn’t.

10) The scene in the shop where he analyzes a few graphics. This is probably the most widely known moment from the overall part because of the skeletons comment. Parking Corey O’Brien’s flaming reaper may have been the exact turning point in the transition from the ‘80s to the ‘90s in terms of board graphics, the metaphorical shot heard round the world. I think we, as a community, avoided skull and skeleton graphics for a solid six or seven years in the aftermath of this comment. That’s how powerful and how much a sign of the times it was. Neil dictated the future. It was right on then, and it is right on now. How skulls made such a comeback, I just don’t know.

And also the John Sonner comment- is he calling him a whittler, as in somebody who does small things, or is he calling him a widdler, which I was told means somebody who pees the bed? Either way, John Sonner retired shortly after this part came out.

11) Watching him throughout the part, I still notice his clothes. This was 1990- Limpies pajama pants, neon high-top Airwalks, side print t-shirts, chain wallets, etc. But there he is: skinny khakis, black socks, extremely basic low-top sneakers, t-shirts with no logo. Minimalism. Basics. Made me realize that when you really stand out from the crowd, you don’t need to advertise it outwardly. Actions speak louder than outfits.

12) The small spine. This session also blows my mind. The hand-out on a deck not much wider than his board. No-handed nosepick on a board with very little nose. Nollies over the spine, also with very little nose. And of course, inverts around the spine. Around it. I think that is the quintessential trick in the part. Never seen it again.

13) A few moments later, the music starts and you realize there has been no music the entire time, and you have been totally captivated nonetheless. As a HUGE fan of music creating the right vibe for a part, I must say that I can’t imagine this part with a song. It would have ruined it, would have taken away the hushed reverence, the silent awe that I appreciate it with. And it’s interesting- as the part fades out and you get the very Dino-sounding track, the super-8 footage, and the crusty Ohio wallride spot, you can literally see the initial contractions of the birth of the Alien Workshop happening. Within a few months, Blender would leave G&S, taking along Steve Claar, Duane Pitre, a pre-pubescent Rob Dyrdek, and a few others along to start AWS with Chris Carter and Mike Hill. Remember, when Workshop was first around, it was riding on Blender’s shoulders. He carried it. His aesthetic was a huge piece of what defined the Workshop look and feel, and still does to this day. I don't think enough people give him credit for that. And then once Workshop was up and running, he promptly disappeared. Into the ether.

This is already ridiculously long, so I’ll clip the string in a second. But to me, this is one of the parts that is bigger than skateboarding, more than skateboarding. It’s a moment that shaped my life in strange, unknown, but powerful ways. Neil Blender is one of the few pros who I admired greatly but didn’t ever meet- and I hope to keep it that way. Sacred cows and all that.

mark and eric's pack of lies

Eric:

Speaking of influences….

I suppose this one’s kind of a no-brainer since I did name my site after the guy. A little obvious, I suppose, but when the only other option is omission, you gotta do what you gotta do. The problem here is that when I try to summarize into words why Blender remains so special not only to me but an entire generation, long after he opted to fade into the background, I honestly couldn’t tell you.

Genius, for sure, but that’s too easy. An elementary observation like that just won’t suffice. Not for this guy. It’s larger than that… more abstract. In the most admittedly-vague terms, Blender is Blender. A rare breed of creature that is indeed unlike any other. It’s this remarkable sense of individuality he operates within that seems to be the source of endless fascination.  The way you can see his hand in whatever medium he decides to work in. This unique way he carries himself that has yielded a thousand stories and a million quotables. Everything he seems to do just exudes a pure Neil-ness. And that’s not an easy task. For example, back when skulls were big business, only Blender could go on coffee break and come back with a masterpiece. Sorry Corey O’Brien. And honestly, who else could forever alter the comfort Hugh “Bod” Boyle once took for granted whenever anybody uttered his name.

It’s like Neil was clued into something about skateboarding we’ll never know. An entirely different side that nobody else is even privy to. And he wasn’t willing to share. Why would he? He was obviously having much more fun than we were. His ads often ran like taunting invitations to a place we could never experience. Cooking ramps in his house. Wrestling Claar outside a toy store. Telling the announcer to shut-up mid-run before hopping off his board to spray paint a wall… The tricks he could come up with were only overshadowed by the names he gave them. There will never be another Blender. It was only fitting that he so often skated a replica of the moon.

I’ve never met Blender. Not face-to-face. We’ve exchanged a few emails and I’ve begged and pleaded for an interview a couple of times but that’s it. So this very well could be a romanticized notion of Neil… but at least for me, it’s true. And like Mark said with Jessee, I’ve really never tried to emulate him in any fashion… other than that one time I purchased a Timberwolves t-shirt. (Buying Dinosaur Jr. records doesn’t count.)

You just can’t imitate dudes like this… it just doesn’t work. So go ahead and take that shirt sleeve off your head.

As corny as it sounds, Neil represents to me the idea that anything is possible and everything is open to interpretation. There’s no set way of doing things and that often those scenic routes into the unorthodox are where the real treasures can be found. Stop being so damn serious all the time. Especially in skateboarding with it’s ever-growing set of social faux-pas and conservative tisk-tisks. It’s miserable and it’s dumb… which is why Louie Barletta’s had my vote for SOTY the last 5 years running.

I’m glad to see the Wheel is still Heated. It’s comforting to know that he’s still out there, intermingling with our world and active in all his pursuits. Permenantly in his own personal Aggro Zone. Just being Neil.  

mark and eric's pack of lies

Eric:

“...not my favorite skateboarder, but he’s my favorite person who rides a skateboard.”

Couldn’t agree more.

I’ve always been a fan of Thiebaud.... from his early days on Powell through earning Natas’ official seal of approval on SMA, up to and including his various duties over there at Deluxe. If there’s anybody that pops in my mind upon hearing the utterance, “True skateboarder,” it’s this dude.

Jim’s name was actually the stuff of legend around my house growing up. Truth be told, that first SMA Avenger board of his was the booty my Mom would utilize to “motivate” me into playing out my last season of little league baseball without quitting. It wasn’t that she wanted me to play… she didn’t want to go to those games either… she just didn’t want me to quit (a valuable lesson learned, aside from all that bribing).

So for an entire summer, that holy grail of boards danced around in my head as I sat in the dug-out, positively hating life at age 11. I was miserable… and played even worse. But I do get a kick out of remembering how I’d pep myself up at times by quietly doing my best version of a Sickboys voiceover impression (“Jimmmyyyy Theeeeeboooo!!”). This actually became my mantra of sorts until I could finally ditch the glove and begin my prospective lifelong career as a full-time misfit.

The autograph shown is from the third demo I ever went to in my life. It was in December of ’90 at Sunsports skatepark in Columbus, Ohio… a 2-hour drive from my quaint little cottage in the countryside. As I mentioned earlier, the Thiebaud name registered big in my household back then so once I told my parents that Jim was coming quasi-nearby on the very first Real tour with the one and only TG and a hot new amateur named Henry Sanchez, they knew they were in trouble. It didn’t really take much in the way of pleading as they could tell that they were either going to take me or deal with the high probability of me running away. Erring on the side of caution, it was my Dad that drew the short end of the stick.

Now I’m known for having a good memory but the details I can recollect regarding this day are pretty ridiculous. The combined forces of excitement and anticipation in a young man can really do wonders. I can tell you everything from the shirt I was wearing (a green o.g. Real logo shirt) to the board I was riding (Ed Templeton’s first New Deal Cat model) to the tape I was listening to in my walkman the entire way up (3rd Bass’ “Cactus Album Revisted”). I can also tell you that it snowed a considerable amount that day which served to put my dad in sterling mood for what was to be a very tense 2-hour Columbus migration. One thing became obvious despite how many times I could hear Prime Minister Pete Nice rhyme about his mazarahti… Dad was pissed! He could barely even look at me as he dropped me off at the indoor park while he went and caught a flick during the wait. “Dances With Wolves”, I recall.

But the demo killed. T.G. did those classic kickflip melons of his and Jim landed a fakie big spin kickflip. Ponytail power was in full effect. Sanch got into the mix with impossible boardslides at warp speed and some Canadian dude named “Sluggo” did his thing on the tranny. The shit was incredible and best of all (at least for the kids), there was hardly anybody there as the weather really took its toll on attendance.

As the demo started the die down, we all started to spill out onto the course to both skate a bit and maybe catch an autograph or two. Everyone was really cool… but I was so nervous. I remember going up to Thiebaud and thinking that maybe I should ask him if he wanted a cup of coffee to drink because I knew he liked it… (an unlikely choice considering he’d been skating for two hours, but what did I know?). Luckily, I opted for the standard autograph request. But it was not a standard autograph that he had in store. I remember he grabbed my nerdy little notepad and really started to go to work.... on something. I couldn’t tell what he was doing but I knew the secret of life was about to be unlocked right here in Columbus, Ohio by our visiting friend from the West. I remember there was already a crowd of people around but the longer Jim took to scribble, everybody in the immediate area started to gain interest in what was going on. There was really starting to be a buzz. Heads began to cock with curiosity. What was he doing? It was like that Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring scene from A Christmas Story, only with Limpies product placement.

It probably only took about 30 seconds but this unexpected turn of events involving such an important personalized communicae from my main man was enough to throw me into frenzy. With one last scrawling line from his bic, he was done. “I hope you like it,” he said. What he would then handover was one of the illest things my pre-pubescent eyes had ever seen. “Real” then “Thiebaud”, all right beside this big ass face! Sick! I knew he did poetry and stuff but now art, too? Incredible. So incredible, in fact, that my mind had blown all circuits… on some R2D2 shit. I was incapable of speaking. All I could do was look dumbfounded at this drawing and quietly walk away. Overload. My brain was smoking.

It wasn’t until I was about 10 feet away that the notion of actually thanking him for doing that even came to mind. "Oh shit!" I turned around and there he was just staring at me. Bummed. I hadn’t even the wits to thank the man for totally making a two-hour drive through snow with my pissed-off Dad totally worth it (not that he even knew!). I went to speak out but he'd already turned his attention to the thirty other kids hovering around him. The damage was done. I was incapable of going back. The dye had been cast. I suck. The aura of stoke, the true culprit of this crime, quickly vanished leaving behind only guilt in its wake.

“How was the demo, Eric?”

“Dad, Jim Thiebaud thinks I’m a dick.”

mark and eric's pack of lies

Mark:

So, speaking of Public Enemy…

I’d seen him in Animal Chin doing the wallrides. I’d seen the ad with him and Tommy in their drawls. But I didn’t really know who Jim Thiebaud was. I knew he wasn’t pro and that’s about all I knew. C’mon, I was like 11 and if it wasn’t Cab or Lance, it wasn’t really on radar. Then came Public Domain. What I took away from that video is that he had more bails in the bail section that anybody else, but by the looks of the Experimental board he was riding, he was turning pro. The guy with all the bails who stood around in his underpants. What was I missing? I didn’t get it. And then all of a sudden, things started changing.

He got on SMA. That sold me. To be associated with Natas, that was something that would legitimize anybody. His first pro model was really cool (I had the original one, with the Joker.). I learned kickflips on it, so that was a good association. Then Speed Freaks dropped, and I truly became a fan. The half-flip. The super-long manual. The fact that he spent half the part saying hi to all his friends who happened to be all the skaters I loved most. He has those elusive Ellesse shoes I couldn’t find to save my life. He had long hair. He skated fast. And he had a Public Enemy beanie. That was the clincher. All of a sudden he seemed, I don’t know… bad-ass. Without that beanie, the transformation might not have seemed as complete.

Soon after, A Reason For Living came out, and his part in that was on a new level. Totally ripping. A second pro model came out, and it was dark and weird and rad. Poetry. Giraffes. Tripped out coffee mugs. There was definitely something cool happening here. A lot had changed in skating and my personal taste since Public Domain, and as I was getting more into the underground world of skating, as opposed to the Vision Streetwear world, Thiebaud was more and more up my alley. That late classic-period of SMA, when it was Natas, Jim, Julien, Mic-e, and a very young Sheffey, was an incubator for awesome ideas, skaters, and graphics and I had been sold on all of it. Then came Real.

Being in the Bay Area when Real was just coming out, it was like there were all these whispers about it. New company. TG. Thiebaud. Shhhh. Coming soon. The day the boards dropped, people were riding them everywhere, and Jim’s graphic was immediately iconic. This was a guy who was saying something, and it was bold and it was righteous, and coupled with his SMA-era stuff, Jim was fast becoming a favorite for me.

Those early Real days felt like you were part of a fan club. Little Xeroxed letters/collages came in the mail. Jim’s words and handwriting were all over them. I replied back by sending a bag of coffee beans to him at Deluxe. I’m sure they went straight into the trash- who would brew up some coffee that a weird unknown kid sent through the mail? One of the little letters had the announcement that Thiebaud had two books coming out on something called Caffeine Machine Publications- they were called Do The Distance and Loose Change. The guy was a writer! He seemed so cool already, so his stories must have something awesome about it. I ordered them, and then absorbed them. They were mind-blowing to me, and had a major impact on me in terms of opening my mind up to skaters being creative in a multi-faceted way, and it encouraged me to pursue and take seriously artistic aspects and interests in my life. Years later, I even wrote a paper about him as a poet for a college English class.

1991 was a huge year in skateboarding in terms of progress, and in all honesty, Jim was soon replaced for me as being a favorite skater- I mean, damn, anybody would have a hard time competing with what Gonz, Jason Lee, Brian Lotti, and Jovantae Turner put out that year. But Thiebaud had etched a place in my mind. For years after, I thought of him like this: he’s not my favorite skateboarder, but he’s my favorite person who rides a skateboard. I still got his boards (how could you resist that slick series with him in a rabbit suit?) and was stoked to see photos, but his lasting impact on me was more as somebody who represented idealism, and thought behind image. That was heavy.

Jim Thiebaud, good for two with a jump shot.

mark and eric's pack of lies

Eric: 

So I know you're gonna say that I cheated on this one. Skipping Gonz at the genesis point of this undertaking definitely represents a serious skate nerd faux-pas, punishable only by scorn and excommunication. True, I could've gone with Tony Alva or Duane Peters here and gotten away with it. Hell, I could've even gone with one of those Life Magazine-type photos of some blonde kid hanging-ten without any shoes on and been okay. But to skip right past the almighty Mark Gonzales in preference of the unofficial vice president of all things "modern street"? Tisk, tisk.

Fact of the matter is when I started skating in the summer of '88, Natas was our dude. Sure, we went through our compulsory Bones Brigade skull fetish early on. But by the time we got to Mr. Kaupas, we knew something (or so we thought). Of course we'd heard about this Gonz character and how great he was... but where was he? The late-80's pre-Blind period proved to be among the more quieter periods of Mark's career (and I've got the magazines to prove it). With the exception of a few tranny photos, the occasional contest run and Psycho Skate (which albeit hardly Gonz's fault, my neighborhood had given a unanimous thumbs-down), he was nowhere to be found. Don't get me wrong, we'd heard about him. We just lacked any real visual comprehension to go along with it... let alone something scored by Firehose.

Back then, there weren't any websites we could log-on to and check out old magazine stuff (ahem).

All we had was what was in front of us... Natas. Wrecking shit in literally every magazine as SMA couldn't really run ads at the time featuring anybody else. He was our guy. Every photo consisted of him either soaring over that hip at Venice High or performing some soon-to-be-fundamental curb trick that he had invented the day before. I specifically remember walking around town with my friends pointing at stuff that Natas could ollie. Garbage cans, mailboxes, cars... I remember we finally drew the line at a basketball rim. 10 feet? Probably not... but maybe!

We could barely ollie to axle on a curb.

And lets face it. The dude was just cool. Those minimal Mofo-driven ads with that cool haircut that only he could pull off... so awesome. (In comparison, Gonz ads had splattered paint, berets and Primo. I blame Brad Dorfman).

Anything Natas touched gained an instant legitimacy that ad agencies would kill for. Those 76'ers Cons and some Ellese shoes? Sure! Natas wore 'em! Green light. And who are these Public Enemy guys on my man's shirt? I should probably check that out... after all, Natas likes 'em!

And of course we knew he wasn't Satanic... but it was still fun to freak our parents out anyway!

Eventually Natas would go on to spin on hydrants and start one the greatest skateboard companies of all-time... but we'll get into that soon enough. My crew would eventually catch a late-pass on Gonz... but my early days of boneless grabs, shitty ollies and launch ramp near-fatalities were all in his name, Lord Satan Backwards.

wyatt lee and me.

Just a quick heads up to let you know that instead of taking the next week off for holiday, I’m excited to announce that starting Monday, the Chrome Ball Incident will be attempting something quite different.

There will be two posts each day… but not your typical posts at all. Quite the opposite actually.  In fact, I can’t even say that all of these posts will be my own.

Yes, it seems not too long ago that the site had a special guest over for a visit… someone who’s had quite an influence on your friend and humble narrator over the years. Bread was broken with the proper pleasantries exchanged, a friendly game of back-and-forth ensued and we found ourselves delving deeply into (what else) the nostalgia. 

Definitely more personal in scope, the resulting game of ping-pong will be the basis of next week’s posts. 

We’re calling it “Mark and Eric’s Pack of Lies”