Cameras were popping up everywhere from every angle. Cab curbs.
Rodney, dangerous
freestyle on the edge.
Tony Hawk, obviously not camera shy,
"toey" backside air.
rt's 9 a.m. on the top of a building downtown in the business district
of a major metropolitan city. Poised on the absolute edge of the
building Rodney Mullen is executing his routine for the sheer thrill
of it. One slip and we're talking a five floor express route to oblivion.
One of those situations in which no points are given. This is freestyle
in the eighties, just a few inches away from absolute life and death.
After about forty minutes of Rodney's skyscraper act the cops arrive.
The crew leaves. For the next eight hours its video tape on the run. On
thirteen other occasions the boys in blue showed up to bust. Mullen
kept on skating, a man possessed by the desire to excel at an activity.
frowned on by the establishment. How many pimps, whores, thieves,
drug addicts, psychos, knife men and potential mass murders went un-
observed while the Jack Webb types chose to fight the crime of
skateboarding? Like we said this isn't an episode of Dragnet this is re-
ality. The fact that the amazing Mr. Mullen's sequence was finally
completed in the sanctuary of a skate park just because it was the only
place they could set the camera up without getting rousted tells just
what it means to be a freestyle fugitive.
J. Simpson is sitting on a Rolls with two actress/model types:
watching Chris Iverson, Todd Hastings and Peralta street slid-
ever others do and the law enforcement types are quickly dispatched,
while it was never revealed as to just why the Beverly Hillbillys desired
the lads departure; perhaps Iversons' continual use of parked Mercedes
Benz luxury sport coupes as sliding surfaces had something to do with
it. Other possible reasons include trespassing, filming without a per-
mit, endangering public health and safety, hazardous conduct, danger-
ous to self and others, the unregistered, uninsured mufflerless camera
truck, excessive speed in a residential district and lack of Beverly Hills
citizenship. These were the words which spewed forth blitzkreig style
from the mouth of the corpulent humanoid with a badge. Miraculously
the video crew equipped with new polypropelene palm sliding gloves
eventually located a sleek surfaced downhill run with a slightly banked
right hand turn just east of someplace called Westlake. While I never
saw the lake I did manage to view the fourth generation camera car, a
reworked 914-6 Porsche. The auto, chosen for its speed, maneuvera-
Cornued on page 21
C.R., tied in at
35 mph for a low angle
on Iversons sliding style: