My name's Tony Hawk. I'm a decent guy. One
day, a person came down from a magazine in
San Francisco, to interview me. He met me at
Del Mar Skate Ranch, and told me to skate while
he watched and drank coffee. After awhile he
told me to stop. He said. "Let's go eat some-
thing. He made me drive all over the place, he
couldn't decide where to eat. "How about
Carfs?, I offered. "I don't trust places that have
a guy's first name for a tile," he replied. "Carfs
Jr corrected. "Ha. now it's the guy's kid! We
could eat there and die," he screamed. Finally
he spied a sushi bar, and we went in. I was
apprehensive, to say the least, when he asked
me it I'd ever eaten dead, raw fish. I'd mumbled
a bit, it sounded somewhat like an answer, then
he started ordering wierd things; oyster rolls,
scallop rolls, California rolls, eel rolls and a thing
called Gyoza. To drink, he hailed down some
plum wine, and, like lightning, whipped out a tiny
little tape recorder and began the first barrage of
questions.
How old are you?" he darted.
"Sixteen."
"How much do you weigh," he continued,
sipping at his plum wine and snapping apart his
chopsticks.
"One-ten," I hope.
"How tall are you?
"I don't know, five...
Time's up, that's enough. You're five."
I continued anyway, "Five, like...uh...eight, or
something. I keep growing.
He dropped his chopsticks and bent his face
to talk. "Five like eight? That's a good answer.
When this gets translated into words, take on
a whole new meaning. You never know, I might
re-arrange your answers onto different ques
tions"
I thought to myself, "Great."
"What's your shoe size?"
"Eleven.
interview
"How long has it been eleven?
"A couple months. I wear my dad's shoes. He
buys shoes, and I steal em." I paused for a
moment. "Wait, don't print that."
"No problem. When did you start skating?
"When I was about nine, when it was a trend."
"What year was that?
1979, around then.
"You were bom in 19707," he said, after
downing an cystor-thing, it looked gross, Ske
mucous or something
"No. 1968.
"So, that means that in 1979, you were twolve
Tony, already you're lying to me," he said,
getting lense and wrestless
"Hey!"I got wonted when he picked up some
raw-something and waved it around menac-
ingly with the chopsticks
"Are you dumb?" he said.
"No, I'm trying to think. I always forget when I
started skating."
Then he said, "Put your seatbelt on "Ithink he
meant it. "Don't hurt yourself."
Tll injure my brain. We'll say I started skating
in 1977. I sure told him there. "It's a good year.
How about the end of seventy eight?"
The clock struck what, and then you skated?"
"Whaa???"
"Hey! I'm outa plum wine. It's sake time," he
pointed to his watch. "What made you pick up
that first skate, and then what made you get on
"All these kids were skating around my house
I thought that looked kinda good. My brother
showed me how to stand up and tum. Then I got
a membership at Oasis skatepark." I was on a
roll. I was breathing my life history.
"Where were you living?"
Handplant, Upland
Japan air, Del Mar
This question was the easiest one yet, "Right
near there," I said. "About five minutes away.
So you started skating, you got a member-
ship, so what did you do? Did you go in and fail
down? Were you, ske, a geek skater?" He
wasn't holding anything back. This question
slung through the air like a razor blade.
"Yeah, I responded. "Basically, alot of stic-
kers. I had a JAWS board. Sort of a plastic, blue
board. I think it had a shark on the bottom. Some
generic trucks, plastic wheels. The bolt broke, I
thought the board was broken, so I had to get a
whole new board. I got a Pro Class. It looked like
an organ
"What? Are you crazy? Did it look like a liver,
or something?
Pipes. I tried to grab the gyoza thing with my
chopsticks, but it desintegrated. Mashed
"Dude what are you doing? Don't play with it
You killed it. Grab it low and long bro. He started
preparing to eat. "Do you know how to do this
part?" he says
"Doesn't look too hard."
This is only the beginning. This green stuff, is
some kinda mustard."
I can't deal with that stuff. I can't even handle
that stuff." Some things I knew.
"OK. Tell me how much of a wimp you are."
I'm a wimp? There's a little man in my brain.
His name is Wimpo."
"Wimpo?"
"Yeah. Neil Blender told me about him."