How old are you?
21, golden ripe age.
legal.
Where were you
born?
San Francisco. I've
lived here all my life.
Are you a city kid all
the way or what?
Fully, I could never get into living in a ram-
shackle hut with a rope to hold my pants up.
You've skated S.F. all your life. Do you
think it's the best?
There's nothing else, really. There are no hills
anywhere else. It's so small you can skate
From one end to the other, y'know. It's killer.
What year were you born?
66, buddy 9-06 Turn 9-9-66 upside down
and you get im two-thirds satan.
A 60's hatchling
bought us new boards, so that was cool.
Did you ever hang out at Ed's?
Oh yeah. He had a pinball machine and a
couple of video games-Pong, Space In
vaders, you know. We'd just sit around and
play games and go skate, just dork around.
He'd give discounts on equipment, which
was really cool. One of the guys that used
to work there had a van and would take a
group of
every weekend to a
skatepark Alameda That was really fun
Around that time, I think, Skateboard
World magazine came out with the Jungle
Bowl on the cover and you guys were
featured. What was that like?
all your tricks wired in different styles and dif-
ferent ways. My street skating has helped my
vert skating o've been skating vert and
my vert helps my street. Freestyle? I don't
freestyle very much any more but I used to.
I do flatland stuff, that's like freestyle.
Freestyle boards? Your shins? Forget it.
What was an average skate day like then?
1 have to tell you about all these ramps we
had in our backyard. It was crazy. We used
to put 4 by 8's up against our garage door
because it was already kind of banked. The
whole sidewalk was kind of banked. We us-
ed to ride on the garage door. We used to
do wall rides a million years ago. I'm sure
everyone did. I had three different ramp
levels in my backyard. One ramp was 4-feet
wide by about 7 or 8-feet high with two tran-
sitions. It was banked, boom, boom. Tony
was getting frontside edgers way back then.
There was a 15-foot drop on one side of the
ramp and my mdm used to say, "Don't do
that, you re connal yourself!" We used to
hasa aps markings. "How high did you
et? got third tape day!"
What about injuries in early years?
Once my brother bought wheels at
you on the Alot Flex team dur- Skateboard City called Freestyles They were
ing that period? How did that come about? real big and plastic. We were trying to chip
Those guys always wet o medethem up so we could take 'em back. Etwas
skatepamem and they liking on the curb messing with this wheel,
skated and they just started giving the end
by brothedequipment. They were the coolest
guys, the nicest people you'd meet. Like
They just ahowed up and this big photo
session. It was raining the day. It was weird
because you don't ever thi "Oh, I'm gonna
be in a skateboard magazine." These guys
come to take photos and we're going "Wow!""
Totally. When I was just a baby I went with And I was eleven or something. Irally
my mom to see Jankdoplin.
When did you start skateboarding?
When I was about nine years old, about
twelve years ago
What were the early skating years he
Fun, just cruising down the hills, always try
ing to get new, different boards and stuff. But
I couldn't really afford it, my mom couldn't
really afford it. But she'd buy us skateboards
when we needed them. She backed us all
the way
What was the scene like back then?
sed to skate for Ed steal Precision back
then. That was really cool Everyone would
hang out and we'd take the tue up the bill
and Skate the Ninth Avenue ture We'd just
skate all day. The benevas nothing like it
is now at all:
How did you ride back then
lides, driveways, laybacks, berts auff
ke that We'd catch the bus for a
You'd get a transfer and keep using
stoked, My brother go two page deal. It
was a bunny hop of cotton. Full rain
Were you in thosegle Bowl pool
sessions?
was there, I was justies high to a kree
grasshopper.
Were
Maling, Chris, Day and Anthony
Fisher, Jay Lehan, Pace Pie and Jeff
bands all those guys
There was an Alat-A-Flex team, but wasn't
it an underground: deal?
Iwas called a team. We were
ult. It was
fad Zero city was cholineam. We
woon gamle with theag teways
verwapped their burk We had davicams
and over it was like a chairlift There'd be contest one time have the a trophy from
The thirty people on the bus. We'd all
down, then go back up.
78 or bonding. I think I got second
And there was an overall team thing. We won
the Those guys were so good. Remember
Tim Marling, when he wort Milpitas pro, Win-
chester pro? He was just sick. Those guys
taught me style. Like, I used to do Stinkbug
onside air, and they taught me to put my
Sem around my knees. They taught me
everything. They all have kids and stuff now.
I used to hear about Marting doing rock-
What kind of equipment did you ride?
I used to ride a Santa Cruz fiberglass board
with a kicktail-the skinny one-with
powerflex and ACS or Lazers cater on, when
the parks came around, roda Steve Olson
deck with 169's and Blackhart the best set
up ever, Way long ago, Full Black Knight
scene and Plastic Arabian Shoes When
used to skate for Alot-A-Flex they used ton-rolls at that time?
make boards and rooke Blades-trucks no
one knew about. They were the best
Wait, wait, wall, go back. What's a Plastic
Arabian Shoe?
That was a skate. It was wacked was
almost a half-pipe as diculous, never
rode Tracker and Bennet, always rode the
worst stuff. One board had was called
California Surfing or something: fiberglass
and no tall and Hewalian owers printed all
over it, with Exeatibor trucks and some kind
of urethane wheels My brother rode a plastic,
mini GT Spoile20 inches long, or even
Smaller Chetibiwe got mad at each other,
got in a tight and picked it up and threw it
against wall cracked and broke in half
and he was so pissed at me. Then my mom
and my friend rolls a wheel down the hill and
he goes, "Wach out" I look up and it hits
a rock, pops up, and cuts my head open-
sistiches. I told my mom hit my head on
the curb because was afraid my friend
would get in trouble. I'm all, "Oh yeah, I'm
fine" and then I notice blood and, "Waah!"
The first year at the casting ponds I ran over
my finger and ripped my nail clean out. That
was nice. Second year, this year, I dislocated
my pinky. I went to the doctor. "Is this
broken?" "Oh no, it's not broken. Just throw.
his little thing on it." He just taped my fingers
together. Now look at it, I can't straighten it.
Kaiser-Yeah! Ankles and stuff. Foot, look
what we've got going here-the brace, the
Natas syndrome. My ankle's tweaked right
now and I've been skating all those contests
with hurt ankles. Natas too. Natas puts the
slipon elastic brace over his foot, a sock over
that duct tape over that, then his shoe. It
looks like he's wearing a snow boot. It's crazy,
though, because the injury is still there. And
he still ollies the house. Sick.
Yeah, '77 he did rock-n-rolls. No one even J think some of the worst injuries happen
knew what it was. Crazy.
What other spots can you remember from
way back?
Everything, like Los Altos pipe, remember
that? That thing was killer. And Los Altos
Pool. That was great.
Once you got involved with a crew who
had wheels did you started travelling a bit?
Yeah, going to skateparks. We'd take BART
(Bay Area Rapid Transit) to Milpitas or get
a ride. And then Bryce got his car. We skated
everything. Nowadays, skaters don't skate
everything They're not rounded off. They
label themselves "I'm a street skater, I'm a
vert skater, I'm this, I'm that." Just skate
everything and you get more rounded off. Get
while you're a pedestrian or when you do
something funky on the last Fun.
Oh, last run. Whenever you say that you
always get hurt. You can jump a million fest
in the air, qd then on your way home you
hit a banana peel.
Who were your influences back then?
StackPeralta, So weird, I saw him at a con
test 12 years ago at this Fort Mason contest:
Roy Jason, Stacy Persita Greg Ayers. Ray
Meyers was there and had a trick called the
apple rnbyer. It was the g-turn. And he did
handsprings, holding, the board. (and go
down on the wheels and flip over and s
He was so good-back then. He won freestyle
and my brother got second or something
Above: Tommy has a unique sense of timing and
control in his skating. Here he brandishes a
hearty allie-to-stalefish grab off of a mere
plywood curb. Right: T.G. engaged in a
reflex-honing paddleball session.