With a façade as intriguing as the
treasures within, fawn-like curiosi-
ty and knowledge imbibe infinite
wonders, a mind as vast and vital
as an underwater paradise, with
the ability of an eagle to soar to
unknown worlds within, an aura of
fantastic energy envelopes this
body. Thus, the spirit of my best
friend, Frank.
-Lori Garcia
Who were your earliest influences?
Aside from my friends and family, my earli.
est influences in skateboarding were guys
like Chris Miller, Steve Caballero and Mark
Gonzales. When the H-Street videos came
out, basically everybody in there was a good
influence because they had a lot of versatility
and introduced a lot of new tricks. Tommy
Guerrero was also good.
Do you think style is more, or just
as important as, the ability to
perform tricks?
I think style plays
an important part
in it, but it's
not more
important than ability, because, personally, I
think that a good mixture is awesome, and
original style is better.
What advice can you give to skaters who
are just starting out?
Probably the most important thing is to be
patient and not to expect too much of your-
self right away, because everything takes a
lot longer to learn when there
isn't anybody telling
you how to do it,
and that's also
the beauty
of it because everything you learn is learned
solely on your own, and you're not pushed
by anybody but yourself.
What do you think about skating today?
It's coming around, but I'm still disappoint-
ed in the way that many professional skate-
boarders take advantage of the tiny bit of
power that they think they have. But if you
look past that or further into skateboarding,
you can find some people that just skate-
board because they want to skateboard, and
they happen to be good enough to turn pro
one day, and they do that, and they don't
take advantage of being in that position.
The skateboard scene is very, very small
on a world scale, and it's just that people
should tame their egos a little more.
The scene itself seems like it is chang-
ing for the better.
What kind of skating do you prefer?
I prefer them all. It depends on
where I'm at and what's available. But I
prefer none of them, I like them all.
Where is skateboarding headed?
People are just going to try to do their
tricks down larger obstacles like bigger
stairs, gaps or whatever, take their street
tricks to vert ramps. I think vert's back.
PHOTOS BY LANCE DALGART
The donut shop rail gets worked by
Frank's backside 180 fakie 5-0.