STOP
Fifteen years ago you were thirteen,
what kind of changes have you seen?
I was just getting my first pro model
for Sims, skating Upland and Whittier. I
was hanging out with Mike Smith and
skating Winchester with Caballero. Win-
chester was closing down, skateboard-
ing was dying, and me and Cab were in
competition already from amateur into
the pros. And then it went from a kind
of sudden halt of skateboarding into
like a kind of rush type of frenzyish
thing that's happened. Like right now
today, skateboarding is hotter again like
it was back in '87 and '88. It was like an
omen, so to speak, where back then it
was dying, so Thrasher came out, we
were skating ramp contests with only
$250 for first place, and they were rag-
ing. TSOL was playing live, and it was
just enjoying skateboarding for what it
was when there's no money involved.
So, basically, from then on, I've been
skateboarding, and that's all I wanted to
do. And I wanted to do it to a profes
sional level where it could be a money-
making thing, but also be an influential
thing towards other skaters and other
people around the world and showing
them the way we did it. It's been fifteen
years and look at what's happened, look
at what we've done. Snowboarding is
like skateboarding, surfing is like skate
boarding. Everything is coming back
around and it keeps going around. Now
it's more fun than ever. Everyone is
accepting it, and it's like another art
form of living like surfing was. And now
I'm having a lifestyle of making money
58 THRAKE
skating. People can hardly relate to that.
Businessmen around the world can't
really fathom that thought. Now they're
looking at how much of an adrenaline
rush there is involved and how stylish
and how much it can involve with the
beach which means bikinis which means
girls which means fun which means a lot
of parties and a lot of people getting
involved and it's a big fuckin' rager.
Skateboarding now is coming back
because snowboarding kicked it right
back in by giving it its respect and all
that, and I think that's the greatest
thing, because surfing is a lot like that
with Christian Fletcher doing skate-
boarding when he was in the water.
Kelly Slater and all of them, those guys
were busting out. Archibald was riding
it like he's skating, and he doesn't really
skate, he just skates a little bit. And
then I remember teaching Fletcher
how to do backside airs on vert, and he
was already doing it in the water.
What is your favorite place to visit?
Brazil's been a real good one recently,
ever since they built that Rio Sul bowl.
That's like the most epic place, I think, in
the whole world. There's nothing com-
parable. It's perfection. A kidney pool
right in the middle of the highway, in
front of the mall in Rio De Janeiro,
downtown, and then our buddies are
working the sushi bar across the street,
own it, and we just kick back, skate for
free, lights all night, and mack sushi for
free, and we get the fatties no problem.
It's like sitting pretty. The Copacabana is
Showing fine form, Hosoi (above) gets horizontal on a pole.
The Holmes bomb squad (right) will always thrill and chill.
Chicks, write to Christian (below right) direct at Focus in
Huntington Beach. The Islands' favorite son (opposite top)
goes frontside at a secret Hawaiian pool. The Christman
(opposite bottom) flashes a Smithvert in Venice Beach.
right there with all the scenic surroundings. It was
just too beautiful. Everything. The food was just so
fresh and so good, no preservatives or anything.
That's probably one of my favorite places. Then
that place Marseilles, south of France, that's epic.
Yeah, see, that's comparable. It's all comparable.
Then we can go to Huntington Beach. I'll tell ya,
this is epic. There's nothing like it. Skateboarding
heaven. From street to vert to pools to ramps to
clubs, it's epic. LA's the shit, though. Venice Beach,
those are places that I grew up.
Do you have any advice to any young skaters
out there just getting into skateboarding?
Skateboarding is just so good, it's unbeliev
able. Enjoy. It's more of an enjoyable thing. It's a
radical thing. It's an aggressive thing. That's all it is,
that's the bottom line. It's aggression, it's releasing
tension. It can make you focus in on your life and
how you treat things and what you do as you get
older. It changes. It's not like I've ever stopped
skateboarding, I've lived a full skateboarding life
till this day. I'm still living it, I still feel like I'm going
to live it for a long time to come. I don't feel like
I'm going to be physically hampered in any way. I
just think if I keep myself in shape, I don't see why
I couldn't last long. Look at Dave Duncan, he's rip-
ping, getting fuckin' better. Alva, getting better.
Guys like that. Jay Adams is skating still-one hun-
dred percent skateboarder. That's what life's all
about. Even if I were to be working or doing
something, I could see it. Salba, he's a skate-
boarder for life. He loves it. He is good. To be
around skateboarders, you can feel the energy.
What would you like to see happen?
I'd just like to see a lot of skateparks and a lot of
skating going on in every town. It'll keep people in
a state of emotional contentment, be able to not
go into gang-banging and drug-dealing, too much
rebellion is not happening.
Are you surprised that you've made it this far,
still skateboarding at twenty-eight years old?
I predicted that I would be skating for a long
time when I was young. I saw myself being there
and I'm still here. I don't have to prove anything
anymore. There were points in time where people
were insinuating that I wasn't going to be here and
I've overcome that five times already, so I'm not
worried about how long I'm going to be skating
anymore. That's not a problem for me, because I'm
going to be skating forever. As long as there's
something to skate, I'll be skating.
Do you want to thank anyone?
My mom and pops, they've been really behind
me. And then all my friends, those are the ones
that are my support system, they keep me going,
they keep me positive, they keep the energy alive,
motivation and the encouragement. There's too
many people to mention, I can't even start. I don't
even know. Who should I say first? I guess it's just
skateboarding, that's the most powerful of all, that
and love. That's everything. I