Arto Saari - Alaia Issue 2 - Full Text - Summer 2023

ARTO SAARI: FINNISH ENDLESS SUMMER
Words: Mackenzie Eisenhour

What are the odds of a young Finn finding his way to Huntington Beach, California to get paid to ride a skateboard? Now what are the odds of that same Finn selling his home in Southern California to become a legitimate North Shore local and surf photographer? However slim those odds may be—this is the story of one man who defied them.

Arto Saari was born in Seinäjoki, Finland in 1981 and rose up through the ranks of amateur then professional skateboarding to win Thrasher’s coveted “Skater of the Year” award in 2001. After skating to two David Bowie songs* in Flip Skateboards’ blockbuster release Sorry that same year (in what is still deemed by many as one of the best video parts of all time), and getting his first pro model shoe from éS in ‘02—Arto appeared to be on top of the skateboarding world—poised for decades of dominance.

Yet only a year later, a knee injury sustained while filming for Flip’s follow up release, Really Sorry would set into motion a series of six subsequent knee surgeries, and by 2016 his body was simply too battered to continue skateboarding. Struggling to find a new creative path forward, Arto would ultimately move his fledgling family from the heart of Los Angeles to the North Shore of Oahu, trading in his skateboard stunts for his newfound passion for surfing and surf photography. In the Spring of 2023, I sat down for a conversation with him on his life’s unlikely second chapter. 

His first taste of Hawaii and surfing back in ’99 did not go well. In fact, he almost drowned. In Arto’s words, “My first visit to Hawaii was an éS trip right around when Ménikmati came out. We skated the Hickam Air Force base and a few spots on Oahu. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to take a bunch of skaters out surfing for the first time. They gave us some like potato chip performance short boards and we went to Diamond Head and got in from the cliffs. We played around in the water for a few hours then it was getting dark and all of the sudden I’m stuck in the current getting swept out to sea. And by that point I couldn’t even move my arms, we had been out for so long already. I could just see the land getting further and further away. It’s getting dark and my whole crew is just walking up the cliff.”

Panicked, Arto thought he was going to die: “There’s nobody around at this point. I was stuck in this current going nowhere—screaming, kicking, waving my arms. I remember basically just giving up. I was just like, ‘I’m fucked. This is it.’ To this day I don’t even know if it was real or not but all of the sudden I felt this little push. This local braddahcomes from behind me like, “Hello Brah, you need some help?” Like a big old Hawaiian guy and he’s just pushing my board and gets me all the way into the shore. Basically saves my life. That was my introduction to surfing.”

Saari elaborates: “After that I remember thinking, ‘I’ll just stick to what I know. Give me a handrail and some stairs. I’m good on this surfing thing. Otherwise I’ll just die.’ 16 years later, not until 2016—I was like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna try this surfing thing again.’” 

I asked him what prompted a return to something that almost killed him the first time. He replies, “By ’16, I was going on a lot of skate trips, shooting a bunch of photos, but my skateboarding was just not happening anymore. I had really bad arthritis in my knee. It was such a sad thing to let go of riding a board. I had photography but I really didn’t know what to do with myself. I went to a friend’s wedding in Mexico, and this Finnish/Mexican pro surfer Kalle Carranza was there. He lent me a board and took me out. It was mostly flat that day, but he pushed me into this little six-inch peeler and I just felt this force pick me up. I felt this glide and that was enough. I came home, went to the Burton store and got the biggest surfboard they had. I started driving to the coast every day for a year in LA—never catching a wave. Finally, I was like, ‘Fuck it, I’m 35 years old. If I want to learn how to surf I need to go where there’s a lot of waves all year round.’ That’s what prompted the move to Hawaii.”

So Arto sold his house on Fairfax in Hollywood and moved his seven-month pregnant wife and toddler daughter into what he describes as a cement shack on the North Shore. As Saari explains, “We had planned to do a home birth. I basically moved her into this house that looked like a public bathroom. It’s an old brick house and it was completely gutted. When the doula came over to see where we would do the birth, she walked into the house, with no plumbing, no electrical. She was like, “Um, is there running water?” This was like a month before the birth. Eventually she was just like, ‘Well, Jesus was born in the manger. I guess this will do.’

The Saaris did manage to get the house ready in time (just barely, with Arto’s wife yelling at the workers to leave when she began going into labor) and they would go on to build another second, larger house on the property. Arto elaborates, “I felt like the move to Hawaii lasted three-and-a-half years. During that time I didn’t even really shoot any pictures. I kind of lost my passion for photography at first. I became a construction guy basically.”

Asked when his creative mojo returned he explains; “I was on the bike path a bunch, and I would still have my camera along. If there was a gnarly swell I would go shoot Pipe (Pipeline). I’d shoot a few pictures but I was not into it. Then spending more time on the bike path, going to check the surf, taking the kids to school—I just started to see all these little moments. Not even surf photography but just portraits and scenes of daily life here—the backstage as people are getting ready to surf. That really sparked me. Once I was shooting that I started shooting more actual surfing.”

Since then Arto has become a fixture in the local North Shore scene and his photography has become his primary income. His recent collaboration with Slowtide Towels is a good example of his work’s powerful commercial appeal. While he still describes himself more as a “struggling artist” than a bonafide pro—his idyllic second act is a happy ending to an already extraordinary life arc. 

Will his family stay put on the North Shore for the foreseeable future? Arto pauses, then replies, “Usually they say it takes about 2-3 years for people coming to Hawaii to either stay or bounce. Either the islands take you in or people can’t deal with it and leave. We’ve been here five years now, almost six. I think we have grown some roots and are becoming a part of the community. The kids love it, this is all they know. There are more world class waves on this short, couple of miles stretch than anywhere else in the world. I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else now.”  

* 1984 and Rock n’ Roll Suicide

 
RAW INTERVIEW TEXT / CONDUCTED BY PHONE MAY 2023:

ME: Hey Arto.

Arto: Yeah buddy. What’s happening?

ME: I’m good. How are you?
Arto: Do you remember Andre Genovese? 

Definitely. Like the switch ollie/switch flip beast.
He’s my neighbor now. I just ran into him. He randomly hit me up a few years ago to see if I knew anybody renting a house here. So I told him like, “Yeah, call these couple of people.” I didn’t hear from him for a few months and then he just showed up like, “Dude I just rented a place. It’s like two houses over from yours.” 

He rode for Hurley when I worked for Hurley.
That’s right he was a Hurley guy.

When did you first visit Hawaii?
My first visit to Hawaii I think was an éS trip with Atiba (Jefferson) and some of the boys. I want to say it was right around when Menikmati came out and we did a demo tour. We skated the Hickam Air Force base and a few spots on Oahu. But somebody thought it would be a good idea to take a bunch of skaters out surfing for the first time. They were like, “Oh yeah, just take these boards.” And they gave us a bunch of like potato chip performance short boards and were just like, “Paddle out there.” So we went to Diamond Head and got in from the cliffs. We played around in the water for a few hours then it was getting dark and all of the sudden I’m stuck in the current getting swept out to sea. And by that point I couldn’t even move my arms. They were just like spaghetti noodles—we had been out for so long already. I could just see the land getting further and further away. It’s getting darker and darker and my whole crew is just walking up the cliff. 

Jesus.
There’s nobody around at this point. Nobody in the water, it’s just completely empty. The waves even weren’t that big, they were probably knee high but I was stuck in this current going nowhere. Screaming, kicking, waving my arms. I remember basically just giving up paddling. I was just like, “I’m fucked. This is it.” To this day I don’t even know if it was real or not but all of the sudden I felt this little push and I started moving, I started paddling again and know I was moving toward the shore. This local bradda comes from behind me like, “Hello Bra, you need some help?” Like a big old Hawaiian guy and he’s just paddling and pushing my board and gets me all the way into the shore. Basically saves my life. That was my first introduction to surfing. 

You had a guardian angel out there.  
He came out of nowhere. 



That’s a heavy first experience for surfing.
Yeah, after that I remember thinking like, “I’ll just stick to what I know. Give me a handrail and some stairs. I’m good on this surfing thing. Otherwise I’ll just die.” 16 years later, not until 2016—I was like, “You know what? I’m gonna try this surfing thing again.”   

So it wasn’t love at first sight with Hawaii and surfing?
Oh hell no. I mean I lived in Huntington Beach for 10 years and I was maybe in the water a handful of times just to swim. I never even thought about surfing. It was not even on my radar. 

What made it come back around in 2016?
At that point I was going on a lot of trips, shooting a bunch of photos, and just feeling pretty shitty physically. I was pretty cooked. At that point my skateboarding was just not happening any more. I felt like, “I can’t move.” It was such a sad thing to let go of riding a board. I had photography but I really didn’t know what to do with myself. It was a tough mental battle. I went to a friend’s wedding in Mexico, and this Finnish/Mexican pro surfer Kalle Carranza—he’s a buddy of mine, he was there and he was like, “Let me take you out surfing. Just grab a board from my surf shop and I’ll show you.” It was basically flat that day, there were no waves. But he pushed me into this little six-inch peeler and I just felt this force pick me up. I felt this glide and that was enough. I came home, went to the Burton store (At the time Arto rode for Alien Workshop which had then been bought by Burton) and got the biggest surfboard they had and started driving to the coast every day for like a year. Never catching a wave so at that point I was like, “Fuck it, I’m 35 years old. If I want to learn how to surf I need to go where there’s a lot of waves all year round.” That’s what prompted the move to Hawaii. 

I heard that you were trying for a second to move out there. Waiting for something to open up to buy on the North Shore?
Yeah, during that year that I was heading to the coast in LA trying to surf these developers were trying to buy our house on Fairfax. So it was sort of the perfect storm. These developers kept knocking on our door like, “Hey, we want to buy your house.” We had already decided to move, we just didn’t know where. That’s when I decided on Hawaii. It was kind of weird, all these forces simultaneously occurred. We had sold our house on Fairfax and were half way through the escrow when this property popped up. My realtor called me and was like, “Hey, this is going to go fast. If you want it go gotta put an offer in right now.” I hadn’t even seen the property but he was like, “If you want it this, you have to put an offer in tomorrow.” I was like, “I’ll take it.” So I bought it sight unseen. 

Just trusting the flow.
I had been watching the market there for a year and I kind of knew a little bit about it. I knew the location. I knew the prices there. But it was basically just a flat farm lot with grass on it and a tiny little house. It was built in the ‘70s and would have to be redone completely. But I was just trying to get anywhere on the island. I was looking all over and by some miracle this North Shore lot popped up and it was just perfect.



Your still in that spot right?
Yeah, still here in the same spot. We did a lot of work on it. I felt like the move to Hawaii lasted three and a half years. During that time I didn’t even really shoot any pictures. I kind of lost my passion for photography at first. I became a construction guy basically. Renovated the small house on the property, and we built a another new house from scratch. I had to put in a little ice bath and a sauna to keep the Finnish vibes going. We had a big project on our hands. After the three and half years I thought I’d just be a construction guy. I was like, “Skating is done. I’m surfing. I’ll be a contractor.” I didn’t have any passion to shoot photos. I was in a new place I didn’t know what to shoot. 

Were your kids born in LA or out there?
My daughter was born in LA and my son was born here in the little house. It was a home birth. My wife was seven months pregnant when we got here. I basically moved her into this house that looked like a public bathroom. It’s an old brick house and it was completely gutted. When the doula came over to see where we would do the birth, she walked into the house, it was completely gutted with no plumbing, no electrical. It was just a brick shell with a roof. She was like, “Um, is there running water?” This was like a month before the birth. Eventually she was just like, “Well, Jesus was born in the manger. I guess this will do. As long as you have running water this will work.” 

So it worked out? Your son was born there?
Yeah. I managed to finish the work in time. I got a bath tub in there, a bed, walls. It looked like a house by the time he was born. But I do remember I still had workers there when my wife was going into labor. She was screaming and there’s people putting shelves in the closet, power tools and eventually she was just like, “Get the fuck out of here!” Everyone dropped their tools and disappeared (laughs). 

She’s American right? Not Finnish?
Yes, she’s American.  

Sounds like a lot going on right then. Trial by fire. Did you ever officially retire from pro skating after moving out there?
No. I mean the first year I was in Hawaii I was still pretty involved with skating. Trying to work with companies. I was on New Balance at the time and working with Volcom trying to do skate stuff. It kind of became too difficult I guess for them to get me over (to the mainland). When I was in LA, every skate trip or job I went on was not in LA. Everything involved traveling. So I figured, “Why do I need to be in LA? I can just hop over in five hours—tickets are a few hundred bucks.” That was my reasoning for it. But once I got here everybody is just sort of like, “Well, your stuck on the rock, we don’t care about you.” All the connections dried up pretty fast. 

When did this new passion for creating your own world out there kind of kick in? I saw the video of you taking your kids to school on the bike path and shooting photos on the way home. Was there a moment where you fell back in love with photography?
Yeah, after I got settled and moved in here—after the building project—I was on the bike path a bunch, and I would still have my camera along once in a while. If there was a gnarly swell I would go shoot Pipe (Pipeline) and I would almost feel obligated to shoot because it was so crazy. I’d shoot a few pictures but I was not into it. Then spending more time on the bike path, going to check the surf, taking the kids to school—I just started to see all these little moments along the path. I had always been really interested in photojournalism so I just started shooting people on the bike path for fun. Not even surf photography but just portraits and scenes of daily life here. Shit that goes on in the backstage basically as people are getting ready to go surf and all the action behind the scenes. That really sparked me to shoot more. Once I was shooting that I started shooting more actual surfing. 



That strip on the North Shore is basically the center of the surfing universe right?   
Yeah, I guess from a skater’s perspective it would be like somebody showing up at EMB (San Francisco’s Embarcadero plaza that was long considered the center of the skate universe) and starting to shoot portraits. There are more world class waves on this short, couple of miles stretch than anywhere else in the world. During the winter, from like November to February the whole surf industry is here. You can be a pro surfer anywhere but I think if you really want to make it globally and be one of the top dogs you gotta come over here and cut your teeth at Pipe (line) and surf Hawaii waves. It’s kind of like a right of passage. If you really want to be a part of the whole deal of surfing you gotta put in your time over here too. 

I forgot to ask too, I know there was the first knee injury in Really Sorry (’03). Was there a key injury that changed your course or was it all of them together?
The Really Sorry one kind of started the whole chain of events. 

That was the nollie?
Yeah. The nollie. I blew my PCL (Posterior Cruciate Ligament)out and the ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament)—that was the first surgery. Then I had five more surgeries in six years. And that was like the key time when I was supposed to be skating at my peak but I was just back-and-forth having knee surgeries the whole time. Then once I hit 30, the arthritis got so bad that they couldn’t really do much about it anymore. I had a new ACL put in for my last video part (Mindfield by Alien Workshop/Greg Hunt, 2008) and I managed to get sober for six months and finished filming but by the end I had worn out the ACL they had just put in. So that was the last time I got surgery. 

It was worn out in six months? That’s heavy.
I think the knee thing definitely cut my time short. That was the big thing. I mean I got knocked out a few times. Hit my head. I’m sure there was some brain damage or whatever but it doesn’t bother me now. 

When did you get settled into this new life? I assume you’re staying in Hawaii now for the long haul? 
Yeah, I think I’m here for the long haul. Usually they say it takes about 2-3 years for people coming to Hawaii to either stay or bounce. Either the islands take you in or people can’t deal with it and leave. We’ve been here five years now, almost six. I think we have grown some roots and are becoming a part of the community here. The kids love it, this is all they know now so I think it’s safe to say we are here to stay. I couldn’t even imagine going anywhere else now.

You’re not moving back to Finland anytime soon?
No. Any travel I do now, the swell charts dictate where I go (laughs). That’s pretty much my calendar now. “Is there swells there?” Before all the trips were based on skate spots. 

Are you able to live off your photography now on some level?
No. I don’t know if you can ever live just off photography in this day and age. I think I’m more of a struggling artist (laughs). But these last couple of winters have been pretty good. I’ve been able to get a little bit of a name in the surf industry and people started to know my photography. I’ve been getting little odd jobs throughout. 

How did the Slowtide towel project come together for example?  
They just hit me up. We are kind of family friends with the guy who runs the company. He actually used to be a designer for Etnies back in the day so we had a connection through that. They started their company (Slowtide) and my photos kind of fit their vibe so it made sense. But there’s a lot of commercial work too here in Hawaii. But a lot of it goes through New York. They end up bringing a whole crew out here rather than hiring locally. 

Are you still focusing on black and white or do you shoot everything now?
I’m shooting everything. A lot of the stuff you see, obviously my personal obsession is black and white. The bike path project tends to live in black and white. A lot of my portraits too. But shooting for clients of course, the first thing they say is they want color.

Color is like the dazzle that the mainstream wants.
Exactly. And I get it. That’s why they come to Hawaii to shoot. They want the blue sky, clear, clean blue water, and green palm trees and flowers and the rest. But shooting in black and white has been my own artistic vibe just to entertain my artistic obsession. But I shoot a lot of color too. 

Do you still draw inspiration from the skate photographers you spent all those years with—French Fred (Mortagne), Oliver (Barton), Skin (Phillips), Atiba (Jefferson)?
For sure. Those guys had such a big influence on me from the start. That was how I learned photography—by hanging out with all those dudes. My baseline comes from that. I got my first camera off Skin Phillips and all those great skate photographers had such an affect on me. But at the same time you start growing on your own as a photographer, start shooting different stuff and getting inspired by different stuff. For portraits for example, I’ve been obsessed with (Richard) Avedon forever and (Annie) Leibovitz. There’s a French guy, Raymond Depardon, I’ve been really into his black and whites of kind of mundane landscapes.

Are there photographers in surfing that you are into?
I’ve been heavily into this guy Ted Grambeau from Australia. A lot of the old school guys too like John Severson and Bob Brewer (RIP) who just passed away. I love all the classic guys. There are obviously some incredible new photographers coming up too, doing a little bit different stuff. Ben Thouard is another one. There are a lot of incredible water photographers here. 

Do you ever get the itch the go skate still? I think you still have some quarterpipes in the driveway right?  
I do have some quarterpipes but honestly they’re mostly for the kids. I enjoy building skate stuff now more than I enjoy physically skating them. I whipped up the quarterpipes and scratched a couple of grinds but that’s about it. 

Do the kids skate hard?
My daughter kind of learned how to roll around. I also have a little concrete mini ramp on the driveway. They just kind of learned to cruise around on it. Do some turns. But my daughter is a real girl’s girl. She doesn’t really surf or skate. She dances. She likes ballet. And my boy is five and a half so he’s just kind of pushing around on his knees. The skateboard is just one of the toys. It’s not a thing yet. 

My kids almost won’t do it because it’s dad’s thing or whatever. Like when we skated as kids it was rebellious or whatever. But if your parents do it I guess that changes it.
Yeah. Exactly. I’m thinking maybe if I don’t push it they’ll just naturally pick it up on their own.

I bring my kids down to Stoner Plaza all the time. They’ll roll around for a few minutes then be like, “Let’s go play tennis”. It’s just like one of the many activities. But yeah, having dad do it seems like a detractor.
I got some boards laying around. I haven’t really pushed it. To tell you the truth I don’t know if I could spend another 20 years in a skatepark.

You put in your time. I mean as skate journalists we would maybe tag along with you guys on a tour here and there. And even one tour seemed pretty exhausting. But you guys lived on those tours like permanently for decades.  
I think I definitely have a little PTSD (laughs). I mean it was fun. Don’t get me wrong. It was the greatest thing ever. But at the same time, when you live and breath something for 20 years, I just feel like I have to do something different.  

   
I think you have pretty much the coolest second act anyone could write.
It (skateboarding) almost killed me too a couple of times so there are just certain things that tick my brain, like, “I can’t do that anymore.” My life today pretty much consists of pulling weeds, fighting the jungle, growing papaya, taking the kids to school, surfing, and loving the bike path. 

I got to say, when I was a little kid growing up in Norway we would visit Sunset Beach every summer because my aunt lived out there with my grandma and cousins. We would stay at this beach house right across from Kammy’s Market and I remember crossing that bike path in the middle to go to Kammy’s all the time. When I saw your video it brought back the craziest memories. 
Yeah, Kammy’s Market was a legendary surf snack spot there. You got the best of both words—the snow and a little taste for the tropics.  

Do you still have family in Finland? Do they come out to visit?
My immediate family—mom and sister have been coming out. My sister is actually coming in a month. She hasn’t seen the new place yet. My mom tries to come at least once a year to get out of the snow and see the kids. 

So is this it? Do you think you will stay put on the North Shore?
I think so. I’ve been studying surfing for a couple of years now and I just cannot find a coastline with this many world class waves anywhere else in the world. Year round. Winter season the waves are on this side. But then in summertime the south side of the island starts lighting up. The island has waves all year round which is rare for anywhere in the world. It’s a slower paced country living. You’re a little isolated. You definitely give up some of the modern conveniences. But at this point in my life, I’ve never been so happy to just stay put and not get on an airplane. 

I imagine for COVID it must have been amazing being there rather than some apartment in New York or somewhere.
Yeah, we got really incredibly lucky with that one. The only bummer living in Hawaii is when you have to get on a plane and go somewhere else (laughs). 

All time favorite skate photographer.
It’s gotta be Dan Sturt. Favorite and maybe the worst too. He might get both titles. He’s pretty incredible. Such a character. He would say the most fucked up shit right before you were about to jump on a handrail (laughs). He’s a smart dude. He knew how to get behind your head. He always knew just how far to push it—that fine line—to get you to do the trick. And he knew just when to pull back. For most people it probably seemed a little rude and over the top. But he knew how to bring the best out of people. 

Favorite surf photographer?
That’s a tough one. I’ve been more into portrait and fashion photography. I’ve been really freaking out on this guy Bastiaan Woudt. He just had a gallery show at Fahey/Klein in LA, right down the street from you. He’s from Netherlands and is more of an abstract fashion portrait photographer. If I had to pick one for surfing though I think that Ted Grambeau has been the most striking to me. 

All time favorite surfer?
John Florence. 

All time favorite skateboarder?
Tom Penny. It’s gotta be. Maybe the most naturally gifted skateboarder of all time.

He’s still ripping.
I think he’s been off the sauce too for the last couple of years. We see a lot more footage of him now. Rune (Gliffberg) has always been one of my favorites too. And the fact that he’s still ripping hard now is so rad. 

I’m stoked for you and where you ended up man.
It definitely feels like a second lease on life. After almost dying a few times throughout the skateboarding stuff. I don’t mean to be dramatic but I think it was pretty close a few times. 

You skated in probably the gnarliest time in skateboarding. When it was trendiest to go the biggest on stairs and rails. 
It doesn’t seem as trendy to get gnarly anymore. 

There are a few people still doing the occasional 10-kink rail or Jaws jumping down huge drops but then other people can make a full career now with low impact skating, maybe only doing ride-on grinds and slappies.
There are still a couple of guys pushing it. 

Definitely.
Nyjah putting out three parts in one year with shit that you’ve never even seen before. Jaime Foy front crooked grinding like triple kinks. It’s not all ‘90s style pants and slappy grinds.

The pants got really big again though (laughs). At the skatepark over here they all have the Polar Big Boys and whatnot.
It’s like, “What happened? We already went through this.”

Pontus is smart. That’s what happened. It’s all a cycle. If we wear tight pants it’s only a matter of time until someone is like, “Fuck tight pants. I’m going baggy!” And then a few years later someone else will be the new Boulala like, “Fuck baggy, I’m going skin tight!” 
Yeah, you gotta keep your finger on the pulse.
 

Thanks to Arto and Alaia Mag. Photos by Philipp Carl Riedl, Ryan Allen, Aurore Greindl. Layout: Sophie Weidinger. Editor: Wolfgang Weiser. Creative Director: Markus Kietreiber

17 Things You Didn't Know About Jason Dill

Fakie 5-0 on AVE's Green Bench, 2003 by Oliver Barton for Skateboarder

Jason Dill had somewhat of a transient upbringing, moving 22 times from ages 8-17 after his father was incarcerated for intent to distribute cocaine when Jason was 8 (See GQ article). That same year, Jason moved down the street from Ed Templeton in Huntington Beach, opening his eyes to skateboarding. He first appeared in our world via A1-Meats and Blockhead right around the turn of 1990. After a quick stop at Black Label, then Color with the Wray brothers, Jason was anointed pro by Natas Kaupas via 101 in 1993. After 101 ended, and after a quick stint on 23, Dill was handed the keys to the “Polyethylene” kingdom in Alien Workshop’s Photosynthesis . In 2013, AVE and Dill left AWS to launch Jason’s decade old t-shirt company, Fucking Awesome, into a board Brand (FA). Those are the knowns. Now let’s take a look at 17 Things* you probably didn’t know.

* Disclaimer: This article was cancelled twice. It was originally intended to run on a different site back in ‘19. Then again (on another platform) in 2022. As it turned out, both editors decided not to run it based on talks with Jason. Four years later, I dug it out of my vaults. Apologies to anyone who takes offense.


1. JASON LOST HIS VIRGINITY TO A GIRL NAMED CORRINE AT THE AGE OF 15.
“I was 15. That and dropping out of high school were like back-to-back for me. First I got laid, and then I dropped out (laughs).”

2. JASON’S FA CO-PILOT, AVE, ALSO LOST HIS VIRGINITY TO A GIRL NAMED CORINNE AT 15.
“They didn’t meet and didn’t know each other—but both our firsts were named Corrine and I believe we were also both 15. I’m older than him (Anthony) so his was a little later. My Corinne was older than me. She was 17 and I was 15. So I was really moving on up in the world.”

3. THE SURNAME ‘DILL’ WAS ORIGINALLY ‘O’DILL.’
“The Dill name is Irish but it’s actually O’Dill originally. From the story I’ve been told, when immigrants would come into America there would be an alphabetical classification of food rations.” (Meaning the Dills would get their rations before the O’Dills, for example). “So they chopped the ‘O’ for that reason and also to not sound to ‘Mick-ey’. Because being Irish wasn’t that cool here at that point.”

4. JASON WAS BANNED FROM THRASHER IN 1993.
Jeremy Wray explains: “We were supposed to do a triple interview (J Wray, Jonas Wray [RIP], and Dill). We were all up in SF shooting with [Gabe] Morford, Bryce Kanights, and Tobin [Yelland]. The whole interview was shot, we had recorded the interviews too. It was all set. That’s when we both got banned from Thrasher for riding for Color Skateboards. Rich Metiver, the owner of Color, was also the owner of Union Wheels, a competitor to Spitfire and everything up there (DLX/High Speed). They yanked the whole article and banned all three of us (Jason, Jeremy, and Jonas) from Thrasher.” After Jason left Color, his photos started filtering back in. Jason finally got his first Thrasher cover in Nov. 2000 and a second in Sept. 2011. 

5. JASON ONCE LIVED ALONE IN AFRICA FOR 3 MONTHS.
“In 2003 I was sent there on a tour that was meant to last 10 days. It was for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and the electronics company LG. I was riding for Alien Workshop at the time. We flew into Dakar up north, then flew down to Johannesburg. We did skate demos with BMXers and different people all for the charity. We went from Johannesburg to Durban and then to Cape Town—that was the last stop—and then everybody was leaving and I just went to the travel agent and changed my ticket. I stayed in Cape Town for three months by myself, just at different hotels. Every day I’d walk around until I got lost and drunk, come home, and try to find my hotel. It was crazy. I can’t believe I did it and survived.” Asked why he finally left and whether his sponsors were tripping, Jason said, “Just time. I had been there too long. I had just made the Mosaic (’04) part so I think my sponsors were okay with me taking some time off.”

6. JASON IS 12% BRITISH.
“I did a DNA test the other day and expected it just to come back as a four-leaf clover. Just, ‘Boom, you’re Lucky Charms Irish.’ But I was only 88% Irish. I’m 12% British. I had no fucking idea. I thought my whole family up and down was Irish as the fucking Emerald Isle. I’m still predominantly Irish. But I just like to picture the inner fight now within myself of different breeds of white people.”

7. FUCKING AWESOME WILL TURN 22 IN 2023.
“That’s something that’s known but I’m not sure that people realize it.” While the board brand was formally launched in 2013, Jason and his partner Mikey Piscitelli screened the first Fucking Awesome t-shirts, which Jason describes as inspired by “probably some British magazine or something Japanese. I don’t remember exactly,” in the summer of 2001. “It basically started right before 9/11. Just by me being young and growing up around Supreme. I was 21 years old. It was very small and tiny.”

8. FA WAS ALMOST CALLED DILL.
“There was a moment (in ’01) when I was printing shirts with a label that said DILL (à la Stüssy). But that quickly changed to Fucking Awesome.”

9. JASON HAS ONLY MADE ONE SWITCH 360 FLIP IN HIS LIFE—THE ONE IN SNUFF (’94).
“I only ever made that one. It’s the one in the opening line in Snuff at Blackrock. I do it down the stairs. That’s the only one I ever landed and to this day even Anthony (Van Engelen) could never teach me how to do it. I can’t get my back foot back on.”

10. JASON’S MOSAIC (’04) PART WAS MADE UP ENTIRELY OF LINES IN ODE TO HENRY SANCHEZ.
“The whole thing was a line, only at like three or four different places. It was totally a conscious choice. I wanted to do something different. When I had seen Henry Sanchez' part (in Tim and Henry’s Pack of Lies [‘92])—when Gino and I were really young we went and got that video at the shop or wherever and took it to Black Label to watch it. We wanted to quit skateboarding. It was so good. But the Henry part is so sick because he just keeps going in circles. Jovontae [Turner] did that too. I just wanted to do something different. My whole fucking skateboard career is based on trying to be different in one way or the other.

11. JASON WANTED HIS ETNIES FA HIGHTOP AD TO FEATURE A PHOTO OF A SHOE HE HAD JACKED OFF ON.
In ‘08 Jason had an FA collab/pro shoe for Etnies and his contract gave him full control over his marketing. Jason first created the "Dill" graffiti art and then conceived the ad with Ryan Sheckler and his Range Rover, which was “kind of genius looking back on it,” according to sources at Etnies. For his third concept, Jason upped the ante. The FA x Etnies shoe was a high top with “Fucking Awesome” around the heel (highly sought after by sneakerheads today). For the shoe’s first ad, Jason had apparently jacked off on the high top, shot photos of the shoe with his semen on it, and sent those to Etnies to run as the ad. Unsure how to proceed, Etnies eventually printed a letter that they wrote to Jason explaining why they couldn’t use his photo and ran that as an ad instead instead. Somewhere at Etnies there is still an ad laid out with a cum-speckled shoe. According to sources at Sole Technologies, “The story became Etnies folklore.”

12. JASON WAS STRAIGHT EDGE.
“We spent a lot of time together in the Black Label van,” Jonas Wray (RIP) said. “Jason was completely against any kind of smoking or alcohol then. Completely. He’d tell you like, ‘You’re fucking stupid if you do that.’ Skip Pronier would be sparking up in the van and little Jason would preach to him. He was just a young spicy kid. He definitely had his own views and his own way of doing things.” Jeremy Wray added, “That’s the way he’s always been. He would have really, really strong opinions on something. And then he would completely 180 and have a really, really strong opinion that was the exact opposite of the one he had a week ago.” At least he’s consistent.

13. JASON ALMOST SWITCH INWARD BIG HEELED THE HUNTINGTON HIGH 7 IN 1992.
From J Wray: “Marcus Wyndham was the only person that had ever done it down a 4-stair. Jason was trying the Wyndham trick down the 7 inside Huntington High. The one with the slippery brick landing inside that hallway. He landed on one perfect but it shot out and he smacked his head really hard. He had a huge lump on his forehead and it knocked him out. He was super dazed. In the footage, you can see him stand up right after but his legs don’t work and he walks right into a trashcan. It would have been such a heavy trick if he made it.”

14. JASON ONCE TURNED DOWN $70K TO APPEAR ON A JAPANESE BILLBOARD SMOKING.
“I got offered $70,000 to be in a cigarette ad a few years back and I turned it down. It was supposed to be on a billboard in Japan. Just me on a billboard smoking a cig. It wasn’t for the brand I smoke. I probably shouldn’t divulge the brand. Actually, fuck it, I don’t care, I won’t get in trouble. It was Winston. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t smoke ‘em, but I probably wouldn’t pass one up if it was in front of me.”

15. JASON PUSHED MONGO.
Jonas Wray (RIP): “Right when we met him he was definitely mongo. That was just the way he felt comfortable. We pushed on him a little bit. Told him like, ‘There’s a better way to do it. It’s gonna be more comfortable.’ But he did have a great switch push after that. At first he was kind of resistant. But he did end up switching over. It was funny because a lot of the clips where he would power push into it they would cut out the mongo pushes. If he needed a power push it would come back.” You can see Jason switch back and forth à la Randy Colvin in the last line of his A1-Meats Dancing in the Dirt (’91) part.

16. JASON WAS TOO NERVOUS TO TALK THE FIRST TIME HE MET TONY HAWK.
“When I was around 14 I went to a contest in Houston. There was a vert ramp but it wasn’t the one on the Skatepark of Houston property. Max Schaaff taught me how to noseslide, half-cab to fakie, and some other basics on the vert ramp. There was no one there. It was just like a few people—Max, Moses Itkonen, Dave Metty, Salman Agah might have been there just hanging out. It wasn’t that big of a vert ramp, but I remember doing my rock to fakies, noseslides to fakie, my little half-cabs and Max Schaaff is teaching me. I’m getting up on the deck and all of a sudden Tony Hawk is just standing above me. He goes (in higher pitched Birdman voice) ‘You should learn how to do feeble-to-fakies. It really helps you get centered on the ramp.’ I’m looking at his face talking to me and then all of the sudden I just turned around and walked away. I was so freaked out that Tony Hawk was talking to me. I couldn’t talk. All I could think was, ‘Holy shit, it’s Tony Hawk’”.

17. JASON’S FIRST NAME IS ACTUALLY DONALD.
As reported in various interviews over the years, Jason’s full name is Donald Jason Dill. Jason’s mother gave him the name but opted later for Jason as Donald was actually Jason's father’s name (Donald SR) and after his father was incarcerated the name didn’t ring the best bells for obvious reasons. Jeremy Wray would still call Jason “Don” in a friendly teasing way but let’s stick with Jason from here on out.  

This article is dedicated to Jonas Wray (RIP) who passed away in April 2021 after helping with research for this article on his good friend Jason. Thanks also to his brother and living water-tower legend Jeremy Wray and Etnies for their help with research and big salute to one of my all-time-favorite skateboarders—Jason Dill. Stay you Jason. Buy FA product here.

Moonlight Sonata

Postscript: Article in Transworld Skateboarding Magazine, May 2, 2007:

Moonlight Sonata

by Mackenzie Eisenhour

For reasons that are difficult to pin down, skateboarding has lost an abnormally large number of its finest practitioners in the most untimely of fashions. People as diverse as Jeff Phillips, Keenan Milton, Phil Shao, Tim Brauch, Kit Erickson, Harold Hunter, Mike Cardona, Pepe Martinez, Justin Pierce, Joe Lopes, Sean Miller, Mike De Geuss, Ruben Orkin, Curtis Hsiang, and so forth-all greats of skateboarding who were lost all too soon. This article will focus on one such loss-that of Pat Brennen-but more so will celebrate what he did bring us during his life on a board in the form of two landmark video parts, most notably his incredible series of lines in Powell’s ninth video, Celebrity Tropical Fish (’91).

After riding for Motobilt Airtool and then a revamped Alva team alongside Ronnie Bertino and Adam McNatt, the Pasadena, California born and raised Pat Brennen wound up on Powell Peralta by early 1991. According to Lance Mountain, “After he skated my mini ramp, I might have talked to someone at Powell. He might have got on through Adam McNatt and the Quartermaster contests, or a little of all of that.”

Almost immediately after earning his spot on the Bones Brigade, Pat made a huge impact with his standout part in Eight (’91), which included a whole Rose Bowl Parade worth of raw street combos, including an impossible over a fire hydrant in a line and a casual manny to 360 flip out. His part showcased his local homegrown spots and stapled him in as one of Powell’s fastest-rising stars and their best hope of fending off the impending war with street-skating-based competitors H-Street and World Industries.

Later that year, with his Eight part still fresh in people’s minds, Brennen put together his masterpiece part to the tunes of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and simply drew circles around what was considered cutting-edge street skating at the time. Nollieing up to and noseblunt sliding ledges when most were still on curbs and mixing laser flips, Rick flips, and front-foot impossibles into ten-trick lines involving multiple benches and sets of stairs fittingly to the song-skating for the most part in the dark Pasadena nights-Brennen’s CTF part is a must-see to this very day. Closing out with a banger of a late backside 360 shove, Brennen seemed poised to become the reigning street-tech and ledge champion along with the likes of Jason Lee, Mike Carroll, and later Eric Koston.

Friend and later Firm teammate Keith Gruber sums up Pat’s approach to skating: “Pat was generally very focused in his day-to-day skating. He liked to be pushed and benefited from the camaraderie.” However, by Powell’s next video, Hot Batch (’92), Brennen’s part contained only a dozen or so single tricks, and his dominance on a skateboard seemed to have hit the brakes slightly. Lance elaborates: “After his VW van’s engine burned out, he bought a new black Honda Prelude. Slowly, he started to modify it as his interest in street racing began to develop and as his budget permitted. In the early portions of his ‘transition,’ he just had a modified exhaust. In the later days, he removed the passenger seat to eliminate weight.”

Bitten by the bug and adrenaline rush of street-car racing, Pat gradually spent less and less time on his skateboard. He returned briefly to the public eye in a segment of a Firm 411 Industry Profile section in the mid-90s after joining Lance’s company, but that footage would be the last glimpse the collective skateboard world would get of Brennen’s still-impressive talent.

After suffering a car crash in his Prelude in ’96 that resulted in a hospital stay, Pat crashed again in a new car nearly a year later-this time fatally. At 4:00 a.m. on February 1, 1997, Pat Brennen died of head injuries sustained, and one of Pasadena’s all-time greatest gifts to skateboarding was forever lost. According to Lance, with Pat a hometown hero to nearly every skater and friend in the area, after his passing many now proudly wear an Irish clover “Brennen” tattoo in his honor. Rest in peace, Pat.

Pat Brennen by Sherman, TWS Sept. 1991, Vol. 9, No. 9

BITD: Carl Shipman, Extended Interview, April 2010 TWS

Transworld SKATEboarding
Back In the Day:
Full Circle
Carl Shipman

Words Mackenzie Eisenhour
Edited Version Published: TWS April 2010

Scroll down past the image for the extended interview text before it got cut down for the magazine page. —ME

Skateboarding’s early 90’s Brit pop invasion, the one which included gnar boots imports like Rowley, Penny, Mouley and the rest, originally kicked off with 2 years and change of absolute carnage laid down by a young chap from Worsop, England by the name of Carl Shipman. After redefining the possibilities of the front blunt, cementing proper form on kickflips, frontside flips and tre flips, and providing a welcome hand at guiding skateboarding at large out of the XXL mustard/purple crevice in favor of the back-to-basics white tee and blue jeans era, Shipman’s meteoric rise was cut short due to INS woes just as he seemed to be getting warmed up. The following is his take on his two-year reign at the top, his feelings around his early exit, and his ultimate return from exile to the company that brought him Stateside to begin with.

How did you first get hooked up with Stereo?
I went to my first Münster comp with Flip in ‘93.  I was skating the outdoor park, and Jason (Lee) was there cruising around.  I did this frontside flip over the hip, and he came over to me and asked me if I’d mind doing it again.  I was like, “Yeah cool.” I skated in the comp and ended up talking to Jason some more after, and he was basically like, “Look, I’d be stoked if you’d like to come ride for Stereo.”  He told me about the company he and Chris (Pastras) were putting together – what they were doing, what they were about, the whole vibe sounded absolutely amazing—it just appealed. The Flip guys were cool about it, actually really cool about it in retrtospect, so I just went for it.

How was the first trip out to the States?
I’d just turned 18, got my own flight out, seriously not knowing anything, just trying to find my way around, and somehow got to San Francisco (Laughs). I came from a mining village in England, like rough, basically just drinking in pubs and stuff like that, and it was serious culture shock for me. It was f—king crazy. But once I got situated, I just didn’t want to leave, I absolutely loved it. I met the team, like (Mike) Daher and (Matt) Rodriguez; Ethan (Fowler) came on a bit later, and they were just absolutely amazing skateboarders to be around. Everyone just clicked.

Run down A Visual Sound (’94).
To me, it was monumental as far as video making went. Basically, you’d see a lot of the skateboard videos were you had your section, did your skating, and that was it. There was a lot of pressure involved with filming a part. But with Visual Sound it was basically about depicting the whole lifestyle you were living – like, let’s go to the coffee shop and have a coffee; or we’ll have a beer and then we’ll shoot some pool and then maybe we’ll go skate. It was about portraying the lives we chose to live. The skateboarding in that video, for me, is truly what skateboarding is about. It’s not necessarily about the hardest tricks. It was about the smooth lines, the style, and the feeling that got you wanting to ride a skateboard in the first place. There was never any pressure. It was just meant to be. They added the jazz, the still photos, the Super 8, and everything – it was just this whole package. Sometimes I put it in now and think, Jesus, I’m still absolutely stoked to have been a part of that, man. 

How about the Hubba (Hideout) front blunt? It was pretty much the gnarliest trick that had been done on that thing at that point right?
At that point, I suppose.  Now you see people just doing nollie heel crooked grinds down it.  They treat it like it’s a curb now, but it’s not.  It’s a huge ledge, over waist high, and rough as shit. That thing seriously broke me.  I remember sliding out and nearly smacking my head, just freaking out, landing on it a number of times. The make I seriously rolled out fully crouched. I wish I had filmed it.  I wish it were in the video, but I didn’t care at the time.  It was just that was the way it was for me. When I saw it on the Thrasher cover, I was so shocked. I’ve got it framed now.  It’s definitely an honor to be on a magazine cover like that.

Break down the Visa Incident.
I went to the Slam City contest in Vancouver.  I remember telling Deluxe at the time, “This could get sketchy; I don’t have a work Visa.”  When Canada let me in, it was sort of like, “Ah piece of cake; no problem.” I skated the comp, and on the way back, they just pulled me to one side and I remember seeing Drake Jones and the Real guys, just waving at me, going through passport control, and I’m thinking, I’ll be with you in a minute. Six hours of interrogation later, I realized that what I had long dreaded was now happening. They sent me back to England, and I remember having twenty dollars in my pocket getting off the plane thinking, “Shit, this is it, I’m never going to be in America again. It’s over.” When I look back on it, everything happens for a reason.  But at the time it completely messed up skateboarding for me. I was back in England for nearly two years, and it was hard to get all the footage that they needed or even get people to shoot photos.  It just didn’t work.

How did you feel about your Tincan Folklore (’96) part?
It was filmed in like two or three days of skating.  It was so rushed.  It wasn’t close to the quality skating that I wanted to be putting across. When I saw it I was pretty bummed. It was a tough time because I missed being out there.  I missed actually skating with the guys and trying to push myself. It was a tough time. I felt like my life had been taken from me.

Yeah, man.  I can only imagine.  You’re basically given this taste of your dream; only to have it stripped right back.
Yeah.  It messed me up with the other sponsors (DC, Droors, etc…) as well. Basically I started getting pissed off and thinking, shit I’m stuck out here, and they expect me to get all this coverage. I had people coming up to me saying, “You blew it.  You should’ve stayed in America,” but they didn’t understand it.  I couldn’t be in America. Eventually I just started hitting the Pub.  Honestly, I look at it all now, and it was probably the best thing that happened to me. I was already getting a bit wild before the Visa ban.  I met my wife here; she sorted me out (Laughs).  I settled down and basically enjoyed my life in a different way. But it was always there, in the back of my mind, the California Dream.  

How did you end up getting back on?
Dune (Pastras) invited my wife and I down to an art show he was having in London around ‘05.  Jason was there too; it was so amazing to see them after all those years. I couldn’t stay that long because I had work commitments, but it felt like we hadn’t missed a day. We kept in touch after that and eventually when they started up the Classics Division in ‘08, Chris asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. I don’t know how to explain it. It just blew my mind that they’d come back and say, “We’d like for you to come and skate for this again.” It was like all the same excitement came rushing back like I was 18. You know, everybody grows up and has kids, moves on to their own thing. But it’s like I’ve been out skating tonight, and I still have that same passion for it. Actually it’s almost stronger now.  It’s not about how good you have to be or any of that.  It’s just about how good it feels. That’s really all it ever should be.

B-Sides Interview: Jeff Grosso on Street League

This was Jeff Grosso's interview for a Street League article that appeared in TWS last November. It never ran based on the former Editor's decision so I wanted to post it here. I'm neither here nor there when it comes to this issue but I do think the conversation is an important one. Here's Jeff.

ME: What's your overall take on Street League? Have you watched one?
Jeff: I’ve watched a few of them, or tried to watch a few of them.

What’s your general takeaway?
(Laughing.) The skateboarders are all insanely good and the skateboarding is amazing but as far as viewing it as a skateboarder it’s like watching fucking paint dry (Laughs.) I don’t know, what’s your take on it?

I don’t know. I watch them. It’s kind of like watching golf.
Watching any skateboarding, unless you’re totally into it, unless you’re a completely crazed skateboarder, you can last maybe 20 minutes. It’s like going to a baseball game or watching golf like you said. Unless you’re totally into it it’s like, “Okay, that was cool. Is Law and Order on now?”

I guess maybe this might be easier—what would you say the differences are between Street League and the major contests back in the ‘80s hey day? Obviously those were vert, but aside from that?
Well, I’m loath to say that they took the flow out of it. Because, like I said, I have the utmost respect for all the skateboarders in it and stuff. But there’s been this active move in contest skating like that it seems like. You’re talking about a world I really know nothing about, because I don’t skateboard that way. But I mean it’s reduced down to gymnastics. I guess that’s great for some people or whatever. I guess if you’re the dude in the contest you figure out what trick gets the most points, and then you get that trick dialed, and then your name is Nyjah Huston.

Then you take home a hundred grand in the process.
Yeah, and then you say silly things about women (Laughs). I’m not a big fan of taking style, spontaneity, and flow out of skateboarding. I think that’s what makes skateboarding so amazing. And putting a number to a trick scale, I mean it makes it easier to judge I guess, but I don’t know.

American sports in general love stats. So this quantifying tricks is almost like getting skateboarding ready for that mass-market maybe?
Yeah. It’s kind of the final nail in the death coffin—as far as I know it. But like I said, I really don’t know anything. I really truly don’t. And I really don’t want to. But when I turn on my TV on Sunday morning and I’m trying to get behind it, and check it out, and be a fan boy—you just kind of go, “Oh man. What did they do to it?” Like you have this big beautiful course that they only ride a couple of sections of. It makes it super hard for someone like Dennis (Busenitz) or someone who’s real flowy. I don’t know. Look, the great thing about skateboarding is that there’s room for everybody I guess. If that’s what you want to do, go for it.

I do think it’s funny that the dude, that tool that started it all, turned around and was like, “I’m doing this because ‘screw the X Games’ and I’m all about skateboarding.” The second that he loses his backing, or whatever the scenario was, he goes and sells it to the X Games. Because he came up with gymnastics theory or whatever. But whatever, I’m not a big fan of the whole politics of it and I don’t even profess to know much but the whole thing is just kind of goony.

It’s really neat to turn on the TV and see all these incredibly awesome talented dudes on TV, but at what cost exactly. What does it do for skateboarding? It gets you into this bigger philosophical argument.

I could play devils advocate I guess—Alex Olson was saying that as cheesy as it is, it could sort of be like Police Academy IV or Back to the Future where some kid might see it, get interested and then dig deeper. Like it could be a gateway?
Sure. Totally. It’s like viewing Animal Chin or something and going like, “Oh, this is skateboarding.” And it was, it is or whatever, but there was just way more going on than just “searching for fun” (Laughs.). But if it gets you there, cool. I guess whatever gets you there is okay.

What about the prize money? A hundred grand is a lot of money, no?
Is it? Compared to what? I don’t know. It’s not the direction that I really care to see skateboarding go in. But you know, I’m an old bitter dude, who likes the grassrootsy trying to build it up thing. But whatever, you can come up with some sort of format and sell it to a company like ESPN, or CBS, or NBC, or Fox or whoever the fuck. The Ted Turner Network. Get Oprah to back it. You’re selling the youth market. Fine and dandy. There’s room for everybody to line their pockets I guess.

It’s a wonderful opportunity for the guys that get invited to it I guess. Like, “Oh, we’re gonna pick our guys and these will be the guys that we back.”

It’s a bit exclusive?
Yeah. And then you have people that skate in that contest who aren’t even trying, they’re just there to get the small check because it keeps them going on and on. I can’t blame them, I’d probably do the same thing like, “I’m not gonna win this thing. I’ll fly in late Friday night, I’ll take my runs Saturday morning, collect my check and I’ll be done with it.”

Broad strokes, what impact would you say Street League has on skateboarding and the skateboard industry? To you, is it a positive impact or a negative one?
Probably neither. I’d say it’s kind of a moot point. It just doesn’t matter. It’s not really representative of the industry at all.

Does it really carry any weight? I guess if you’re trying to keep a set of Nike’s on your feet, or you’re trying to keep Monster Energy drink happy. For the individual skateboarder competing in the thing—yeah, it probably means everything. It’s what bankrolls him to stay a pro skateboarder and pay his fucking mortgage and live out in the bus with the rest of his buddies when he’s not doing Street League. Does it have any kind of bearing on anything? Not really.

Alex (Olson) does have a point. For a seven or eight-year-old watching cartoons on a Sunday morning it’s brilliant. You see that, you see P-Rod and you go, “Yeah, I want to be P-Rod”. That’s great and then maybe that kid gets into it and falls in love with it and has the same experiences like all of the rest of us did. Whatever gets you there.

I look at it from the perspective of, is it exciting and fun to watch? And yeah, there’s a little bit of a ramp up, and then someone does something completely wild.

The fact that we’re even paying it any lip service means that it’s winning. Whether I say it sucks or I say it rules, Dyrdek just bought another fucking ridiculous car. And can collect twenty more stupid hats that he can wear sideways on his head, and not skateboard. How much riding are you really doing dude? There are skateboarders and there are people who skateboard. Street League to me seems more indicative of people who skateboard making money off of skateboarding rather than skateboarders doing it for themselves. I guess that’s my takeaway from the whole thing. Is it neat and fun and all of that stuff. I guess on one level it is. But on another level—you might as well just put up a Wal-Mart banner and say, “Join the Army”.

Jeff nosepick in TWS, circa 1990. Photo: O.

I think they already did all that.   
Yeah (Laughs.) Just consume more people. You don’t need to care what you consume, just consume more. Oh, we’re selling toxic energy drinks to fucking ten-year-olds. Are we part of the problem or are we part of the solution. It gets you into a philosophical debate that no one really wants to have because we’re all complicit. We’re all fucking guilty. And that makes us sad and not like ourselves (Laughs.) But is anybody going to change. Is anybody going to stand up and fight the power? I doubt it. Because this was all bought and sold years and years ago.

This all goes back to the Big 5 and the Rocco wars. We all bought into Rocco’s lie, like, “Dude, I’m one of you. Be with me because those guys aren’t skateboarders.” The biggest, the best, and the brightest all bought into the lie and they all got their asses handed to them. And where’s Rocco now. He’s on a golf course somewhere laughing his ass off with a huge bank account. Shame on us for wanting to believe in the great Messiah. It was a lie then and it’s a lie now.

The Messiah will not be appearing at Street League?
(Laughs.) Yeah. It basically sucks, because if I bash it, if I say ugly things—I’m basically talking shit about people I highly respect and think the world of. They’re just doing what they have to do to stay in the game and follow their dreams and their passions. And that’s a wonderful thing but at what fucking cost.

You watch any of these contests and the guy’s got his energy drink squeegee in his hand and he’s taking a drink on camera. It’s all so scripted.

I guess they have water in Monster cans. I do think that's a bit much. So to the kid at home it looks like the dude is pounding Monster when he’s actually drinking water.
Of course, I drink that crap because I’m an idiot. They’re not, in the middle of trying to conquer course B or whatever, it’s just not happening. But that’s all part of playing the game and getting paid. I’m not slighting any of them for taking the checks. Lord knows I would too. They have families, they have careers and they’re pursuing their dreams. Fucking good on you, this is America. And at the end of the day your not really hurting anybody that much. It’s Devo, Freedom of Choice. If you don’t know that consuming large quantities of energy drinks is bad for your health or that everybody is out to get you—whether it’s your money or your fucking attention or whatever, then you’re not going to go very far in life here.

I guess it’s a good premise for an article, “Is it good, is it bad?” A bigger question is, “Fucking how did we get here man?” How did we get so in the back seat of our own shit? These contests don’t even matter. It’s not even about P-Rod winning, or Nyjah winning another one, or whether or not Chris (Cole) is gonna step up to bat, or “Where the fuck is Malto man? Come on Malto!” (Laughs.)

(Laughs.)
Whatever, I’m a big fan of Malto. I want to see Malto take it. He’s a beautiful kid. He has a beautiful smile and he’s totally stylish, so let’s give one to Malto. But how did we become so secondary in the process? It’s not about us. They probably spend more money building the course then they do in the pro purse. Only to tear it down after their 45 minutes on TV so that I can be told to buy a Chevy or a Prius. Go green America!

I think the bigger, better question. In the 35/37 years I’ve been doing this, how did we go from where we were—from being this infant who didn’t know any better to somewhat learning the ropes, to this.

Wasn’t this all happening with something like Disney’s Skateboard Mania shows in the ‘70s with Duane Peters? Has it just gone full circle?
Yeah. On a different level. Yeah I guess. Skateboard Mania was trying to present skateboarding in a show type atmosphere, like Cirque de Soleil or whatever so they layman, the dude on the street could wrap his head around what these kids were doing on this insane new prepubescent activity. Like it’s not really a sport, it’s not really an art. We don’t really know how to define it so we’ll bring it to you people instead. But this is different in the sense that it quantifies it. How do you decide who’s “best” at it?

Well now they can tell you who was the best. It doesn’t matter about style or form. This trick was executed and it was harder than that thing. I don’t know. I don’t street skate. Maybe the street skaters love that format.

Whatever works. Fucking great. But really what does Street League give back to skateboarding? I know it takes a lot. I’m honestly asking I don’t know.

I guess it provides a decent income for a select few and then provides incredible entertainment for the rest of us apparently.
(Laughs.) Do they do anything with all that good will? Does Dyrdek still build Street plazas and hate on transition. Like I said, it’s not me trying to bash on it, but at the end of the day, when you tune in—and I fucking love everything about skateboarding. I’ll watch a fucking slalom race if I have to and that’s like watching paint dry too—but it’s like we had this wonderful opportunity and this was the best we could do with it? I don’t have a solution on how you make it better or anything. But it just kind of seems like we sold our soul. We sold our souls just to get scraps at the table. I mean, you’ve got golfers on the PGA tour that are ranked 116^th and they’re making a couple of hundred thousand per tournament. It’s just like, “Eh. Fuck. This is what it all turned into?” I guess that’s great. But it’s not really my trip. If I was 18 though,, maybe I would be clocking in on it.

Get your switch double 360 flip together.
Yeah (Laughs.) Maybe. Like I said, I’m a bitter old dude with very limited knowledge of the whole landscape. Still a fan though. Every time one comes on TV and I know about it I still tune in. I hope that helped you. Go Malto.

The Rise and Fall of Plan B (version 1.0) plus Bonus Text

Original Article from Skateboarder Magazine, November 2003.
Obvious but important note: Plan B was not in business when this article was compiled. The company was reborn in 2006.

The Rise and Fall of Plan B
Compiled by Mackenzie Eisenhour
Dedicated to Michael Ternasky 1966-1994

In the summer of ‘91, Mike Ternasky left H-Street skateboards to start a new company known as Plan B. What emerged, in the following months, was possibly the most star-studded skateboarding team of all time. By ‘92, surrounded by near impossible hype, Plan B’s first video, Questionable, essentially flattened skateboarding and laid the groundwork for progressive videos for years to come. Followed up by Virtual Reality, in ’93, the Plan B dynasty seemed poised for a decade long reign. However, only months after the release of the company’s second video, half the team quit to start Girl Skateboards. As Plan B rebuilt, and began mounting a third offensive, disaster struck in ’94 when Mike Ternasky, the backbone of the company, died in a car accident. One month later, with the company struggling both financially and structurally, Danny Way, the heart and soul of the team, sustained a severe spinal chord injury, sidelining him for the next two years. While Plan B would go on to release two more videos, Second Hand Smoke in late ’94, and The Revolution in ’97, the downward spiral set into motion by the loss of Mike Ternasky would never be overcome. The following, as told by those involved, is the story of the Rise and Fall of Plan B.

Spread 1, Click for XLDanny Way: “I had ridden for H-Street for a long time and I wasn’t happy with a lot of the stuff going on. It got to a point where they were just putting random people on the team. I remember looking at the team list at one point and just being like ‘Who are all these dudes?’ It just got blown out of proportion.”

Matt Hensley: “Just comparing our H-Street boards to the World Industries boards—they were all thinner and looked better. I think everybody on the team at the time was like, ‘Why can’t our boards look like that, I want my stuff to look like J.Lee’s stuff.’ Mike (Ternasky) just called me up one day and was like, ‘we’re breaking off. We’re starting our own team under Rocco.’”

Danny Way: “It was definitely rolling the dice on our part. Mike (Ternasky) and I had to take the first step. Plan B was basically an idea we had settled on. We had to get it to a point where other people would be motivated to take the step with us. I really didn’t know how the other riders would react.”

Sean Sheffey: “It sounded pretty promising. I was stoked. I left Life. I knew Matt (Hensley) and Danny (Way). I had met most of the dudes like Mikey (Carroll), Rick (Howard), and Rodney (Mullen).”

Sal Barbier: “Sometimes you start a team and its just like real close. Plan B was like that. We were all street skaters. We all wore the same clothes. We all liked the same music. We made fun of the same people. Nobody rode for some crazy clothing line. Nobody rode for some wacky ass trucks. We were all on the same page.”

Jacob Rosenberg (Filmer): “Literally my reaction was, ‘That’s f---ing awesome!’ Mike (Ternasky) wanted a tight group that ‘Had the juice.’ as he would say. But these guys, these guys were the juice. It was a super team. No team was ever created in that way.”

Pat Duffy: “I started looking at all the names that were involved and was just like, ‘Holy shit’. I figured I just got lucky.”

Colin McKay: “The first ad, which said like “Five of these ten riders are quitting their current sponsors to ride for a new company…” That was just genius. That thing made waves.”

Danny Way: “Koston got left behind [on H-Street]. We had a vote. I voted for him. Ternasky wanted him. Believe it or not, Mike (Carroll), Rick (Howard), and Sean (Sheffey) voted him off. Putting Rodney (Mullen) on was kind of thrown around as a joke at first. Everybody kind of looked around and we were like, “Seriously, what if we try to get Rodney on Plan B.” Everybody was like, “F--k yeah, let’s do it.”

Colin McKay: “He was still trying to do freestyle. No joke. Ternasky nurtured Rodney to skate street. He wanted him to jump down gaps and ride a bigger board and all that.”

Rick Howard: “He would take you under his wing. He would look out for everyone.”

Carl Hyndman (Art Director): “Ternasky knew right off the bat how important a video would be. Filming for Questionable started almost before the team was finalized.

The infamous first ad anouncing the new company. 1991. Note the Sheffey spelling.Pat Duffy: “He was like a little kid when it came to footage. He loved it. He loved filming. He‘d have his studio at the house and any time we were over there he was always showing us footage of everyone on the team. He’d be showing it in slow-mo, like ‘Check this out’. I think, really, that got everyone really hyped. I think we fed off each other.”

Mike Carroll: “Sometimes you need someone to give you the confidence that you don’t think is there. Ternasky could bring that out.”

Colin McKay: “I witnessed some of Duffy’s stuff first hand. He was still sort of in a trial period. At E.M.B. and some of the rails. He just threw down so hard it was obvious that he was on.”

Ryan Fabre: “He grinded the flat rail at the San Pasqual School—then went out and 50/50d the steep rail out front. He grinded it once, then Hensley rolled up and he hadn’t seen it. Everyone was telling him like, ‘Man, he just grinded that rail.’ Hensley was like, ‘No way, can you do it again?’ Pat was like, ‘Yeah sure, I’ll do it again,’ and he just grinded it again.’

Jacob Rosenberg (Filmer): “Duffy’s part was pretty much done 6 months before the video came out. So Pat kind of set the tone for what everyone else had to live up to. They knew they had to bring it.”

Rick Howard: “It was filming all day and all night. That’s all we did, skate and think about the video. You’d really take any tricks you had and bring it to the furthest extent you could take it. Ternasky would bring it to the table, but you would put the pressure on yourself.”

Matt Hensley: “I remember doing a backside noseblunt on a miniramp and he was like, ‘You’ve got to slide it. You’ve got to do a noseblunt slide’. At that session, I just sort of lost it. I talked to him for a long time and eventually he was just kind of like, ‘Well, maybe you should bail out for a little while.’ I went home that day and decided, ‘I’m moving. I’m moving to Chicago and am going to try to be a paramedic.’ That’s exactly what happened.

Sal Barbier: “I had like two and a half to three weeks to film for that f--king thing (Questionable). All of a sudden all the pressure flips and all that shit had come in. I never really wanted to skate like that. It got to a point were there was like two and a half weeks left and I was just like, “all right, just tell me what you want me to do, bring me there, and I’ll do it.”

Sean Sheffey: “Filming with Ternasky was pretty serious. It was really demanding as far as getting you discipline down and stuff. But it helped. He would suggest certain stuff we should do or tricks to try down certain spots. Mostly he knew what was possible.”

Danny Way: “He’d seriously tell you how to put your feet and shit. He knew all the tricks.”

Colin McKay: “I remember going on tour with Ternasky and Rocco and you seriously wouldn’t kickflip the pyramid at the demo without getting $100 off of one of those dudes for it. We pretty much milked it for all it was worth. But they knew what they were doing. And, yeah, when your 16 years old, 100 bucks to make a trick doesn’t hurt.”

Danny Way: “Once we started looking at the Questionable footage, I mean just seeing Duffy’s shit, we knew that we had the heaviest, progressive, modern skateboarding video that anyone had ever seen. It became pretty apparent early on.”

Carl Hyndman: “It was insane at the premiere, seriously insane. People were blown away.”

Colin McKay: “Every couple seconds the audience would just explode. They would roar. Everything in the video was just so groundbreaking.”

Pat Duffy: “It freaked me out. It was totally weird. It was just like a whole new thing for me. I didn’t know how to deal with it. People are coming up to you and everything.”

Colin McKay: “From Questionable we just went straight into filming for Virtual Reality. There was no break.”

Rick Howard: “There was like no options but to outdo yourself for the next video. For someone like Duffy, who went apeshit in his first part, it must have been hard for him to keep up for his second part.”

Spread 2. Click for XL.Carl Hyndman: “Ryan (Fabre) and Sean (Sheffey) had the whole issue with Sean’s wife. It was pretty gnarly. I think Ternasky kind of sat down with him (Ryan Fabre) at one point and let him know he had to leave.”

Ryan Fabre: “I wish that circumstances could have been different. I mean for at least a year or two after that it did a lot of damage to me. We’re cool now. But, I’d rather not say anything about it that Sean wouldn’t want said. It’s still usually the first subject with anyone I meet.”

Sean Sheffey: “Don’t f--k with another man’s property. That’s all I got to say about that.”

Tony Ferguson: “I was friends with Rick. Guy Mariano and Tim Gavin where trying to get me on Blind. I was talking to Rick (Howard) about it and he was like, ‘Just chill. Just chill. Don’t’ do it’ Later, he called me up and was like, ‘Ride for Plan B.’”

Colin McKay: “I was probably skating more street then vert at that point. It was the same thing with Danny (Way). There were seriously no ramps in San Diego at that point. Danny would fly up to Vancouver like 3 or 4 times a year just to skate vert.”

Danny Way: “All the vert in Questionable and Virtual Reality was probably filmed in a matter of ten sessions. Colin and I more or less looked at what we were learning on street and tried to apply that to vert. A lot of people sort of piece together existing tricks. Our frame of mind was to create original tricks. A lot of that really came from street skating.”

Carl Hyndman: “Sal (Barbier) had a little bit of a harder time getting footage together. Ternasky would sort of be like, “What are you going to do. If you’re not going to get footage you have to make a decision.” I think Sal kind of got talked into doing his retirement part in Virtual Reality. I think he might have regretted that later.”

Danny Way: “After Virtual Reality came out, I think people just expected us to have every video be better then the last. It became kind of a battle. I think we ultimately put ourselves in a position where if the new video coming out wasn’t above and beyond the last video we had it would almost be detrimental to the company.”

Mike Carroll: “I was sick of filming, being told that I had to step it up. There were all kinds of little things that I didn’t want to deal with anymore. I felt like pretty soon I was going to get a retirement part. I would talk to Rick about it. We came up with this idea that we could actually do something. Which became Girl.”

Pat Duffy: “I heard they (Mike Carroll, Rick Howard, Sean Sheffey, and Tony Fergusson) quit from Rick (Howard). He called me up to give me a heads up. Rick (Howard) had been around Rocco and the whole business side for a while. He had a different perspective then I did. But, I would have stuck with Mike (Ternasky) regardless.”

Sean Sheffey: “It felt lame leaving him. It was trippy. But I was going to go with the guys that were looking out for my best interests like Mike (Carroll) and Rick (Howard). We were around each other more then we were with the boss.”

Matt Hensley: “I was kind of pissed at first. All I heard was that some of them had taken the team van, ripped all the interior, keyed it, and spray-painted it. It kind of bummed me out.”

Danny Way: “I can pretty much assure you that each and every one of those guys today would agree with me—they should have approached it in a different way. They were young and that just wasn’t the way to do it.”

Colin McKay: “Mike was devastated. We were all in a hotel room and I remember him saying, “We can end this right now if you guys want.” He didn’t even know where we stood. We were like, “Fuck this, we’re doing it.” We got Jeremy Wray and (Ronnie) Bertino and it was like, “Boom”. We started right into the third video.”

Spread 3. Click for... Ronnie Bertino: “Ternasky was involved with everything. I honestly have to say, through all the years, he’s one of the only guys that could push you to better your skating and even better yourself. I respect him for that. That part (Second Hand Smoke) was the best I ever had. I mean, he’d go to the spot with you, he’d bring you water—he knew what you were going through.

Danny Way: “In May ’94, we went to the first Slam contest in Vancouver. Mike’s goal was to sit down up there with Rick (Howard) and Mike (Carroll) and all those guys and basically make peace. He wanted to go up there and figure out what happened to just get closure to the whole thing.”

Mike Carroll: “We talked a little bit in Vancouver. He was trying to make peace and be cool about it. I wasn’t totally into it, but I wasn’t disrespectful towards him. Obviously I wish it was a little bit different because two days later is when he…all that happened.”

Danny Way: “He was the kind of guy that didn’t want to have grudges with anyone. I remember being on the plane back from Vancouver with him and he was telling me how happy he was that he had no enemies in his life and everything was going so good. The next morning, he got blind sided and killed in his car.”

Colin McKay: “He was just making a left out of his apartment complex onto Paloway Road. Some old lady ran the red light in a minivan and hit him from the side.”

Jeremy Wray: “It was just surreal. It didn’t sink in for days after that. I was sleeping at his house. The other times I had stayed over there, if I was up when he left, I would usually go with him. I could have been in that car.”

Sean Sheffey: “The funeral was within a couple of days. I was living with Mikey (Carroll) at the time. Someone called up there and told him. There was the wake and the funeral. Everyone was in a whole world of shock—emotional breakdowns and stuff like that. Nobody brought our problems to that.”

Mike Carroll: “It sucks that it takes something like that to make you realize that a lot of that stuff between us was petty. I thought of all the stuff he did for me, not as skater, but as a friend. He did way more than any team manager needed to.”

Carl Hyndman: “At the company, everybody was just looking around trying to figure out what to do. We all kind of winged it for a while but it got real messy. The government came in and basically seized his estate and everything he owned. So we had a limited amount of money to work with.”

Matt Hensley: “At that point Danny just asked me to be around to try and help. I quit school in Chicago, packed up my pool table, and moved back to California, to work for Plan B. Eventually they put my board back out.”

1994 Plan B team ad from February '94 issue of TWS. One of Ternasky's last photos with the team.Danny Way: “Mike’s wife, Mary (Ternasky) tried to step in and help out. She was pregnant and her husband had just died. She was paying for all the advertising, royalties, and salaries and everything with the checks she got from World every month weren’t covering the overhead. She was basically loosing money every month it existed.”

Colin McKay: “ Danny getting hurt was another huge blow. I don’t know if people realized at the time how big a deal it actually was. He cracked vertebrae in his neck. He couldn’t get out of the bathtub. He couldn’t do anything for himself. It was so f—ked. Danny was the cornerstone of Plan B.”

Danny Way: “I sustained a severe neck injury surfing with serious nerve damage and spinal chord swelling which put me out for almost two years. Going from Mike’s death to having that happen was such a hard chain of events.”

Jeremy Wray: “Every one was glad that the video (Second Hand Smoke) still came out. It was definitely a tribute to Mike (Ternasky). Jake (Rosenberg) did all of the editing down at Mike’s house. We just sort of hammered it out. It brought in some extra money, but there was just nobody watching over the whole production run of all the various products.”

Colin McKay: “Mary (Ternasky) was trying her best. I’ve got to hand it to her. But eventually, she was just overwhelmed. She was personally guaranteeing some of the loans. The damage was pretty bad. Finally out of frustration she was just like, “You guys have to take this off of my hands.” I was 20 and Danny was 22 and we started running the company.”

Carl Hyndman: “Danny and Colin ended up buying it from her and taking it completely away from World (Industries) to do Platinum, XYZ, and Plan B.”

Rick McCrank: “It was pretty crazy. I got on and made friends with everyone pretty quick. But you’re just like thinking to yourself, like Danny Way, these guys are legends. You’re kind of in awe. I skated with (Pat) Duffy too, and I was a huge Duffy fan. At the same time, I kind of knew it wasn’t doing so good.”

Colin McKay: “The videos were still going off though. Even in the fourth video (The Revolution). The videos and the team were amazing but the boards wouldn’t sell.”

Danny Way: “It was pretty much a nightmare. Now, the financial burden was on Colin and me. Our board sales weren’t meeting the payroll overhead. We started paying people out of our own pockets. We weren’t getting paid for our board sponsor, we’re paying other people’s salaries, and then working 9 to 5 for almost two years straight on top of that. We didn’t even have time to skate.”

Colin McKay: “The truth is we wanted to keep this dream alive no matter what. Out of respect for Mike (Ternasky) and in memory of Mike. It was such an emotional thing.”

Danny Way: “There was just one month where the dept was astronomical. Colin and I were looking at each other like, ‘What the f--k are we going to do?’ We were probably each loosing about $20,000 to $25,000 a month. It just got to a point where we were like, ‘Let’s get paid and let’s skate again.’”

Colin McKay: “This light just went on, like, ‘Why are we dumping all this money into a company and killing ourselves to run it. Why not just keep the nice memories and move on.’ It was just beating a dead horse. That’s when it happened. We put it to rest.”

Jeremy Wray: ““It was one of those things. Danny (Way) got on Alien Workshop. Colin (McKay) was going to ride for Girl. It was time to go look for new sponsors.”

Matt Hensley: “It was the end of a reign. I was saddened. I mean for me, it was a big part of my life. It was part of my allegiance to Mike (Ternasky).

Colin McKay: “It was unfortunate, but the world keeps on turning.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Ternasky’s legacy lives pretty clearly in Danny (Way) and to a certain extent in Rodney (Mullen).”

Danny Way: “Anyone that dealt ever dealt with Mike (Ternasky) would tell you, there was something that would rub off. It wasn’t about skateboarding. It wasn’t about making money. It was about becoming the best person you could be—going above and beyond what anybody thought you could do.”

Sal Barbier: “Every video you look at today uses Ternasky’s format. There’s the montage first, you introduce the one new dude, get the slam section, the friends’ section, then close out with the main dude—he invented that shit. He made the format.”

Danny Way: “My DC part, that’s a tribute to Mike T. right there. The high air stuff—He always talked about doing it, now it’s a reality. He would be freaking right now. He would love it.”

Rick Howard: “To this day, I’m proud to have been a part of a team that put out such influential videos.”

Danny Way: The timing isn’t right yet, but if there’s ever an opportunity to bring Plan B back and do it right, we’ll do it. You’d have to run the same ad…’Five of these guys are leaving their current sponsors…’ Go get the biggest names out there again, but I guess these days, you’d have to be offering up some serious money.”

Plan B's 411 Industry ('98) montage announcing the end of the company (Version 1.0).

BONUS RAW TEXT:
For the original article, all of these interviews were broken down into quotes from each person. They were then mixed somewhat chronologically to tell the story. To get an idea of how much text goes into these types of articles, and for the any bonified skate nerds out there courageous enough to read all of this—here is the mother lode of raw text from before editing.

Carl Hyndman, Plan B Art Director:

Carl Hyndman: “I think I was pretty much the first rider on H-Street. I had known Mike Ternasky and Tony Magnusson for a number of years through that. I helped out with some of the artwork for H-Street while I was going to college up in San Jose. Right when I was graduating Mike was in the process of starting Plan B. I moved back down to Southern California and Mike asked me to be the Art Director.”

Carl Hyndman: “The way Mike set up Plan B, it was pretty much up to him to design everything and oversee the team and then let Rocco handle all the manufacturing and distribution. He had been kicking ideas around with Rocco for a while. Once Mike kind of made his mind up to leave H-Street it made perfect sense to go with Rocco.”

Carl Hyndman: “Yeah, I came up with the “B” logo—the dick and balls. I had actually come up with about 8 other designs. I had one that looked like an eye chart and some other concepts. The “B” wasn’t my top pick at all. But we put them all in front of the team and they chose that one. It eventually grew on me.”

Carl Hyndman: “Mike had a vision for how he could use Rodney as a pro skater. Rodney didn’t really have a place anywhere on World so it was like a perfect fit with the guys we already had. I think Rodney really appreciated the ideas that Mike had for him.”

Carl Hyndman: “The first couple ads were completely budget. We had like this tiny office in Poway with a small warehouse space in back. At first it was just Mike and I and we would sort of kick around ideas. I think one of the reasons we went with the list of possible names in the first ad was because we actually hadn’t finalized who was on at that point.”

Carl Hyndman: “Ternasky knew right off the bat how important a video would be. The videos at H-Street had been so influential to the overall company that he knew you couldn’t get something like Plan B going without a video. Filming started almost before the team was finalized. Some of the footage in Questionable was even left over from H-Street.”

Carl Hyndman: “Most of the guys knew even from the H-Street videos that there was this extremely high standard for the level of skating. Then when it got narrowed down to just a few guys on Plan B, the pressure got heavier because each part became so important. Instead of your part being like 1 of 50 parts, you now had your part being 1 of 9.”

Carl Hyndman: “I think they had a sense of pride in starting something new and being a part of it. Ultimately, they pushed themselves harder as well as Mike pushing them.”

Carl Hyndman: “Mike’s filming incentives started out as more of a joke actually. I think other people at the time kind of took it weird but it was really just kind of for fun. Like, “Oh, I’ll give you 100 bucks if you pull that.”  It wasn’t really that serious like, “Dude, you either slam or make it now.” It wasn’t like Mike had some price list for tricks.”

Carl Hyndman: “Matt (Hensley) was making some changes in his life around that time. He just had a lot of different interests in life. He was never really the kind of person that was comfortable in front of a camera or being in the spotlight. He moved to Chicago and was studying to be an E.M.T. (Emergency Medical Technician), he got into playing pool, started playing music.”

Carl Hyndman: “It was kind of a mutual decision between Hensley and Ternasky. He wasn’t getting that much footage and I think he started to feel the pressure. He just didn’t have the drive or ambition at that point to sort of take it to the next level. Ternasky was basically like, “Look, instead of half-assing it, you should go out on a high note.” I think after he left he eventually was able to realize that he wanted to skate after all. I think Sal went through that to an extent too.”

Carl Hyndman: “He (Sal) had a little bit of a harder time getting footage together, He dealt with a couple of injuries, but Ternasky had a pretty persuasive personality where he would sort of be like, “What are you going to do. If you’re not going to get footage you have to make a decision.” I think Sal kind of got talked into doing his retirement part in Virtual Reality. I think he might have regretted that later.”

Carl Hyndman: “It was pretty much insane at the Questionable premiere. It was insane. People were blown away. The heavy hitters on the team got a lot of hype.”

Carl Hyndman: “Right around that time the Blind video had come out. That kind of complemented Plan B because we were all Rocco affiliated.”

Carl Hyndman: “There was a huge change in the industry around that time. Rocco started putting new boards out almost every other month for the riders. There was a whole new life cycle for boards at that point. We were cranking out graphics like crazy. The older companies would still keep boards out for like a year.”

Carl Hyndman: “At the time we didn’t use computers so everything was hand done. All the color separation had to done by hand. The early ads were done on paste up boards with exacto knives, tissue paper overlay and press type. I would spend a lot of my time at Kinko’s. It wasn’t exactly a smooth process.”

Carl Hyndman: “Back then people didn’t really keep their footage a secret like they do now.”

Carl Hyndman: “Danny and Colin would kind of go through phases between vert and street. At the time there were seriously no ramps in Southern California. Street skating had become the dominant trend partly through lack of ramps and partly through lack of interest in vert. It was like this dying corner of skateboarding. I think Danny and Colin were just like, “Well we can do the tricks on either vert or street.” They felt like street skating wasn’t as hard as vert. So they just learned the street tricks, filmed street parts, and then took those same tricks up to vert.”

Carl Hyndman: “I think Ternasky kind of sat down with him (Ryan Fabre) at one point and talked it out. I mean he was only an am at the time and having such a serious conflict with one of the big pros on the team was pretty much a lose-lose situation. I think it would have been hard for anyone to go anywhere from there.”

Carl Hyndman: “It was pretty bad for a while. He took it personally and so did some of the other riders. Because the whole team didn’t go it left like this weird tension between people. Eventually Ternasky confronted them and I think they sort of made amends.”

Carl Hyndman: “I think Rocco kind of became the excuse for them (Rick, Mike, etc…) to leave and do their own thing. After Ternasky talked to them I think it all just focused on Rocco and World. I mean they came out with Bitch Skateboards and all of that. It got pretty ugly. But as far as Ternasky was concerned, eventually he just wanted to move on. They made their peace. Mike actually gave some of those guys their footage after they left.”

Carl Hyndman: “Jeremy Wray was blowing up at the time. So was (Ronnie) Bertino.”
   
Carl Hyndman: “It happened right after Vancouver. We had been working all weekend so that Monday I had taken the day off. I got home and heard about it. At first I didn’t believe it. Then things got shook up.”

Carl Hyndman: “It was such a mess. World was doing what they were doing, and we were doing what we were doing, but at that point we had Type A, which was the snowboard division of Plan B, I had a little clothing company called Edward Sebastian going through there. When Mike (Ternasky) died everybody was just looking around trying to figure out what to do. I just stepped forward and was like, “Look, I’ll help out any way I can.” But I was already trying to be the Art Director, the Accountant, the Production Manager and all this stuff with little to no experience. We all kind of winged it for a while but it got real messy. The government came in and basically seized his estate and everything he owned. So we had a limited amount of money to work with.”

Carl Hyndman: “Mary was pretty shaken up. I mean she was pregnant at the time, her husband had just died, and now she had to deal with all these business and financial issues which she had never had any prior experience dealing with. She was like an at-home mom who had relied on Mike to support her. We all tried to help her out and stepped in where we could. But it was like trying to learn accounting and deal with World while doing graphics.”

Carl Hyndman: “Mary tried to do what she could. She sort of started pushing a lot of it into the riders hands, which was probably her only option. Eventually, it became the riders company. Danny and Colin ended up buying it from her and taking it completely away from World to do Platinum, XYZ, and Plan B.”

Carl Hyndman: “She lost a lot of money. She had inherited a small amount from Mike’s Life Insurance, but she had to put that right back into Plan B. At that point none of the companies were really making any money. It got to a point where I was putting things on my credit card that I never got reimbursed for, Mary was personally guaranteeing some of the loans. The damage was pretty bad. Ultimately Mary just had some outside guy come in and fire sale the whole thing. I think when it ended she was more relieved then anything else. It was a tough stretch.”

Carl Hyndman: “Danny (Way) set up a foundation for Mike and Mary’s daughter, McKala. Some the videos are still on sale and some of that money goes back to the Ternasky family. She has re-married since and has like four kids. I think that whole thing just left her with a bad taste in her mouth. She was like, “I just need to separate myself from this whole scene.” She had lost a lot at that point, including her husband.”

Sal Barbier:

Sal Barbier: “H Street was a little over populated at that point, and honestly a select few of us didn’t like half the people on the team in the first place. Plan B had been vaguely talked about with a lot of us even before it started, but I really didn’t know if Mike (Ternasky) was going to do it or not. I was one of the last guys on Plan B because at the time I was talking to Rocco to get on one of his other companies (World Industries, 101, Blind). At one point I remember Ternasky went on a trip. Right before he left some of the H-Street riders who didn’t even have boards had been talking shit on H-Street. I was like, ‘I’m not gonna be on a team where I’m one of the dudes and have some dudes that ain’t some of the dudes say some shit about me. I don’t like half of those motherfuckers anyways so I’m gonna bounce.’ But Ternasky was like, ‘Just hold tight because I’m going to do something when I get back.”

Sal Barbier: “Ternasky was the dude that got me started. I lived at his house for a while when I first came out. He got me my first board and everything. I was already pretty close to that dude.”

Sal Barbier: “Plan B was really just like the trimming down of H-Street. The way I look at it, the original cast was basically the way we wanted it—Mike (Carroll), Rick (Howard), (Sean) Sheffey, and Danny Way. Sometimes you start a team and its just like real close. Everybody liked each other.. We all got along because we were basically the same types of people. We were all street skaters. We all wore the same clothes. We all liked the same music. We made fun of the same people. We all had our own personalities, but we saw eye to eye on shit. Noboby was weird. Nobody rode for some crazy clothing line or some wacky ass trucks. We were all on the same page. As time goes on, though it moves away from that. Most companies go through the same sort of process. As you get older, you still care, but you’re not as protective about things. If somebody else comes along with their own ideas you just kind of begin to accept them.”

Sal Barbier: “I probably had like two and a half to three weeks to film for that fucking thing (Questionable). I think some of the best footage I had was the stuff I had filmed in between H-Street and Plan B. It just looked like the most polished I’d ever been. I had the best outfits on. It was probably the most consistent I had been. But then I never got to use it because it fell in between. I went ahead to film for the Plan B video and then all of a sudden all the pressure flips and all that shit had come in. I never really wanted to skate like that. I wanted to go down big rails and jump down big shit but the filmers weren’t behind that at all. It was really one of the last videos I did because it got so frustrating. It got to a point were there was like two and a half weeks left and I was just like, “all right, just tell me what you want me to do, bring me there, and I’ll do it.” That’s basically how that whole part worked. People told me what to do, I went there, learned the trick, and filmed it.”

Sal Barbier: “The car was just parked there. I never swerved into it. But look at that thing. I had rims before the rappers. Skaters had everything first.”

Sal Barbier: “ Ternasky invented the way videos are made. Any video you look at today uses his format. There’s the montage first, you introduce the one new dude, get the slam section, the friends section, then close out with the main dude—he invented that shit. Think about videos before Ternasky. He made that format. Every video today follows it. If People want to use their dramatic fucking Western music, fine, but all that shit his him. All that shit is Ternasky.”

Sal Barbier: “Videos done before that always had like some corny skits in them or something. No disrespect to the skaters or anything but the way they were filmed was pretty fucking soft. It was more about nice lighting and angles then the actual skating. But with Ternasky, he wasn’t really concerned with that shit. You could be wearing some size 28 Sunbridges and be out of focus but if you did something that would make people rewind it, Ternasky would put it in.”

Sal Barbier: “In the beginning it was all about team meetings. We even had like a mandatory Christmas party were you had to buy everyone else presents and shit. Rodney was cheap, so he never bought shit. But some of the other dudes got kind of ridiculous. It was like too much. Like I had this VW bug at one point and somebody bought me all this car stereo equipment. So then you would have to go out and buy them something in return. Then someone else gets you some more shit. It was like the true meaning of an L.A. Christmas.”

Sal Barbier: “I can count the amount of times a really watched those videos because I never really liked what I did in them.”

Sal Barbier: “I think eventually I was one of the more outside dudes out of the group. Like Mike (Carroll) and Rick (Howard) were really close, obviously Danny (Way) and Colin (McKay) were on their side. I hung out with (Sean) Sheffey. That’s just who I liked to skate with. That’s probably some of the funnest times I had in skating.”

Sal Barbier: “I had just gotten fed up with filming by that time. I started going out with the filmers again and it was just the same thing all over again. There would be certain things I would want to do but they were telling me it wasn’t that kind of video again. I didn’t really want to do tricks that were going to come in and out real fast. They were looking for all new shit all the time. I just wanted to concentrate on tricks that I liked doing.”

Sal Barbier: “It seemed like after those H-Street videos, and the first Plan B video, people had done pretty much every fucking thing you could do. Then it was like you almost had to just start making shit up, just so it would be new. It got kind of out of hand.”

Sal Barbier: “For the second video it became more of a production. Like, before that anything I filmed was just kind of my daily routine. I’d go skate with Sheffey and if there was a video camera around, it got filmed. With Plan B there was a lot of pressure that started coming with it, especially after the first video. You knew everybody was going to watch it. After Questionable you weren’t going out to film with Ternasky anymore either. They started to have us go out with all these other filmers. It just became like a chore. Like it or not, you’d have to wake up every day and go film.”

Sal Barbier: “He was just really a close friend who understood everything I had gone through. He was the first guy to pay me. He showed me how everything worked. He put me in videos. He sent me on tour.”

Sal Barbier: “Mary (Ternasky) had taken it over, and there were other people working there too. I felt I could have been a big help with the fashion end of things and even the overall graphic look. I didn’t see it lasting the way it was. It ended up being a really good brand, with strong riders, but at the same time the product wasn’t up to the level of where the riders were at. There just wasn’t any overall direction after a certain point.”

Sal Barbier: “I was on the team up until ’96 and ultimately I just had opportunities to start my own thing. I ended up doing 23 skateboards. It was a great time though. Especially early on. Overall, I’m glad I rode for Plan B and nothing else.”

Colin McKay:

Colin McKay: “I was good friends with Rick Howard at the time, we were both from Vancouver, the first I heard of Plan B was through Rick. I didn’t get on until after it had already started. It was definitely like the hottest new thing going on at the time. I was riding for Powell Peralta, which was kind of in a slump at that point but I don’t think I really ever thought the opportunity was there to ride Plan B. There was this contest in Vancouver and I they came up with like Plan B sweatshirts on and stuff. That was the first time the Plan B team really made an appearance. A few months after the company got established, they had settled on their pros and started to look for a couple ams. I was actually talking to Blind at the time, trying to get on that and Rick was just like, “Fuck it, ride for Plan B.” Danny was on the team so it was an easy choice to make. I think I was the last guy on of the original lineup.”

Colin McKay: “Right when I got on we had two maybe three months to film for Questionable. I witnessed some of Duffy’s stuff first hand. He was still sort of in a trial period. At E.M.B. and some of the rails. He just threw down so hard it was obvious that he was on. Duffy was a no brainer.”

Colin McKay: “Being with Danny (Way) on that team was seriously the best thing that could ever happen to me. Just having someone to skate with that saw I eye to eye with. Rick (Howard) and I went way back too. Everyone on the team got on so well.”

Colin McKay: “Ternasky was Plan B—100 percent. When all those dudes like Rick and Sheffey left, I still felt like it was Plan B. But when Ternasky passed away, that was when Plan B ended.”

Colin McKay: “From Questionable we just went straight into filming for Virtual Reality. There was no break.”

Colin McKay: “I was probably skating more street then vert at that point. That was the thing with Danny. There were seriously no ramps in San Diego at that point. Danny would fly up to Vancouver like 3 or 4 times a year just to skate vert. He’d come up, we’d film a little, and that was really it for the vert skating. I love to hit the vert. But when Danny wasn’t there it was just empty. There wasn’t even any one to skate it with. I’d skate downtown because that’s where all the skaters were.”

Colin McKay: “That was just for fun. I remember going on tour with Ternasky and Rocco and being with those dudes you seriously wouldn’t kickflip the pyramid at the demo without getting $100 off of one of those dudes for it. We pretty much milked it for all it was worth. But they knew what they were doing. And, Yeah, when your 16 years old, 100 bucks to make a trick doesn’t hurt. Shit, I wish I had that now.”

Colin McKay: “In hindsight, there really didn’t need to be problems. I think we were all just young.”

Colin McKay: “At the premiere, one thing I remember pretty clearly was that every couple seconds the audience would just be like “whoa”. They would just roar. Everything in the video was just so groundbreaking. I was at a video premiere the other day and people don’t really do that anymore. Now they just kind of clap after the part ends. At best you get a round of applause.”

Colin McKay: “It was absolutely marketed that way. The waves it caused in the industry came from that super star team concept. Like the first ad which said like “five of these ten riders are quitting their current sponsors to ride for a new company…” That was just genius. And it was funny, you could do that stuff back in the day. Nobody had contracts or anything. There weren’t any legal issues. If they were down, you could just go grab people. There’s no way you could pull something like that off today.”

Colin McKay: “Rodney fit in perfectly. He brought a whole separate aspect to Plan B. The team loved him. It was never really about everyone being the same skater. Ternasky wanted to bring together different elements of skateboarding.”

Colin McKay: “When Rodney got on he was seriously still trying to do freestyle. Ternasky nurtured Rodney to skate street. He wanted him to jump down gaps and ride a bigger board and all that.”

Colin McKay: “As far as company owners go, the difference between Ternasky and a company owner today was just how involved he was with every aspect of the company. The owner was in there doing the ads, the owner was the out filming the team—it was like 100% hands on. Its like people say, “When you want something done right you do it yourself.” That’s pretty much the way Ternasky looked at things.”

Colin McKay: “Skateboarding was slow at the time, it was a small market, but everything Plan B made in the beginning was selling. People were making good money for the time, like over $5000 a month.

Colin McKay: “There’s no question. Focus was lost on the brand. Even though the team was still amazing.”

Colin McKay: “Rick wanted to have his own thing. It was really never an issue with Ternasky. They wanted to have something down the road that would be their own thing. You can’t fault anyone for that. It was no different from what Rocco and Ternasky had done to start their companies.”

Colin McKay: “Sheffey and Fabre. That’s a whole other story. It didn’t have anything to do with skating.”

Colin McKay: “ The first summer, we went to Europe for a month and had like 28 demos in 30 days or something. It was like nothing to us. We were just amped.”

Colin McKay: “I was 16. I was just happy go lucky guy up in Vancouver. I think the first time I heard about them leaving was from some kid. Me and Duffy were in S.F. and some kid was just like, “Yeah, Plan B split up or something.” We were just like, “What?”

Colin McKay: “ I remember we finally had a team meeting. It was at some S.F. contest. Mike was so devastated. We were all in a hotel room and I remember him saying, “We can end this right now if you guys want. I could care less.” He didn’t even know where we stood. But at the time it wasn’t even a question for us. We were like, “Fuck this, we’re doing it.” We got Jeremy Wray and Bertino and it was like, “Boom”. Overnight, it was just up and running again. We started right into the third video.”

Colin McKay: “ Danny getting hurt like that another huge blow. That was after the other guys had left. I don’t know if people realized at the time how big a deal it actually was. But Danny just pulled right through it. It was ridiculous. He cracked a vertebrae in his neck. I came down to see him twice while he was going through that and it was so fucked. He couldn’t get out of the bathtub. He couldn’t do anything for himself. Danny was the cornerstone of Plan B.”

Colin McKay: “He got up to go to work on Monday morning, after a great weekend. Danny had flown back with him and he was telling Danny how happy he was with how everything was going with the company. He left to go to work in the morning, and was just making a left out of his apartment complex onto Paloway Road and some old lady ran the red light in a minivan and hit him from the side.”

Colin McKay: “Mike’s baby was two months from being born and his wife was taking over the company. It was just the wrong decision. But we were all so young. Nobody knew any better. I mean she had no experience. Like less then no experience in business, skating, or anything like that.”

Colin McKay: “You can imagine the disarray that this women was in. I mean she just lost her husband, she’s having a baby, and then she’s trying to run this skateboard company. It was like you had guys like Carl and other people in the company who were good at what they did but just got spread way too thin. Any company in that sort of situation is going to suffer. I mean their was no leadership. There was no direction. It needed someone at the helm. That was without question the beginning of the end for Plan B.”

Colin McKay: I think the company ran for like another year with Mary in charge. But it was just kind of a wounded animal. People that were really into the brand started kind of asking about the products. There was just no focus.”

Colin McKay: “The videos were still going off though. The third one (Second Hand Smoke) was amazing. Everybody would wait for them to come out. I mean the team still killed it. Even in the fourth video (The Revolution). The videos were amazing but the boards wouldn’t sell.

Colin McKay: “There was a contest up here, the first Slam City Jam. I got first place in the vert. Mike and all those guys were up here. They went back on Sunday and then it happened on that Monday. I just remember I was downtown skating the art gallery, like we did every day, and I looked up and my parents were standing across the street. I knew something was wrong right away. They came up and told me he had died.”

Colin McKay: “That was it. Ternasky passing away was the end of Plan B for me. He was the heart and soul of Plan B. Without him we were just sort of going through the motions.”

Colin McKay: “No one took the helm right of the bat, Rocco sort of attempted to but we all were weary of him for whatever reason. In hindsight I think we should of just let him run it. He would have done a great job.”

Colin McKay: “She was trying her best. I’ve got to hand it to her. But eventually, she was just overwhelmed. I think finally out of frustration she was just like, “You guys have to take this off of my hands.” I was like 20 and Danny was like 22 and we started running the company. We weren’t ready to become company owners. We just wanted to skate.”

Colin McKay: I knew it was sucking at the time. We all knew it was sucking at the time. The truth is we wanted to keep this dream alive no matter what. Out of respect for Mike and in memory of Mike. It was such an emotional thing. If we hadn’t been so emotional about I think we could have taken a good look at it and told ourselves like, “Plan B had a good run as a company. It made it’s mark on the history of skateboarding, but its time to shut this thing down and move on.”

Colin McKay: To be honest, in the very end of it all, after all the shit we had been through with Rocco and running it on our own, after all the drama, and all the hard work, it was Rocco who kind of made us see the light. We still respected him for his business decisions and everything he had done in skateboarding. I remember it was me, Danny, and Rocco sitting around talking and he was just like, “You know what, if Mike Ternasky were alive today, he would have buried Plan B so long ago. He’d have moved on to the hottest, freshest new thing already. That’s how Mike operated. That’s the reason he started Plan B from H-Street. He would have buried it and moved on.” Danny and I looked at each other and the light just went on, like, “Why are we dumping all this money into a company and killing ourselves to run it. Why not just keep the nice memories instead of carrying on with it.” It was just beating a dead horse. That’s when it happened. We put it to rest.

Colin McKay: We actually went out on a good note. We went out with that “Best of Plan B” section in 411. I mean we ended it as best as we could at that time. It was unfortunate, but the world keeps on turning.””

Danny Way:

Danny Way: “Plan B was an idea that Mike and I had come up with. I had ridden for H-Street for a long time and some of the internal differences motivated me to leave. I wasn’t happy with a lot of the stuff going on. It got to a point where they were just putting random people on the team. I remember looking at the team list at one point and just being like “Who are these dudes?” I’d show up places and dudes would be coming up to me claiming they were my teammates. It was like, “cool, okay.” The whole thing just got blown out of proportion.”

Danny Way: “When we started H-Street it wasn’t about that. The only reason I got on was because all of my friends were on.”

Danny Way: “It obviously wasn’t going to be a situation that could be worked out overnight so I ended up going to ride for Blind. Mike actually set that up for me. He talked to Rocco about it and got me on the team. I rode for Blind for about a year but I was bummed that I wasn’t working with Mike anymore. I owe so much of what I’ve become in skateboarding to Mike.”

Danny Way: “We talked for a while and figured that the only way to really fix all the problems with H-Street was to start a whole new project from scratch.”

Danny Way: “I quit Blind and had to get back on H-Street for a while so Mike would have the time to set up the whole operation. It was like a full strategy with Rocco involved. We all knew Plan B was going to happen. The whole idea was that I was going to quit Blind and go back to H-Street to work on the team guys. I just wanted to get everyone on the same page so that when the day came, everyone would be ready.”

Danny Way: “I went on a trip to Europe with (Tony) Mag. I got back and Mike had the new office set up. I basically got picked up from the airport, went to the Plan B offices, called up Mag. And was like, “It’s over. We’re out of here.”

Danny Way: “It evolved into the sort of superstar team. There wasn’t any kind of master plan or anything. We just wanted to redo H-Street the way we thought it should have been all along. It just so happened to be the most amazing team of all time.”

Danny Way: “It was definitely rolling the dice on our part. Mike and I had to take the first step. We had to get it to a point where other people would be motivated to take the step with us. I really didn’t know how the other riders would react. Luckily for us, it all came together. Once we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel it became clear that we were involved with something that would have a huge impact.”

Danny Way: “Koston got left behind. He should have been on Plan B. We had a vote. I voted for him. Ternasky wanted him. Believe it or not, Mike (Carroll), Rick (Howard), and Sean (Sheffey) voted him off. They said he was too goofy. They called him “Kostomedian.” Even back then though, it was pretty obvious that he was gifted. Its ironic that they all ended up on Girl. Koston was one of the guys that Mike really wanted on the team.”

Danny Way: “Sal wasn’t on the first drop. But we gave Sal respect. Sal was Sal and he’d been a part of what we were doing for a long time. Mike didn’t want to leave him behind.”

Danny Way: “Putting Rodney (Mullen) on was kind of thrown around as a joke at first. Then we were all at a team meeting at one point and Rodney’s name came up and everybody kind of looked around and we were like, “Seriously, what if we try to get Rodney on Plan B.” Everybody was like, “Fuck yeah, let’s do it.” We called Rocco and of course he’s partners with Rodney so he’s like “That’s perfect, Rodney needs to be on a team like that.”

Danny Way: “It all just evolved into what it became. That was really the beauty of it. It kind of happened naturally. The impact that it ultimately had on skateboarding was never something we were really aware of while we were doing it. None of it was like part of some master plan. We never really put ourselves out there and tried to get just anyone we could get. We waited patiently to get the right guys.”

Danny Way: “There was nobody that we ever wanted on Plan B that we didn’t get. Even after Rick, Sheffey, and Mike left.”

Danny Way: “To be honest, the first team was legendary, but I’m not sure which team was better. Considering the blow that those guys (Mike, Rick, Sheffey) gave us, I think we responded pretty quickly and pretty well with the guys we grabbed. We did all that in a weekend. I mean, we lost Mike, Rick, Tony and Sheffey and had (Jeremy) Wray and (Ronnie) Bertino on within 24 hours.”

Danny Way: “Once we saw the footage, I mean just seeing Duffy’s shit, we knew that we had the heaviest, progressive, modern skateboarding that anyone had ever seen. It became pretty apparent when we edited it down and watched it back. I mean, there’s stuff in there that I look at today and I’m still blown away by. We were seriously humbled to be a part of it.”

Danny Way: “When Mike died, Plan B died. That’s just the bottom line. We held on to it for the fact that Mike wouldn’t have wanted it to die. But without the kingpin, it was over.”

Danny Way: “He’d tell you how to put your feet and shit. He knew all the tricks.”

Danny Way: “Contests weren’t that big of a deal at the time, and honestly they still aren’t. But we felt that the Plan B videos were doing skateboarding justice at the time. From the response that we got from Questionable, we knew that we needed to keep filming.”

Danny Way: “To be honest, I don’t think we even realized what Questionable was until tears later. We knew it was good, but I had no idea it would have the impact or the respect that it has to this day.

Danny Way: “After Virtual Reality I think people just expected us to have every video be better then the last. I think after a certain point the expectations were just so high. It became kind of a battle. I think we ultimately put ourselves in a position where if the new video coming out wasn’t above and beyond the last video we had it would almost be detrimental to the company.”

Danny Way: “Plan B really had no theme to the company other then being based on its riders. Ultimately the riders and the videos were everything. As far as board graphics, ads, and all that stuff they seemed more scattered. I didn’t really follow the numbers early on but I know that they were really good. After Questionable alone, Plan B moved a lot of boards. By the time I got into the actual numbers, they weren’t so good anymore.”

Danny Way: “There was really no vert around at that time. We really had to make due with what we had. The vert sections in Questionable and Virtual Reality were probably filmed in a matter of ten sessions. We didn’t have much time to work on it. I had to fly up to Canada and skate some shitty ramp in Kevin Harris’ skatepark just to get some vert in. That thing was a nightmare.”

Danny Way: “Colin and I more or less looked at what we were learning on street and tried to apply that to vert. Most of those tricks in those video parts were sort of thought up as we went. Some of those tricks still hold up, but to be honest, some of the grabbing stuff was more just trying to do flip tricks on vert by any means necessary. The idea was that eventually we could move on and do all that stuff without grabbing. I don’t think there are a lot of people that really approach it they way we do. A lot of people sort of piece together existing tricks. Our frame of mind was to create original tricks. A lot of that really came from street skating.”

Danny Way: “There had been some talks with Mike (Carroll) and Rick (Howard) and those guys. They had been telling me that they wanted some ownership in the company and stuff like that. That was really one of the long-term goals for Plan B. Mike (Ternasky) had bigger plans for it then just being a skateboard company. His whole goal was to get Plan B to a point where it was really valuable and then let us take it over and capitalize on it. Basically, those guys just got impatient. They didn’t really understand what Mike was trying to do. Their impatience led them to just go and do their own thing.”

Danny Way: “When they left it was kind of a letdown. Mike had bent over backwards for all of us. He treated us like his own kids. He had done so much, from helping people buy cars on his own credit, paying people’s bills, and going the extra mile. It so far above and beyond what any normal team manager or company owner needed to do. I couldn’t believe at the time that they could show so little respect for him. It was a shock but at the same time I was kind of relieved at that point. At least I knew were we stood with those guys. It was better, ultimately, for them to move on rather then to be a part of something that they didn’t want to be a part of.”

Danny Way: “I was depressed for a day, and then we just thought, ‘fuck it, let’s move on. Let’s make a Plan B for the new era.’ I think, at the time, the guys that we had brought to the team, Jeremy Wray and Ronnie Bertino, were the best we could have done.”

Danny Way: “Most of everything that they had learned, they learned from Mike (Ternasky). What he had embedded in them was essentially what brought them to want their own deal. I don’t discredit them for wanting to exceed on their own, but I had strong feelings about the way that they approached it. It was very disrespectful. Just knowing the type of guy that Mike (Ternasky) was, it tore him apart. It just broke his heart. It’s like your wife cheating on you or something.”

Danny Way: “The van and shit like that, it was just so unnecessary. There was no reason for those guys to approach it that way. The way I saw it, there were issues, and Mike (Ternasky) was the type of guy that would have sat down and worked through them. And if it didn’t work out he would have said, ‘Hey, if I can help you guys move on and do something else, I’ll be there. But to turn around and start destroying his property and make threatening phone calls to his house, that was pretty much uncalled for. To be honest, I think most of it was really directed towards Rocco. But since Mike (Ternasky) was working with Rocco on the Plan B project, he just got dragged into it.”

Danny Way: “I can pretty much assure you that each and every one of those guys today would agree with me—they should have approached it in a different way. They were young and that just wasn’t the way to do it. I think they even told that to Mike (Ternasky) before he died.”

Danny Way: “I’ve always been friends with those guys regardless of what happened. It wasn’t so much personal issues as just them going out and ruining something that we had worked so hard on. I mean, it was something that was paying our bills. And, the way that it affected Mike (Ternasky) was really what got me to take a stand against them.”

Danny Way: “Right before Mike died, in ’94, we went to the first Slam contest in Vancouver. Mike’s goal was to sit down up there with all those guys and basically make peace. He was the kind of guy that didn’t want to have grudges with anyone. If he had a grudge with somebody it just tore him up. He wanted to go up there and figure out what happened to just get closure on the whole thing. I think he pretty much accomplished that. Personally, I would have just written those guys off and moved on. But, Mike (Ternasky) was adamant about making peace with those guys and I suppose I admired him for that.”

Danny Way: “He made peace with those guys and when we flew home from Vancouver I remember being on the plane with him and him telling me how happy he was that he had no enemies in his life and everything was good. The next morning, he got blind sided and killed in his car. Jeremy Wray was staying at his house that morning and I remember calling over there because I was supposed to go check out some board graphics and Jeremy was like, ‘I’ve got some really bad news…”

Danny Way: “It was crazy. It was just a crazy situation. It was just a really hard time for everyone. For the next couple of years it was just really hard. Nobody really had the vision or the motivation that Mike had to just make it succeed. We all followed his drive. He fueled us all to be the best we could possibly be, so when we lost him we were just like, ‘Now What.’”

Danny Way: “We tried our hardest. Mike’s wife, Mary tried to step in and help out. But it was just a big mess. The way I saw, when Mike (Ternasky) died, Plan B died.”

Danny Way: “I got hurt right before Second Hand Smoke. It was about a year after Mike passed away. I sustained a severe neck injury surfing with serious nerve damage and spinal chord swelling which put me out for almost two years. I don’t know, going from Mike’s death to having that happen was such a hard chain of events.”

Danny Way: “The next video came out. It was powerful but the product wasn’t selling as good. Without Mike around we just didn’t have it together. There were a number of people trying to be in charge of things that we really weren’t capable of being in charge of.”

Danny Way: “We were working with Mary (Ternasky) and Rocco to try and pull the whole thing off. She was paying for all the advertising, royalties, and salaries and everything with the checks she got from World for the distribution every month and the checks weren’t covering the overhead. She was basically loosing money every month it existed. We felt at the time that we weren’t getting a fair deal on the product, as far as commissions and royalties. I’ve resolved most of it with people involved since then but at the time it was a problem.

Danny Way: “I think World could have done more for Plan B after Mike died. They eventually made an offer to take over Plan B. I mean, it was in a bad position at the time but to us, Plan B wasn’t set up to be owned by World Industries. It was set up to be owned by the team. We wanted to carry it out the way Mike (Ternasky) wanted it carried out.”

Danny Way: “Ultimately our decisions may have cost us the company. But we made our decisions based on what we had been taught. Everything that we did was based on what we thought Mike (Ternasky) would be happy with.”

Danny Way: “I called Hensley when Mike (Ternasky) died and was like, ‘Dude, you’ve got to come back. We’ve got a crazy situation to handle. He’d been in Chicago for a while and I think he was ready to come back. I’d grown up skating with Hensley so it was cool to have him back working on something that we all had started together. He brought a lot to the table. There’s something to be said for him dropping his life in Chicago to come home and carry the torch for Mike (Ternasky).”

Danny Way: “It was pretty much a nightmare. Now, the financial burden was on Colin and me. Our board sales weren’t meeting the payroll overhead. What could we do. We started paying people out of our own pockets. Not getting paid for your board sponsor, paying other people’s salaries, and then working 9 to 5 for almost two years straight on top of that—it just got to a point where we were like, ‘what are we doing here?’

Danny Way: “There was just one month where the dept was astronomical. Colin and I were looking at each other like, ‘What the fuck are we going to do?’ We were probably each loosing about $20,000 to $25,000 a month. We hadn’t even been able to focus on skateboarding for a while, we’re loosing money, and we’re not even getting to skate. We were like, “Let’s get paid and let’s skate again.”

Danny Way: “We made a harsh decision, but even looking back, it was really the best decision we could have made at the time.

Danny Way: “If there’s ever an opportunity to bring Plan B back and do it right, we’ll do it. The timing isn’t right yet, but if it happens, we’ll do it.

Danny Way: “The A-Team was supposed to be like this bash on Plan B. I think a lot of people would say that The A-Team was more of a bash on itself.”

Danny Way: “Colin went and rode for Girl which was crazy. To this day I think he would agree that it wasn’t really the right thing to do. But there really wasn’t too many other places that would have fit his style. I think it was probably good for him and his reputation, and I sort of agree with it to a degree. But, at the same time I sort of viewed it as fueling something that has basically been responsible for taking fuel away from us, or at least try to.”

Danny Way: “I think a lot of the stuff that goes into DC comes from the inspiration that Mike had taught us. Not just myself but my brother Damon (Way), who also looked up to Mike. It’s not just things like making a good product and making good videos. There are beliefs that he instilled in you—a sort of inspirational motivation to do positive things, that stays with you. He taught people the formula for achieving your goals.”

Danny Way: “Anyone that dealt ever dealt with Mike would tell you, there’s something that rubs off. Its not about skateboarding. It’s not about making money. It’s just about becoming the best you can be, at whatever you do. He could bring that out in people. Beyond what they thought they could do.”

Danny Way: “Its kind of a weird situation. Mary got remarried and has a bunch more kids. Since Plan B shut down I feel like she just wanted to start a new life. She had to get away from all the drama and turmoil. I respect that. We send each other Christmas cards but other then that we don’t really have contact. She has a ten year old daughter who is partly Mike’s kid. He died, before she was born. I haven’t seen her in a few years. I feel that out of respect for Mike I’d like to at least be there to answer some questions that she might have about her dad. She’s ten years old now and I just want to let her know, if there’s anything she ever wants to learn about her dad, I’ll be there to paint the picture for her. I hope I get the opportunity to do that.”

Danny Way: “My DC part, that’s a tribute to Mike T. right there. The high air stuff—before he died, it was back when Sergie (Ventura) was trying to do the high air, even when Tony (Magnusson) had the record, Mike always wanted me to go break the record for highest air. He always talked about doing it, even the big ramps and all that was stuff that he and I had talked about so long ago. Now it’s a reality. He would be freaking right now. He would love it.”

Danny Way: “There’s been enough time gone by now. I don’t know if it’s appropriate yet, but who knows. Plan B still carries so much for the history of skateboarding. I believe that if it was done correctly, there could be a new Plan B for the new era. There hasn’t been anything come out with that kind of impact for a long time. Maybe it’s time for somebody to come back and do it. You’d have to run the same ad…’Five of these guys are leaving their current sponsors…’ Get the biggest names right now. You’d have to have some money though. These days, you’d have to pay some serious money to get people to leave their sponsors. But, money talks. Money still talks.”  

Sean Sheffey:

Sean Sheffey: “Teranasky approached me. I was skating for Life at the time. It sounded pretty promising. I was stoked. I knew Matt (Hensley) and Danny (Way). I had met most of the dudes like Mikey (Carroll), Rick (Howard), and Rodney (Mullen).”

Sean Sheffey: “Filming with Ternasky was pretty good. It was really demanding as far as getting you disipline down and stuff. But it helped. Depending on if you got into the sessions. We had it based out of San Diego so most of the whole team was down there. He would suggest certain stuff we should do or tricks to try down certain spots. Mostly he knew what was possible.”

Sean Sheffey: “It was big turn out. It was really nice.” (Premiere)

Sean Sheffey: “It was pretty awesome, he would go off at some sessions we were at.”

Sean Sheffey: “The money was good. So it was pretty smart to hold up your shit. That was part of the deal.”

Sean Sheffey: “Don’t mess with another man’s property. That’s all I got to say about that (Asked about Ryan Fabre and his wife).”

Sean Sheffey: “I seen him (Ryan Fabre) in Vegas. That was later. It was all cool. We’re totally cool now.”

Sean Sheffey: “For the second one (Virtual Reality) we were more like up on there. We were more like the stars of the scene so it got a little more demanding. We were out partying, and raging with friends, getting girls, so like all of that definitely got in the way, you know. We were pretty stoked though. We wanted to uphold that little image we had. Like we were the team, man.”

Sean Sheffey: “It was all a secret (Girl). No one really knew about it except the guys that were in there. Then it went down. It was pretty trippy. All of us agreed so that’s what it was gonna go like.”

Sean Sheffey: “It felt trippy leaving him. At first it was lame. But I was going to go with the guys that were looking out for my best interests like Mike (Carroll) and Rick (Howard). We were around each other more then with the boss. I’d still talk to him on the phone. I saw him at a few contests before it happened. He was just tripped out it happened for the friendship. He understood that we wanted to something new and fresh. There was other stuff going on that shouldn’t have been happening.”

Sean Sheffey: “The funeral was within a couple of days (After Mike’s death). I was living with Mikey (Carroll) at the time. Someone called up there and told him. There was the wake and the funeral. Everyone was in a whole world of shock. Nobody could believe it. Everybody had their moments—emotional breakdowns and stuff like that. Nobody brought our problems to that.”

Sean Sheffey: “I never had a problem with Danny. I’ve hung out with him since in Europe and he invites us over to his place. That’s all good.” 

Jacob Rosenberg, Plan B Filmer:

Jacob Rosenberg: “Ternasky obviously had creative differences with Tony Magnusson. And he really had a vision for a super company. He knew the people who he could inspire and work best with. He wanted a tight group that as he would say, ‘Had the juice.’ All these guys were the juice. There was nobody on the team that wasn’t a great skater. He saw the opportunity to do something that hadn’t been done before…like a second Bones Brigade.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Ternasky aspired to make an impact on skateboarding. He realized that he had the opportunity to make the best company, at the time. And he did it!”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Literally my reaction was, ‘That’s f---ing awesome!’ It was a super team. No team was better. No team was ever created in that way. World and Rocco would buy a lot of riders, but he wasn’t as savvy with the riders as Ternasky was. Ternasky saw the personalities and had a really good vision.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “We were sent up to Canada with Danny to recruit Colin.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “I know some of the other H-Street guys were bummed that they weren’t included.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Hensley’s was already tapering off as a skater when Plan B started, but Ternasky wanted to include him on the team because he was a great skater. I think he wanted him to be involved. That was one of his boys. He knew that having Hensley would help build the name, too.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “The company started at the end of summer and by fall they started filming. Ternasky knew that they needed a video right away, and he also knew that everyone would be hungry.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Pat’s part was pretty much done six months before the video came out. So Pat kind of set the tone for what everyone else had to live up to. They knew they had to bring it.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “The first night of filming for me Danny Way did the cab to backside noseblunt to gazelle out on the miniramp. It was like, ‘Wow!’”

Jacob Rosenberg: “The Blind Video came out before the Plan B video, so everyone knew this had to be a great video. Some people felt pressure. Mike Carroll hated filming back then, especially for Virtual Reality. None of those guys liked to be under that pressure to deliver that part that was just going to be insane.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Everyone wanted Mike to heelflip the Gonz, and everyone knew he could, but he never did. Even Rick could have made the frontside shove-it. The problem with filming so much is that people are only going to try so hard.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “What Ternasky was such a genius with is that he could recognize people’s abilities. No one died while Ternasky was filming them. People got hurt. Like when Danny almost broke his femur on the handrail, that was Danny, that wasn’t Ternasky. Danny wanted to step up and try the lipslide on the double kink. But Ternasky knew who he could challenge and what they were capable of. Danny and Pat worked well with that, obviously. There were certain things where if someone would do a trick Ternasky would be like, ‘I’ll take care of your car payment this month.’ Tricks that Ternasky knew that would stand out, above and beyond a person’s part, he was willing to put something on the table as an incentive for them to do it. Cause he knew that if you did it that it would be great for you.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Ternasky was in his mid to 20s. Plan B was his kids. He grew up without a father. He was class president of his high school. So he always had those leadership qualities. He wanted to prove himself on a high level in a very unique industry.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Danny told me a story at Ternasky’s funereal. Now I don’t know if this is true or just one of those things where my memory is not right, but they were flying back from the Vancouver contest the day before he died. Ternasky said, ‘You know Danny if this plane went down, I have to say I’ve had a pretty great life. I’ve done a lot of the stuff I’ve always dreamed of.’ So I think he achieved a lot of his goals.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “After he died the company still had that mark of talent and then it just disintegrated.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “He was a kid who grew up without a father, who wanted to prove himself. And he found skateboarding and identified with the skaters. He became a father for these kids. He tried to inspire and help them achieve the kind of personal success that he did. But at the same time, so that were people are more critical of things.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Danny and Ternasky did not have many issue and the reason is that Danny was paid a lot. He was paid a lot because Danny brought it all the time. He tried harder than anyone else and he always gave completely of himself. So there was never a problem. Where other guys on the team may have been more moody or temperamental.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Everyone would do stuff and they wouldn’t want to tell Ternasky about it. I remember smoking dope and being embarrassed to tell him. He was father figure in that way, where you always wanted to show him the good side of things. But at a certain point people got tired of that as well.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “With Danny, Pat, and Mike, growing up with out fathers, Ternasky filled a void for them, whether they were conscious of it at the time. He would do things for them and be what a father should be for them. If you had bad stuff happen to you, he would help you with it. If you got the clap, he would tell you what to do. You didn’t want to tell him that you made a mistake, but you knew that he would help you if you did.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Everyone on the team was really proud of Questionable.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “After Questionable, everyone took the summer off. Nobody filmed. Then slowly in the fall, everyone started again.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “The comparisons to the Bones Brigade fit perfectly. Ternasky admired and talked about Stecyk a lot. It was like a Bones Brigade for a hardcore audience. At that time if you were a skater you were totally committed. It wasn’t as mainstream as it is today. Plan B was for the lovers of skating, where the Bones Brigade appealed to the masses.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “I don’t see any of it as being mentally abusive. You ride for a company, you have a reputation to live up to and Ternasky would remind you of that. And if you didn’t want to live up to it he wasn’t like whatever, but he also wasn’t going to kiss your ass. And the people who were delivering were getting better treatment from him.”
 
Jacob Rosenberg: “You can talk about Danny, Mike, and Duffy, but one of Ternasky’s greatest accomplishments was to inspire Rodney to come out of nowhere and break down the doors of skateboarding, a second time.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “There were internal cliques right away. Duffy was kind of an outsider. Sal was in San Diego. Mike, Rick, and Sheffey were as tight as can be. And when Colin was in town he stayed with Danny.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Mike threw my board in the ocean one night while we were filming. To a certain degree I should have lashed out then. But getting footage was everything, so I took it. I was like it’s more important to get the trick than to worry about my board.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “When those guys left it wasn’t that much of a surprise. We knew it was happening. Ternasky was kind of sad about the way it went down.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Ternasky had Jim Greco come out back then to get on the team, that’s how much of an eye for talent he had.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “What Ternasky liked about Jeremy was that he was a good kid, a nice kid. He knew he potential. Look at Jeremy’s part in Second Hand Smoke. That might not have been the same part if he was riding for a different company. And that’s the truth for a lot of those guys. I don’t know if they would have had the same part with the same tricks if they weren’t riding for Plan B.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “It was probably the one of the saddest moments of my life. Mike was absolutely my mentor. I always saw him as my teacher and when he died that was his way of teaching me about death.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Mary [Ternasky, Mike’s wife] tried to be as involved as possible. She wasn’t at all involved before. She started to help make decisions for the company. And Dave Andrecht, who was already working at Plan B, got more involved. Carl was still handling the designs. So, Mary was kind of playing the roll of Ternasky, which I admire that she threw herself into that, considering that she just had a child. I’m sure that wasn’t the right role for her. Then I’m not sure if it was Danny and Colin or just Danny who bought Mary out.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Ternasky was the ‘juice’ behind Plan B. You can’t have a super team without some organization. When he died that vision for the company was gone. It took an incredible amount of energy to uphold that vision. You’re also talking about a company that lost a handful of its best rider, but it hadn’t diminished completely.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Ternasky felt that the way it went down that it wasn’t honest. And they may have felt like he was dealing with them dishonestly. Ternasky never stopped you from questioning him. If you want to work something out with someone you go and talk to them. If you’re not interested in working it out you don’t talk to them. I think their actions spoke for themselves. They didn’t want to negotiate, they wanted to do their own thing. To lose those relationships was sad for him.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “Ternasky’s legacy lives pretty clearly in Danny and to a certain extent in Rodney.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “I wasn’t surprised when it went out of business. Any one who knew Ternasky or that company knew that if not in the right hands the company would flounder. To me, in a very poetic sense, the company kind of just blew away. It faded off into the distance.”

Jacob Rosenberg: “It was Plan C after Ternasky died, quite literally. It was like what do you do now.”

Mike Carroll:

Mike Carroll: “Danny Way and I were sitting with Ternasky at Woodward Skatecamp, and I mentioned something about quitting H-Street and possibly doing something with Steve Rocco. We thought it would be so much better graphic wise and board wise because they had such good graphics and boards. But, I’m sure Ternasky talked to Rocco before that and had something in the works. That was my first memory of anything like that. I never thought it would become a reality. We were going to ask Henry [Sanchez] to ride for it, but then he started riding for Blind.”

Mike Carroll: “I was psyched that I was going to be riding sick boards with good concave cause back then the World boards were really good.”

Mike Carroll: “While I was on H-Street, he called me up to go eat lunch when he was up in San Francisco. I kind of ran away from home. He told me I should come down to San Diego that summer and live there. That’s the first time I remember him treating me kind of like a little brother.”

Mike Carroll: “He always had big plans. And I think he just wanted to run his own business.”

Mike Carroll: “Eric [Koston] was close to getting on, but I didn’t really know him that well.”

Mike Carroll: “I didn’t think of it like a super team. I just thought it was a cool little company. Going from H-Street to Plan B, it just felt like a tight little team. Ternasky would be calling more, asking me about ideas, so I felt more involved.”

Mike Carroll: “One of the names we were thinking of was Next.”

Mike Carroll: “I thought it was weird that Hensley was retiring. Then Sal had the retirement part in the next video. So it was like who’s going to have one in the next video? It was like a given that someone was always going to be on the way out.”

Mike Carroll: “We were so critical about people, and we didn’t know Pat, at the time. To us it was just some random dude that we didn’t know just getting on the team. People used to say that we used try to get him kicked off, which was never the case. Once he was on it was sick. We were psyched. He’s a cool guy. But, before that it was like who is this guy? They were just showing us footage of him. We were just being protective.”

Mike Carroll: “That’s the way Ternasky worked was just film, film, film. I don’t know what it was that got him so psyched on filming.”

Mike Carroll: “Filming for Questionable was no big deal. It was just skating.”

Mike Carroll: “After Questionable people were trying to say we were like the new Bones Brigade and this and that. That started to get to my head.”

Mike Carroll: “For Virtual Reality, the idea of having to film all the time wasn’t new, it wasn’t fresh. All of the sudden you weren’t just skating anymore.”

Mike Carroll: “Ternasky would do little filming incentives here and there. He was going to double me and Rick’s checks if we did some tricks down the San Diego Sports Arena double set. He wanted me to do a 360 flip and Rick’s was supposed to do a frontside shove-it. I didn’t want to try it. I only want to do something when I want to. It didn’t really appeal to me. The fakie ollie down the Seven in Questionable, I was supposed to get 10 long sleeve Gap shirts if I did it first try. I made it but I never got my Gap shirts.”

Mike Carroll: “Before Plan B started he would help me with my homework and teach me some studying techniques. And he would talk to me about other problems. When you’re that young you don’t have that many problems or at least you don’t think there are. But he was trying to get us prepared for things later in life. Steer us away from certain things. We used to smoke weed and one time some of us were smoking weed at this house in Houston. Someone told us that Ternasky was coming so we hid in the bathroom and told everyone to say that we weren’t in there. We were worried that he would be pissed at us.”

Mike Carroll: “Him and Danny had a way closer relationship than anyone else on the team.”

Mike Carroll: “It was a respect thing. You felt like he was a parent. At first we liked that, but we didn’t welcome it as much as we got older. When you get a little older you think you’re not looking for that kind of a relationship anymore. You wanted to do what you wanted to do without having someone else tell you when to skate or whatever. At the time you don’t appreciate it, but later you see how you benefited from it. He meant well.”

Mike Carroll: “Sometimes you need someone to give you the confidence that you don’t think is there. Ternasky could bring that out. He would help us keep our heads where they should be at.”

Mike Carroll: “During Virtual Reality I was already sick of filming, being told so and so is doing this, and that I had to step it up. There were all kinds of little things that I didn’t want to deal with anymore. I felt like pretty soon I was going to get a retirement part. I didn’t even feel like being a pro skater anymore. I just wanted to skate. I would talk to Rick about it. We came up with this bright idea that we could actually do something.”

Mike Carroll: “Ternasky was trying to get us prepared for more business stuff because I don’t think he wanted to do it anymore. That’s why he had us in the editing room. He would talk about getting less involved in some of that stuff.”

Mike Carroll: “We tried to talk to Danny about it and he would seem into it while we were talking to him about it, but by the next day he would be over it.”

Mike Carroll: “We knew that we were going to start Girl even before Virtual Reality was done. We went on a tour and brought the people that we knew were going to ride for us and made Girl shirts and wore them on the tour. When we got back, it was the day before the S.F. contest, we called Ternasky to let him know. Rick called him to tell him, and then we met with him for breakfast to talk about it. At the time I didn’t really care about telling him, but now when I look back, it was kind of gnarly. He didn’t show that he was hurt by us leaving, but I’m sure that after all that he did for us he felt bad. I would have if I was him.”

Mike Carroll: “We knew that we were going to get shut down if we let anyone know that we were going to start Girl. So we had to be secretive. It’s what we had to do.”

Mike Carroll: “I didn’t really speak to him after that. Something got back to me about something he said about me and it kind of made be bitter towards him. It made me not want to talk to him at all. I don’t know if any of it was true.”

Mike Carroll: “We talked a little bit in Vancouver. I don’t really remember much because I still had a chip on my shoulder. He was trying to make peace and be cool about it. I wasn’t totally into it, but I wasn’t disrespectful towards him. Obviously I wish it was a little bit different because two days later is when he…all that happened.”

Mike Carroll: “It sucks that it takes something like that to make you realize that a lot of that stuff was petty. I thought of all the stuff he did for me, not as skater, but as a friend. He did way more than any team manager needed to.”

Mike Carroll: “They were good times, hard times, learning times and growing times. I was on Plan B from the age of 15 to 18. And those are the hardest years for any kind of parent.”

Jeremy Wray:

Jeremy Wray: “I had kind of heard of him (Mike Ternasky) through the H-Street videos and all that. But I had never really met him. My first impressions were just that he was a super down to earth guy. When I met him I really had no idea how much involvement he had actually had in all the teams he had worked with. Like, even all the stuff that I had liked about the H-Street videos. From the day that I met him to the last day he was around, we got along really good.”

Jeremy Wray: “When I got on, they sort of knew that they had to make another video but most of the people weren’t actually filming yet. I had been filming the whole time so I sort of got right into it.”

Jeremy Wray: “Back then it was just more fun. You sort of knew what you had to do but it was really just a matter of skating and filming.”

Jeremy Wray: “I had seen Danny (Way) and Colin (McKay) at contests and stuff. When I was riding for Color, we had done some demos together for all the European contests that year. I knew them a little so when I got on everything was cool.”

Jeremy Wray: “ I was staying at Mike’s house when it happened. We had just gotten back from the Slam City Jam contest in Vancouver. I was still sleeping and he left to go to work like any other day. He got hit at the intersection right down the street from his house. Eventually, Dave Andrecht came by the house looking for Mary. He had to break the news to her. Since I was there, he told me what happened. It was just surreal. It didn’t sink in for days after that. Dave left me at the house and was just like, “If Mary comes home you have to break the news to her.” I waited around for a couple of hours then drove home to my parents’ house. By the time I got home, my parents had already heard. They knew that I was staying down there and they were kind of tripping because they really didn’t know if I had been in the car with him. The other times I had stayed over there, if I was up when he was going to work, I would usually go with him. I could have been in there.”

Jeremy Wray: “The people that were working for Plan B were just trying to cover all the bases and everything. Nobody really knew all the stuff that Mike did. He was doing so much for one person to do. Everyone was pitching in but without that one person who knew everything that was going on, it was impossible. There were all these little pieces, and nobody knew how they were supposed to all fit together. It was tough.”

Jeremy Wray: “Mary tried to take charge but she really didn’t know enough about skateboarding to get it all done right. Dave Andrecht was trying to help out. Carl Hyndman was doing parts. Pretty soon after that though, Danny and Colin just bought the whole thing and tried to do it on their own.”

Jeremy Wray: “Every one was glad that the video still came out. It was kind of a tribute to Mike and everything. Jake Rosenberg did all of the editing down at Mike’s house. We just sort of hammered it out.”

Jeremy Wray: “The videos brought in a lot of extra money, so it was still doing allright. But there was just nobody watching over the whole production run of all the various products. I think the products ended up suffering the most. I mean we had about nine riders on the team but would only have like three boards out at a time. It seemed like it was almost in rotation. There was never a time when you could get anyone’s board you wanted. On top of all that, we were in line with all those other World companies too. Without Mike pushing our stuff through, our boards were sitting longer then a lot of the other ones. Nobody was cracking the whip anymore.”

Jeremy Wray: “It was really out of most of our hands. That made it even more frustrating in a sense. People tried but it just wouldn’t work. Danny had his neck injury around that time too and didn’t have a part in the video.”

Jeremy Wray: “We all stuck with it up until the very end. We got through one more video, The Revolution, and then eventually Danny and Colin just had to pull the plug. They had basically been fronting the money out of their own pockets to get everything made for a couple of years. They weren’t paying themselves royalties or anything. They were putting anything they had back into the company, trying to make it work. For the last couple months, they brought me and Pat Duffy in as owners too. We for fitted our monthly pay to try and help out. In the end, we just knew it couldn’t go on. Without backing, it wasn’t going to work.”

Jeremy Wray: “They started the A-team with the idea of it being the next Plan B. But when it actually came out it seemed pretty different. Something was missing.”

Jeremy Wray: “It was one of those things. The way I found out it was done was when Danny got on Alien Workshop. Colin was going to ride for Girl. At that point we all knew, it was time to go look for new sponsors.”

Jeremy Wray: “We were going to try and do a best of Plan B video. I honestly think it might happen one day, but back then we ended up doing the 411 industry part kind of as a goodbye part.”

Jeremy Wray: “I heard they beat up the team van pretty good when they left. They abandoned the Plan B van on the East coast. They had taken it on a trip and pretty much just trashed the inside, cut up the interior and tagged all over it. It was wrecked. They left it out there and just went home. Mike sent someone out there to get it. We still used that same van for the next three or four years after that. It still had all this stuff written all over the ceiling. I think Mike wanted to prove a point by keeping it.”

Pat Duffy:

Pat Duffy: “Mike Ternasky first approached me. I had gotten like two boxes or something from H-Street at that point. He said he was going to start something new with a couple of people from the H-Street teams. They didn’t have the name or anything yet. I didn’t know anyone else at the time and I had only dealt with Ternasky so I was like, ‘Whatever you’re doing, I’m doing.’”

Pat Duffy: “They already had my sponsor me tape and some of that footage ended up being used in Questionable.”

Pat Duffy: “A few months after that, Mike came up to San Francisco at the Embarcadero, we skated, and he was like, ‘Ok, I’m going to do this thing and I want you on.’ That September, in ’91, it was at the Disco in ‘Frisco contest in the fountains were we all came out and wore our Plan B shirts.”

Pat Duffy: “For me it was all kind of crazy. I started looking at all the names that were involved and was just like, ‘Holy shit’. I had no idea who was going to be involved. I just knew Mike wanted me to ride for his team. When the team came together, I freaked out. Everyone on the team was so amazing. I figured I just got lucky with it..”

Pat Duffy: “We pretty much went straight into the filming. Ternasky was like a little kid when it came to video footage. He loved it. He loved filming. He loved watching the footage. He ‘d have his studio at the house and any time we were over there he always showing us footage of everyone on the team. He’d be showing it in slow-mo, like ‘Check this out’. He loved that shit. He loved showing the team what everyone else was doing. I think, really, that got everyone really hyped. I think we fed off each other.”

Pat Duffy: “It was pretty crazy for me. One of my first trips to San Diego, Carl Hyndman picked me up and we went to meet Ternasky at one of those San Diego schools. Danny Way was there and the first thing Mike says is, “Yeah, you’re staying with Danny tonight.” I was 17 and was just like, “whoa, this is weird. I’m going to Danny Way’s house.’ I just got thrown into the mix.”

Pat Duffy: “Hensley too, he was like my idol at that point, like serious idol. I had like 12 Kingsize Hensley boards in a row. I mean, I went filming with him a couple of times and was just tripping out, like, ‘Oh shit, I’m skating with Matt Hensley.’”

Pat Duffy: “It freaked me out. It was totally weird. At the premiere, It was just like a whole new thing for me. I didn’t know how to deal with it. People are coming up to you and everything.”

Pat Duffy: “I didn’t really feel pressure at the time. Mike just had us filming and that was pretty much all you had to handle.”

Pat Duffy: “I got a snowboard for the 360 flip noseslide down the Balboa ledge. He’s like, ‘Go down to Pacific Drive and pick one out.’ It was awesome. I think the way he did it worked. Like it wasn’t like some Nazi filmer dude forcing you to do stuff. If you didn’t feel comfortable with something, he wouldn’t push you or anything. It was totally friendly.”

Pat Duffy: “I can’t remember really not filming back then. It wasn’t like we were pushed, like, “You guys are filming every day or you’re off the team.” I t was more just like all of us wanted to do it. That was what we did. We did a pretty heavy summer tour, and then it was straight back into filming for Virtual Reality.”

Pat Duffy: “For Questionable, I had tried to kickflip backside noseblunt slide the bench in Webb Park for a while but never actually rode away from it. That kind of bummed me out. I used to freak out back then too, throw my board and all that.”

Pat Duffy: “I didn’t really hang out with Rick and Mike every day. I lived in San Diego on the beach with my friends from Morrin. I kind of kept to myself. I hung out with Sal a lot. He’d skate, but a lot of the time he’d just be at Pacific Drive chilling. When we needed to film I would go do that. But other then that, I kind of stayed out of the business aspect.”

Pat Duffy: “There was always little things going down with Rocco. I just always remember Ternasky going like, ‘Fuck, these guys at World are doing this or that.’ I think he just worked through it.”

Pat Duffy: “That big kinked rail in Virtual Reality, that was Danny’s rail, he wanted to do it. He just wanted someone to skate it with. I was there that day so I skated it with him. We were both convinced we were going to do it. That was a fun day actually. That was great. Danny got a lot further then I did. We both slammed.”

Pat Duffy: “I actually heard it from Rick Howard. It was around September, at the Back to the City contest in ’93. He called me and told me that morning. I remember Rick saying he just wanted to give me a heads up. It freaked me out. I didn’t know what to do. But, you know, Ternasky was really the only guy I would…I hadn’t been around the business side like those guys had. Rick (Howard) was around the whole business side for a while. He was in L.A. dealing with the World (Industries) guys and all that. He had a whole different perspective on it. I just skated. I would have stuck with Mike (Ternasky) regardless.”

Pat Duffy: “It was different after they left. There was a different vibe for sure. But, we still stuck with it. It was different, but it was still awesome. It was still Plan B.”

Pat Duffy: “I heard about it a couple days later. I called to talk to him and they just broke the news to me like, ‘I can’t believe you havn’t heard yet.’ I kind of freaked. I actually didn’t say anything to my roommates or anyone. I just went about my day. That night, I got a bunch of beers and just tried to let it sink in.”

Pat Duffy: “We all knew we wanted to keep it going, but I don’t think anyone really knew how. We all felt that he would have wanted us to keep it going.”

Pat Duffy: “I was pretty removed from it all. I was living in Lake Tahoe, snowboarding. I rode for Type A. I would fly down to San Diego every now and then to film, but other then that I stayed away from it. It was Carl (Hyndman) and Mary Ternasky keeping it together. I never really wanted to be involved on the business side.”

Pat Duffy: “By ’96, Mary (Ternasky) was just over it. It was totally understandable. She had been trying to run this company without any experience. She just got thrown into it. Danny, Colin, Jeremy, and myself ultimately took over the ownership. But really it was Danny and Colin that tried their hardest. There was all these issues going on inside, with the whole XYZ/Platinum side of it. It’s a lot of work. I mean, I give them props for what they did. They did it for a while. But they’re skating and trying to live their skateboard careers and all that and then trying to run this company. It just got hard.”

Pat Duffy: “You could kind of see it coming. I mean, we stopped paying ourselves for the last couple of months. There was all kinds of problems with accounting and stuff like that. I didn’t keep up with it too much, but you could see it coming. One day, they just called up and were like, ‘We can’t do it anymore. We got fucked over from the inside. As of now, we just can’t do it.’ That was like ’97. Everyone wanted to keep it going, but there was just now way. It was wearing on Danny and Colin. They lived it, day in and day out. It just had to die.”

Rick McCrank:

Rick McCrank: “I was riding for a local Vancouver company when I met Colin. I was talking to him about getting on another board company and he was like, ‘Well, if it doesn’t pan out, come talk to me.’ I thought he meant he was going to help me get on some other company. I talked to him some more and he was like, ‘We’ll see about you getting on Plan B.’ I was like, ‘Whoa, really?’ I went down to San Diego and skated with Pat Chanitta and Jeremy Wray a little bit, met Mary (Ternasky) and the people there, then came home and got a call like, ‘Ok, you’re an am on Plan B’ I freaked out. I remember I was going to Costa Rica on vacation and, riding on a bus in the middle of Costa Rica I was tripping to myself like, ‘Oh shit, I better learn how to skate.’”

Rick McCrank: “Mary (Ternasky) was running everything.”

Rick McCrank: “It was pretty crazy. I made friends with everyone pretty quick. But you’re just like thinking to yourself, like Danny Way, these guys are legends. You’re kind of in awe. I skated with Duffy too, and I was a huge Duffy fan.”

“I was so stoked—going on tour with Hensley and stuff. It was amazing.”

Rick McCrank: “I rode for Plan B until it went out of business. I had a horrible part in the Revolution. It was like me and my friends with a video camera, skating around Vancouver. I had no idea how to film a video part.”

Rick McCrank: “I was am the whole time but was supposed to go pro right when it ended. I had a graphic drawn up and everything. I almost had a Plan B board. I still have the printout of the graphic with my name on it though. At least I got that.”

Rick McCrank: “I kind of knew it wasn’t doing so good. They had hired some people that weren’t doing their jobs and stuff like that. I think it was Colin that called me up and told me. He was just like, ‘We’re shutting it down.’ I was like ‘Whoa, ok.’ After that I just got it into my head that I wanted to get a sponsor that wasn’t going to go out of business. My daughter had just been born and I needed something stable.”

Rick McCrank: “I think Danny was talking to Tony at the time about him getting on Birdhouse. They were sort of entertaining the thought. I asked Danny like, “Well, can you see if I can get on?” He called me back a few minutes later and was like, ‘Yeah, they’re down.’”

Matt Hensley:

Matt Hensley: “The first I heard of it was through Mike Ternasky. I had kind of had a feeling that it was going to happen for a long time. We had talked about doing something beforehand. Just comparing our H-Street boards to the World Industries boards. They were all thinner and looked better. I think everybody on the team at the time was like, ‘Why can’t our boards look like that, why can’t our wheels be that small. I want my stuff to look like J.Lee’s stuff.’ Mike just called me up one day and was like, ‘we’re breaking off. We’re starting our own team.’ He had hooked it all up with Rocco and Mike was my man so I went along.

Matt Hensley: “Mike just wanted to have his best riders from H-Street. Obviously from a business standpoint, you want to start with the best team you can get. That’s what Mike did. Mike was very calculating.”

Matt Hensley: “I trusted Mike. He had treated me well through all those years. Him telling us that we we’re doing this new company and our boards were going to look the way we wanted was pretty much enough for everyone to smile and be like, ‘All right, lets get it on.’”

Matt Hensley: “If there was weirdness going on, I think it was strictly between Mike (Ternasky) and Tony (Magnusson). I don’t think it was so much with the riders. Obviously, there was a little bit of tension. But Mike was almost like one of us. He was filming with us every day and was always there. If there were any hard feelings, it was totally understandable.”

Matt Hensley: “We definitely wanted to have the video to establish Plan B. I mean H-Street was a big name back then. We needed to make some impact. Everybody had big plans for Plan B, so the video had to be as strong as possible.”

Matt Hensley: “My decision to leave became relatively simple. I was going through kind of a weird time in my life, that’s the best I can really summarize it. I was filming for the video and Mike (Ternasky) wanted me to do all these tricks that I wasn’t doing at the time. I remember doing a backside noseblunt on a miniramp and he was like, ‘You’ve got to slide it. You’ve got to do a noseblunt slide’ At that session, I just sort of lost it. I talked to him for a long time and eventually he was just kind of like, ‘Well, maybe you should bail out for a little while.’ As weird as it was, I just went home that day and decided, ‘I’m moving. I’m moving to Chicago and am going to try to be a paramedic.’ That’s exactly what happened.

Matt Hensley: “For me, he wasn’t just my team manager. He was somebody I looked up to and talked to about how my life was going. He was almost like a father figure to us. For me, having him think that my leaving was an ok thing to do really made it ok in my head. It just made it ok to get out of the limelight for a while and figure things out. For me, at the time, I’m sure I could have made a lot of other people a lot more money. But Mike didn’t think of it like that. He thought about what was best for me. Like when I moved to Chicago and got heavily into billiards, Mike bought me a billiards table to support me. He was a champion.”

Matt Hensley: “I worked at a skateboard shop in Chicago so everyday I was still in contact with skateboarding. Teams would come to town and a lot of them would just stay at my house. I still talked to Mike on the phone all the time. I talked to the boys when I could. It was probably weird for some of the kids coming into the shop. They would come in like, ‘I want a set of bearings and I want that deck’ and then it would hit them after a little bit like, “Aren’t you…” I was just like, ‘I am and do you want some griptape with that?’”

Matt Hensley: “I came back when Mike died. I got a call from Danny (Way) on the phone. He told me that Mike had died in a car accident. I flew out to the funeral and talked to some of the guys. At that point Danny just asked me to be around to try and help the company and help Mary (Ternasky). It didn’t take me very long to come to the conclusion that that’s what I needed to do. I was going to school at the art institute of Chicago. I quit school, packed up my pool table, and moved back to California, to work for Plan B. I would drive the tour van, and I knew most of the shop owners anyways from doing demos there myself back in the day. It felt really comfortable for me. I skated the demos and hung out, and I didn’t have all the same pressures that I had before. Eventually, after doing that for a while, I was skating all the time again so it just made sense to have a board out again.”

Matt Hensley: “I was kind of pissed at first. All I heard was that some of them had taken the team van, ripped all the interior and spray-painted it. It kind of bummed me out. I’ve seen all the guys since and I have no hard feelings towards anybody. It is what it was. I still love those guys.”

Matt Hensley: “We did keep that van. I drove that sucker before and after that incident. That thing still went to Arizona and Texas and all these places like five more times. I would have voted to get a new one but somebody wanted to stick with it so that’s what we did.”

Matt Hensley: “I had a board on Plan B until the day Danny (Way) called me up and told me it was done. I wasn’t really aware of the troubles they were having because I wasn’t a money member or owner or anything. It was still a pretty big operation in terms of money. I mean you had to have some serious dough if you wanted to part of the owners. I don’t rock that large anymore. I never really have.”

Matt Hensley: “I was saddened. It was the end of a reign. I mean for me, it was a big part of my life. It was part of my allegiance to Mike (Ternasky). One way or the other, I was down for the crime. It was that and when they quit making Gullwing Pro III’s. I haven’t gotten over it.”  

Ronnie Bertino:

Ronnie Bertino: “Danny had approached me. Mike had been quoted in Big Brother, years before, saying ‘Ronnie Bertino is one of the most underrated pro skaters.’ I think at the time, some of the original dudes on the team weren’t to into me.”

Ronnie Bertino: “I knew Mikey (Carroll) really well. I didn’t really know the reasoning for them leaving, but I tried to stay out of all that. They decided to do something new and that was cool. I had nothing against them.”

Ronnie Bertino: “Jeremy (Wray) and I had skated for the Hot Skates Shop team together when we were kids. We used to skate those Powell shop team contests. I got to know him a lot better when we got on Plan B together.”

Ronnie Bertino: “We had been skating a lot. I had been trying to accumulate footage and doing the whole Blind thing. For Plan B, at that point, since those guys had just left, it was kind of wanted and needed for us to put out a video and show that Plan B still had the rep that it had. But you still had Danny on the team. His rep will never go away. But as far as the street guys went, it was kind of more on us.”

Ronnie Bertino: “Ternasky was involved with everything. I honestly have to say, through all the years, he’s one of the only guys that could push you to better your skating and even better yourself in general. I respect him for that. I mean, that was the best part I ever had. I mean, he’d go to the spot with you, he’d bring you a water—he knew what you were going through, you know. He wasn’t the guy over your shoulder, like, ‘come on, make it, dick.’ He would be like, ‘This is such a sick trick, you’ve got to make it.’ He knew how to motivate people.”

Ronnie Bertino: “I remember at Christmas time, he’s have these Christmas parties. Everybody would go out, and buy someone else presents. It was like a little family deal. It was cool, hanging with Sal, the comedian, and Duffy. It was a good group.”

Ronnie Bertino: “He was one of the guys that brought some of the best skating out in me and I could never forget that. It was crazy, because right before that we were in Canada and we had all these talks about what the team was going to do and he had all these plans for the company and everything and then we get home and the next day we hear that he died. For me Plan B was dead right then. It was Ternasky’s deal. He was a hands on guy. He handled the business side and he’d be out there filming. Without Ternasky, there is no Plan B.”

Ronnie Bertino: “Eventually, they wanted to cut my checks a little bit. It was mostly me just being a stupid kid and being like ‘Fuck it, I’m out of here.’ I left Plan B and then realized I really had nowhere to go. But I think Mike passing away just changed everyone. It was such a tight nit deal and all of a sudden it all changed. It made me look at life differently.  

Tony Fergusson:

Tony Ferguson: “It was the best skaters all together. Elite team.”

Tony Ferguson: “I was friends with Rick. Guy Mariano and Tim Gavin where trying to get me on Blind. I was talking to Rick about it and he was like, ‘Just chill. Just chill. Don’t’ do it’ Then later Rick called me and was like ride for us. So he told me to call Ternasky. I was really stoked ’cause I already knew Rick, Colin, and Danny Way.”

Tony Ferguson: “I didn’t know Ternasky at all, but he was super nice, really into it and aggressive. He’d push everyone but in a good way. He knew all your tricks and what you were capable of. He wanted me to heelflip noseslide this low hubba in San Diego. I was over it and he was like, ‘I’ll double your check! Buy you a snowboard!’ I was just trying it, getting worked. I heard there was crazy ones like that.”

Tony Ferguson: “I was with Mike and Rick and they were talking about it [Girl] way before. We went on this road trip and you can tell it was definitely going down. I was stoked to be involved in what they were about to do. I felt more of an allegiance to Rick than Plan B because he got me on and he looked out for me. So I didn’t feel bad about leaving at all because I was never down there with all the guys that much.”

Ryan Fabre:

Ryan Fabre: “I was on the team for about a year and a half. Danny Way and Matt Hensley were pretty much the only two dudes I dealt with back then. I was back and forth between San Diego and Las Vegas at the time. I was riding for H-Street. For a few months it was all secretive and stuff. Everybody knew something was coming. Eventually it just appeared over night.”

Ryan Fabre: “They knew it was going to be explosive.”

Ryan Fabre: “It started off and the camera was always there. But being on the best team and all of that it was all worth it. There was the occasional pay raise for coming through. If you were progressing Mike (Ternasky) would reward that.”

Ryan Fabre: “Pat just came out of nowhere, like somewhere out in Morin County or somewhere, and started doing shit that nobody even thought could be possible. He grinded the flat rail at the San Pasquel school—then went out front and 50/50d the steep rail out front. He grinded it once then Hensley rolled up and he hadn’t seen it. Everyone was telling him like, ‘Man, he just grinded that rail.’ Hensley was like, ‘No way, can you do it again?’ Pat was like, ‘Yeah sure, I’ll do it again,’ and he just grinded it again.’

Ryan Fabre: “The energy at the premiere was crazy. The whole theater was just anticipating it. The place was packed. It was great man.’

Ryan Fabre: “I had been living with Sean Sheffey when that happened. I wish that circumstances could have been different. I mean for at least a year or two after that it did a lot of damage to me. It scared the hell out of any companies around that I might have been involved with. Everything between me and Sean has been straight for a couple of years now. I’ve hung out with him since. I’d rather not say anything about it that he wouldn’t want said.”

Ryan Fabre: “I didn’t really have a choice after the incident but to leave. I mean at the time Sean (Sheffey) was making the company thousands of dollars. With the turmoil between us and the way things were, one of us had to obviously do something. It had to be me, so I left Plan B. It took a long time for that to sort of stop following me. It’s still usually the first subject with anyone I meet.”

Ryan Fabre: “I think once you go from Plan B to some more secondary companies, it just feels like you’ve gone over the top of the mountain and everything else is just a step down. You go from the best spot to some lower status. I mean, I would have preferred it to be another way but that’s what happened.”

Ryan Fabre: “Looking back, they were some of the greatest times of my life. I went from watching Hokus Pokus and looking up to Matt Hensley and Danny Way to all of a sudden hanging out with those guys and skating with them. It was great. I went from being fan to friend.”

Rick Howard:

Rick Howard: “I was in Europe for the contest talking to Danny and it was all coming together, he was like, ‘When we get back it’s a done deal and you gotta let us know if you want to ride for it.’”

Rick Howard: “Just knowing what Ternasky did with H-Street and his videos, knowing that he was going to bring that aspect to it was motivating me to do it. It seemed like it would be more of a challenge.”

Rick Howard: “I wasn’t really thinking in terms of ‘super team’ I was just psyched to be involved with those people, Danny, Sean, Sal, Hensley, all those guys.”

Rick Howard: “In the video all the energy was based on what tricks you can pull. I was new to it. Most everyone else had already worked with Ternasky.”

Rick Howard: “We would have team meetings and get everyone’s input on the team. Like I knew Colin wasn’t too psyched on his situation at the time. We would bring up people’s names and vote on it. When we left the room everyone knew we were going to put on this guy or that guy.”

Rick Howard: “Koston’s name was always thrown around. Maybe Ronnie Bertino for second. Koston was the main one.”

Rick Howard: “It was filming all day and all night. That’s all we did, skate and think about the video. You’d really take any tricks you had and bring it to the furthest extent you could take it.”

Rick Howard: “Ternasky would bring it to the table, but you would put the pressure on yourself. It was good. It challenged everybody. That’s why those videos stand the test of time. There still watchable today”

Rick Howard: “I think I made a few hundred bucks on a miniramp move. Danny probably had a separate exclusive program that we didn’t know about.”

Rick Howard: “The response to Duffy’s part was insane.”

Rick Howard: “There was like no options but to outdo yourself for the next video. For someone like Duffy, who went apeshit in his first part, it must have been hard for him to keep up for his second part.”

Rick Howard: “He was like that with everybody, even with Rodney. He would take you under his wing. He would look out for everyone.”

Rick Howard: “He was bummed but he understood. He had wanted to leave too. I could tell he was unhappy and other people were unhappy. An opportunity presented itself, so we just dove into it.”

Rick Howard: “When we left he wasn’t psyched, but he was a good business man, so he knew how to handle it and deal with it. But leaving Ternasky was the hardest part to deal with. Just because of his friendship and what he had done. There was too many people not psyched so it wasn’t worth it to stay.”

Rick Howard: “It all happened so quick with us leaving and him passing away. We never go the chance to say it was nothing personal. It sucked! I couldn’t believe it when I heard it. But I know deep down he understood.”

Rick Howard: “Ternasky was really good at pushing people and calling people out. I’m way too easy going with our skaters at Girl. I need to step into that role more.”

Rick Howard: “I’m proud to be a part of a team that made such influential videos.”

Bastien Salabanzi Interview: The Lost Part

Bastien's portrait from his Skateboarder Interview back in 2004, at the height of filming a part that would disappear for a decade.

All Photos: Oliver Barton | Words: Mackenzie Eisenhour

Lost footage has always been somewhat of a skate nerd wet dream. The prospect of something so incredible—so Eifel Tower monumental, had it appeared when first filmed—just sitting on a shelf for years almost makes the footage increase in enigmatic value. So much so that finally watching it feels like crawling into a pixel generated time machine; beamed off to an alternate universe of what might have been.

Has a part this good ever been held for this long? I can’t think of any off hand. There was the notorious Muska part from Welcome to Hell, but that part more or less surfaced only a short while later in Fulfill The Dream. There were recent rumors of a full Jovantae Turner part from Video Days, but that may be more wishful thinking than any type of actual completed part sitting in Spike’s analog tape vault. There was also longstanding gossip of full parts from the non Tim and Henry names of the ’92 Blind team (Guy, Rudy, and Lotti), but again, those may be more urban myth than reality. Last year’s talk of a Ty Evans blocked Marc Johnson part for Tiltmode also comes to mind, but that part was supposedly more on the “throwaway,” fun/dorking around side than a straight up game-changing NBD fest (That one from Marc was in Pretty Sweet.)

Bastien’s “Lost” Flip part seems truly unprecedented in terms of the impact the footage probably would have had at the time. Especially given that Bastien essentially went underground both sponsor-wise and geographically (returning to Europe) directly following it. These would have been serious groundbreaking (and possibly life/career arc changing for Bastien) NBD hammers back then—coupled with just how long it has summarily been mothballed (A decade!), and just how good it still looks today. Meanwhile, the entire Flip, Sorry saga is steeped in so much drama of it’s own that any footage from that era carries added weight regardless.

The Sacto triple set fakie flip was most definitely NBD back in '04.

With all that said, I really wanted to get Bastien’s take on how he felt to finally see it come out. I can only imagine how heavy the emotional ties to the footage are given everything that happened in his life since. I pictured the final release of this part as the symbolic cathartic resolution to that entire chapter of his life. And while I at first felt a slight hint of anger that the part hadn’t come out sooner, I think a big tip of the hat should go to Ewan Bowman and everyone at Flip for making the effort to finally put it out. In some ways, at this point, it might just have been easier to let sleeping dogs lie and let it die on the vine.

You’ll always hear people saying how good Bastien was in those early years, but you’ll really never grasp exactly how insane it was to watch him skate firsthand. He just did not miss a trick. It looked like he could learn anything within something like three tries. And he would be talking to you as he did it. I know everyone says this or that person was “the best.” But when people say it about Bastien—there’s almost a different type of intonation—they really mean what they're saying.

Here, along with Oliver Barton’s photos from Bastien’s ’04 Skateboarder Magazine interview (shot during the filming of the “Lost Part”) is his take on most of the things mentioned above. Now get this man a board sponsor.

This could be my favorite switch varial heel ever, barring any rendition by Keenan Milton obviously. Downtown LA.

How did it feel to see the “Lost Part” footage finally come out? I can only imagine it felt amazing.
Yeah for sure it was nice to see it come out, even ten years later. I never thought it would been seen so I’m stoked it's finally out there.

When did you hear about it? Did Ewan (Bowman) contact you before it went up?
Yes, he did. He sent me an email and told me he was working on the edit and wanted to put it out soon after the new year.

Who did you watch it with the first time? Was it like getting into a time machine?
I was home by myself the first time i watched it. Yes, it was like a good flash back moment. It did bring back a lot of cool memories. Definitely.

Could you remember specifically all the tricks in there? Was there anything you forgot about?
Oh no! Dude, I think I probably forgot half of the tricks in this part. I mean it was ten years ago you know.

Can you run down the day (who was there, how it went down) that you got the cab flip front board in Melbourne?
Well it was really late—maybe one in the morning when I skated it. I know that Ewan, Andrew Mapstone and a few local friends were there too. I didn't try it on any other rails because i thought that one would be perfect to try it on. I didn't do it right away. It probably took me thirty tries maybe more.

The backside nollie and Cab flip stair line.

Run down the session where you got the fakie flip at the Sacramento triple set.
It was during a night session during a skate trip in Sacramento with the Flip team. I was shooting with Oliver Barton at that time for the Skateboarder interview. I remember that a few tries before I made it my board fell right on the edge of the tail. I had to pull off a big piece of it off. I was pretty bummed about it. The run up to the set is slightly down hill. That really helps a lot.

What trick in the part brought back the best memory?
I don't have one in particular. But definitely all the tricks in Australia bring me awesome memories. It's one of my favorite trips I've ever been a part of. It was so much fun.

Had you tried to retrieve it over the years? Even just the cab-flip front board? Who was blocking it?
I thought about it. But to me it was Flip's footage and I didn't try to get it back. I don't think anyone was really blocking it, it just turned out that way.

Do you think your life would be on a different path if this part had come out almost 10 years ago? I don't think so but we'll never know.

How come you don’t do more backside 360 flips? The one in that OZ line was rad!
Thanks mate! I don’t know, I still do some here and there. Maybe I should do it more often. Haha!

Switch ollie blaster at the Sepulveda gap in West LA.

I noticed at the end of the part they had a clip of you sitting at Uni high. To me it was kind of a nod to Nyjah since his cab-flip front board there (on the Uni rail) was the second to last trick in his Fade to Black part. The same trick you did on the Melbourne Gold rail, 10 years later. Was it weird to see Nyjah do that trick?
No it wasn't. I saw him during Street League throwing some of those moves down so I knew he could do that trick. I was really blown away by the backside 360-kickflip lipslide. That's a very hard trick.

Nyjah kind of called you out in that Free Lunch thing saying you had told him you were going to beat him at Street League. What did you think when you saw that?
Not much really. He just misunderstood what I told him. I didn't mean it like that at all. He didn't see that I was joking. I would never say something like that seriously. But i guess he thought I was. No big deal.

When were your kids born in this whole series of events?
My first son was born in May 2008 and my second one in May 2010. It's the best thing that ever happened in my life. I love to talk with them and see my sons evolving, learning, playing, or laughing. Only parents can know how infinite is the love for our kids. They're my most precious things in this world. Lao will turn 6 this year and Jazz is going to be 4 years old.

With this footage out have you been able to finally make peace with everyone there (at Flip)?
The relation between Flip and I has always been peaceful. They will always be my first family when I first came to the states. Geoff (Rowley) welcomed me in his house like a brother. I have learned so much with all those guys. I have so many awesome memories traveling the world with everybody.

Nollie heel front boards back in '04 where no joke. Can't think of one before this one, nor have there been many since.

After Jart, have you been looking for a new board sponsor?
No I haven't. Thanks to Bud skateshop. They hook me up with their boards and they’re super good. I'll see what happens. No rush.

Would you go back to Flip if they asked you?
Never say never.

Are you still skating Street League this year?
Yes for sure. I'll be there and looking forward to it.

Who impresses you most in person at Street League?
Probably Shane O’Neill. Just because I had never seen him skate in person before and I was truly amazed by how much board control he has.

Who do you miss seeing everyday most from the Sorry days?
I was good friends with everyone from the team so it's tough to answer. I always had the best times whenever Ali was around though. It was non-stop jokes, laughing or playing guitar together. I love Ali.

The voodoo child staple: backside flip with classic Bastien form.

When was the last time you ran into Tom (Penny)?
I saw him last year in Munich during Street League and he stops by Bordeaux from time to time as well.

Whatever the circumstances, it must feel good to have that footage finally out. Are you moving forward with a positive outlook from this?
Well yes, it feels like a closed chapter sort of with this footage finally out. I'm happy Ewan put it out there.

Can you top that part?
No, I can't.

The Lost Part, 10 Years later.

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Steve Berra

Still a number of people to come from this with raw text. Here's everything Steve Berra had to say about it back in '03. Like Dyrdek, Steve has always had strong opinions (to say the least) and has never been afraid to voice them. I remember him being particularly passionate about this topic. Photo from The End. —ME

STEVE BERRA:

“Drugs are such a dissociation from what really is going on. It’s a disconnect with the real world. There’s such a social veneer on the planet right now anyways, that it doesn’t need to get any worse. Its like, ‘Hey, everything’s great,’ Meanwhile, we have a president that wants to go to war with Iraq and ignore the rest of the world. There are just so many things that are fundamentally wrong going on right now. I mean it’s already bad enough, we just don’t need something to dissociate us even further.”

“They come up with any other reason they can to smoke weed. You know, it’s part of one of the most insidious declines of our civilization. All these people are like, ‘Oh, it’s got nothing to do with me man, I just buy a little bit of weed.’ Well that weed comes from somewhere. People lie for drugs. People kill for drugs. Drugs are a huge, huge business, and they are built on the further degradation of people. Drugs aren’t designed to give someone a mellow high. Drug dealers are the lowest people on the planet. They enable someone else’s downward spiral. Everybody’s complaining about how the planet needs to change, but these guys want sit back and smoke a joint. I just have a little higher aspirations then that.”

“I looked up to this popular skater back in St. Louis when I was growing up, Warren Stevens. He was like a couple years older then me. I remember, it was right at the time when my other friends were starting to drink. One day I just asked him like, ‘Hey, you don’t drink?’ And he said, ‘No, I skateboard.’”

“I don’t agree with anybody doing drugs at all. Even drinking excessively to me is just wrong. I mean what is the one contributing factor to every skateboard premiere that ever got fucked up, closed down, or turned into a fight. The main contributing factor is alcohol. Take away the alcohol and those guys aren’t going to act that way.”

“We don’t need to further promote the dumbing down of our youth. Look, kids have a hard enough time dealing with the pressures of drugs and the angst of youth as it is. All that stuff is already out there. Its not like they’re going to discover it in a skateboard magazine, but we don’t need to contribute to it as pro skaters.”

“People can argue whoever the best skateboarder in the world is, but there is no doubt in my mind that Eric Koston is and always will be the best skateboarder that has ever lived. Everything he’s ever done, he’s done completely sober. There are specific other guys that I know that go out and do coke, smoke weed, or whatever—anything to disassociate themselves from the consequences, and then its easy for them to do what they’re doing, because they're totally out of their minds. Eric has to sit and see both sides of the spectrum because he’s dead sober. He has to overcome the knowledge that he could break his face. The same can be said about Jamie Thomas. They’re not some morons doing coke before they skate.”

“If I did drink, which I don’t, I would never show me drinking anywhere in a magazine or in a video. And I certainly wouldn’t talk about it. I mean everybody’s got a rough story, especially guys who skate, but I just don’t agree with promoting the further degradation of our society. I keep thinking everybody’s going to grow out of it. But then I go on some business trip to Italy or somewhere, and I see these 30-40 year old guys doing what I thought only teenagers did.”

“The reason why we have this image is because that image is promoted. Drug use exists in every other facet. I mean I stayed at Yale for four months. There were students at Yale smoking crack every night. I mean being truthful about it is one thing, but glorifying it is another. When you’ve got ‘Legalize Skateboarding’ made out into a pot leaf, you’re not really talking about skateboarding. Companies like Shorty’s, Hollywood, or Baker, I don’t respect those companies as much as I respect somebody like Jamie Thomas. I don’t think anything good comes from the things they promote. Even Birdhouse, look at what they’ve done since the departure of me and Heath. I mean talk about embarrassing—Tony Hawk, the all American boy is at the forefront of promoting 15-year-old kids drinking beers with their face at the crotch of a stripper. That’s terrible. I’m not saying that those kids aren’t going to drink. But, it’s a terrible ploy to try and sell boards. It's like you have two choices. You can either not take a stance like, ‘Well, it’s got nothing to do with me’, or you can take a stand against this. I mean have you ever seen a drug addict. It’s disgusting—somebody shitting on themselves from withdrawal. That’s not skateboarding.”

Berra's part from Birdhouse, The End ('98). Possibly also a commentary on drug use.

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Rob Dyrdek

Another collection of B-Side quotes from this. In fairness, I should mention that Rob took issue with some of this text when it went to print in '03. Also, keep in mind that many of his views may have changed further in the eleven years of "moguling" since. Regardless, Rob always voices strong opinions and I've always admired him for that. Photo: O'Meally —ME

ROB DYRDEK:

“The fact of the matter is that all pro skateboarders are somewhat psycho. Very rarely do you find a skateboarder that comes from some solid foundation. You go against everything to be a skateboarder. When you choose to commit your life to it, you’re pretty fucked to begin with. It’s the ideal types that tend to be drawn to drugs, people with destructive personalities."

“You have this ‘I don’t give a fuck’ mentality. You get a little older, and usually you’ll ease out of it. But If you can’t ease out of it, it takes you down. I can count so many of the skaters I’ve seen fall. I’ve seen weed sink skate careers. I’ve seen liquor destroy skate careers. I saw the toll it took on my skate career. It’s the innate destructive impulse that is embedded in anyone that chooses to dedicate their lives to skateboarding.”

"There’s way more normal kids in there today then there was when all of us guys came up. When I fuckin’ turned pro it was for nothing. I wasn’t turning pro with some big check in the mail. I was giving up everything. I was like, ‘Fuck it. This is what I’m doing. But I’m not getting enough money to live.’”

“The Piss Drunks brought this chaos and partying to the kids. I mean, they’re not the only dudes in skateboarding that ever partied. But it was the first time in a while that anybody went that heavily with it.”

“This is the 100% dead truth—I am a natural born partier. But I go on vicious sober streaks. In my older years, I’m not really into drugs. It’s too destructive. But I went through that period to rid my body of it. I would party every single night if I could. It’s just embedded in me. The party demon is always just beneath the surface. Every now and then rears its ugly head and is just buggin’. Sometimes it’s a wonderful experience. Sometimes it’s embarrassing.”

“Sure, someone like Andrew Reynolds is pretty fucking influential. But at the same time, look at the amateur kids they brought up. Those kids didn’t grow up wasted. No one influenced me to party. I just found it. Kids are gonna do what they’re gonna do. It’s just a matter of personal circumstances how deep you go with it. Some people take it to another level.”

“It’s a part of skateboarding as far as I’m concerned. It’s another thing that makes skateboarding better than everything else. We don’t have no fucking drug testing policies. There’s no one that's going to fine us or suspend us from riding our skateboards for doing whatever we choose to do. You don’t have to get up everyday and do something. It’s on you. If you want to go on a cocaine bender for two months, fine. Then you go on a sober streak for two months and kill it. The only thing that matters is that you hold it down on your skateboard to the best that you can.”

“It’s just a part of skateboarding and always will be. Just like when Jay Adams was around. It’s no different. There’s always going to be your straightedge dudes that hate it. There’s going to be your middle ground guys that dabble and stay in control. Then there’s going to be your full fucking psychos.”

The DC Video part from that same year with the skit that started it all.

Jake Johnson: The Cinematographer Intv. B-Sides

I'd been meaning to post this Jake & Gilbert article from TWS's May 2012 issue for a while. I was talking to Adrian Adrid at Stoner the other day and while we were both fanning out on Jake Johnson (I also fan out on Adrian's frontside ollie in the link above), he mentioned Jake's interview from this so I figured I would post the scans of the mag version along with his full uncut text (Jake's got cut down about 600 words for the final print version. Gilbert's ran uncut.) With everything that the Workshop has been through since this came out I figured both these guys had only grown more relevant. Photos: O'Meally, Chami, Allan. —ME

Original Intro:

Sharing the second half of the last part of The Cinematographer Project—Alien Workshop’s heavy hitting duo—Jake Johnson and Gilbert Crocket both earned their professional stripes this past February the second their footage hit the screen at the 14th Annual TWS Awards in Hollywood. In addition to sharing “Going Pro” parts in Cinematographer redux, both rookies also originated and more or less reside and handle their business on the East Coast. Based in Pittsburg and Richmond respectively—both also seem content to operate outside the confines of the pastime’s standard designated urban playing fields—be they in California or even NY and Philly. Given Alien Workshop’s history of placing itself both geographically (Ohio) and conceptually (See any AWS video) outside the beaten path of the skateboard industry, we thought it would be appropriate to get both their takes on what it means to have your name on a skateboard in this last year of our Mayan lord, 2012. Is moving west still the time-tested prerequisite it once was? Or has the onslaught of Internet interconnectivity finally leveled the entire playing field? Is real street skating on the verge of a massive comeback, or are we unwittingly witnessing its death knell. Peppered with a host of tangent musings—from skydiving to OCD infused alcoholism—the following 10 questions each sought to answer these existential queries along with anything else that popped up along the way.

JAKE JOHNSON:

What happened with this skydiving situation? Was that your first time jumping out of a plane?

Yeah. It was. Crazy. I had been thinking about it for a long time and our first destination was Vegas. We met the dude that trained Bob Burnquist back in 2003. I figured if it worked for Bob. It was unbelievable though. Not only while we did it, but the whole rest of the day while we were skating we were just super confidant and not worried about anything (Laughs).

Are you still living in Pittsburg?

I’m still technically living there. But I’ve been away for like a month and a half.

What is the Map Masquerade tour?

Basically I bought a van that we’re taking on this tour across the country. You can follow us @MapMasquerade or go to asenseofdirection.org. It’s like a mini Workshop van and we have a bunch of friends along. We’re hiding all types of product along the way so you can follow the clues and find the treasure. It’s a conversion van too so I’m planning on living in this thing when I get out to San Francisco. It’s got a nice little bed in there and I have homies along the way to get showers and Internet and all that.

I was reading something about you saying the message of skateboarding was kind of stronger in the small town scenes and videos now? Is that something you seek out? Is that what this tour is about?

Yeah. Definitely. It’s something that I’m building my beliefs around. I want to do what I can to basically support them. I’m learning as I go in the industry that it’s a very fragile thing. I got dropped from Quicksilver last year after putting in all types of time and effort into trying to help legitimize the company. I’m realizing that I got to benefit from the money and support of those companies but in the end, my career is probably gonna last through the support from the core shops and the people who put their life and entire body, energy, and mind into skateboarding. Longevity’s not going to come from some board of trustees. For me, I’m just trying to go at it from the ground up. I want to see skateboarding grow for everybody and filter into our society, but not in a diluted way. I want to see skateparks and skateboarding everywhere but I want to see it done the right way. I think skateboarders have a lot more to offer than just entertaining people. I think we can innovate in a lot of ways.

I guess the million-dollar question then is what the actual message of skateboarding is then, right?

Yeah. I think it really comes from your experiences that you have in the act of skateboarding. They idea is that it develops along the way. That’s what I meant when I was talking about the message carried by the first generation of skateboarders. What they were representing was something entirely outside what society had ever seen, so it was a very destructive force in the beginning because it ran into so much opposition.

What does real street skating have to do with the message?

Basically, what skateboarders were trying to say was that nobody really owns property. We all kind of share it. You take a piece of granite out of the earth and make it into something to sit on, and it makes your business money—but you don’t actually own that rock. I think the message of skateboarders is that nobody owns any of it. When you use it, you become a part of it. You heighten your sense of awareness to reality. And that’s what gives skateboarders their leg up and an advantage. That’s what should give skateboarders their motivation.

So the act itself sort of gives you the message?

Exactly. But nowadays, it’s turning from that into more of a competitive thing, where skateboarders are trying to do it to impress an online community, or to impress a board of trustees. Skateboarding is an intimate relationship with your reality through challenging yourself to face the nature of it. To take a piece of wood and to go against gravity. Go against society. Go against what they define the uses of public space to be. The conclusions that you come to through your trials and tribulations along the way—security, and people that want to stop us—if you learn to maneuver around them more smoothly then we become more efficient beings and basically are evolving. That’s the message of skateboarding. It’s about bettering yourself through the act of riding one. 

Wow. It also seems like the same guy that wants to own the granite rock also now wants to own skateboarding, No?

Yeah. Exactly. They want to own it and regulate it. They don’t know it, but deep down they are afraid of our evolution.

I think kids see it though, even without understanding…when they see the real thing they know it, like—I want that.

Yeah. They feel it. I hope that they can still experience it the way they should. It’s gonna get harder and harder though. Bigger companies will stretch skateboarding further and further. I think a lot of people argue that basically as long as more people are seeing it it’s good. I think that’s false. I think it should be more of a less is more type situation. There should be more focus on less people. You can get a message out to all kinds of people, but they’re not going to make informed decisions unless they really understand that message. It might work in the short term. But in the long run it will come back to bite us. Skateboarding isn’t for everybody.

Beyond solving skateboarding—where you out at the Awards for The Cinematographer Project premiere?

Yeah. I was there. I was hiding in the corner somewhere but I was there.

How was it seeing that in completed form?

It was stressful. I was coming off the worst injury of my life. I put a lot of responsibility on myself when I’m filming. I feel like filming our interpretation of skating is really the only thing we have outside of doing it for ourselves. So it’s really important to me. I’ve had a lot of second thoughts and distrust for HD and the dynamic that goes with filming HD, so it was a tough project, and I really only had three months time to film.

What is the dynamic that goes with HD? What are the limitations to you?

The limitations of just finding a filmer with HD gear is one thing. Because he has to spend an enormous amount of money on it. Then it’s relatively heavy and a very cinematic piece of equipment. So if you’re spending that much money on it, you’re probably wanting to use it for higher end production. So your mentality is already more production based. Your tendency is going to be to stylize your footage. I think HD might cause kids to think there’s this standard they have to meet. It leads to a more planned out and structured approach to filming. They’re not just grabbing the camera and skating with a friend all day long. It takes over the session too much. It’s getting better now. The cameras are getting more affordable. And I watched Benny (Maglinao) do this and I came to respect his style and understand the medium. But I definitely don’t think that the VX is dead.

Do you think that the VX can make a comeback?

I hope so. I hope that I can be at the forefront of it. I’m trying to push that in my skating. I think a lot of people jumped on board the HD because the industry pressured people to do so. But I think there’s still value in the VX footage. Think about the prime of skateboarding in the 90s to 00s was translated to us through the VX. It’s not just nostalgic, but also the quality of the experience. The sound of the audio. The ability to get close into each spot with the fisheye and the Mark 1. It’s the emotion you get when you watch it. These things all made skateboarding the way we wanted. I think HD excludes certain people too by having standards. I still think skateboarding is translated through your own eyes, a filmer, or a photographer. For other people to experience skateboarding they need to have one of those options.  

HD tends to feel like something is being presented to you, whereas watching VX feels like you’re there with the skater. Like your one of the dudes in the trenches.

I’ve never heard it referenced like that but that’s exactly how I feel. I feel that HD puts a wall of glass between you and the skater. Like you’re watching something in a museum. Sometimes it just feels like a video game. And that’s where it disconnects me emotionally from the footage. I organized my whole life around skate videos—when they were coming out, what year they were released. My whole childhood was basically framed up by the anticipations and then premieres of these videos. I don’t know what kind of an affect the constant Internet updates will have on the youth. I know a lot of people are becoming keener with it, and they are able to take what they want from it and leave the rest alone. I just personally think it’s important to support people that create full length videos and have something physically come out, even if it takes a little longer. I think skateboarding is about patience. Good skateboarding takes time and you can’t rush it. There’s a lot of pressure now, especially for sponsored skateboarders just to produce. They’re being pulled in all different directions. I think they need to be left to develop their own styles. Each scene should develop their own style rather than all try and conform to the Internet. It’s a wash.

How does going pro feel now? How soon do you and Gilbert get boards?

They congratulated us on going pro after the part premiered at the Awards show. I gave Mike (Hill) some suggestions for graphics though. I gave him this book of really strange architectural structures. I told him to do something with a Geodesic dome or something like that. Hopefully within the next few months we’ll have something out. It still doesn’t feel like it’s happened. I guess that’s the corny, stereotypical answer but it’s true. It’s going to be strange to see my name on there.

Both Gilbert and yourself are from back east. Do you think you still have to move out west to make it?

I think that’s one thing that the Internet is really a positive thing for. That idea that I have to move to California to be seen is almost completely gone, I think. I mean, people still want to move to California. But the idea that you have to be there because the Industry is there has almost died out. I’m on tour with Marc Sucio right now, he’s from California so it doesn’t apply on that angle but you look at the following he got from putting out one part on the Internet.  

My generation was right on the border of the Internet. I got on Instant Messenger in 1998. I’d meet kids at Camp Woodward and then keep in touch with them on there. We’d transfer footage in these primitive ways and I’d meet up with skaters in person when I started taking trips to New York. That’s basically what helped me move to NY. I appreciate that side of the Internet a lot so I know it has its good uses. It’s when kids actually believe they can use the Internet to get famous that things turn ugly. Just skate. People will take notice if you’re good enough.

It seems like The Cinematographer Project kind of followed in the return to real city street skating. Like more dodging cars and rough spots with cool backgrounds and less schoolyard ledge combo stuff. Is that type of skating coming back right now?

I think it is. I think it got to a point technically where there’s not too many people that can really push the boundaries. You have your Nuggets and your Nyjah’s, or Marc Suciu. There’s a small group of people that have the technical ability to still innovate. Then on the big side, it really had already pretty much maxed out in the Jamie Thomas' day. It got to a certain point on both fronts where there’s just that much more you can do. So it starts coming back to style and spot selection. I think people that have interesting approaches to even basic tricks start to be what stands out. The visual experience is what skateboarding is all about. Finding those unique locations that incite ideas and emotions to the viewer—that’s the most important thing there is.

Where do you see people doing it right out there today?

Well, I think it’s really interesting in a business as top heavy as skateboarding, now you are seeing people from other countries that have the same passion for the message and are doing it in their own way. I really enjoy watching companies like Magenta, and Palace, and Polar coming up from various countries in Europe right now. I think it’s rad to see them get a little more stylish and creative then some of the big companies.

What pro would you like to model yourself after? Who carries the message, without starving?

I don’t know. I’ve been following Pontus (Alv) pretty closely for the last few years. I’m not sure what his financial state is but it seems like he lives a good life. He builds all these rad DIY projects and creates all these super unique skate spots and artistic installments. He gets to create his own videos, artwork, board graphics, and do it all from his own country. I would say if I could model myself after anyone, it would probably be Pontus. He takes what he does seriously and he gets to have ultimate control of what he puts out. What could be better? Actually, if I could really do it, I would become a hybrid of Pontus and Heath Kirchart. Heath is another guy that takes his skating seriously. He wants to make sure he helps push the limits of skateboarding. He handles everything on a very professional level. So if I could combine both of those things, that would be it.

I’d pay to see that hybrid.

I want to give skateboarders that sense that you can create your own world. I think that’s really the best thing skateboarding teaches people. I believe in my core that this world is a heaven and a hell. It all just depends on how you live it. What are you doing to create it?

Last question—do you think skydiving’s gotten too mainstream?

(Laughs.) Oh fully. It’s not about the spots anymore. It’s too commercial. They’re all jocks now.

The Cinematographer Project ('12) AWS part. Still so good.

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Eric Dressen & Tony Alva

Been a minute, but here are some more raw quotes from Skaters and Drugs. Short and sweet, this is what Eric had to say on the topic back in '02. I was a huge Dressen fan as a kid and was lucky enough to get to skate with him during the '90s West LA Hot Rod crew days and call him a friend today. I still don't think Eric gets enough credit for being as influential style-wise as he should. Easily one of the top 10 most influential styles ever in my book. Photos: Thatcher/Brittain —ME

ERIC DRESSEN:

“They should have been called ‘Drugtown and the Z-boys.’ All those dudes were all on drugs. Every guy I grew up with around there that was a pro skater was on drugs. It was everywhere. You’d eventually retire and then just get more fucked up. I saw it happen to every dude and it happened to me. I was terrible.”

"Just from the ‘70s, everybody did drugs. It was like the tail end of the hippie movement. Nobody thought drugs were bad back then. And then you basically become a rock star, and its sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. It all goes hand in hand."

"Christian (Hosoi) and I would go smoke a joint in the parking lot before all our runs. I never skated a contest where I wasn’t stoned. I remember being at the Munster Championship Contest in ’90 and Colby Carter and I were smoking before the heats or whatever and I kept winning all the qualifiers. Right before the finals I didn’t go smoke and I ended up getting second. Colby was joking around saying I would have won if I smoked more weed. He was probably right."

"Jeff Phillips won the Vision Psycho Skate contest on acid. It was like full strobe lights, 3D projection screens, the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing on the platform, and there’s Jeff skating amazing on acid."

"The new kids are headed for it. I don’t think they’ll be able to handle their drugs as good as we did."

Eric's part in Speed Freaks ('89).

Since Eric's was short and he mentioned Dogtown I figured I'd post Alva's full collection of quotes to corroborate Dressen’s story. The name for this site actually came out of the following TA text. At the time he said something like, “Deadhead hippie Rasta dude” and I remember thinking Dead Hippie would be a cool name for something. Also bare in mind this text is over 10 years old. I know for a fact that TA no longer smokes weed today just for the record. Photos: Friedman/Stecyk

TONY ALVA:

“We were like 70s, dude. So we were like acid, coke, Quaaludes, taking crazy pills like reds with a malt liquor. I think at times drugs enhanced the whole thing. Like back in the early punk rock days, it just made it way more intense. I mean when you’re that age, and especially back then, you could kind of get away with stuff like that. I mean that whole decade was a trip. But, if your taking acid for 20-30 years, dude, your brain is going to start morphing. If you have some weird shit going on, or you’re a little wishy-washy in the head, it can fuck you up big time.”

“A lot of people consider marijuana a drug and I disagree with that. There is a huge segment of the skateboarding population that use marijuana as an herb to better their lives and get in tune with their environment both physically and mentally. Once we erase the stigma that weed is a drug, skaters will no longer be labeled as druggies. By en large, the skateboarders out there are not using drugs like cocaine, heroin, and speed. That’s only in the extreme situations like with Jay Adams or Hosoi. Those are serious street drugs that will take you down no matter how baddass you think you are.”

“To them, stoners will forever be that unmotivated Spicolli type fuck up. They listen to somebody talk about the positive effects of marijuana and they automatically tune it out, ‘Oh, Alva’s talking bullshit. Alva just needs a crutch. He’s a Deadhead hippy Rasta guy. He’d have been better without it.’ They teach drug addicts to call it ‘marijuana maintenance’. But I’ll keep saying it. If you’re a spiritual person, marijuana can be extremely positive.”

“I just hope that people educate themselves and learn more about it. Legalization of marijuana has been a long overdue thing in the world. I get hassled so hard any time I go through customs because I have dreads and there’s a stigma to that.”

“The label is wrong regardless. As you find out when you really look at skateboarding, there are dudes completely on the other side who are completely straight edge. And they have to deal with the druggie stigma all the time. The key is to let everyone do their thing. Skateboarding is all about, ‘to each his own’. Fuck what anyone else thinks about us.

“To teenagers, drugs seem like some sort of adventure. Its just one of those things you just have to do to get out of your system. I’m a parent too, and I don’t advocate doing drugs to young kids. But if my kids ended up trying chemicals or something, the best thing you can do is communicate with them. Most parents did drugs at some point too so talk to your kid and pass on what you learned. The best and only thing you can do is talk to them.”

“Skaters are just tough motherfuckers to begin with. I think they just subject themselves to things almost as guinea pigs. It’s the ‘fuck it’ mentality. They’ll try anything. Overall, there were a lot of funny stories and good times that involved drugs but at the same time there was also somewhat of a negative shadow that got cast over it later. Too many of those dudes ended up wasting their lives chasing the dragon, trying to score another gram of coke, or just wound up dead. I think eventually, you know, all that shit just gets tired.”

Tony in Dogtown and the Z-Boys ('01)

Zack Wallin: Sugar Magazine Interview, Le Tombeur de ces Dammes

This Zack Wallin Interview ran in French in the August 2013 issue of Sugar Magazine in France. As a fan of Zach and his powerhouse skating, I figured I might as well post the pre-translated English text here along with the scans of the Sugar spreads. Photos by: Dave Chami, Seu Trinh, Oliver Barton, and Wes Tonascia. Click on the images for XL. Enjoi —ME

Life is funny sometimes. Getting something you always wanted is often accompanied by a different challenge you have never faced. This Karmic law arrived in force for Zach Wallin last year when he finally got the nod to become a full-fledged amateur skateboarder for enjoi alongside Ryan Lay—something he had essentially been hoping for his whole life. When all that was left was to make it official with an intro part, he was diagnosed with to this day unexplained and apparently very rare blood clotting in his chest. Originally told not to skate by experts at Stanford University, and ordered to administer blood thinning injections into his stomach twice a day to boot—Zach eventually decided to film the part anyways—shots, clots, and all. And as luck would have it, his teammate, Ryan Lay suffered a series of ankle injuries of his own; pushing back the intro video’s deadline long enough for both to put together the impressive parts that ultimately dropped last May (See Zach's Below). A year and a half later, with his mysterious health condition completely cleared up, I checked in with Zach to get the temperature on life in the Mansion, fanning out on Cairo Foster, how it felt to quit his day job as a carpenter, and most importantly—why he is universally renowned as a lady’s man.     


How have things been since becoming an official am? Do you still work construction?
Things have been good. I actually quit my job as a carpenter and have just been skating every day. It’s been awesome because when I was working a full-time job and trying to film I would just get hurt because I wasn’t on my board enough. I can skate every day now and I just feel way better on my board.

I guess working something with physical labor involved too—if you got hurt skating you can’t work and if you got hurt at work you couldn’t skate.
Exactly. Even if it was just a hard day at work, it was still labor. Then I would just be too tired to skate when I finally had the time. Or too sore.

You weren’t just sitting in a cubicle.
No, it was hard work.

Still living the enjoi Mansion life?
Yeah. Actually I am. It’s pretty sweet man. It’s real mellow now. It’s still a skate house. Cairo Foster lives here. Louie lives here with his wife and a couple of other Tiltmode homies—my friend Warren and G-Won. It’s pretty awesome though, you always have someone to skate with.

No plans of moving?
No. It’s a nice place with cheap rent. I’m pretty content.

Were you born and raised in San Jose?
Yeah. Born and raised. I basically just moved around San Jose when I was younger but we always stayed here.

How did you stumble on skating?
Actually my cousin came into town to visit one time for a couple of weeks and he brought his board with him. I must have been nine or 10. He would go skate and I wasn’t allowed to go venture out with him, but he would come back and just have all these incredible stories about meeting new skaters, because he was from out of town, hanging out with girls and listening to music at the spot. He would come home to our house and talk about it and I was just mesmerized. I was amazed that all these rad experiences were right there for you if you rode a skateboard. I think a few months after that I got some shitty Nash board for my 10th birthday.

Best memories from your two weeks in Scandinavia and Russia last year to fully get on enjoi as an am? Had you traveled before that?
I had traveled before that trip but that was kind of the first trip were I was officially on a team trip. I was like 80 percent sure I was on before the trip and then I finally got fully on during it. I still had to film the intro part though to really seal the deal.

Those intro parts had some drama too right? Ryan Lay was injured and you had that crazy blood clotting deal.
Yeah. Right after that trip we kind of both got jacked up. Ryan had some pretty serious ankle issues and I had that random internal blood clotting.

Is the blood clotting pretty much cleared up now? You don’t have to give yourself the blood thinning shots any more?
Yeah. It’s basically completely gone. Thank God. I don’t have to give myself the shots any more. I was the gnarliest thing for me. I had to take them twice a day too, like one right in the morning and then right before I went to bed. Waking up to sticking a needle in my stomach was the worst.

The one at night probably sucks too. You can’t go get drunk and forget to take it.
Exactly. You can’t miss one of the shots. So you can’t forget or you might have clotting. It sucked. It was just this constant reminder that I was jacked—morning and night. Thank God it’s all over. It’s a really long story but at the end of it all, all these specialists, specialists from Stanford, not just these budget doctors still had no explanation for why it happened. Usually people get clotting in their legs, but I had it in my chest, which at my age is supposedly extremely rare. They were tripping off me. Then I was tripping because they were tripping.

I asked Matt Eversol what to ask you and he said, “Ask him about chicks. He slays pussy. Big booty hoes.” So what about chicks?
(Laughs.) I don’t know. I guess I get lucky with the ladies sometimes. I don’t really feel like I’m a lady’s man. I don’t go out telling myself I’m going to land myself a lady. Actually, I feel like that’s when you f—k up. You go out with expectations—out on the prowl—and I think desperation is just ugly. Looking like you need something is sometimes a good way not to get it (Laughs.)

Best advice for meeting a girl at the bar? Just play it cool?
Yeah. Play it cool. Don’t be that dude going for the glory. Let it happen. I don’t even know. I don’t go on the hunt.

San Jose girls vs. Russian or Swedish?
Oh man. San Jose girls don’t even stand a chance. They shouldn’t even be compared (Laughs.) No, that’s a lie, there are some really good girls here. But I think my preference—I just love Finnish girls. They’re beautiful and their vibe is awesome.

Is skateboarding for a living something you’d want?
Yeah. Why not? For as long as it lasts. I’ve had real jobs. I worked carpentry for like four years and that definitely showed me enough to know about the real world. Now I just feel like I’m on vacation all the time (Laughs.) Skateboarding is not a job. I never really planned on making money off of skateboarding. I still don’t really depend on it. I’m just going with the flow right now.

It’s almost like trying to meet girls. You can’t really go after it?
Yeah. Exactly. Just let it happen. I always do what I’m happy doing. That’s worked out for me so far so hopefully I keeps going.

Favorite San Jose legend about an enjoi rider? Any urban myths?
There is one. I don’t think I’ve ever asked Jerry (Hsu) about this one but when I was a kid I remember reading in an interview or something that he had done acid by himself in his room. And he ended up staying in the room all day and all night and ended up writing all these words all over his body with a Sharpie. I don’t know why, but I always remembered that. To this day I think about it when I see him (Laughs.) I need to ask him about it. What did he write?

Do non-skaters in San Jose know about enjoi?
Oh, for sure. I get people talking to me all the time. I’m like the new guy on the team too, so these random people will come up and ask questions about it. They know about Louie or Caswell (Berry) or just Tiltmode.

Your skating is definitely in the powerhouse realm—fast and big. Did anybody influence you to skate the way you do or was it just natural?
I think subconsciously, looking back, I was definitely influenced by John Cardiel. I was always my favorite when I was a kid. A lot of my friends didn’t like him when we were real young, but I think that’s why I always wanted to go fast. Cardiel was the dude I looked up to. I think watching Heath (Kirchart) and Cairo (Foster) too. They would just jump over and down massive shit. Those dudes probably made me want to take an extra push.

All time favorite enjoi ad?
Man. There are so many good ones. I have tons. One that really stood out to me early on was the Marc Johnson ad where he’s freestyling on that little board. I think because I saw it when I was so young. From the new ones there’s one of Caswell and Jose (Rojo)—like a sequence of them shotgunning a beer. I think just because I heard the back-story on it. I guess they needed multiple takes of the beer shot so they were basically wasted mid-day by the time they finished.

It’s funny you mention Marc. Do you think his imprint is still there in enjoi?
Yeah. To me it is. I mean I’ve never even met the guy so I can’t say too much. But I know he pretty much came up with everything for enjoi in the beginning, and it has more or less stayed true to his vision. Even now, my favorite stuff from enjoi is from the beginning when he was doing it. I wonder what he thinks about enjoi today. Maybe if I meet him in the future I might get the balls to ask him.

Was it crazy to share a part with Cairo Foster and Caswell (Tweak the Beef [‘12])?
Totally. It was insane. I was just talking to somebody about it. My friend was over at the Mansion and Cairo walked by. My friend was just like, “Whoa, that’s Cairo Foster.” And I was just like, “I know. It’s a trip right?” It started this whole conversation. I seriously had photos and sequences of Cairo on my wall growing up and now I’m kind of sharing a video part with him. Even Caswell. They’re my good friends too but there’s still that little kid in me fanning out a little bit.

Does it ever wear off? You see Cairo walking to the shower or whatever and you still think, “Whoa.”
I don’t think it ever fully goes away man. It might wear off because you get more comfortable but then we go skate and he’s trying a gnarly trick and it just all comes back (Laughs.) All of the sudden I feel like this little kid that rolled up on the session by accident, like “Holy shit! There’s Cairo Foster!”

How good was Louie’s part in Tweak the Beef? Last part!
It’s funny. I saw a majority of that stuff go down in person but a lot of that footage was already pretty old so I had kind of forgotten a lot of it. Then to see it all together like that was kind of surprising. You forget how good he actually is. Even joking around, a lot of that stuff is really hard to do. He’s the type of guy that will just throw out the craziest trick I’ve never seen him do before.

I feel like one day Louie should just shave his head and put out like a fully serious Heath style part.
Yeah. Shave his head a la Jamie Thomas and just go for broke.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on one of those “Who Is” parts for Matix. Like Daewon (Song) just had his. And then other than that I’m just working on a full enjoi part. Basically Tweak the Beef was all the leftover VX footage that we had laying around but the actual HD enjoi video is supposed to be out in the next six months. I’m pretty nervous about it.

It can’t be any harder than the intro video was with all the health issues.
That’s true. I still don’t even know how it worked out.

Plans for the future? San Jose for life?
I’m traveling a lot know so when I come home to San Jose it’s like a treat. But then a week goes by and I want to go travel again. But all my friends and family are here, so I think if I ever buy a house I want to buy one here. So I guess I am San Jose for life.

All time San Jose legend?
Tim Brauch. When I was a kid growing up skating south San Jose I guess that was were he was from. So everywhere you went there were just these rumors, like “Oh Tim Brauch grinded this, or Tim Brauch used to skate this mini ramp.” He was probably the first sponsored skater I ever heard of so I’ll say him. Rest in Peace.

The Man Who Sold The World: '02 Steve Rocco Interview Plus Bonus Text From Steve

I finally got around to scanning this Steve Rocco interview from the January 2002 issue of Skateboarder. While I was on vacation I also heard the news that Skateboarder would be closing up shop (again) after the current issue. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Aaron Meza for giving me my first mag staffer job there back in '01 and letting me pretty much nerd out on everything I ever wanted to explore in skateboard history. Also thanks to Jamie Owens for keeping it top notch and running all the way to the end (or third interlude).

Skateboarding (or the industry at least) is once again back at somewhat of a jumping off point with all the recent new companies popping up and the entrenched old guard. Whoever the next Rocco is (Pontus? Olson?), I'd say Steve's words are as relevant today as ever. Shots out to his Malibu trailer. All Photos: Mike O'Meally —ME

PART 1: THE INTERVIEW

The Man Who Sold the World
The Steve Rocco Interview

The worst decision Brad Dorfman ever made was kicking Steve Rocco off Sims. Had he known what would ensue, he probably would have kept Rocco’s pro freestyle model on the shelves indefinitely, with the rest of the industry pitching in to foot the bill. When they kicked him out of their house, Rocco did what any self-respecting entrepreneur would do, he built his own house on their front lawn. After giving birth to World Industries, Steve Rocco forged an empire larger and more diverse than anything Brad Dorfman ever imagined. More importantly, Rocco took no prisoners. He stole riders, attacked industry giants Vision and Powell, broke the rules, and forever changed the way skateboarders do business.

When did it first occur to you to start a company? Was there any planned direction?
It actually never occurred to me to start a company. I was just a skater at the time that had just been kicked off the team.  I thought my life; at least the part that had anything to do with skating, was over. It was Skip Engblom's (from Santa Monica Airlines) idea to start a company. As for direction there was absolutely none. Skip showed me the basics, where to get boards made and where to sell them, beyond that I was clueless. Which in hindsight was a blessing. If I had known what I was attempting to do was impossible I doubt I would have tried and no one would have joined up with me.

Did you have this vision of a new skateboard industry or did it just happen?
My  “vision” for the skateboard industry was simple. Skaters should be able to have input into their products. It should be more of a team effort. Before we started World Industries, business guys decided everything because they did not think skaters had the mentality for marketing or product design. Guys like Rodney Mullen had his wheel designs turned down by George Powell and I was told by Brad Dorfman that street skating was never going to be big.
 

When did you realize that you were winning the battle?
I was so naïve I didn’t even realize there was a battle. I just thought we would do our thing and everyone else would do theirs and we could all be friends.

What was it about Powell that made you attack them. Why not attack Vision or Santa Cruz?
We never attacked any company. We only retaliated. First Powell ran an ad making fun of us small skater-owned companies.  Then Vision demanded that our distributors cancel their orders and stop buying from us. That’s when I realized that business was war and these guys were out to get us. By that time I had loans to pay back and skaters to support. I had no choice but to fight back.

We publicly retaliated against Powell by running an ad making fun of ourselves for being stupid enough to have a skater owned company. And then making boards satirizing the Powell graphics we realized we could make lemonade from lemons. Retaliation against vision was more subliminal. We started a company with their main rider, Mark Gonzales. Mark wanted to do something that was the opposite of Vision so we called it Blind.

What happened with the money you borrowed?
I assume you are talking about the infamous “loan shark”money. After many sleepless nights we paid it back and Kirby became a friend and shareholder in the company.

Why hadn't anybody else lured riders/artists/manufacturers away from companies with higher offers?  
Because before us the industry was the good ol’ boy network. Riders were not being paid fairly but they couldn’t do anything about it because Vision, Powell and Santa Cruz controlled everything and had a “gentleman’s agreement” between them to keep the riders from gettin’ uppity. I’ll tell you a story that has never been published before but it illustrates how riders were like pieces of property. And if you study history, baseball players and other professional athletes were treated similarly for a long time.

In the summer of 1987 street skating’s popularity was starting to have an impact on the industry. There was an impending changing of the guard. The new  icons were Mike Vallely, Mark Gonzales and Natas Kaupas. Rodney was still just an oddity.  None of them were happy with the companies they rode for and wanted a change.  The four of us wanted start a company that only had to do with street skating and we wanted Santa Cruz to back it. Novak sat in the room and listened politely as I unfurled my master plan; but in the end he said he didn’t have the resources to do such a project, wished me luck and sent me on my way. Years later, I found out that Novak had immediately called Brad Dorfman from Vision and alerted him to the potential rebellion. That’s when I finally learned the real reason I was removed from the Sims/Vision team. All that time I thought it was just because I was a trouble making pain in the ass.

What stolen rider caused the most backlash from another company?
That would have to be Mike Valley. Powell threatened to sue us and Mike. We were pretty worried. In hindsight they could have wiped us out if they had the visionary fortitude.

Who was the most difficult rider to deal with?
I won’t mention any names, but when there is no mutual trust it is hard to have a good working relationship with anyone.

Where do you draw the line in business? Is there a line?
I’ve always drawn the line just south of my competitors previous line, but we would never stoop to dishonesty to gain victory. There is no honor in that.

In retrospect, was there ever a time were you feel you went too far?
No that would imply regret and everything we’ve done has worked out very well. Even the things that seemed bad at the time.

Were low-budget ads a conscious decision or were they born out of necessity?
First off they weren’t low budget to us. Secondly none of our first ads were very premeditated. Usually we started and finished on deadline day. We had neither time nor money to fix them up. For us, the most important part of advertising was making a statement and just having fun. We did not take anything very seriously in the beginning. I don’t think we even did product ads for the first five or six years.

Was copyright infringement part of a master plan for exposure?
No, it was just part of our ignorance and irreverence.

Does everyone have a price?
It would seem so.

What is the craziest thing you have paid somebody to do?
We once paid a fifteen-year-old girl to parade around a demo topless. Which now doesn’t seem so outlandish but ten years ago it was pretty nuts. Basically we tried to make sure every kid who ever came to our demos would have a great and memorable time. We also made it difficult for our competitors to show up a week later and do something better.

What's the biggest rumor you have heard about yourself? Why were you villainized?
That could be a whole other interview. The newest rumor is that I’m going to jail because the owner of VK Sports hired someone to steal from us but the DA messed up the case and I’m getting prosecuted. Basically the villianization was either poor sportsmanship, ignorance or jealously.

How much product has been stolen from the warehouse over the years?
VK Sports stole the most, we estimate $500,000 worth of product.

The Rocco Seed column also from Skateboarder.

Give us a good Jesse Martinez story? Is Jesse still on the payroll?
Jesse was our first pro. he’s not on the payroll but we’ll always take care of him. His first graphic made for a good story. At the time we had neither an artist, nor the money to hire one. But we needed a graphic for his pro model right away. Jesse said he knew this guy that was a good artist but sort of a sketchy character.  Jesse told me to give him $100 and he’d get a graphic out of the guy by the next day. I just rolled my eyes and gave him the cash, thinking I would never see a graphic. Sure enough, the next day Jesse shows up and  tells me he has some good news and some bad news. I ask for the good news first. He says “I got the graphic.” I asked him how he pulled it off and he simply said, “I got him stoned out of his mind and bought him a pizza.” What’s the bad news he looked at sort of ashamed and said ‘I got stoned too and fell asleep’ what’s so bad about that I asked. Jesse reached into a paper sack and pulled out a messed up pizza box with a drawing on it. ‘I forgot to tell him to use paper’. That’s the story of our first graphic. It came complete with cheese and pepperoni stains. You probably wanted to hear a story where Jesse kicks someone’s ass. Well don’t worry, after reading this he’ll be knocking on your door.

Of all the companies you have owned, what was your favorite?
The early Blind team was very special. Mark Gonzales, Jason Lee, Guy Mariano and Rudy Johnson. Besides being great skaters I had a lot of fun hanging out with them.

What was it about Rodney Mullen that made you feel like he could be a good business partner?
Rodney had the perfect combination of wealth, gullibility and absenteeism necessary for a good working partnership. For the first three years he was scared to come by the warehouse because Kirby would “coincidentally” always show up looking for a payment when I wasn’t there. That would shake Rod up quite a bit. I’d find him huddled at his desk, white as a ghost, repeating “Kirby ,money, late, not good.” Rodney never said things were bad just not good or not so good depending on the severity. Hitler wasn’t bad he was just “not so good.”

As things progressed two things happened to get Rodney more involved. The first being Mike Ternasky getting him to do his flatland tricks in the street. Something Stacey Peralta and I both failed miserably at. But Mike T. knew how to pull Rod’s strings. Instead
of promising him fame and fortune (which is a good thing because he sure didn’t get that.) he got him a whole new level of respect from the skaters. You could see the fear in some of the their eyes because they knew Rodney was slowly raising the bar and as I knew from the old freestyle days; it could be tough to impossible to keep up. The second involvement factor was a little something the banks like to call a U.G. or an Unconditional Personal Guarantee. Since Rodney owned more than 10% of the company he had to sign on. This basically meant if we screwed up the company the bank would take all his stuff. Which didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time because his father had already disinherited him for dropping out of college to work with me. So he had nothing left to loose anyway.

Steve and Rodney.

What lost team rider affected you the most? Is there any beefs left in the industry?  
When Rick Howard took all the riders and started Girl that was pretty devastating. Not so much because they left but because of the hatred he tried to instill in the riders and the pack of lies he fueled it with. If he wanted to have a war with me that would have been fine, I’m always down for a battle. But he pulled Rodney and Mike Ternasky (the Plan B founder that lost half his team to Rick) into it as well by demonizing them. Anyone who ever met either of these guys knows they are about as honest, sincere and caring as anyone that ever walked the planet. In fact, before Mike died he made me promise never to attack Girl or Rick. He then challenged me to beat them in a whole new way. That’s when I came up with the idea (with an assist from Marc McKee) of basing World Industries on  cartoon characters. As for beefs I don’t have any. I’d actually like to take this opportunity to thank Rick. He not only helped me think on a new level of marketing and business but made me a better person as well. Oh, I almost forgot, he also made me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.

What is more rewarding, starting a company or selling it?
You forgot to mention destroying. They are both rewarding in different ways. Starting a company is definitely a rush and selling is more of a relief.

What companies do you still own outright?
I’m a large shareholder in World, Blind, Darkstar, Tensor, Deca, enjoi, Speedemons, Dub and Droors. It’s great to just sit back and watch the guys that have been there a long time like Rodney and Marc McKee kick ass with Tensor, World and Blind. and the young guys like Chet Thomas and Marc Johnson start to make an impact with Darkstar and enjoi.

Is skateboard industry too safe again?
Yes, but not for long. Soon the barbarians will be at the gates again and somebody better be there to slam it in their faces. Otherwise they’ll end up eating our industry for breakfast.

What advice do you have for skate industry entrepreneurs starting out today?
You’re never going to beat the big guys out there today at their own game. They are so good compared with what Powell Peralta and Vision were. Not only in the product they make, the direction they take their companies, and the strengths of their benches but they have an expansive radar. They will see you coming from miles away. You need to think outside the box, disregard the rules and do things unlike anyone has done them before. Let your inner child run free.

The trailer for the '07 Documentary of the same name.

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Gino Iannucci plus '02 Divulge Interview

Still from Skaters and Drugs in '03, here's Gino's extras, short and sweet. I also scanned this '02 Gino Divulge for the Editorial section so pasting the raw text from that here too. Make it a Gino Monday. Portrait and nollie 180 sequence: Reda, 360 ollie sequence: O'Meally —ME

GINO IANNUCCI:

“It seems far more publicized in skating. Skateboarding is more about doing your own thing. It’s kind of on you. There aren’t going to be drug tests or anything.”

“When you’re young, it’s like more normal to be around experimentation and those situations. As you get older, it get’s a little less common. I think using drugs later on is where it gets more dangerous—when it’s not experimentation anymore.”

“Skateboarding might get your kid around some sketchy situations. But that’s what life is about. If you raise your kid right, you know they’re going to make the right decisions. Skateboarding takes a kid out of that shelter. Some day, whether you like it or not, that’s going to happen regardless. Making mistakes later on can be a lot more costly.”

“I’ve seen firsthand pro skaters that skate better zooted.”

Here's the Divulge text:

Cult Classic

Gino Iannucci reflects on a bigger pond, corporate crossover, and the road from 101

Words Mackenzie Eisenhour

Progression always arrives in waves. A group of individuals, feeding off a common catalyst, spearhead the evolution of skateboarding and stretch it to include their own definition of the pastime. It happened in the ‘70’s with the Z-Boys, it happened in the ‘80’s with the Bones Brigade, and back in the mid-90’s, it happened with a group of World affiliates including, Blind, Plan B, and 101 teamriders. At the crest of the mid-90’s wave, Gino Ianucci brought speed, finesse, style, and creativity to what could have been one of the more awkward phases skateboarding has endured. While much of the emphasis at the time was on a heightened level of difficulty, Gino managed to safeguard skateboarding’s fluidity and ensure that progress need not sacrifice style. As the mid-90’s swell berths new tides, the shoreline is changing. Big money, bigger companies, and adult life all add up to the ultimate test of any progressive movement—the test of time.

What has been the biggest change in professional skateboarding since ’96?
It’s definitely more of a job now. Not that that makes it better or worse. There’s definitely a lot more money in it now then there was in ‘96. I mean nowadays you see pros doing ads with Bentleys, Lamborghinis, diamonds, and foxes. To me that shit’s just whattev’s. I kind of miss the days when skating was hated on—a little more underground. Skaters used to be like these hoodlum outlaws. That’s really what we traded for what it is now.

What would you have said two years ago if somebody told you you were getting a shoe for Nike?
Two years ago, it would definitely have been unbelievable. Just picturing my shoe sitting next to Jordan’s up in the store or something. The way skateboarding is right now it doesn’t even seem that crazy. It’s so big; it’s almost understandable now.

How was it filming the commercial?
Pretty strange for sure. Like 20 people standing around, huge camera units, and this closed off double-set. They had like a full permit and all that. This guy was standing right next to me and he’d yell action for every try.

Did they understand that it was switch?
I doubt it. I tried to explain that it was like a 180 going backwards but I don’t think they got it. I kind of had to just tell them, “Look, just trust me, its going to look cool, it’ll work for the commercial”.

Was it their idea to run all the slams?
Actually, I made the trick second try and they wanted to shoot more so I kept trying. After I made it once, I just couldn’t get another one to go. When I was leaving the set the guy was like, “I think we really caught something there. We’re going to use more of you falling and not so much of you landing it.” At the time I was kind of pissed off but when I saw the finished one it actually came out good.

What goes on inside the Nike headquarters in Oregon?
You always kind of wonder what their headquarters are going to look like. I mean you know how big the company is. I’m used to going down to the skate companies and the product is like right there stacked up. At Nike it’s like this whole college campus with nothing but offices. You don’t see any of the shoes around the offices. It’s just this whole community with this nice landscaping and all that.

How did the backside heelflip over the gonz gap happen?
That was the first time I was in San Francisco. We were actually about to fly home in a couple hours, and we went to skate EMB to kill time. Nobody was really skating that day. It was me, Keenan, Keith Hufnagel, and I think Jamie Thomas was there. Gabe Morford was shooting photos. I went up and looked at it and just got psyched to try something over it. At the time I was running backside heelflips every which way so that’s what I tried and it worked out. That and the switch flip down the Hubba stairs that same day were pretty much the first coverage I ever got.

What was the best trick you ever witnessed at the old World park?
I got on 101 after a lot of the real crazy stuff had already gone down. I do remember Keenan doing a fakie pop shove-it to fakie 5-0 frontside halfcab out on the ledge. At the time that was pretty amazing. The footage got lost.

What’s up with your skateshop?
I was looking for something to do out here and I had a friend who owned a tattoo parlor. The basement was empty and he had another friend who wanted to open a shop so we all got together and went in on it. It should be done by the beginning of May. It’s called Poets, from Poet’s Corner which was around were I grew up.

Rundown your September 11, ’01 day.
I was in my car when I first heard about it on the radio. I was down in Long Island and all these cop cars were just flying by. I finally got home and just watched the whole thing on television. I pretty much hung out at my house and watched it up until today. Personally I’m over the coverage of it. The whole fireman, FDNY thing has gotten to the point where it’s being exploited. Out here, they’re putting up memorials left and right. Every train station and street corner has a golden statue of a fireman holding a baby or something. It’s cool, but overkill is overkill. It just cheapens the initial reaction. They should have ended it with the special Robert De Niro hosted and just move on.

What do you think they should do with the spot where the buildings were?
I actually liked the light idea, but then when they finished it it just looked like shit. I think they just need to move on. Build something and keep moving. Build a vert ramp or a skatepark there.

If you only had three tricks, what would they be?
360 ollies, switch backside 180’s, and nollie heelflips.

What does going fast do for your skateboarding?
To me, that just feels like the right way to do it. I’ve had people tell me before like, “Maybe you should go a little slower.” but I couldn’t really mess around with going slow. Just flying into a ledge or something and coming out with speed, that just makes the whole trick complete.

What kind of mark did Keenan leave on NYC skateboarding and life in general?
His mark, and really what he left everybody who knew him was his personality. Everybody knows that just being around him was enjoyable. His personality came through in his skating. Just watching him skate was enjoyable, he looked so unique on a board and chose unique tricks to do. Keenan never stressed being pro or any of that. He didn’t want to skate everyday. But when he did, he f---ed it up, because he was psyched to skate. He never looked at it like a job.

 

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Brian Anderson

I'm just going to keep rifling these off. Here's BA. Again from Skateboarder in '03 and this. Shots out to 3D Skateboards. Photo: Templeton. —ME

BRIAN ANDERSON:

“I kind of hate to say it but if you’re a skateboarder, there’s a good chance that you’ll be hanging out in an area where drugs are available. It kind of depends on where you live.  But, there are positive sides to that as well as negative. On one hand its good for your kids to be exposed to real life and the real world because once they see how it works they’re usually going to be less tempted to rebel. On the other hand, depending on the your child’s personality, exposure to even something minor could trigger an addictive personality and make that child do downhill. It really depends on the individual. But as a parent, you should be able to read your child and keep that from happening.”

“They’re talking about alcohol. I mean its something that everybody in our society knows about. I can understand that. I mean, that’s their thing. That’s who those guys are. If those guys are willing to portray themselves with that image, hey, they have every right to do that. If somebody else wants to have a skateboard company that’s against doing drugs, they can do that too. To each his own—within reason. I mean there shouldn’t be like an ad in magazine with someone shooting up.”

“The most important parts of skateboarding that need to stay alive are really at the actual skatespots. It’s not so important if magazines and video are showing this or that so long as people are still able to do enjoy their atmosphere the way they always have at the spots. No matter how clean skating gets I think you’ll still be able to go out to a pool or a ditch and see guys having a beer or smoking a joint. And there are kiddy spots and more adult spots. I don’t think you’ll be rolling into the Vans Park with a joint in your mouth.”

“I’m happy with the experimenting that I did. I was always surrounded by friends, be it a sister or good friends that told me, ‘If you’re going to do acid, you know, be careful, go out in the woods and drink plenty of water.’ I mean you don’t just go out, buy a hit of ecstasy, swallow it, and go out to eat dinner with your parents. There’s just a time and a place for things like that.”

"I’d like say that I have no regrets. I’ve probably taken more acid then one individual should take. But I was always constructive. That’s how my friends where. It wasn’t like a Beavis and Butthead episode. It was like something creative to do at that time and we all eventually grew out of it.”

“When and if I have children, I’ll tell them when their like twelve years old, ‘If you’re going to experiment with sex or drugs, don’t be afraid to ask about it. I’d rather you to do it at home. I’ll leave you alone. But just be careful.’ because kids are going to do it anyways. That’s the only reason I’m talking about this. I don’t usually like to share my life in a magazine but drugs are an important topic. Kids just need to know, drugs can be interesting but they’re also not for everybody, and if you’re not responsible, they can get crazy.”

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Duane Peters

This one is pretty heavy. Here's Duane Peters' take from back in '03. Photo: From the TWS 30th Anniversary Issue. Duane was number 23 on our list of most influential skateboarders of all time.—ME

DUANE PETERS:

“If you’re interested in drugs, you’re going to experiment. In my case, punk rock was really new. I was young. I came from a broken home and skateboarding was already a good outlet from that. I started drinking real early. I really liked the (Sex) Pistols. I liked Sid Vicious. I liked the destructiveness of it. It looked appealing and attractive. As soon as heroin came around I was in. I found it and it found me.”

“I know plenty of guys that smoke weed and will never try heroin. It’s a matter of whether you enjoy upping the stakes. If you do, there’s going to be price to pay. The maze of life gets harder. You could end up dead. It all depends on the luck of the draw. In my case, it totally took over my life. I was completely satisfied with drugs. I became everything I never wanted to be. At a certain point, you cross the line and there’s no way out. You can’t even leave your house without it.”

“I wasted so many years. I did jail time. Heroin made a wreck out of everything around me. Right off the bat, you hurt the ones you love. You do anything you can for a fix.”

“I was sixteen-years-old, doing the Skateboard Mania show and I had television producers shoving coke spoons up my nose. All of a sudden, you’re at mansions on the hills with Hollywood types and model chicks. They’ve got living rooms with Jacuzzis and water falls in the bathrooms and some producer is putting coke up your nose and pouring you drinks. What are you gonna do? You’re going to fuckin’ whip it.”

“It wasn’t until shooting up came in that you really had to hide it. I’d be at a nice house and somebody would draw a line of coke on the table and I’d ask them, ‘Is this line mine? Because if it is I’m going to do what I want with it.’ I’d scoop it up, take it in the bathroom, get my rig out and shoot it. Then I’d go back and ask for another one. Next thing you know, I’m not at any of the parties anymore. I’m a complete loner and I’m homeless. You finally have a wake up call and your pushing a shopping cart, hiding some fucking blanket you found because you think somebody is going to steal it, and people are calling you a bum.”

“I was shooting up, living in a ditch and got rushed by these three Mexicans for a piece of shit watch that didn’t even work. They stabbed me seven times in the knee and three times in the back with these fucking shanks. I was swinging my board around at these fuckers and the funniest thing was I was rushing so much from the coke that I couldn’t climb out of this four-foot ditch. I finally got these guys off me and I was running down the street covered in blood when the cops came. I had three warrants but they told me to get the fuck out of there. They wouldn’t take me in their car because I was such a fucking mess. You have to use your imagination but everything bad that could happen happened to me”

“I used up all my tokens early. When they’re gone you don’t get anymore. Take it easy and you can make the party last your whole life. Otherwise, you end up with some big decisions and you can’t have it both ways. My statement to the world is ‘Don’t use up all your tokens.’"

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Andy Roy

Here's Andy Roy talking candidly about Heroin addiction in '03. Andy has cleaned up a couple of times and is hopefully done with this beast for good. Was stoked to see him have a guest trick in the Deathwish video. Again, the original Skateboarder article is here. Photo: Tobin Yelland

ANDY ROY:

“They (Skateboarders) don’t have no responsibility, you know. They just get paid to go skateboard. You don’t have no schedules. You can sleep in if you want. You don’t got no one telling you what to do. There’s all the traveling you know and you’re on the streets. Then you got like the street drug dealers. They’re always out to make money.”

“What happened to me was, I grew up with all my friends, and they didn’t have an opportunity to go and do what I did, like traveling and skating, so they just stuck around Santa Cruz and they would drink and smoke weed. The next thing you know heroin hit my crew big time. I came back from a skate trip and they were like here try it. I tried to smoke it and at first I didn’t understand it, I didn’t like it. I would keep coming back from trips and one time I broke my foot, went home to visit, and just never left. I got sucked in.”

“It’s a physical drug. I got hooked. At first we were just smoking it and then eventually you don’t get high anymore so you take it to the next level. The first time I shot up was with Jay (Adams). It’s a heavy thing. Its like whatever pains you have, physical or mental, it takes them away. Its like the best high at first. But then you do it three days in a row, and if you stop, you’re going to feel it. You get anxiety, you get cramps in your legs, you can’t sleep at night. All you do is think of that drug, that high, and than you’re body just freaks out and you have to go do it. You’re like a complete slave to it.”

“Its everywhere. It’s in every town. You can’t believe it. Business people do it, like some people you can’t even imagine. Some people can just hold it, and other people can’t. Me, whatever I do, I take it to the fullest. Heroin led me to the gutter. I lost everything.”

“Finally, I’m doing good. I’ve relapsed so many times and said that I’m done with it. But I’m 31-years-old now. I’ve met a new girl that doesn’t mess around. She’s beautiful. I don’t have that craving no more. I’ve been threatened with prison, like, if I get in trouble again, I’m gone. I’m just tired of running around and just hustling for money everyday. Its so stressful that you can only take so much. I think my body has just given up. I can’t do it no more. It wore me out.”

“It doesn’t take all those rehabs and all that to be done with it. You just have to decide in your head.”

“I’ve seen people give up all their belongings. I’ve seen people steal from their own parents. I’ve seen people give up their dignity. I’ve seen men do sexual favors you know, its just gross. The horror stories wouldn’t even make it into your magazine. It’s just disgusting. It makes you into an evil person. It takes your pride and your soul, and you just wait for that next fix. You’ll do whatever it takes. I was on the streets. I went from traveling and skateboarding to having nothing. It’s such a violent world—just straight gutter.”

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Ed Templeton

As promised, here's Ed's collection of raw quotes from '03. Once again, you can read the whole final version of the article here. Coming up, there are some really good ones from Duane Peters, BA, Marc Johnson, Dave Carnie, Dressen, TA, Dyrdek, Gino, Berra, and tons more I'll keep posting up as I get the time. Thanks for reading. Photo: Templeton —ME

ED TEMPLETON:

"Skateboarding has at times been extremely involved with drugs. It’s about youth and it’s about coming to that age where experimentation happens. At one point, I feel like there was like a critical mass in skateboarding on pot. It was almost like if you were a skater, you smoked pot by default. Now, with skating getting more mainstream, it has been scaled back a little. But, that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening."

"The majority of it has to do with the people getting paid to do it. Your average kid trying to get sponsored isn’t necessarily into drugs."

"It’s a lot of different things. It’s the money and the free time. You have a job that doesn’t require that you look good, or be coherent. You can’t show up to regular jobs with bloodshot eyes."

"I’ve personally watched kids go from innocent 15 year old skate rats to full hooker, booze and drugs users in a year."

"The rock star dudes live the rock star life. It’s always been like that. Hosoi used to always have two rooms at every hotel they stayed at. One for sleeping and the other just for partying. Nobody would sleep. The rock n’ roll mold gets into the drug element by default."

"Some people can handle skating and partying—drinking or smoking weed. Like you seriously wouldn’t know they’re stoners or even alcoholics. But then there are dudes that just can’t deal with it. They start to suck at skating because of their habits. As a company owner I’ve had instances with riders where I had no choice but to address it."

"Pot can just drain you’re energy if it affects you that way. Guys just sitting around playing video games all day don’t get coverage."

"As a parent, I wouldn’t say skating is any worse then something like basketball or football. If you’re taking your kid to the Vans park everyday, he’s not going to be around drugs. It depends who he’s hanging with."

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Jeff Grosso

The next outtake from this 2003 Skateboarder article is one of my personal favorites—all around class act, Jeff Grosso. I Rememeber being so stoked when I got to do this in '03. I had never spoken to Jeff before and it seemed like every sentence out of his mouth was immediatly timeless. Pearls of wisdom from a guy that lived it. Enjoy. Below: Nosepick, Photo: O —ME

JEFF GROSSO:

“You’re alienated from the start, and skateboarding is a testament to that. I mean you don’t fit in anywhere, a lot of kids are from broken homes, so you pick up a skateboard to try to fit in elsewhere. Coming from a place of rebellion or alienation sets the tone for any drug addict. You’re already isolated. They hate you, you hate them, you hate yourself, so what else to do but destroy yourself in order to get back at them.”

“There are people with addictive personalities and there are people that can do something a couple times and just walk away. Unfortunately, with drugs, you don’t know if you have the physical makeup of an addict until you try them.”

“I had a buddy from high school that went to architecture school at USC. He turned me onto cocaine. He’d sit there and do line for line with me, smoke the shit, whatever. One day he just turned around and was like, ‘Whatever, I’m over it.’ He could just walk away because he didn’t have that addictive trait. Me, I tried it once and it was like, ‘Stick a fork in me’ I couldn’t put the shit down. The rest was 15 years of pain and suffering.”

“In the 80s, there was basically two camps. You had the nerds, like Tony (Hawk), Lester (Kasai), and Kevin (Staab), and then you had the Hellraisers like Phillips, Craig Johnson, Gibson and all those dudes which were the cool guys. I was like extremely nerdy and obsessive about my skating but at the same time I wanted to be accepted. The first time I smoked weed was with Alan Losi and Neil Blender. When you’re 18-years-old, sitting there at with your childhood heroes, you’d pretty much do anything if you thought it would help you fit in. Its all about jumping off the bridge.”

“Skateboarding promotes self-destruction. I see it even with dudes today. You’re paid to be this clown. How much can you destroy, how gnarly can you get, how fucked up can you get. Everybody just watches from the sidelines, like cheering you on. And you’re supposed to walk this line. Like you’re supposed to get as f—ked up as possible and still skate your best on call. Then, the second you loose your value as a skateboarder, everybody turns their back on you. You’re the next casualty.”

“They started handing me $65,000 a year at 17. I mean, really, I was doomed.”

“You can’t blame anybody else if you have drug problems. If you can’t take the f—king heat, then you better get the f—k out of the kitchen. And if you’re to stupid to get out of the kitchen, then you deserve what you get. That was my problem. I was like, ‘Hey, I’ll just burn up in here,’ and I did. The next thing you know you’re sticking needles in your arm and you’re a fucking lowlife.’”

“Skateboarding is just young and naïve. Other sports have the same problems, they just have better damage control. I mean if a football player goes out with a couple of hookers and an eight ball of coke and wraps his fucking Ferrari around a tree, they have guys paid to come in, pay off the hookers, take care of hospital bills, keep the guy out of jail, and keep the story out of the press because Nike has an investment in their athlete. In skateboarding, they just cut their losses and grab a new kid. That’s changing now. But it’s still far from being fixed.”

“It’s this trap people fall into. Like it’s the dark side of human nature. We like to sit and watch somebody else fall down, and we laugh along, encouraging it and pushing it further. Then we go home to our homes or whatever and think, ‘God, that was cool hanging out with so and so while he self-destructed.’ But it never even registers that that person doesn’t have another home to go to, that they’re stuck in this 24-hour party.”

“I only lasted about three or four good years at the top. Then I knew my ride was over. But like Hosoi, I ran around for another ten years living off my name in the seedy underbelly of the skate world. Like, ‘Oh you’re that professional skateboard dude’ I’d be like ‘Hell yeah, that’s me.’ Meanwhile I hadn’t stepped on a board in like 6 months. ‘But, hey, you got a pocket full of drugs and you want to party with me because I’m so-and-so. Oh, by the way, can I sleep on your couch. And I’m gonna steal your VCR in the morning when you’re passed out, because I need to go get more drugs.”

“All you can really do is share your experiences. Try to make some of the younger kids aware. But at the end of day I can only speak for myself. When I was young, I f—king knew it all, I had it all, it was never going to end, and I was going to be king of the world. There was nothing that was going to knock me off. Turn around, and I’m 34 years old, I struggle to pay my bills, and life just didn’t turn out the way I had planned."

"When you’re lost in heroin, and you haven’t reached any sort of bottom, you just can’t see out of it. You have to get an extreme amount of pain before you can accept anybody else’s help. Something like 15 percent of heroin addicts, even the ones that are able to get off it for even a couple years, end up relapsing and ultimately dying from it."

"With skateboarding, there’s so much physical pain involved that its easy to fall into. One day somebody gives you a Vicodine because you got a hipper and right there you get a taste for opiates. Then you move on up the ladder."

"We got a bunch of guys that just died over this shit. And even for those of us that got out, its like what do you have left? You’re physically and mentally wrecked from it, me being one of them. You’re by no means a success story. You just try to get your life back together after the big crash."

If you want even more Grosso tales, here's another column I got to do for TWS last October:

What it Feels Like: To Die 3 Times w/ Jeff Grosso

Skaters and Drugs Outtakes: Brad Staba

Another full interview from the Skaters and Drugs batch. Here's Brad Staba talking pretty candidly about the topic back in 2003. Photo: Ed Templeton. I'll put up Ed's text in a few. —ME

BRAD STABA:

“I have terrible allergies which give me headaches all the time. So I smoke a lot of grass to deal with that. Under Proposition 215 in California I was lucky enough to get my medical marijuana certificate and can go to the numerous cannabis clubs around up here. It’s all computerized, you go in, and they hand you like a pill bottle just like any other prescription. I don’t have to sit in front of some sketchy dude's house and wait for his broke ass to get up anymore to buy weed.”

“I’m the kind of guy that smokes grass and can’t sit still. Like if I go skate, I smoke, and play some music and it just sets it off for me. Even with like taking photos or playing music, smoking just slows everything down for me and lets me focus on working at things little by little.”

“Its like in skating you really only hear about it when its like the real addicts who ended up on heroin.”

“If you’re trying to juggle doing like hard drugs and skating, it’s almost like a circus act. I mean you’re juggling two different lives, you know. You almost have to keep choosing between skating and being a pile of shit. ‘Hey, now I skate. Now I’m a pile of shit.’ I think its kind of a joke, but whatever. Do whatever the hell you want, I say. I really never even followed skating to that point. Even when I was a kid I wasn’t like, ‘oh, I want to be like Claus Grabke because he snorts coke.’”

“I take Adavan and Klonopin for anxiety attacks. Ask any professional skateboarder if they’ve ever had anxiety attacks. If they say no, they’re lying. You go to these huge demos, like in Japan or somewhere and sometimes it’s just too much. All these people criddlin’ on your shit. These things are like all common things but if you take the medication for them people look at you like you're fucked up or something. I just have it under control. Weed can totally help your anxiety, depending on how much you smoke. If you smoke too much it’s just like any other medication—you get fucked up by the side effects.”