December 24, 2024 • 34 mins
Episode originally published August 15, 2023
Tony Hawk is the #1 ambassador of skateboarding, a man who is, by definition, bigger than his sport. Now in his fifties, Tony is still pushing the boundaries of skating and continuing to invent new tricks, while his foundation, The Skatepark Project, has helped to build over 700 skateparks worldwide. Tony’s first skate deck is currently on display at the Smithsonian, and this unstoppable skater isn’t showing any signs of slowing down… even after a major leg injury. Tony talks to Craig about the pure passion of his craft, landing the first 900 while competing, the success of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater video game franchise, and much more. Until the wheels fall off, enJOY!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, mydeas. The Joy Podcast will be taking the holidays off.
I hope you can too and have a lovely time
however you like to spend it, and with whomever you
like to spend it with. We'll be back on January
the fourteenth with the Lovely Lisa Lobe. That's more alliteration
than I thought I was going to have when I
(00:20):
started talking today. But there you are, the Lovely Lisa
Lobe on the fourteenth of January, and have a lovely
holiday time, my friends. Be careful, stay safe, see you soon.
My name is Craig Ferguson. This podcast is called Joy.
It's not rocket science. I talk to people I like
(00:41):
about their pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Here's Tony Hawk, a legend, an icon, maybe the icon
of the skateboard world.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Enjoy. How are you feeling about the way? Are you
all right? Like a thank you?
Speaker 4 (01:01):
That seemed like a much more loaded question, But no,
I yeah, I broke my leg by a year ago.
And yes, finally, yes, I went through a false start
the first time because I got back too soon and
the impact forced my bone to never reconnect.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Evil, evil shit going on.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
I mean, in hindsight, it's regrettable. It's embarrassing, but I
also was in denial of it. I thought that I
was just going through a harder time. So about eight
months into my recovery, I realized that it wasn't getting
any better. I wasn't improving in terms of what I
could do physically, And I went and got X rays
and realized that the bone was actually further apart than
(01:45):
it had been post surgery, And went and got it
realigned with a specialist and waited, and that was that
was the key.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Just wait, do you have a Do you have a
different pain threshold to normal humans?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Have you ever had it tested?
Speaker 4 (01:59):
No, but it's it's definitely been noted by by others
and friends and things, And well, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I watched till the wheels come off, and I was
looking at the spells that you were taking or what
do you see?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I don't know there's right terminology because I'm not spell right.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Spell slams? Sure, all right?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Or falls or maybe all our peas like I see
some of the hurt.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
You say bail. If you see bail, then that's more intentional.
And what you were seeing there was definitely no one
was intentional.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, they were like, but even from the FOA when
you were a little kid, like everything just like slamming
into this.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Thing over and over and over again, you get immune
to it.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
Is that it's not immune.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
It's more that there's an acceptance that comes with it, right,
that I need to endure this for the sake of progression,
and so that that has always been my attitude, and
so I didn't I didn't mind it so much. Sometimes
it's worse than others, but not that often. I mean,
there's there's sort of this I guess it's more like
when you you choose a life of skateboarding, there's sort
(03:02):
of a level of pain that you know there's always
going to be low lying.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Like all the time. But see, I envy you very much.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Not about the money and drugs and famous I've had
enough of that.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
But but you knew your thing and you have your thing.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It's not like it was ever in any question because
you said right there you chose a life of skateboarding,
or you didn't say you chose it, but you used
that expression.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Do you think you chose you?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Because like your dad at that point as well, because
your dad was heavily involved in there.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah, that's a good question. I would say that I
chose a life of skateboarding early on, even when it
was not there was no path to success because no
one had carved that path yet, right, But I love
what it provided me, So I just loved skating. But
I would say later on there was a sense of
skateboarding chose me in that suddenly people were asking me
(03:53):
to sort of be the spokesperson.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah, and I was.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Willing to do it, but it wasn't what I aspire to.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
What did you expire to at the beginning?
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Just keep learning new tricks?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It was.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
It was pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
But it's a funny thing though, because I mean, like
you're one of those people that's really difficult to have
a conversation with. It's recorded not because you're difficult, but
because the people that are into your thing are so
messianic about your thing that if I say the wrong
word instead of spill, I say or slam, I say
spill or like, people get fucking crazy about it.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
And it's kind of say less now than before I
understand what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yea, But it was funny.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Watched it because I thought that the documentary about you
and a lot of your contemporaries.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Till the wheels come off, that's what it's called.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Right till the wheels fall off, till wiels fall off?
Right seesad come off fall off.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I've seen that actually in Prince. Yeah, don't worry about that.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So, but I was watching it and because I'm not, like,
I'm not in that world. I mean I know of it,
but I'm not inside it. And the athleticism and the
grace and the style and the craziness of all of that.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
What you do is obvious.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
To anyone, even a casual glance. But what I wasn't
expecting to see is first of all, the development of
the world. I mean, like you were, that's like being
around at the start of golf or something.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
In a lot of ways. And then you, and I.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Think mulleins as well, a very a very strong sense
of I don't really think it's about the board, and
it hasn't been about the board for a long time.
I feel like it's it's something else. It's like a
search for grace. It's like the way guys climb mountains
or something.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Yeah, I would agree with you there.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I think that, especially with Rodney and I, we were
so hyper focused on new moves, new tricks, and we
didn't know what the goal of that was. It just
fed us. So we would we learned new chick and
then move on to the next one, move on to
the next one. And we didn't really think about that
we were creating any sort of movement.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
We just had to do it.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
And then as we got older, that became you know,
there's an argument that became more of a curse than
a blessing because we keep chasing it to our detriment.
Where even Rodney, I mean you see him now, Like,
let's put it this way. Rodney walks through an airport
and people come up with courtesy carts, So do you
need a ride?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Really?
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Yeah, that's the truth.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Do you know what I mean? Like people do that
to me too. But skap Forard.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Because he walks with with such pain, right, but he
will skate for three to four hours every single night
on his own.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
That's interesting. So he's more comfortable skating than walking.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
There, Absolutely, yeah, you that way too.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Still, I would say before I got hurt, yes, now
I definitely have a little more hesitation in my skating
because I should.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
I'm still on the healing path.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
But yeah, also, like everybody else, you get older.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
You get older, sure, but I feel like I think
what wasn't really talked about in that documentary because it's
nuanced and it's more my personal thing is that my
style has changed quite a bit in the last ten
years in that I'm more focused on low impact skating.
And I know what you saw there was pretty crazy
and I did some crazy stuff and whatever, but really
(07:15):
my focus, especially with tricks, has been more technical, and
so it's more like board maneuvering and stuff that just
is on the top of the ramp as opposed to
ten feet above it.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So it's funny because I don't you can see the
athlanticism of it, but I don't understand how it's done.
It's like you if I watch someone play golf, it
swim even you know what I mean. It's like, I
know how it's done, but like I've watched what you
do and what Mullins does and what all these other
guys do. I'm like, I don't even know where you
start with that, you know, I mean, but you've you've
(07:47):
created I mean, you personally as well with the foundation,
have moved into this idea, like expanded it.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
There's how many parks have you put together now?
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Uh, well, we've helped a fund over seven hundred wow,
over the last twenty years. And I mean that's my
proudest work. And that stems from my experience at the
skate park as a kid, because I got very lucky
in that one of the last parks in the US
happened to be in San Diego, pretty close to where
I lived. And that was never lost on me that
(08:18):
I had that place to go and I had that
sense of community and I had that support group there.
I mean, yes, it was my training ground, but it
was also just this place of belonging.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
It was like where the kids went.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
It was I mean it was you found me there
at all hours until they closed when school was out.
But when I had a sense of success in a
way to sort of help I don't know that the
industry or the skaters. That was my first go to
was I want to provide more skate parks because all
these kids feel disenfranchised. They love skating and they're told
(08:51):
not to do it because it's on public property or.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
A pyro property and it's nusance in it and whatever else.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
But it's like, but they found something it speaks to them,
and that I think is a healthy outlet.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
What do you think it would have hammed to you
if if you hadn't found skating or it hadn't found you.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
I think I would have just been doing something really
tech oriented because I was really fascinated with technology also
my teenage years and I mean still to this day.
But I was an early adopter, like I had one
of the first nonlinear video editing systems, and.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Really I did because I thought, I guess the answer
I was kind of expected was that you would have
been lost without it, But it doesn't.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
See, I probably wouldn't have felt as rich for sure,
that I wouldn't have felt as validated or or felt
like there was something that I could do that really
fed what I needed in terms of creativity wise, right,
And so maybe doing video projects or something would have
(09:54):
touched on that a bit, but I don't think it
would have provided the same.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It's an interesting form of creativity as well, doing you know,
creating tricks on a board. I mean it's like painting
with something that nobody's painted with until.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Orteen seventy or something.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Or did you do you think anyone will appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Well, yeah, I think people do.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
But I just say, what back then, especially with the creation,
like with Rodney and I, when we were doing all
these tricks, it was kind of considered a circus act.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, it's got a better that in it, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I mean when you guys was doing the tours with
the you know, standing up in the arena with the
you know, the ramps and the motorbikes, and that's a
little bit of a travel in circus, isn't it a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Of for sure? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
But what I'm saying is is in our world, skating
was a pretty small community. We were the outcast of
that community because all we cared about was tricks. Everyone
else cared about right style and how much air they get.
And so Rodney and I were these outcasts, like we
were outcasts in an outcast activity, and so we didn't
think there was any sort of there would be any
(10:57):
accolades in that.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
We just love doing it, do you know.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
For a while I worked with Mick Jagger on writing
a screenplay that never happened. But because I was doing it,
I was on tour with the Rolling Stones for a
while and I got to see up close how the
rolling stones work. And I was watching Keith Richards, who
you remind me of a little bit, because he would
be quite happy if he was playing that guitar in
(11:22):
a shitty blues band in a pub in London, Fine,
doesn't matter. Or if he's playing the enormo dome in
San Diego, doesn't fucking matter. It's playing the guitar that cats.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah. And is that the same for you on the board?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, So even when when you were doing the like
when things were nutty, when you're like you have your
own playing and you you know, like the crowds are
crazy and the money's nuts and stuff like that, was
it all still focused on the board.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Is that what kept you out of the druggy drinking one?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Yeah, I believe so.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I mean I definitely had my own vices and distractions
through the crazy years, but always the priority was skating.
And I think that even in my youth, when in
the eighties when we thought we were having unparalleled success
and we were doing all, you know, we were doing
some TV stuff and movie stuff, I was always really
focused on the skating because I saw my peers, some
(12:17):
of them get distracted and get caught up in the
hype and and get hooked on drugs, right, and then
they lost their abilities. And it was like that was
my very first example, like, don't don't go to that, Right,
That's what I thought.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I mean, it's not something you can do when you're high.
Is get on a board or is it?
Speaker 5 (12:34):
I don't know, maybe for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Right, did you ever like, do you ever give demonstrations
you ever you know, get on the board and do
crazy shit when you were messed up?
Speaker 3 (12:44):
No? I think, my.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
It's funny.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I remember the skate PARKY grew up at. People would
smoke weed in the parking lot. Not everyone, but some.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Oh come on, everybody, it's California, the whole states.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Well I was pretty young too, so I remember one
day I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go join the crew,
and then I came back to skate and I just
couldn't get it together. I couldn't, you know, Everything was
my timing was off. I kept almost almost we call
hanging out, which means like locking up on the coping
where your board sticks, right, And I just thought, Okay,
I can't, I can't do that. That doesn't work for me,
(13:17):
and drinking is just out of the question, right, and
you're skating.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
So I think that was I think I'm beginning to
figure out why I never get into skateboard. But it's
kind of interesting though, because it is that is a
real kind of positive thing. If you're talking about all
these skate parts for kids, if you can't do it
properly when you're twisted on booze and elk or in drugs, right,
you're kind of helping people stay away from it a
(13:41):
little bit.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
I mean, I for sure there is the contingent that
they equate partying with, of course skateboarding, and they do it,
and honestly it's probably more of a short lived thing,
but that's their life. I can't I'm not trying to
have some just say no campaign skate parts wore that.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
It's more that we want to provide them outlet.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, because when you started, it was basically it was
just dried out swimming pools, right, that was at the beginning.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Yeah, I got in at the tail end of that.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
So the Dogtown and Z Boys, I knew of that
crew as I started, but they were already as far
as I was concerned, much older.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well as the evolution of it, if you can take
me through it a little bit. So that dog Town
was is that the very beginning.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
The beginning has has there's how it began.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
But basically, the first skateboard, it is said, was a
roller skate that was dismantled the trucks and wheels were
nailed onto a two by four, right, and that was
a skateboard. And then a lot of the Southern California
people took that as that surfing on a sidewalk, right,
So then they started developing actually shaped boards out of
(14:47):
fiberglass and wood like surfboards were made, right, And then
they were trying to emulate surfing. Once the big drought
hit in the seventies in southern California, all these swimming
pools were dry, and the surfers saw that, oh, that
looks like a wave, and that's how we.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
How it got to Do you surf? Do? I do?
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Yeah? But not as actively.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
And the reason I got into skateboarding because my older
brother was a hardcore surfer, and so he got into
skateboarding by default, because that was if you lived in
Southern California, you surfed in the seventies, you started skating
and that's how I got my first skateboard. Was his
hand me down.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Oh wow, he must be very happy for you.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
He's very happy that he can school me in surfing.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Still, that's what he's happy about.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Well, it's funny that you're you're a lot younger than
your nearest sibling, right.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Yeah, he's thirteen years older than me.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
My son, my youngest son, is nine and a half
years younger than his older brother. And I was watching
the energy of you as a young Kiad. It reminded
me very much like my own son is very like that,
like a kind of sixty pound psychopath. Really, I mean
just like And I had one of those two. Yeah,
they're kind of amazing. I think there's something to do
(16:07):
with being light as well. See I was a husky
little kid. Yeah, so if I fail, it really hard. Right,
if you were sixty pounds and you fall, I think
it hurts less.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Maybe, But I think the light and fearless is a
scary combination.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, that's definitely I had.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
I had one of the We have several children between
my wife and I, but there was one that was
we called him a pixie. Yeah, but he would try anything,
but almost to the point where he had no sense
of mortality.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, well kids are kind of like that a little bit.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
Yeah, but he was off, he was on a different
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Do you think that you were more cautious like as
a parent because you had gone through all of those
injuries and that the creation of.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
That world, as that world is forming.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
I would say that I probably leaned more towards the
other side of it in my early years of parenting
because I was young. I was I was twenty four
when my son was more and and I was just
joining him doing stuff and getting him into skateboarding, and
you know, he's going down big ramps and I'm pushing
him into waves, and it was just more like, oh,
I have this friend to do the stuff with. And
(17:10):
it wasn't. I was trying to keep him safe as well.
But I did think that he had a pretty good
sense of his limitations, right, and I was thankful for that.
It wasn't until I had other kids that I realized, oh,
they don't all have that Alva gene.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It's funny that when you become a parent, and just
as you get older as well, because I was different.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
From my older boy than I was with the younger one.
But they are different too. They are.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Yes, there's a lot of nurture and nature.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, what do you think, like because your dad was
very supportive to you, at least at least I took
that for the documentary that you and your dad were
closed and he was very supportive. But the world was forming.
The competitive Is it competitive? I guess it's competitive, yeah,
competitive skateboarding. But when I looked at that, the thing
when you first got to do the nine hundred, right
(17:54):
or when you finally cracked how many times did you.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Do that that day? That ex game to get to that?
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Now that I think that day was eleven or twelve
or something. But it's funny that people focused in on
that because there were plenty of other days where I
tried it dozens of.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Times, right, but did you get it? Though? You didn't
get it?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Why that's why they focused because the day you get
it is that's the day right?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Right?
Speaker 4 (18:18):
But you know what I mean, Like that was a
relatively short duration of attimes for as far as I
was concerned, Right, So when people say you tried to
let tones, like, yeah, there was nothing. I tried hundreds
of times before that, like thousands of times.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
But something like the nine hundred, which I'm not quite
sure why it's I don't know why it's called the
nine hundred.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Why is it called.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's the degrees of spin, right, So it goes around
and a half two and a half, right, so two
and a half times in the air and then land.
You envist each that in your head first, and you
go through it in your head and you create you
like a like a paint or does or a movie
director does or.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Yeah, eventually I did that.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
When I first started trying it, it was almost ten
years prior to that event, and I really didn't know
how to spin around that far, how to balance my
body so that I could be in the position to
get back down on the ramp, So I didn't quite
have the vision then. It wasn't until a few years
later when I actively started trying it and started figuring
(19:17):
out that I could possibly get close. That's when I
started visualizing it, and that's when the chase got accelerated,
because I was just all in on this trick.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Right, So you you understood that it was possible for you, Yes,
And the idea of as you're falling, as a human
being is falling through space and you're still having a twist,
and you're going to you have an appointment to make
with the board. You're going to have to You're going
to have to meet that appointment or it's going to
hart or you're going to be embarrassed.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Are you just not going to make the trick?
Speaker 1 (19:45):
That?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Does the time slow it down? Can you slow it
down and think your way through it? Or is it
not possible to consciously go through the trick? Does it
have to be you know, like automatic?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Does it have to be?
Speaker 4 (19:59):
That's a really good question. And I don't say that
time slows down. It's more that there's a bunch of
elements that have to come together, and you know it
as soon as you take off that this one has
all those pieces.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Right, So there you take off, as you take off
going to make I would say more often than not,
you don't have all those pieces.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
So you take off immediately knowing this one's not going
to work. But you have to go through the motion
of it, because to take off in that position with
that much speed and not spin all the way through
is the most dangerous thing you can do. So you
just have to commit to commit to to So what
I'm saying is a few times I've done it where
it didn't happen that day at X Games, but it happens.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
It's happened to be before and after that.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
If I don't get a hold of my board, I
have to commit my body to that full spin because
of what I've the position I put.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
It in on the on the takeoff.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
And I learned that the hard way because a couple
of times I didn't get my board got away from
me and I just stopped and all of a sudden,
I was like, oh shit, I'm in space. I have
no idea where the ramp is and where is it?
And then I hit on my back. Yeah, and then
that's the worst case scenario. So I learned that even
if it's not gonna work, just go through the motion
of it.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And does it feel like does it feel like there's
anything you can do? Like if you go off and
you go no everything to see here? But if I
just do then.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
You definitely Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I mean there's plenty of there's plenty of that in
our cavalier attitude towards tricks, but also in that moment,
if you're in competition, you're gonna try to make it
no matter what. Right, So that's another we call them
hail Mary's. It's like you're gonna just throw it down
because this is the time it has to happen. And
if you're gonna crash, it should be now, do you
(21:45):
know what I mean? Like, if you're ever gonna get
destroyed on this trick, because you committed to it, it
should be in this format.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Right, so at least stay within the bones of the trick.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Sure, right, yeah, I get it if you had been
involved in the sport now, like if you were, like
Tony Hawk is twelve years old today and you're getting
involved in it does the sport and I say to you,
you have to wear this, you have to wear these,
this protecularly fit you have.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
It's still the same as it was.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
No, it's it's so when I was growing up, the
only way you could have any sense of success in
skateboarding was to compete, right, that's it. There was no YouTube,
there's no social media. The magazines were not going to
cover you unless you went to this big event and
probably did well. Even if you were doing new tricks
and not placing. They don't care about that. Right Now,
(22:34):
skating is of age it's way more diverse. You can
enter skateboarding and never have to compete and still be
one of the most successful skaters that's ever been.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Because you can do videos and.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
You could have your you could have your your you know,
you could have your big solt, you could be an
influencer and a skater and it's just a totally different
It is because of how much it permeated mainstream culture
in that skateboarding is just more of an accepted form
of art or sport or activity, whatever you want to
call it.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
What is it to you?
Speaker 4 (23:07):
To me, it's yeah, it's it's it's a lifestyle, it's
a sport, it's an art form.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
But to me, it's it's my salvation.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
That's what I was going to say. It's it's almost
like I got I sensed that from you.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
I find what you were saying is is like, would
you have to conform to some sort of team, sport
or uniform or or something like that, well, or equipment
if your goals me in the Olympics, Yes, that's your
path and that's what you're going to have to adhere to.
But you can just do it in your own voice,
in your own style and still make a go.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Of it, right.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
What about the idea if it was an Olympic sport
when you were a kid, do you think you would
have gone that way?
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Do you think you do? Sure, because that was that
was the only.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
But doesn't that say I don't know how it's graded
in the Olympics. Can you bring a new trick to
an Olympics? Yes, So it's kind of like gymnastics. You go,
here's something nobody's ever done before. Yeah, and people go, okay, wow,
you get your tans out of tans?
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Yeah, and well, and also the judges are all well
versed in skateboarding obviously, right, and for them to see
something new is going to probably they're probably going to
overscore you for it, right, because they just didn't expect it.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Does it form like a routine? Like if you I
don't know how the sports graded in the Olympics.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
So the format of Olympics is not any different really
than what you probably saw in the documentary or in
other skate events. You have a time to run and
you are judged on your difficulty factor, the speed you kept,
how you use the course.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
And your consistency. The basic elements of it are all
the same.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It's funny though that talking about it as a spot.
I mean, there are guys who were interviewed.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
During the documentary.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
When I watched it, I thought, this guy's with a
neck tattoos is never going to go to the Olympics.
He doesn't, he's not even interested in watching there.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
And that was in my day.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Skating was so counterculture that it was it was akin
to punt crop music.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
We're not going to fit in. We're doing it our way.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
For that's why I always associated with it, that it
was like a punk thing.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Sure, and in that respect, there's extreme versions of that
where it's like we don't want to do anything that
is considered mainstream or whatnot. But then if you I
was so young, I didn't really understand all of that narrative,
maybe right, And I just loved what skateboarding was, even
though it was different and it made me an outcast
at school and you know, it was just not the
(25:29):
coolest thing to do. I just love doing it. But
also I love the idea that I got to compete
with all these people that were that liked the same thing.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Right, And it does seem quite supportive in an odd
way that people are you know they're competitive, but not
competitive in a way that you want to bring the
other guy down.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
It's just like I can't believe.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, and I think and I also think that shines
through in the Olympic coverage, right I saw. I mean,
if you're talking about like I got to go to Tokyo
and a good example was the women's park event. There
was one one girl that was absolutely the favorite to win,
you know, without question, if she would have made her
whole routine, She's going to win this thing. And she
just kept missing this one trick and she finally almost
(26:12):
got it at the end, but still missed it. She
ended up getting third and when the whole when the
competition was over and they gave out the awards, all
of the other girls lifted her up on their shoulders
and carried her out of the venue.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I mean, what other sport could you think of at
the Olympics where they're, yeah, they're all celebrating the third
place person because they thought she was going to be
the best.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
And that she tried. Do you get an amount of
attempts and then I.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Guess just with no, not with that, that's that one.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
It's a I believe it's a forty second routine, right
that forty seconds that's it.
Speaker 5 (26:48):
If you fall in the middle of it, you're out.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
So the idea of doing eleven attempts at nine hundred
is not going to exist.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
And you're never going to see that in the Olympics.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
No, right, no, not at all.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
But you are going to see the X game still, right, Yes,
I hope.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
So, yeah, I hope that format continues.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Are you gonna keep skating until the wheels come off?
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I mean that wasn't my quote, by the way, though.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah, in a sense, I think that I've definitely gotten
a better perspective on my limitations through this last injury
I had, and that I don't expect to come back
fully one hundred percent and get back to the exact
same type of skating I was doing before this happened.
But I can find some happy medium there, and I
can find something that where I'm still considered a professional.
(27:36):
I could still probably put out content or whatever it is,
of some sort of progress in skating, but I'm not
moving the needle necessarily.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
It's just more of that. There's more personal goals.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Can you envision the time like you know what I
need to do the senior pgator.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Sure, that's already that already exists.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Right, so you get like a yellow jacket. It's funny.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
It's funny because they're having a few events in recent years.
In fact, there was one in particular called bol Rama
in Bondai in Australia.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
And they had this big bowl Evan every year.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
They had the Pro division, then they had the Master's division,
which is basically older pros, and then they had the
Legends division, which is super old pros.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Like me, but Legends is better than senior.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Well legends, Yeah, I feel like I'd rather be considered
legend that I'm master.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
But at the same time, and also the Master's division,
like those guys are still pretty much pro skaters, so
I wouldn't have wanted to be in that division anyway.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
It's like like those guys who are younger and faster,
and it's more like I would say, it would be
more like the pros are sort of thirty and under,
the masters were like thirty to forty five ish.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Right, and then all of those old legends.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah. I mean, I love the idea.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Is there any generational kind of get off my lawn
part of it like, do you look at kids who
are coming up now and the boards are better and
the helmets are better in the.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
I would say there's a sense of jealousy that they
have the resources to, let's say, try their first nine
hundred into a phone pit.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
I would have loved that. I didn't have that.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
But would you have got to be a legend if
you if you landed foam, you're never a line.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Yeah, but I would have maybe kept my front teeth.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Did you think you've spent a lot of money on
dental bills over the years.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
Yeah, yeah I did.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Let's say I knocked my front teeth out when I
was ten or eleven, that was my first being injury,
and then knock them out about five times.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Since no kind of mouthguard you can wear or something
like that, you could.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
I mean, I think I've passed that time in my life. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
But also the cool thing and I and I say
this lot, but the cool thing about getting new teeth
that you get.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
To pick the size and the color.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So where you're losing this wing is yeah, so where
do you think it goes?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Now? Then it's a sport. I don't even know if
I buy that it's a sport.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Well, I think it's more than the definition.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Sure, if that's if you're looking at the competitive side
of it. But also there's just this whole counterculture art
form to skateboarding that has no interest in competing. So
I feel like it's a it's a big umbrella.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
It is, I suppose the closest thing.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I mean, it's nothing like this physically, but it's kind
of like golf in the sense that some people play
it and it's really important to them to win, and
some people play it and they play against themselves and.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
They play or they or just to be social, right,
that's who they hang out with, ya. I mean there
is there is a whole population of skaters that are
like my age that they love to go skate curbs
Sunday morning, eight am.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
That's their crew.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
They go and skate the grocery store curbs because they're
painted red and they can grind and and it's low
impact and that. Yeah, but my style is so steeped
in what we call transition that I'm pretty clunky on curves,
Like it's probably more dangerous for me to skate a
curb honestly than the fourteen foot ramp.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
And do you still have a ramp at home.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I have that the ramp that you saw on documentary
that side. I was riding that yesterday. Really yeah, so
you are by that's my happy place?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Oh yeah, absolutely So like if you have you have
a ride with your wife or something, you're like a
you go out there.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
And I would say, it's definitely my way to center myself.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yes, what happens if you can't get on the ramp,
you can't go on the board.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
We'll let you know when I get there.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
He's never going to happen.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I'm sure it'll happen. Maybe they'll Maybe I'll just get
a smaller.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Ramp, get a smaller ramp, or maybe just start wearing
more foam where.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
To get foam suit? That might be a good look.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Do you think that like the journey that skateboarding has made,
Do you think it's good? Do you think it's good
for it? Do you think it's healthier now than it
was then? It's much healthier now than it was then.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Really, I mean there's definitely the naysayers that say, like, oh,
all this corporate.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Because there is a lot of corporate yah, a corporate.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Involvement, and and we don't belong in the Olympics, sell
out and blah blah. But I still think the core
of skateboarding is what it always has been, and that
is a self expression and something that is very creative,
very innovative, but also so diverse that you can't define
it as just one thing.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yeah, I it beats me.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I don't know how to define it, but I am
shocked by the not shocked, I'm impressed and delighted at
how different the mindset is.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
From one border to the next. It's a very individual.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
And I think that it's even more diverse and inclusive
now than it used to be. I mean the mindset.
To be a skater in the days that I started,
you had to be very committed to it and almost
like obsessed with it to the point where you didn't
do anything else or know anything else because it just
wasn't accepted, and so you had to be stubborn and
(32:57):
very resilient to all the criticism.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Yet from the outside people.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Stubborn thing is quite it's quite in the obsession that
you kind of need. I have a friend who became
a very very very successful guitarist, and he started when
he was very young, obviously, and he said, you have
to be obsessed enough. The expression he used was to
achieve escape velocity. That you have to be so obsessive
you have to like go to it four hours a
(33:23):
day when you're like twelve years old in order to
get that to make it become something else.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
So you know.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
The ten thousand hours, Yeah idea?
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Is that what they say ten thousand dollars on the board?
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (33:36):
I mean that's what they say about anything is become
an experience play. Yeah, put it in ten thousand hours.
But I think that I never thought of it that way.
It was just I was obsessed with it. It was as
soon as soon as the school bell rang, I had
to figure out how to get to the skate park,
and I would be there until either it closed or
my mom got off work. She worked at a community
college as a night teacher. So I had that going
(33:59):
for me that it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
You still feel that way?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Is there still a moment in the day like if
you talk to me and everything, I'm tired of this
guy is just really like to go.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
On the bowl.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
No, but it's but it's definitely, let's just put it
this way.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
It's much more scheduled for me now where I know
the guy have this window of the day and I
better get there or I'm gonna it's gonna pass me by.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Right, So you get there and then you get to
the early board special at the Legends of Skateboarding restaurants.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
You're onto something there, all right, Tony, it's a joy
to talk to you. Thanks very much.
Hello, mydeas. The Joy Podcast will be taking the holidays off.
I hope you can too and have a lovely time
however you like to spend it, and with whomever you
like to spend it with. We'll be back on January
the fourteenth with the Lovely Lisa Lobe. That's more alliteration
than I thought I was going to have when I
(00:20):
started talking today. But there you are, the Lovely Lisa
Lobe on the fourteenth of January, and have a lovely
holiday time, my friends. Be careful, stay safe, see you soon.
My name is Craig Ferguson. This podcast is called Joy.
It's not rocket science. I talk to people I like
(00:41):
about their pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Here's Tony Hawk, a legend, an icon, maybe the icon
of the skateboard world.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Enjoy. How are you feeling about the way? Are you
all right? Like a thank you?
Speaker 4 (01:01):
That seemed like a much more loaded question, But no,
I yeah, I broke my leg by a year ago.
And yes, finally, yes, I went through a false start
the first time because I got back too soon and
the impact forced my bone to never reconnect.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Evil, evil shit going on.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
I mean, in hindsight, it's regrettable. It's embarrassing, but I
also was in denial of it. I thought that I
was just going through a harder time. So about eight
months into my recovery, I realized that it wasn't getting
any better. I wasn't improving in terms of what I
could do physically, And I went and got X rays
and realized that the bone was actually further apart than
(01:45):
it had been post surgery, And went and got it
realigned with a specialist and waited, and that was that
was the key.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Just wait, do you have a Do you have a
different pain threshold to normal humans?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Have you ever had it tested?
Speaker 4 (01:59):
No, but it's it's definitely been noted by by others
and friends and things, And well, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I watched till the wheels come off, and I was
looking at the spells that you were taking or what
do you see?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I don't know there's right terminology because I'm not spell right.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Spell slams? Sure, all right?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Or falls or maybe all our peas like I see
some of the hurt.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
You say bail. If you see bail, then that's more intentional.
And what you were seeing there was definitely no one
was intentional.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, they were like, but even from the FOA when
you were a little kid, like everything just like slamming
into this.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Thing over and over and over again, you get immune
to it.
Speaker 5 (02:40):
Is that it's not immune.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
It's more that there's an acceptance that comes with it, right,
that I need to endure this for the sake of progression,
and so that that has always been my attitude, and
so I didn't I didn't mind it so much. Sometimes
it's worse than others, but not that often. I mean,
there's there's sort of this I guess it's more like
when you you choose a life of skateboarding, there's sort
(03:02):
of a level of pain that you know there's always
going to be low lying.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Like all the time. But see, I envy you very much.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Not about the money and drugs and famous I've had
enough of that.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
But but you knew your thing and you have your thing.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It's not like it was ever in any question because
you said right there you chose a life of skateboarding,
or you didn't say you chose it, but you used
that expression.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Do you think you chose you?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Because like your dad at that point as well, because
your dad was heavily involved in there.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah, that's a good question. I would say that I
chose a life of skateboarding early on, even when it
was not there was no path to success because no
one had carved that path yet, right, But I love
what it provided me, So I just loved skating. But
I would say later on there was a sense of
skateboarding chose me in that suddenly people were asking me
(03:53):
to sort of be the spokesperson.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah, and I was.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Willing to do it, but it wasn't what I aspire to.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
What did you expire to at the beginning?
Speaker 5 (04:02):
Just keep learning new tricks?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It was.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
It was pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
But it's a funny thing though, because I mean, like
you're one of those people that's really difficult to have
a conversation with. It's recorded not because you're difficult, but
because the people that are into your thing are so
messianic about your thing that if I say the wrong
word instead of spill, I say or slam, I say
spill or like, people get fucking crazy about it.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
And it's kind of say less now than before I
understand what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yea, But it was funny.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Watched it because I thought that the documentary about you
and a lot of your contemporaries.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Till the wheels come off, that's what it's called.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Right till the wheels fall off, till wiels fall off?
Right seesad come off fall off.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I've seen that actually in Prince. Yeah, don't worry about that.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So, but I was watching it and because I'm not, like,
I'm not in that world. I mean I know of it,
but I'm not inside it. And the athleticism and the
grace and the style and the craziness of all of that.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
What you do is obvious.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
To anyone, even a casual glance. But what I wasn't
expecting to see is first of all, the development of
the world. I mean, like you were, that's like being
around at the start of golf or something.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
In a lot of ways. And then you, and I.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Think mulleins as well, a very a very strong sense
of I don't really think it's about the board, and
it hasn't been about the board for a long time.
I feel like it's it's something else. It's like a
search for grace. It's like the way guys climb mountains
or something.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Yeah, I would agree with you there.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
I think that, especially with Rodney and I, we were
so hyper focused on new moves, new tricks, and we
didn't know what the goal of that was. It just
fed us. So we would we learned new chick and
then move on to the next one, move on to
the next one. And we didn't really think about that
we were creating any sort of movement.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
We just had to do it.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
And then as we got older, that became you know,
there's an argument that became more of a curse than
a blessing because we keep chasing it to our detriment.
Where even Rodney, I mean you see him now, Like,
let's put it this way. Rodney walks through an airport
and people come up with courtesy carts, So do you
need a ride?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Really?
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Yeah, that's the truth.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Do you know what I mean? Like people do that
to me too. But skap Forard.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Because he walks with with such pain, right, but he
will skate for three to four hours every single night
on his own.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
That's interesting. So he's more comfortable skating than walking.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
There, Absolutely, yeah, you that way too.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Still, I would say before I got hurt, yes, now
I definitely have a little more hesitation in my skating
because I should.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
I'm still on the healing path.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
But yeah, also, like everybody else, you get older.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
You get older, sure, but I feel like I think
what wasn't really talked about in that documentary because it's
nuanced and it's more my personal thing is that my
style has changed quite a bit in the last ten
years in that I'm more focused on low impact skating.
And I know what you saw there was pretty crazy
and I did some crazy stuff and whatever, but really
(07:15):
my focus, especially with tricks, has been more technical, and
so it's more like board maneuvering and stuff that just
is on the top of the ramp as opposed to
ten feet above it.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So it's funny because I don't you can see the
athlanticism of it, but I don't understand how it's done.
It's like you if I watch someone play golf, it
swim even you know what I mean. It's like, I
know how it's done, but like I've watched what you
do and what Mullins does and what all these other
guys do. I'm like, I don't even know where you
start with that, you know, I mean, but you've you've
(07:47):
created I mean, you personally as well with the foundation,
have moved into this idea, like expanded it.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
There's how many parks have you put together now?
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Uh, well, we've helped a fund over seven hundred wow,
over the last twenty years. And I mean that's my
proudest work. And that stems from my experience at the
skate park as a kid, because I got very lucky
in that one of the last parks in the US
happened to be in San Diego, pretty close to where
I lived. And that was never lost on me that
(08:18):
I had that place to go and I had that
sense of community and I had that support group there.
I mean, yes, it was my training ground, but it
was also just this place of belonging.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
It was like where the kids went.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
It was I mean it was you found me there
at all hours until they closed when school was out.
But when I had a sense of success in a
way to sort of help I don't know that the
industry or the skaters. That was my first go to
was I want to provide more skate parks because all
these kids feel disenfranchised. They love skating and they're told
(08:51):
not to do it because it's on public property or.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
A pyro property and it's nusance in it and whatever else.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
But it's like, but they found something it speaks to them,
and that I think is a healthy outlet.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
What do you think it would have hammed to you
if if you hadn't found skating or it hadn't found you.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
I think I would have just been doing something really
tech oriented because I was really fascinated with technology also
my teenage years and I mean still to this day.
But I was an early adopter, like I had one
of the first nonlinear video editing systems, and.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Really I did because I thought, I guess the answer
I was kind of expected was that you would have
been lost without it, But it doesn't.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
See, I probably wouldn't have felt as rich for sure,
that I wouldn't have felt as validated or or felt
like there was something that I could do that really
fed what I needed in terms of creativity wise, right,
And so maybe doing video projects or something would have
(09:54):
touched on that a bit, but I don't think it
would have provided the same.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It's an interesting form of creativity as well, doing you know,
creating tricks on a board. I mean it's like painting
with something that nobody's painted with until.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Orteen seventy or something.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Or did you do you think anyone will appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Well, yeah, I think people do.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
But I just say, what back then, especially with the creation,
like with Rodney and I, when we were doing all
these tricks, it was kind of considered a circus act.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, it's got a better that in it, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I mean when you guys was doing the tours with
the you know, standing up in the arena with the
you know, the ramps and the motorbikes, and that's a
little bit of a travel in circus, isn't it a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Of for sure? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
But what I'm saying is is in our world, skating
was a pretty small community. We were the outcast of
that community because all we cared about was tricks. Everyone
else cared about right style and how much air they get.
And so Rodney and I were these outcasts, like we
were outcasts in an outcast activity, and so we didn't
think there was any sort of there would be any
(10:57):
accolades in that.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
We just love doing it, do you know.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
For a while I worked with Mick Jagger on writing
a screenplay that never happened. But because I was doing it,
I was on tour with the Rolling Stones for a
while and I got to see up close how the
rolling stones work. And I was watching Keith Richards, who
you remind me of a little bit, because he would
be quite happy if he was playing that guitar in
(11:22):
a shitty blues band in a pub in London, Fine,
doesn't matter. Or if he's playing the enormo dome in
San Diego, doesn't fucking matter. It's playing the guitar that cats.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah. And is that the same for you on the board?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, So even when when you were doing the like
when things were nutty, when you're like you have your
own playing and you you know, like the crowds are
crazy and the money's nuts and stuff like that, was
it all still focused on the board.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Is that what kept you out of the druggy drinking one?
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Yeah, I believe so.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I mean I definitely had my own vices and distractions
through the crazy years, but always the priority was skating.
And I think that even in my youth, when in
the eighties when we thought we were having unparalleled success
and we were doing all, you know, we were doing
some TV stuff and movie stuff, I was always really
focused on the skating because I saw my peers, some
(12:17):
of them get distracted and get caught up in the
hype and and get hooked on drugs, right, and then
they lost their abilities. And it was like that was
my very first example, like, don't don't go to that, Right,
That's what I thought.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I mean, it's not something you can do when you're high.
Is get on a board or is it?
Speaker 5 (12:34):
I don't know, maybe for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Right, did you ever like, do you ever give demonstrations
you ever you know, get on the board and do
crazy shit when you were messed up?
Speaker 3 (12:44):
No? I think, my.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
It's funny.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I remember the skate PARKY grew up at. People would
smoke weed in the parking lot. Not everyone, but some.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Oh come on, everybody, it's California, the whole states.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Well I was pretty young too, so I remember one
day I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go join the crew,
and then I came back to skate and I just
couldn't get it together. I couldn't, you know, Everything was
my timing was off. I kept almost almost we call
hanging out, which means like locking up on the coping
where your board sticks, right, And I just thought, Okay,
I can't, I can't do that. That doesn't work for me,
(13:17):
and drinking is just out of the question, right, and
you're skating.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
So I think that was I think I'm beginning to
figure out why I never get into skateboard. But it's
kind of interesting though, because it is that is a
real kind of positive thing. If you're talking about all
these skate parts for kids, if you can't do it
properly when you're twisted on booze and elk or in drugs, right,
you're kind of helping people stay away from it a
(13:41):
little bit.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
I mean, I for sure there is the contingent that
they equate partying with, of course skateboarding, and they do it,
and honestly it's probably more of a short lived thing,
but that's their life. I can't I'm not trying to
have some just say no campaign skate parts wore that.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
It's more that we want to provide them outlet.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, because when you started, it was basically it was
just dried out swimming pools, right, that was at the beginning.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Yeah, I got in at the tail end of that.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
So the Dogtown and Z Boys, I knew of that
crew as I started, but they were already as far
as I was concerned, much older.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Well as the evolution of it, if you can take
me through it a little bit. So that dog Town
was is that the very beginning.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
The beginning has has there's how it began.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
But basically, the first skateboard, it is said, was a
roller skate that was dismantled the trucks and wheels were
nailed onto a two by four, right, and that was
a skateboard. And then a lot of the Southern California
people took that as that surfing on a sidewalk, right,
So then they started developing actually shaped boards out of
(14:47):
fiberglass and wood like surfboards were made, right, And then
they were trying to emulate surfing. Once the big drought
hit in the seventies in southern California, all these swimming
pools were dry, and the surfers saw that, oh, that
looks like a wave, and that's how we.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
How it got to Do you surf? Do? I do?
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Yeah? But not as actively.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
And the reason I got into skateboarding because my older
brother was a hardcore surfer, and so he got into
skateboarding by default, because that was if you lived in
Southern California, you surfed in the seventies, you started skating
and that's how I got my first skateboard. Was his
hand me down.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Oh wow, he must be very happy for you.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
He's very happy that he can school me in surfing.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Still, that's what he's happy about.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Well, it's funny that you're you're a lot younger than
your nearest sibling, right.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Yeah, he's thirteen years older than me.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
My son, my youngest son, is nine and a half
years younger than his older brother. And I was watching
the energy of you as a young Kiad. It reminded
me very much like my own son is very like that,
like a kind of sixty pound psychopath. Really, I mean
just like And I had one of those two. Yeah,
they're kind of amazing. I think there's something to do
(16:07):
with being light as well. See I was a husky
little kid. Yeah, so if I fail, it really hard. Right,
if you were sixty pounds and you fall, I think
it hurts less.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Maybe, But I think the light and fearless is a
scary combination.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, that's definitely I had.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
I had one of the We have several children between
my wife and I, but there was one that was
we called him a pixie. Yeah, but he would try anything,
but almost to the point where he had no sense
of mortality.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, well kids are kind of like that a little bit.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
Yeah, but he was off, he was on a different
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Do you think that you were more cautious like as
a parent because you had gone through all of those
injuries and that the creation of.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
That world, as that world is forming.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
I would say that I probably leaned more towards the
other side of it in my early years of parenting
because I was young. I was I was twenty four
when my son was more and and I was just
joining him doing stuff and getting him into skateboarding, and
you know, he's going down big ramps and I'm pushing
him into waves, and it was just more like, oh,
I have this friend to do the stuff with. And
(17:10):
it wasn't. I was trying to keep him safe as well.
But I did think that he had a pretty good
sense of his limitations, right, and I was thankful for that.
It wasn't until I had other kids that I realized, oh,
they don't all have that Alva gene.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
It's funny that when you become a parent, and just
as you get older as well, because I was different.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
From my older boy than I was with the younger one.
But they are different too. They are.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Yes, there's a lot of nurture and nature.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, what do you think, like because your dad was
very supportive to you, at least at least I took
that for the documentary that you and your dad were
closed and he was very supportive. But the world was forming.
The competitive Is it competitive? I guess it's competitive, yeah,
competitive skateboarding. But when I looked at that, the thing
when you first got to do the nine hundred, right
(17:54):
or when you finally cracked how many times did you.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Do that that day? That ex game to get to that?
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Now that I think that day was eleven or twelve
or something. But it's funny that people focused in on
that because there were plenty of other days where I
tried it dozens of.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Times, right, but did you get it? Though? You didn't
get it?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Why that's why they focused because the day you get
it is that's the day right?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Right?
Speaker 4 (18:18):
But you know what I mean, Like that was a
relatively short duration of attimes for as far as I
was concerned, Right, So when people say you tried to
let tones, like, yeah, there was nothing. I tried hundreds
of times before that, like thousands of times.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
But something like the nine hundred, which I'm not quite
sure why it's I don't know why it's called the
nine hundred.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Why is it called.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's the degrees of spin, right, So it goes around
and a half two and a half, right, so two
and a half times in the air and then land.
You envist each that in your head first, and you
go through it in your head and you create you
like a like a paint or does or a movie
director does or.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Yeah, eventually I did that.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
When I first started trying it, it was almost ten
years prior to that event, and I really didn't know
how to spin around that far, how to balance my
body so that I could be in the position to
get back down on the ramp, So I didn't quite
have the vision then. It wasn't until a few years
later when I actively started trying it and started figuring
(19:17):
out that I could possibly get close. That's when I
started visualizing it, and that's when the chase got accelerated,
because I was just all in on this trick.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Right, So you you understood that it was possible for you, Yes,
And the idea of as you're falling, as a human
being is falling through space and you're still having a twist,
and you're going to you have an appointment to make
with the board. You're going to have to You're going
to have to meet that appointment or it's going to
hart or you're going to be embarrassed.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Are you just not going to make the trick?
Speaker 1 (19:45):
That?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Does the time slow it down? Can you slow it
down and think your way through it? Or is it
not possible to consciously go through the trick? Does it
have to be you know, like automatic?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Does it have to be?
Speaker 4 (19:59):
That's a really good question. And I don't say that
time slows down. It's more that there's a bunch of
elements that have to come together, and you know it
as soon as you take off that this one has
all those pieces.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Right, So there you take off, as you take off
going to make I would say more often than not,
you don't have all those pieces.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
So you take off immediately knowing this one's not going
to work. But you have to go through the motion
of it, because to take off in that position with
that much speed and not spin all the way through
is the most dangerous thing you can do. So you
just have to commit to commit to to So what
I'm saying is a few times I've done it where
it didn't happen that day at X Games, but it happens.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
It's happened to be before and after that.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
If I don't get a hold of my board, I
have to commit my body to that full spin because
of what I've the position I put.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
It in on the on the takeoff.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
And I learned that the hard way because a couple
of times I didn't get my board got away from
me and I just stopped and all of a sudden,
I was like, oh shit, I'm in space. I have
no idea where the ramp is and where is it?
And then I hit on my back. Yeah, and then
that's the worst case scenario. So I learned that even
if it's not gonna work, just go through the motion
of it.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And does it feel like does it feel like there's
anything you can do? Like if you go off and
you go no everything to see here? But if I
just do then.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
You definitely Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I mean there's plenty of there's plenty of that in
our cavalier attitude towards tricks, but also in that moment,
if you're in competition, you're gonna try to make it
no matter what. Right, So that's another we call them
hail Mary's. It's like you're gonna just throw it down
because this is the time it has to happen. And
if you're gonna crash, it should be now, do you
(21:45):
know what I mean? Like, if you're ever gonna get
destroyed on this trick, because you committed to it, it
should be in this format.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Right, so at least stay within the bones of the trick.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Sure, right, yeah, I get it if you had been
involved in the sport now, like if you were, like
Tony Hawk is twelve years old today and you're getting
involved in it does the sport and I say to you,
you have to wear this, you have to wear these,
this protecularly fit you have.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
It's still the same as it was.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
No, it's it's so when I was growing up, the
only way you could have any sense of success in
skateboarding was to compete, right, that's it. There was no YouTube,
there's no social media. The magazines were not going to
cover you unless you went to this big event and
probably did well. Even if you were doing new tricks
and not placing. They don't care about that. Right Now,
(22:34):
skating is of age it's way more diverse. You can
enter skateboarding and never have to compete and still be
one of the most successful skaters that's ever been.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Because you can do videos and.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
You could have your you could have your your you know,
you could have your big solt, you could be an
influencer and a skater and it's just a totally different
It is because of how much it permeated mainstream culture
in that skateboarding is just more of an accepted form
of art or sport or activity, whatever you want to
call it.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
What is it to you?
Speaker 4 (23:07):
To me, it's yeah, it's it's it's a lifestyle, it's
a sport, it's an art form.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
But to me, it's it's my salvation.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
That's what I was going to say. It's it's almost
like I got I sensed that from you.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
I find what you were saying is is like, would
you have to conform to some sort of team, sport
or uniform or or something like that, well, or equipment
if your goals me in the Olympics, Yes, that's your
path and that's what you're going to have to adhere to.
But you can just do it in your own voice,
in your own style and still make a go.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Of it, right.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
What about the idea if it was an Olympic sport
when you were a kid, do you think you would
have gone that way?
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Do you think you do? Sure, because that was that
was the only.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
But doesn't that say I don't know how it's graded
in the Olympics. Can you bring a new trick to
an Olympics? Yes, So it's kind of like gymnastics. You go,
here's something nobody's ever done before. Yeah, and people go, okay, wow,
you get your tans out of tans?
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Yeah, and well, and also the judges are all well
versed in skateboarding obviously, right, and for them to see
something new is going to probably they're probably going to
overscore you for it, right, because they just didn't expect it.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Right?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Does it form like a routine? Like if you I
don't know how the sports graded in the Olympics.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
So the format of Olympics is not any different really
than what you probably saw in the documentary or in
other skate events. You have a time to run and
you are judged on your difficulty factor, the speed you kept,
how you use the course.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
And your consistency. The basic elements of it are all
the same.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It's funny though that talking about it as a spot.
I mean, there are guys who were interviewed.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
During the documentary.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
When I watched it, I thought, this guy's with a
neck tattoos is never going to go to the Olympics.
He doesn't, he's not even interested in watching there.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
And that was in my day.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Skating was so counterculture that it was it was akin
to punt crop music.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
We're not going to fit in. We're doing it our way.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
For that's why I always associated with it, that it
was like a punk thing.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Sure, and in that respect, there's extreme versions of that
where it's like we don't want to do anything that
is considered mainstream or whatnot. But then if you I
was so young, I didn't really understand all of that narrative,
maybe right, And I just loved what skateboarding was, even
though it was different and it made me an outcast
at school and you know, it was just not the
(25:29):
coolest thing to do. I just love doing it. But
also I love the idea that I got to compete
with all these people that were that liked the same thing.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Right, And it does seem quite supportive in an odd
way that people are you know they're competitive, but not
competitive in a way that you want to bring the
other guy down.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
It's just like I can't believe.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, and I think and I also think that shines
through in the Olympic coverage, right I saw. I mean,
if you're talking about like I got to go to Tokyo
and a good example was the women's park event. There
was one one girl that was absolutely the favorite to win,
you know, without question, if she would have made her
whole routine, She's going to win this thing. And she
just kept missing this one trick and she finally almost
(26:12):
got it at the end, but still missed it. She
ended up getting third and when the whole when the
competition was over and they gave out the awards, all
of the other girls lifted her up on their shoulders
and carried her out of the venue.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I mean, what other sport could you think of at
the Olympics where they're, yeah, they're all celebrating the third
place person because they thought she was going to be
the best.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
And that she tried. Do you get an amount of
attempts and then I.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Guess just with no, not with that, that's that one.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
It's a I believe it's a forty second routine, right
that forty seconds that's it.
Speaker 5 (26:48):
If you fall in the middle of it, you're out.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
So the idea of doing eleven attempts at nine hundred
is not going to exist.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
And you're never going to see that in the Olympics.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
No, right, no, not at all.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
But you are going to see the X game still, right, Yes,
I hope.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
So, yeah, I hope that format continues.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Are you gonna keep skating until the wheels come off?
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I mean that wasn't my quote, by the way, though.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah, in a sense, I think that I've definitely gotten
a better perspective on my limitations through this last injury
I had, and that I don't expect to come back
fully one hundred percent and get back to the exact
same type of skating I was doing before this happened.
But I can find some happy medium there, and I
can find something that where I'm still considered a professional.
(27:36):
I could still probably put out content or whatever it is,
of some sort of progress in skating, but I'm not
moving the needle necessarily.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
It's just more of that. There's more personal goals.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Can you envision the time like you know what I
need to do the senior pgator.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Sure, that's already that already exists.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Right, so you get like a yellow jacket. It's funny.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
It's funny because they're having a few events in recent years.
In fact, there was one in particular called bol Rama
in Bondai in Australia.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
And they had this big bowl Evan every year.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
They had the Pro division, then they had the Master's division,
which is basically older pros, and then they had the
Legends division, which is super old pros.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Like me, but Legends is better than senior.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Well legends, Yeah, I feel like I'd rather be considered
legend that I'm master.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
But at the same time, and also the Master's division,
like those guys are still pretty much pro skaters, so
I wouldn't have wanted to be in that division anyway.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
It's like like those guys who are younger and faster,
and it's more like I would say, it would be
more like the pros are sort of thirty and under,
the masters were like thirty to forty five ish.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Right, and then all of those old legends.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah. I mean, I love the idea.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Is there any generational kind of get off my lawn
part of it like, do you look at kids who
are coming up now and the boards are better and
the helmets are better in the.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
I would say there's a sense of jealousy that they
have the resources to, let's say, try their first nine
hundred into a phone pit.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
I would have loved that. I didn't have that.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
But would you have got to be a legend if
you if you landed foam, you're never a line.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Yeah, but I would have maybe kept my front teeth.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Did you think you've spent a lot of money on
dental bills over the years.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
Yeah, yeah I did.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Let's say I knocked my front teeth out when I
was ten or eleven, that was my first being injury,
and then knock them out about five times.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Since no kind of mouthguard you can wear or something
like that, you could.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
I mean, I think I've passed that time in my life. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
But also the cool thing and I and I say
this lot, but the cool thing about getting new teeth
that you get.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
To pick the size and the color.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So where you're losing this wing is yeah, so where
do you think it goes?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Now? Then it's a sport. I don't even know if
I buy that it's a sport.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Well, I think it's more than the definition.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Sure, if that's if you're looking at the competitive side
of it. But also there's just this whole counterculture art
form to skateboarding that has no interest in competing. So
I feel like it's a it's a big umbrella.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
It is, I suppose the closest thing.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I mean, it's nothing like this physically, but it's kind
of like golf in the sense that some people play
it and it's really important to them to win, and
some people play it and they play against themselves and.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
They play or they or just to be social, right,
that's who they hang out with, ya. I mean there
is there is a whole population of skaters that are
like my age that they love to go skate curbs
Sunday morning, eight am.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
That's their crew.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
They go and skate the grocery store curbs because they're
painted red and they can grind and and it's low
impact and that. Yeah, but my style is so steeped
in what we call transition that I'm pretty clunky on curves,
Like it's probably more dangerous for me to skate a
curb honestly than the fourteen foot ramp.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
And do you still have a ramp at home.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I have that the ramp that you saw on documentary
that side. I was riding that yesterday. Really yeah, so
you are by that's my happy place?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Oh yeah, absolutely So like if you have you have
a ride with your wife or something, you're like a
you go out there.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
And I would say, it's definitely my way to center myself.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yes, what happens if you can't get on the ramp,
you can't go on the board.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
We'll let you know when I get there.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
He's never going to happen.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I'm sure it'll happen. Maybe they'll Maybe I'll just get
a smaller.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Ramp, get a smaller ramp, or maybe just start wearing
more foam where.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
To get foam suit? That might be a good look.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Do you think that like the journey that skateboarding has made,
Do you think it's good? Do you think it's good
for it? Do you think it's healthier now than it
was then? It's much healthier now than it was then.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Really, I mean there's definitely the naysayers that say, like, oh,
all this corporate.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Because there is a lot of corporate yah, a corporate.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Involvement, and and we don't belong in the Olympics, sell
out and blah blah. But I still think the core
of skateboarding is what it always has been, and that
is a self expression and something that is very creative,
very innovative, but also so diverse that you can't define
it as just one thing.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yeah, I it beats me.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I don't know how to define it, but I am
shocked by the not shocked, I'm impressed and delighted at
how different the mindset is.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
From one border to the next. It's a very individual.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
And I think that it's even more diverse and inclusive
now than it used to be. I mean the mindset.
To be a skater in the days that I started,
you had to be very committed to it and almost
like obsessed with it to the point where you didn't
do anything else or know anything else because it just
wasn't accepted, and so you had to be stubborn and
(32:57):
very resilient to all the criticism.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Yet from the outside people.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Stubborn thing is quite it's quite in the obsession that
you kind of need. I have a friend who became
a very very very successful guitarist, and he started when
he was very young, obviously, and he said, you have
to be obsessed enough. The expression he used was to
achieve escape velocity. That you have to be so obsessive
you have to like go to it four hours a
(33:23):
day when you're like twelve years old in order to
get that to make it become something else.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
So you know.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
The ten thousand hours, Yeah idea?
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Is that what they say ten thousand dollars on the board?
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (33:36):
I mean that's what they say about anything is become
an experience play. Yeah, put it in ten thousand hours.
But I think that I never thought of it that way.
It was just I was obsessed with it. It was as
soon as soon as the school bell rang, I had
to figure out how to get to the skate park,
and I would be there until either it closed or
my mom got off work. She worked at a community
college as a night teacher. So I had that going
(33:59):
for me that it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
You still feel that way?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Is there still a moment in the day like if
you talk to me and everything, I'm tired of this
guy is just really like to go.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
On the bowl.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
No, but it's but it's definitely, let's just put it
this way.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
It's much more scheduled for me now where I know
the guy have this window of the day and I
better get there or I'm gonna it's gonna pass me by.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Right, So you get there and then you get to
the early board special at the Legends of Skateboarding restaurants.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
You're onto something there, all right, Tony, it's a joy
to talk to you. Thanks very much.
Host
Craig Ferguson
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