September 9, 2024 • 35 mins
As Gen X kids, as soon as we could walk we wanted to ride. Looking for adventure - rollin' around on Tonka trucks, Big Wheels, skateboards and rollerblades. All of it culminating with the ultimate freedom of crusing the neighborhood seated high atop our first banana seat without training wheels. We ruled the streets. Let's roll!
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Episode Transcript
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I'm Tony. I'm Eric. We are the sons of San Fernando.But we've been friends for over 40 years. And
grew up together in the San Fernando Valley.These are the stories of our experiences as
adventurous Gen X latchkey slackers from backin the day. And don't forget to hit the follow
or subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.I mean, was there a steakhouse by us? that
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we used to go to, that you used to visit, likein the Valley, was there a Valley steakhouse?
Not, I mean, there's the places that have beenaround for a long time, like Taylor's, nothing
in the Valley. There was nowhere you could skateboardto? No, no. In the Valley, on your... No, but
I never skateboarded, I have to admit. I wasnot a skateboarder. You know what's interesting,
I started skateboarding as an adult becausemy parents wouldn't let me have a skateboard.
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Why? Well, let me tell you, I don't know whythey wouldn't let me. Maybe it's because we
lived on a hill and I was going to break myneck. You know what? Now that I think about
it, the hill that you lived on, yeah, becauseyou're up on Corbett, like if you if you started
on a skateboard, which Helmut Weissmuller did,who lived up the street for me and he broke
his frickin collarbone. Well, there you go.Skateboarding down Van Alden. There you go.
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Well, that's why your parents were smart anddidn't give you a skateboard. And I'm saying
Helmut Weissmuller broke his collarbone. Let'sjust say your street was the equivalent of
like ski jump in terms of like how steep itwas. Both Corbin and Van Alvin. Yeah, exactly.
Super, super steep. And I used to get, I usedto take, do you remember the Kick and Go? You
of course you remember. Oh, we had a Kick andGo. You had a Kick and Go? My brother. I had
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a Kick and Go too. My brother had a, wait, aKick and Go too? Cause there were not all the
stuff. Hold on, hold on. I had a Kick and Goas well. Cause there was. Which was the Kick
and Go too? Hold on, let me describe my Kickand Go. Tell me if it was the Kick and Go one
or the Kick and Go two. Okay. My Kick and Gowas blue and black. and silver and it had the
black grip and it had a brake. It had a brakeon the right side grip, little hand brake.
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I don't remember if the brake was attached tothe rear wheel or the front wheel. I think
it was the rear wheel. It was? I think thatwas the brake. Oh no, I don't, you know what,
I'm not sure about that. Because wasn't therea kick and go that you like pushed down on
the back of the wheel and it like that stoppedyou with your foot? Maybe that, oh that might
have been a real early model. Maybe, okay, butthen, so there was a hand brake. Yeah. Or a
finger brake, whatever, and then there was thekicker. the accelerator, if you will. It was
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an accelerator. It was like a little T-bar.So that's it. So today we have the Lime scooters
and the, you know, the automatic, yeah, right?Talk about that bullshit. Yeah, but that's
what I'm saying is like those things, if youjust changed. You took all those scooters and
shrunk them down. No, got rid of them and changedthem all to kick and goes. Oh, so leave kick
and goes on the street for people to take around?That's a good idea. Because you know what?
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We would get rid of obesity. Well, people wouldhave one really strong leg. Whatever your kicking
leg is, you would have a great quad. Oh, I seeyou're a lefty. You got that giant left quad
from a kick and go. Is it true what they sayabout you lefty? But that was an amazing way
to get around, because you had to work at it,but that kick action. Wait, hold on. Just pause
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for a moment. It was an amazing game. I'm goingto address the idea that it was an amazing
way to get around that you just asserted. Becauselet me tell you, let me tell you, it was the
most inefficient means of propulsion ever designed.You literally could push one push. like a conventional
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scooter, like the newer conventional scooters.You had one push like a Razor scooter and you
would go three times as far as you would withlike 28 kicks on that stupid rear little T-bar
kicker. Yeah, but you were getting cardio in,man. No, but here's the beauty of the kicker.
It wasn't that it was an efficient means ofpropulsion because it wasn't. The kick and
go? The kicker on the kick and go. Oh, the kickeron the kick and go, yeah. Here's the thing
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about the kicker on the kick and go, was thateven though it wasn't a means of effective
and efficient propulsion, you never had to putyour foot on the ground. That was the thing.
That was cool. And that was the thing, you werenever scooting. Yeah, you never had to scoot.
So you were kicking. So it was a scooter, butnot, you didn't scoot it. It was... You didn't
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scoot this scooter, you kicked this scooter.You would kick the scooter, and again, not
effective, but fun. Because that's what we didfrom early, early on. I remember scooting.
on different things. But you didn't have a skateboard.But you were on the flat. No, no, no. You were
on the flat land. Why didn't you have a skateboard?Okay, but I start, okay, so I started, like
when I was really little, I remember the veryfirst thing I had was one of those, it was
like a little truck that you would just siton that had like a little steering wheel on
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the top. Okay, yeah. And you just like. Oh yeah,it was a little, and you pushed it with your
feet. And we pushed it with your feet. Whenyou were like two years old. Your feet landed
on the ground, you pushed it. It did steer though.It turned the front wheels. I did steer, yeah.
Yeah, I remember. It was like a little bit bigTonka. Ralph's. Yeah, I was too. Yeah, to Anaheim.
My mom was making me go to the Ralph's in Anaheim.Eric, here's some coupons. I'm going to go
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to the Ralph's in Anaheim and give me some twoply Charmin. Shoot, because the deal was better
there. Right, because the deal was better atthe Anaheim. Ralph's. She wasn't paying for
gas because I was on my little scooter car.You're on your scooter, right? And I was like,
Of course I couldn't talk but it didn't mattershe just pinned a little note to my shirt with
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the coupons and some cash. Right and you showup and you just hand them the coupon Oh yeah
and then I come back with the Charmin And thenyou're in Anaheim Get out of here kid. Is that
what they sounded like? Here's the thing aboutthat I was thinking about this Hey kid, you
went to Charmin it's aisle 15 Only in Anaheimdid they sound like that everywhere else they
were a little more Like they smoked a pack ofCamelnon filters every day? They were smoking
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heavily in Anaheim. They were so close to DisneylandI can see why yeah You know, I was thinking
about this the other day. We, like, if you didn'thave directions, we were talking about, you
know, singing about GPS and stuff. Where didyou go when you didn't have directions? So
you're a little kid. By the way, you just Seinfeldedthat a little bit. Did I? Where did you go?
So where did you go when you didn't have directions?You're going down to Anaheim. Yeah. You don't
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know how to get there, and you don't have aGPS. Where'd you stop? I, at a gas station.
I'll tell you where you stop. Yeah, yeah, afterI'm at a gas station, ask directions and buy
a map. So here's my question. What? gas stationattendants like local genius savant map readers
that they knew how to get everywhere and tellyou because I remember doing that we would
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stop and they'd be like yeah okay you get backon the freeway you take the 605 to the 405
once you're on the 405 you head south how dothey know how to do that they're sitting in
the gas station all day how right how are theygetting around to doing that if you told me
I go to the trucker and ask him. Then that wouldmake sense. I would say I get it. I understand
why he knows how to do that, but why did thegas station attend it? I don't know, at two
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years old, I wasn't stopping at the gas stationto ask. But I did remember, it was something,
I guess my parents must've been really like,conscious. Angry. Consciously angry. We had
a two story house, you had a two story house.I did, you did, we did. But they gave us these
wheeled things, so they had this little wheeledthing to go around on, but I mean. You didn't
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know where to go. No, but I would on the firstlevel but god forbid Yeah, I got my wherewithal
to get that thing up the stairs and then Canyou imagine? Not God forbid, it would have
happened. Yeah. It would have happened, butyou were too big for that thing by the time
you had the wherewithal to do such things. BecauseI'm like, picture, I'm like, I'm like scooting
along and you know, Go flying off the stairs.And then you just go, and then, Slow mo. Bam,
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bam, bam. Bam, bam. Yeah. You know, and thenthe thing is, is that when we did have the
wherewithal, I mean, we slamming into the walland slamming into the handrail. Yeah, you'd
be bloodied and disgusted. And then you'd hitthe bottom and the scooter car would, would
burst into flames like a Tesla. Absolutely,they had some really great lithium ion batteries
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in those scooter trucks, those Tonka scootertrucks. They could do at least 50. 50 what?
You know, when you got the wherewithal to dothings like bring your Tonka truck to the top
of the stairs, we already had kicking goes.And so what I did, and you probably did this
with me at one point, was I would go up to thetop of Corbin, and for some reason, and you
know. You didn't need to kick, you can maybekick to get started. No, you already had the
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hill going. You had the downhill momentum. Youhad gravity. But I remember sitting on the
kick and go, and so I would sit butt on thekick and go and then feet up at the front and
then hold above me to hit like ape hangers.Like ape hangers on a Harley or like a Chopper.
You're holding up like ape hangers and I rememberbeing able to reach that break with my thumb
because my hand was kind of inverted. Yeah,just enough to break, but then you had that
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weird balance. But it would, but you would getgoing so fast and the wheels were so small
that you would twitching like crazy. But youwere seriously aerodynamic because you're like
behind the handlebars. But I don't rememberever damaging myself doing that. But I did
it a million times. Speaking of sitting on thingslike that. I must have been going 633 miles
an hour. Oh, at least, yeah. Just burning upthe tarmac. Yeah, and I think the wheels were
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solid. They weren't even inflatable. They werejust solid rubber wheels. Yeah, like the razors
are like that, I guess, yeah. Well, my brotherdid get a... I don't know how old he was, but
it could have been that old. He must have beenall of like probably seven. seven or eight,
when he got a skateboard. Yeah, oh wait, yourbrother got a skateboard, but you never got
a skateboard? No, I didn't get a skateboard.So my brother got a skateboard, and this is
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like in the, you know. How old, he was seven?I wanna say we were still at the old house
in Recita. Yeah, I don't really care, so hegot the skateboard. Yeah, it was like, I'm
gonna guess somewhere around seven-ish. Okay.But it was one of the, it was the worst fucking
skateboard in the world. It wasn't a skateboard,you were like. It was like a K-Mart skateboard?
Yeah, totally. It was like way too skinny. Oh,the little skinny skateboards. I remember those.
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And the trucks, and it never, like, it tiltedleft and right really easily. So, I have, there's
like Super 8 footage of my brother trying toride this thing, and he'd be on it for like
two seconds, and then it would go, you know,you'd kick with one foot, like you do with,
one would do with a skateboard, and then itwould go shooting off like a missile into the...
Well, but the question is, you saw your brotherdoing this, was it the skateboard that was
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a problem, or did he have no skill? on said,you know, I think the snow combination may
be a combo, but I'm going to give them Davebenefit of the doubt because it was such a
wobbly skateboard. So what we would do is atleast what I would do is I would sit on it.
And that was the way like, sit on a skateboard,because that way if you fell, you only tipped
over and you didn't like, you know, smash yourface into the curb and knock all your teeth
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out. Those mini skateboards became popular againmore recently with the Penny boards. Yeah,
if you know how to ride, but not as your firstskateboard. But they were better, but they
were better than the old ones. And the earlyones were plywood. They were like these garbage,
maybe even particle boards. And they were likeso garbagey. It was like a wobble board. Nobody
could possibly stand on this thing. And you'regiving it to a kid as their first skateboard.
But why didn't you get one? Probably becauseI saw how bad this skateboard. You didn't want
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one? You know, I really never, I went rightto a big wheel. Oh, well wait, before we get
to the big wheel, let me tell you that I didwant a skateboard. And I would not be granted
said skateboard by my parents. And so I decidedthat I- Cause it's a death plank. I decided
I would build my own death plank. Oh, you didnot. From parts in the garage. You pinewood
derby that shit? So I had two older sisterswho were, you know, nine and seven years older
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than me. And they had the only wheels that werein the garage that I had access to, which were
their old skates. And so they had the old...Rower skates? Yeah. Were those like, were they
still rubber wheels or metal? They had the gnarlymetal wheels. They had metal trucks, metal
bottoms, metal trucks, metal wheels. The wholething was metal. I'm not even sure there were
ball bearings in the trucks to the wheels. Imean, they were just, they were garbage. Each
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skate weighed like five pounds. But as a sevenand eight year old, whatever I was, I have
access to what I have access to. So I, and I'mnot kidding, I really did this. I found a hacksaw
that was in the garage and I hacksawed. At seven?Well, I was probably a little older than seven,
but I don't think more than nine. I mean, ninetops, nine at the oldest. You should not be
messing with a hacksaw at nine. Yeah, I dida lot of things, dude. I'll, you know, I got
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a list. So I took a hacksaw and I literallyhacksawed the leather as close as I could to
the bottom of the skate, whatever that. You'rejust trying to get those, the wheel part. The
wheels all I needed was the wheels. So eventuallyI, this is how they fucking love. We had zero
supervision. How was I able to A, get the hacksaw,B, spend that much time with the hacksaw in
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the garage? Your parents were busy with otherthings. Yeah, like what were they, like drug
lords? What were they doing that they had? Well,I hate to tell you this, but. You're gonna
finally tell me the truth about my parents andPablo Escobar. So I got all the, well, I didn't
get all, it was like, it was jagged, but I gotthe tops of the skates. mostly off the shoe
of this gaze. Was there a foot in the shoe atthe time? No, there was no, my sister's feet
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were not. Okay, good, all right. They were empty.I wouldn't put it past you. I got it all off
and then I was like, okay, I gotta attach, soI found a piece of wood. It wasn't even, I
don't know what the wood was. Just a chunk?There was a plank of wood outside on the side
of the house. There was like that dog run overon the side and there was a plank of wood hanging
out there. I took the plank of wood, I'm like,this is it. This is a skateboard deck. And
then you put the wheels on and boom, you madea skateboard. Well yeah, but the thing was
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is I had these, I had four. double because therewere skates. So I hammered. But they're all
gonna go in one direction. It's all one direction.But listen to how I did it. I got nails that
went, there were holes in the bottom of theskate. So I nailed through the board, whatever
this piece of wood was, through the holes inthis bottom of the skate and then bent the
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nails. The nails at the bottom. To kind of holdit in place. Good enough, right? And the whole
thing is like rattling, stay together. And thenI got on it and I couldn't go. It wouldn't
move. It would just basically sit in one spot.But I did put the whole thing together. And
I mean... Do you still have that? Oh dude, Iwish somebody took a picture. I wish I had
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a picture of that thing. But no, I don't knowwhat happened to it. It probably just got dumped.
Yeah, rusty nails and... I mean, that's genius.I should be given some kind of an innovator
award. Well listen, you DIY'd it. I did DIYit. Honestly, that makes sense because a lot
of times, at least at that age, parents weren'tbuying us the things we wanted. So because
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your parents- No, but I did get a big wheel.Okay, but your parents wouldn't buy you a skateboard
so you had to build it. But now we couldn'thave built a big wheel. So, you know, it was
a good thing. We both got big. Every kid gota big wheel. That thing was fucking amazing.
I love that. What was the best part about bigwheel? The brake. Yeah, the handbrake. Yeah,
the handbrake was unreal. You could go down,I would go down my driveway. with the thing
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and then as soon as I hit the street, just pullthis and crank the wheel to the left. Oh well
that's what you do. Because the thing was onthe right, the brake was on the right, crank
the wheel to the left. And it was those hardplastic wheels that they knew, they're like
these need to be able to take like, you know.hold up to literally anything because all kids
are going to do with this is skid. Right. Justrip skids. Because it was literally plastic
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handbrake that literally as you pulled it, likeconnects the lever to the rear wheel and then
just stop to the rear wheel. Hard plastic onhard plastic. And the noise that it made. Oh,
it was great. I could still hear it. You'relike...
Yeah, that was fantastic. That was pure joy.And you would generally, it was on the one
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wheel. So one wheel would just be just totally,Yeah, it was totally, yeah, it was fantastic.
And the other one was like, yeah, it was allright. I wish they made an adult big wheel.
I would buy one today. I think they do. Do theymake a plastic adult big wheel? I'm pretty
sure you can get it, but you know the big wheelstarted the whole revolution. I'm gonna look
on Amazon as soon as we're done. So what cameafter the big wheel? The space shuttle. Did
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you have one of those? Did your parents buyyou a space shuttle? Yeah, for a short period
of time, the Challenger was parked in my backyardbefore it blew up on your birthday. You're
welcome. When you're in the neighborhood withall your friends and they're all pulling up
on their big wheels and your green machinesand you've got like They all pull up Was this
like West Side Story? Rumble what's happening?Yeah. Yeah, it was we had gangs. They're all
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pulling up. Yeah, we had big wheel gangs Theywere like wearing aviators and leather jackets
on the big wheel and the green machine pullingup Oh, yeah It was like a biker gang except
on big wheels and green machines and they'relike, what's up kid? We got the trident and
no Juicy fruit. What was we had? Oh the candycigarettes. Yeah Candy cigarettes. Bubble gum
cigarettes. Oh, I guess they were bubble gum.They were all bubble gum. Those were so great,
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cause you could make them puff. Yeah. I lovedthose. How do we, the greatest thing about
candy, here's the best part about candy cigarettesor bubble gum cigarettes. Our parents would
buy them. The high level of cancer? No, ourparents would buy bubble gum cigarettes. Our
parents bought us our first cigarettes. Ourparents bought us practice cigarettes, basically.
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Here, practice this kid. It's like Bender from...They put us all kinds of things we shouldn't
have, like caps. Remember caps? Like cap guns?Oh, I love cap guns. I had cap guns. Yeah,
except you know what we do, you get those rollsof caps. Yeah. And instead of putting them
in the cap gun like there's supposed to do...No, they come in like a strip. Oh, yeah. I
shit you not, we would get a hammer. Oh, andjust bang them? And just smack a hammer. Oh,
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now that's fun. and just smack the cats. Doyou remember those ones that were the little
packs that came in like little white dots andyou'd throw them on the ground? But we wouldn't
throw them in the ground. It's basically gunpowder.But you would hook them at people. Yeah, but
that wouldn't go off all the time. Yeah, butif it did. I remember us doing that at O.L.G.
That'd be nice. Throwing them at people. Orjust taking them and smacking them on somebody's
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hand. It didn't usually go off though, if youthrew them at people. You had to throw them
pretty hard on the ground. So we had these bigwheel green machine biker gangs and then we
actually throw those caps at people. I justwish we could go back in time right now because
what I would do is take a whole pack of thoselittle bomb things that you throw on the ground
and put them in a row, right? And then builda jump at the end of it for a big wheel and
then run the big wheel over it so as you'regoing over it, they go, You would see the smoke
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coming up before you get to the job And thenyou hit the jump and then you go totally evil
Knievel wrong And then you'd flip it and thenyou'd land on your head no helmet because did
we ever wear anything? No, there's no such thingas a helmet. No, the safety was nonsense. But
listen speaking of speaking of safety beingnonsense The best toy ever speaking of wheeled
toys was the evil Knievel wind-up Oh, we didn'tride it, but we played with it. There's been
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a huge resurgence in that toy though. I seethis on Instagram all the time. Maybe it's
just because I follow Evil Knievel stuff. Butpeople are jumping out of the apartment windows
and into pools. What would you say it was about8-12 inches long? Just a little wind-up stand
and you put the little 6-inch Evil Knievel onthe bike. And you cranked the thing. And there
was a release and then he would go flying. Butthe greatest part was Evil was only connected.
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by his hands on the handlebars. So he wouldfly off and flip around. Sometimes he would
still hold on. And the thing would wheelie,the thing would jump. The thing could jump
and land. It was amazing. I loved that. We didit with everything. We would jump over like
mud puddles. We would like light things on fireand jump through fiery roots. I don't think
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I ever lit things on fire back then. We wouldfind whatever. I wish I did, but I did want
him to crash because when you watched an evilKnievel jump. you know, in the special great
wide world of sports. You're always hoping fora crash. Well you always was crashing. Yeah.
I kind of wanted him to. Not that I wanted himto, look, I loved the evil Knievel. I did not
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want him to be harmed, but the spectacle ofit. But that's where we could, like, with the
toy, with the wheeled evil Knievel, stunt cycle.You could jump him off a cliff. Stunt cycle,
that's what it was called. You could jump himoff a cliff, and you got all the excitement
without actually hurting evil. It was less evil.It was the kindness to evil. I'm gonna make
a confession. I loved evil Knievel. I was like,I kinda idolized evil Knievel. I thought like,
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that's the pinnacle. of like, that's what Iwould like to do with my life, is to be, I
mean, you know, hey, I broke my elbow on a dirtbike. I feel a little bit, I got a little bit
out. You still have time. You could still bea stunt performer. I could still try to jump
Caesar's Palace Fountain with Harley Davidson.Yeah, why not? That's the other thing, Evil
Knievel was jumping with this giant Harley,probably weighed 700 pounds. Not with dirt
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bikes. He was jumping things that you shouldnever jump. He just was, the guy was fearless.
Or jump with bikes that were too heavy to jump.He invented. that whole genre of daredevil.
On two wheels, man. There was no such thingas daredevil. Well, I guess there was, there
were daredevils at carnivals. No, but not onthe scale he did. But not on the scale. When
that was on TV back in the 70s and 80s, youjust like, everybody tuned in. Yeah, oh yeah.
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You had to see what was gonna happen. Becausehe was the bravado of the guy. And he would
talk about dying. He would say, would he interview,Howard Cosell would interview him before him.
And he would be like, this is my last jump,then. I just want to say goodbye to my kid.
And he would just have this kind of sense ofdeath was always kind of on his shoulder. It
was amazing. That's how I felt playing withthe toy. The death was always on my shoulder.
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That at any point something could go horriblywrong and you would spontaneously combust.
What would happen was I would like break myevil Knievel. Oh, yeah. And you know what happened.
What happens in my parents wouldn't buy me anew one. Yeah, I know. So you had to preserve
them to some degree. We had tape, we had accessto duct tape and things like that. You could
duct tape your, those things were built well.This is the thing in the 70s and 80s, even
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the knockoffs were repairable. Yeah, well, okay,but then when you get to talk about knockoffs,
we eventually, of course, eventually at somepoint you get to bicycles, right? I mean, before
you get to drive a car, you get on all theseother little toys and you get your big wheel
and they're all great. You never got to skateboardin between any of that? I never got to skateboard
in between. wasn't that I didn't have the balance.You could I could have built you one. I don't
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yeah, and I and I would be in a fucking wheelchairnow if you built I almost put you in a wheelchair
from the dirt bike. That's right. That's a goodpoint. Yeah. Well It wasn't your fault. It
was my lack of skill. No, but uh, yeah Althoughyou kind of you were in a wheelchair for a
little while you had the little knee chair Wheelchairwhen you broke your ankle dude, that was fun
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getting around the little Another knee scoot,but it didn't have a kick on the back which
would have been amazing or an electric motorYou looked ridiculous. I mean you did look
stupid. I didn't say that at the time. But nowyou're telling it. But now I can tell you how
dumb you looked. By the way, not as easy toget around in that as you think. It didn't
look easy to get around. Because you know what?Every time you have your knee up on this scooter
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and you're scooting, and it's great becauseyou can get around without being on crutches,
but then you would scoot into a room. Scootin a room? Scoot in a room. Scoot in a room.
Then you would scoot in your room. Scoot inyour room. It sounds Swedish. Have you ever
done room scoot? You have. Are you a room scooter?I saw you room scoot, it was embarrassing for
me. I'm a screw-murder too. Just even beingin the room with you was embarrassing. But
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you couldn't get around, because you had carpetto navigate, you had different... Carpet to
navigate, and then if you got to stairwell,then you'd need your crutches anyways, but
the worst thing was every time you go into aroom, you're going in forward, right? So what
do you have to do when you get out? Your three-pointturn. Doot! On a knee scooter. Yeah, that's
totally interesting. You had a huge cast! Everythingwinds up being right out of Austin Powers.
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Yeah, it totally is. And you're just doing likea 97-point turn. It was a 97-point turn. Was
it a hard plaster cast or was it a boot? Ohno, that was a hard cast. Oh, you had a hard
plaster cast. I broke the fuck out of that thing,man. You did break the fuck out of that thing.
That was the one wheeled thing that I didn'tlike being on. All the other ones going on,
it was a blast. And you had to start on threewheels. I know someday you're going to come
back to the dirt bikes with me and ride.
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Going now. Now that I've broken my elbow, we'reeven is the thing you had, you have a broken
ankle, I had a broken elbow. Okay. Done. Nomore breaks. We can go back to riding. Did
you ever break anything when you were learningto ride a bike? Uh, no, but I did break something
learning to ride another wheel. Implementiveof travel implement of travel implement of
(23:53):
the implement the implements of travel aroundWe'll now on discovery this one had eight wheels.
Can you figure out what that is? Oh, I do knowwhat these would be the ever Loving roller
ever loving roller blades. I was on roller bladesfor the first time. Have you seen that that's
a great movie? Yeah, it's it stars Beverly D'AngeloRicky Lee Jones I was thinking Ricky Lake.
(24:18):
Ricky Lake, yeah. Jonathan Winters. And RickyMartin. And Ricky Schroeder. Ricky Schroeder,
there you go. We landed it eventually. Thattook a while, but the landing, you stuck the
landing. So I was on rollerblades for the firsttime, eight wheels. Eight wheels, who needs
eight wheels on their feet? I don't, I shouldn't.Rollerblades were a bad idea. I was on them
(24:39):
at some point. They were huge in the 80s. Everybodywas rollerblading, everybody ditched their
square four-wheelers. I played hockey on rollerblades.Oh, you did? Yeah, that was a lot of fun. See,
you got good at it. I used to play hockey atthe... the CSUN parking structure we would
play. Which got crushed in the 94 earthquake,by the way. By the way, about two weeks before
(25:00):
the 94 earthquake, we were in the parking structureplaying hockey. If we would have been there
at four in the morning, no, luckily we didn'tplay at four in the morning. Otherwise we would
have been buried under rubble. Was it in January?Yeah, it was January 14th or something like
that. Oh, too bad it wasn't the 28th. That wouldhave been amazing, dude. Tragedy, more tragedy
on Eric's birthday. If you had a birthday challengerexplosion and a birthday San Fernando Valley
(25:22):
earthquake, you'd win some kind of amazing.Oh my God, there's a prize. There's some sort
of plaque I would get. Yeah, well I'm sorry.Like a plaque and maybe some roses. And some
gum. Gum, yeah. I think they give you gum forthat. Chicklets, chicklets. Yeah, so I was
on, first time ever, four wheels on both feet.And I didn't know, and so I had the wrist guards.
Oh, in case you fell forward. And I was withKaren and my cousin Ramon, my sister Karen
(25:45):
and my cousin. And I'm like, yay, I'm gettingthe hang of this. Scooting around, I'm like,
I'm gonna take off, I'm gonna go to the bathroomand take, and there was like a some, we were
at the Balboa Park, actually, so. I took offthe wrist guards. Like, I was gonna sit down
even, but why didn't I sit down and then takeoff the wrist guards? I don't know the answer
to that question. I take off the wrist guards,literally the second the wrist guards come
(26:05):
up, I just went flink and my feet went abovemy head. I just lost it. And you know when
you do that, like kick, unroll. Yeah, yeah.It looks like you're kind of, you're doing
a Bob Fosse number. Yeah, I wish I was doinga Bob Fosse number. Obviously I never got as
good as you on the roller blades and I fellright and put my hand down. Oh, of course you
(26:27):
did. Left hand and broke my wrist. Horriblybroke my wrist. I broke it. Badly actually
and it's I still have a little piece floatingin the left and that's why you don't take off
your wrist When I got my x-rays for my elbowwith for the dirt bike accident He was like,
oh you broke that risk badly a long time ago.Yeah, that was me being an idiot. Yeah Yeah,
(26:47):
yeah. Yeah. So that was the end of your oldrollerblading. No, I have rollerbladed one
other time in my life Did you break somethingelse then? Yes. So, wait, no this is a true
story. No, no, I don't know this. I knew thatyou broke it. You seriously broke something
else on Rollerblade? Yes. What? So, I had Daisy.Daisy, my dog, was very young and you knew
(27:09):
Daisy. She was extremely active and anxious.And so. in an effort to bring her anxiety down,
I was exercising her a lot, so I had to runher and walk her every day. And then you watch
motherfucking Cesar Millan rollerblading hisdogs. You know, he has like a pack of like
30 dogs. You think you can be Cesar Millan.15 on each hand. And not only did Cesar Millan
(27:32):
rollerblade, you are no Cesar Millan. He isrollerblading with his signature rollerblades,
which are different. These only have four wheelstotal. I have a pair of two. One big back wheel,
they were stupid, and one little front wheel.And I'm like, I'm gonna order the Cesar Millan
roller blades. So I ordered those and I getliterally the first- What kind of idiot? A
(27:55):
super idiot. So I get out there with Daisy.You would think I would test out the Cesar
Millan roller blades. Before you go with yourdog. I didn't. No. No, so I did- Wrist guards?
Yeah, wrist guards, yeah. Helmet? Newer wristguards, no helmet, no helmet. Newer wrist guards.
I get as far as the street. from the drivewayand the same motherfucking thing. I flew up
(28:18):
in the air, feet above the head, left hand down,smashed into my left hand. Wrist guards, yeah,
guess what? My wrist didn't break, but my elbowfractured. Oh God. Because it just dislocated.
My elbow was, it just hit so hard, my elbowdislocated and fractured. So what your- The
same one that I broke. Dirt biking. So whatyou're saying is you're gonna run out tomorrow
and get another pair of rollerblades. So I'vebeen on rollerblades twice. Yeah, I think it's
(28:41):
time to go back. And I've broken bones twice.Rollerblade. Would you go again? Would you
try again? Never will I get on a rollerblade.No, because skateboarding is so much better.
You can jump off. Yeah, but biking was the best.Everything led up to biking. All right, when
did you get a bike? Your first bike? We hadthree wheels, right, for everything. On my
bike I didn't have three wheels. I had four.I had two. I had two and training wheels. Oh,
(29:05):
training wheels, right. Yeah, we all had everytraining wheels. You had to have training wheels,
because you couldn't balance that. I can nowadmit to having training wheels. So yes. I
don't remember, I remember early bikes likethe banana seat. I had a, my first bike had
a banana seat. Banana seat? I think it was aSchwinn, had a banana seat, blue. A blue banana?
Blue banana seat on a Schwinn. I had a bluebanana on my Schwinn. I'm sorry. On my Schwinn.
Excuse me? Yeah, and I thought it was prettysweet, that bike. I mean, it was 1970. But
(29:31):
was it? Was it sweet? Did you think it was sweetor was it sweet? Dude, look back at those bikes.
They're amazing. I know, but at the time...I did think it was cool. Because I had a bike
I thought was cool. Yeah, but it wasn't a Schwinn.But it wasn't cool. What was it? It was a Huffy.
Don't you get Huffy with me. Huffy! Huffy wasthe laughing stock. It was, it was my first.
(29:58):
Okay. Was the Huffy laughing stock or was itjust you? Wow, what a dick. A little bit of
both, I'd say. But here's the thing, now thisis after the banana seat, by like the first
bikes that you would get, is like when you startto try to get the cool, the BMX, BMX bikes.
So BMX time, right? So everybody, what are theygetting? Back when we were here. The BMX bikes?
(30:24):
Yeah, what was everybody buying? What differentbrands? The Camacho and his son. Come on with
it. What, are you? You think Chico and the Man?What was the bike that everyone was buying?
There were several. Okay, give me. There wasMongoose. There was Redline. Oh, I don't remember
Redline. Robinson. Okay. These were like the-Well, you were really researching the BMX bikes.
(30:47):
And they had like the Moto Mag, remember theMag Wheels? Yeah, oh yeah. They were like super
heavy Mag Wheels. Yeah, yeah, for sure. What'dyou get? A Huffy. Oh, you got the Huffy. And
my Huffy. Because it well my parents are likeit looks like the other bikes, but it's like
one eighth the price Yeah, right and it waslike I thought it was cool because it had like
it was kind of a cool orange color And it moreor less looks like the problem then It wasn't
(31:13):
the cool bike. Did it have a banana seat? No,no, it was the old BMX bike. I was gonna say
that was your problem. Because of the brand,Huffy was like, oh, you have a Huffy, you suck.
I have a feeling with you, Eric, that you havememories of things as a kid that were about
the voices in your head more than the voiceson the playground. Nope. I can tell you for
(31:35):
sure these are voices coming directly at mesaying, Wibblesman, your bike sucks. You got
a hubby and- Like, really? Kids were sayingthat to you? They were, kids are fucking mean,
man. Yeah, because they're riding around ontheir several hundred dollar mongoose with
their Moto Mags and their Robinson. Okay, wellI get all that, but did they actually, wait,
(31:56):
I- Yes, yes, they actually did. Like, what didthey say? They're like, you pussy. You douche.
Canoe?
(32:16):
make or model of bike. Even if it didn't lookany different. I was still like, you got an
orange bike, you got an orange hat, you suck,man. Are you sure this is real? 100 fucking
percent. I'm still in therapy over this shit.All because I couldn't get a mong, like you
know what, I kinda wanna go out. I kinda wannago out and get a mongoose. But not a new mongoose.
(32:37):
I wanna go get, I wanna find one from the fuckingA's. It's probably $40,000. I don't fucking
care. Just because I would redeem myself. Andthen you know what happened? I fucking write
it the first time and I fucking break something.That'd be amazing. You should look for a mongoose.
Oh, you can get them. Yeah, yeah. I wonder how,we can put the vintage. Yeah. Vintage mongoose
BMX bike. I would look like such an assholeon the little DMX A guy in his mid-50s on a
(33:01):
mongoose Mid-50s on a mongoose. I think youcan do it. You can pull it off. While I was
getting teased or when I wasn't getting teasedYou were talking about jumping like the evil
Klineval Yes, the evil Klineval That's whatI had. The evil Klineval Everybody else had
the evil Klineval bike This is the stunt cycleevil I had the knockoff evil clean evil because
(33:29):
it was it was only $12.95 instead of $22.95plus tax installation. Anything anywhere my
mom could save money. With proof of purchaseof your evil clean evil. My mom probably used
five box tops from Cheerios to buy me the evilclean evil stunt cycle. I'm sure she did. But
(33:49):
listen. she was still buying you the toy thatyou wanted, even if it wasn't the real toy
that you wanted. So even on my bullshit BMXbike, what did you do when you got a bike with
two wheels and you learned to really ride it?What did you wanna do? Jump. You jumped, you
jumped everything. Yeah, you wanna jump. Youjumped. You make your own ramps. Yeah, you
make ramps. Or you jump off the curbs. I wasmaking ramps all the time. But we were jumping,
(34:13):
early on, I remember this, how fucking stupidwere we? We were jumping our friends. It's
because of fucking Evil Klinevel. He was theone prompting us to do these. Because we didn't
have buses. And your friend would lay down infront of the jump. Okay, Evil Klinevel's jumping
cars and buses. We couldn't do that. We couldn'tbuild ramps that big. I mean, we could've.
So what do we do? We could build them. Honestly,looking back, I'm feeling like an underachiever.
I feel like we should've been jumping on thesethings. I mean, we could've killed each other.
(34:37):
is an everyday occurrence.
Thanks for listening to the Sons of San Fernando.Don't forget to hit that subscribe or follow
button in your favorite podcast app so you don'tmiss an episode. Drop us a review, we'd love
to hear from you. If you'd like to support theSons of San Fernando, the best way is to share
(34:58):
the show. We'll catch you on the next episode.
I'm Tony. I'm Eric. We are the sons of San Fernando.But we've been friends for over 40 years. And
grew up together in the San Fernando Valley.These are the stories of our experiences as
adventurous Gen X latchkey slackers from backin the day. And don't forget to hit the follow
or subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.I mean, was there a steakhouse by us? that
(00:27):
we used to go to, that you used to visit, likein the Valley, was there a Valley steakhouse?
Not, I mean, there's the places that have beenaround for a long time, like Taylor's, nothing
in the Valley. There was nowhere you could skateboardto? No, no. In the Valley, on your... No, but
I never skateboarded, I have to admit. I wasnot a skateboarder. You know what's interesting,
I started skateboarding as an adult becausemy parents wouldn't let me have a skateboard.
(00:50):
Why? Well, let me tell you, I don't know whythey wouldn't let me. Maybe it's because we
lived on a hill and I was going to break myneck. You know what? Now that I think about
it, the hill that you lived on, yeah, becauseyou're up on Corbett, like if you if you started
on a skateboard, which Helmut Weissmuller did,who lived up the street for me and he broke
his frickin collarbone. Well, there you go.Skateboarding down Van Alden. There you go.
(01:13):
Well, that's why your parents were smart anddidn't give you a skateboard. And I'm saying
Helmut Weissmuller broke his collarbone. Let'sjust say your street was the equivalent of
like ski jump in terms of like how steep itwas. Both Corbin and Van Alvin. Yeah, exactly.
Super, super steep. And I used to get, I usedto take, do you remember the Kick and Go? You
of course you remember. Oh, we had a Kick andGo. You had a Kick and Go? My brother. I had
(01:35):
a Kick and Go too. My brother had a, wait, aKick and Go too? Cause there were not all the
stuff. Hold on, hold on. I had a Kick and Goas well. Cause there was. Which was the Kick
and Go too? Hold on, let me describe my Kickand Go. Tell me if it was the Kick and Go one
or the Kick and Go two. Okay. My Kick and Gowas blue and black. and silver and it had the
black grip and it had a brake. It had a brakeon the right side grip, little hand brake.
(01:58):
I don't remember if the brake was attached tothe rear wheel or the front wheel. I think
it was the rear wheel. It was? I think thatwas the brake. Oh no, I don't, you know what,
I'm not sure about that. Because wasn't therea kick and go that you like pushed down on
the back of the wheel and it like that stoppedyou with your foot? Maybe that, oh that might
have been a real early model. Maybe, okay, butthen, so there was a hand brake. Yeah. Or a
finger brake, whatever, and then there was thekicker. the accelerator, if you will. It was
(02:23):
an accelerator. It was like a little T-bar.So that's it. So today we have the Lime scooters
and the, you know, the automatic, yeah, right?Talk about that bullshit. Yeah, but that's
what I'm saying is like those things, if youjust changed. You took all those scooters and
shrunk them down. No, got rid of them and changedthem all to kick and goes. Oh, so leave kick
and goes on the street for people to take around?That's a good idea. Because you know what?
(02:46):
We would get rid of obesity. Well, people wouldhave one really strong leg. Whatever your kicking
leg is, you would have a great quad. Oh, I seeyou're a lefty. You got that giant left quad
from a kick and go. Is it true what they sayabout you lefty? But that was an amazing way
to get around, because you had to work at it,but that kick action. Wait, hold on. Just pause
(03:06):
for a moment. It was an amazing game. I'm goingto address the idea that it was an amazing
way to get around that you just asserted. Becauselet me tell you, let me tell you, it was the
most inefficient means of propulsion ever designed.You literally could push one push. like a conventional
(03:26):
scooter, like the newer conventional scooters.You had one push like a Razor scooter and you
would go three times as far as you would withlike 28 kicks on that stupid rear little T-bar
kicker. Yeah, but you were getting cardio in,man. No, but here's the beauty of the kicker.
It wasn't that it was an efficient means ofpropulsion because it wasn't. The kick and
go? The kicker on the kick and go. Oh, the kickeron the kick and go, yeah. Here's the thing
(03:47):
about the kicker on the kick and go, was thateven though it wasn't a means of effective
and efficient propulsion, you never had to putyour foot on the ground. That was the thing.
That was cool. And that was the thing, you werenever scooting. Yeah, you never had to scoot.
So you were kicking. So it was a scooter, butnot, you didn't scoot it. It was... You didn't
(04:07):
scoot this scooter, you kicked this scooter.You would kick the scooter, and again, not
effective, but fun. Because that's what we didfrom early, early on. I remember scooting.
on different things. But you didn't have a skateboard.But you were on the flat. No, no, no. You were
on the flat land. Why didn't you have a skateboard?Okay, but I start, okay, so I started, like
when I was really little, I remember the veryfirst thing I had was one of those, it was
like a little truck that you would just siton that had like a little steering wheel on
(04:31):
the top. Okay, yeah. And you just like. Oh yeah,it was a little, and you pushed it with your
feet. And we pushed it with your feet. Whenyou were like two years old. Your feet landed
on the ground, you pushed it. It did steer though.It turned the front wheels. I did steer, yeah.
Yeah, I remember. It was like a little bit bigTonka. Ralph's. Yeah, I was too. Yeah, to Anaheim.
My mom was making me go to the Ralph's in Anaheim.Eric, here's some coupons. I'm going to go
(04:58):
to the Ralph's in Anaheim and give me some twoply Charmin. Shoot, because the deal was better
there. Right, because the deal was better atthe Anaheim. Ralph's. She wasn't paying for
gas because I was on my little scooter car.You're on your scooter, right? And I was like,
Of course I couldn't talk but it didn't mattershe just pinned a little note to my shirt with
(05:18):
the coupons and some cash. Right and you showup and you just hand them the coupon Oh yeah
and then I come back with the Charmin And thenyou're in Anaheim Get out of here kid. Is that
what they sounded like? Here's the thing aboutthat I was thinking about this Hey kid, you
went to Charmin it's aisle 15 Only in Anaheimdid they sound like that everywhere else they
were a little more Like they smoked a pack ofCamelnon filters every day? They were smoking
(05:39):
heavily in Anaheim. They were so close to DisneylandI can see why yeah You know, I was thinking
about this the other day. We, like, if you didn'thave directions, we were talking about, you
know, singing about GPS and stuff. Where didyou go when you didn't have directions? So
you're a little kid. By the way, you just Seinfeldedthat a little bit. Did I? Where did you go?
So where did you go when you didn't have directions?You're going down to Anaheim. Yeah. You don't
(06:00):
know how to get there, and you don't have aGPS. Where'd you stop? I, at a gas station.
I'll tell you where you stop. Yeah, yeah, afterI'm at a gas station, ask directions and buy
a map. So here's my question. What? gas stationattendants like local genius savant map readers
that they knew how to get everywhere and tellyou because I remember doing that we would
(06:22):
stop and they'd be like yeah okay you get backon the freeway you take the 605 to the 405
once you're on the 405 you head south how dothey know how to do that they're sitting in
the gas station all day how right how are theygetting around to doing that if you told me
I go to the trucker and ask him. Then that wouldmake sense. I would say I get it. I understand
why he knows how to do that, but why did thegas station attend it? I don't know, at two
(06:43):
years old, I wasn't stopping at the gas stationto ask. But I did remember, it was something,
I guess my parents must've been really like,conscious. Angry. Consciously angry. We had
a two story house, you had a two story house.I did, you did, we did. But they gave us these
wheeled things, so they had this little wheeledthing to go around on, but I mean. You didn't
(07:05):
know where to go. No, but I would on the firstlevel but god forbid Yeah, I got my wherewithal
to get that thing up the stairs and then Canyou imagine? Not God forbid, it would have
happened. Yeah. It would have happened, butyou were too big for that thing by the time
you had the wherewithal to do such things. BecauseI'm like, picture, I'm like, I'm like scooting
along and you know, Go flying off the stairs.And then you just go, and then, Slow mo. Bam,
(07:28):
bam, bam. Bam, bam. Yeah. You know, and thenthe thing is, is that when we did have the
wherewithal, I mean, we slamming into the walland slamming into the handrail. Yeah, you'd
be bloodied and disgusted. And then you'd hitthe bottom and the scooter car would, would
burst into flames like a Tesla. Absolutely,they had some really great lithium ion batteries
(07:49):
in those scooter trucks, those Tonka scootertrucks. They could do at least 50. 50 what?
You know, when you got the wherewithal to dothings like bring your Tonka truck to the top
of the stairs, we already had kicking goes.And so what I did, and you probably did this
with me at one point, was I would go up to thetop of Corbin, and for some reason, and you
know. You didn't need to kick, you can maybekick to get started. No, you already had the
(08:11):
hill going. You had the downhill momentum. Youhad gravity. But I remember sitting on the
kick and go, and so I would sit butt on thekick and go and then feet up at the front and
then hold above me to hit like ape hangers.Like ape hangers on a Harley or like a Chopper.
You're holding up like ape hangers and I rememberbeing able to reach that break with my thumb
because my hand was kind of inverted. Yeah,just enough to break, but then you had that
(08:33):
weird balance. But it would, but you would getgoing so fast and the wheels were so small
that you would twitching like crazy. But youwere seriously aerodynamic because you're like
behind the handlebars. But I don't rememberever damaging myself doing that. But I did
it a million times. Speaking of sitting on thingslike that. I must have been going 633 miles
an hour. Oh, at least, yeah. Just burning upthe tarmac. Yeah, and I think the wheels were
(08:55):
solid. They weren't even inflatable. They werejust solid rubber wheels. Yeah, like the razors
are like that, I guess, yeah. Well, my brotherdid get a... I don't know how old he was, but
it could have been that old. He must have beenall of like probably seven. seven or eight,
when he got a skateboard. Yeah, oh wait, yourbrother got a skateboard, but you never got
a skateboard? No, I didn't get a skateboard.So my brother got a skateboard, and this is
(09:17):
like in the, you know. How old, he was seven?I wanna say we were still at the old house
in Recita. Yeah, I don't really care, so hegot the skateboard. Yeah, it was like, I'm
gonna guess somewhere around seven-ish. Okay.But it was one of the, it was the worst fucking
skateboard in the world. It wasn't a skateboard,you were like. It was like a K-Mart skateboard?
Yeah, totally. It was like way too skinny. Oh,the little skinny skateboards. I remember those.
(09:43):
And the trucks, and it never, like, it tiltedleft and right really easily. So, I have, there's
like Super 8 footage of my brother trying toride this thing, and he'd be on it for like
two seconds, and then it would go, you know,you'd kick with one foot, like you do with,
one would do with a skateboard, and then itwould go shooting off like a missile into the...
Well, but the question is, you saw your brotherdoing this, was it the skateboard that was
(10:06):
a problem, or did he have no skill? on said,you know, I think the snow combination may
be a combo, but I'm going to give them Davebenefit of the doubt because it was such a
wobbly skateboard. So what we would do is atleast what I would do is I would sit on it.
And that was the way like, sit on a skateboard,because that way if you fell, you only tipped
over and you didn't like, you know, smash yourface into the curb and knock all your teeth
(10:26):
out. Those mini skateboards became popular againmore recently with the Penny boards. Yeah,
if you know how to ride, but not as your firstskateboard. But they were better, but they
were better than the old ones. And the earlyones were plywood. They were like these garbage,
maybe even particle boards. And they were likeso garbagey. It was like a wobble board. Nobody
could possibly stand on this thing. And you'regiving it to a kid as their first skateboard.
But why didn't you get one? Probably becauseI saw how bad this skateboard. You didn't want
(10:52):
one? You know, I really never, I went rightto a big wheel. Oh, well wait, before we get
to the big wheel, let me tell you that I didwant a skateboard. And I would not be granted
said skateboard by my parents. And so I decidedthat I- Cause it's a death plank. I decided
I would build my own death plank. Oh, you didnot. From parts in the garage. You pinewood
derby that shit? So I had two older sisterswho were, you know, nine and seven years older
(11:12):
than me. And they had the only wheels that werein the garage that I had access to, which were
their old skates. And so they had the old...Rower skates? Yeah. Were those like, were they
still rubber wheels or metal? They had the gnarlymetal wheels. They had metal trucks, metal
bottoms, metal trucks, metal wheels. The wholething was metal. I'm not even sure there were
ball bearings in the trucks to the wheels. Imean, they were just, they were garbage. Each
(11:34):
skate weighed like five pounds. But as a sevenand eight year old, whatever I was, I have
access to what I have access to. So I, and I'mnot kidding, I really did this. I found a hacksaw
that was in the garage and I hacksawed. At seven?Well, I was probably a little older than seven,
but I don't think more than nine. I mean, ninetops, nine at the oldest. You should not be
messing with a hacksaw at nine. Yeah, I dida lot of things, dude. I'll, you know, I got
(11:58):
a list. So I took a hacksaw and I literallyhacksawed the leather as close as I could to
the bottom of the skate, whatever that. You'rejust trying to get those, the wheel part. The
wheels all I needed was the wheels. So eventuallyI, this is how they fucking love. We had zero
supervision. How was I able to A, get the hacksaw,B, spend that much time with the hacksaw in
(12:23):
the garage? Your parents were busy with otherthings. Yeah, like what were they, like drug
lords? What were they doing that they had? Well,I hate to tell you this, but. You're gonna
finally tell me the truth about my parents andPablo Escobar. So I got all the, well, I didn't
get all, it was like, it was jagged, but I gotthe tops of the skates. mostly off the shoe
of this gaze. Was there a foot in the shoe atthe time? No, there was no, my sister's feet
(12:46):
were not. Okay, good, all right. They were empty.I wouldn't put it past you. I got it all off
and then I was like, okay, I gotta attach, soI found a piece of wood. It wasn't even, I
don't know what the wood was. Just a chunk?There was a plank of wood outside on the side
of the house. There was like that dog run overon the side and there was a plank of wood hanging
out there. I took the plank of wood, I'm like,this is it. This is a skateboard deck. And
then you put the wheels on and boom, you madea skateboard. Well yeah, but the thing was
(13:07):
is I had these, I had four. double because therewere skates. So I hammered. But they're all
gonna go in one direction. It's all one direction.But listen to how I did it. I got nails that
went, there were holes in the bottom of theskate. So I nailed through the board, whatever
this piece of wood was, through the holes inthis bottom of the skate and then bent the
(13:28):
nails. The nails at the bottom. To kind of holdit in place. Good enough, right? And the whole
thing is like rattling, stay together. And thenI got on it and I couldn't go. It wouldn't
move. It would just basically sit in one spot.But I did put the whole thing together. And
I mean... Do you still have that? Oh dude, Iwish somebody took a picture. I wish I had
(13:48):
a picture of that thing. But no, I don't knowwhat happened to it. It probably just got dumped.
Yeah, rusty nails and... I mean, that's genius.I should be given some kind of an innovator
award. Well listen, you DIY'd it. I did DIYit. Honestly, that makes sense because a lot
of times, at least at that age, parents weren'tbuying us the things we wanted. So because
(14:09):
your parents- No, but I did get a big wheel.Okay, but your parents wouldn't buy you a skateboard
so you had to build it. But now we couldn'thave built a big wheel. So, you know, it was
a good thing. We both got big. Every kid gota big wheel. That thing was fucking amazing.
I love that. What was the best part about bigwheel? The brake. Yeah, the handbrake. Yeah,
the handbrake was unreal. You could go down,I would go down my driveway. with the thing
(14:32):
and then as soon as I hit the street, just pullthis and crank the wheel to the left. Oh well
that's what you do. Because the thing was onthe right, the brake was on the right, crank
the wheel to the left. And it was those hardplastic wheels that they knew, they're like
these need to be able to take like, you know.hold up to literally anything because all kids
are going to do with this is skid. Right. Justrip skids. Because it was literally plastic
(14:55):
handbrake that literally as you pulled it, likeconnects the lever to the rear wheel and then
just stop to the rear wheel. Hard plastic onhard plastic. And the noise that it made. Oh,
it was great. I could still hear it. You'relike...
Yeah, that was fantastic. That was pure joy.And you would generally, it was on the one
(15:16):
wheel. So one wheel would just be just totally,Yeah, it was totally, yeah, it was fantastic.
And the other one was like, yeah, it was allright. I wish they made an adult big wheel.
I would buy one today. I think they do. Do theymake a plastic adult big wheel? I'm pretty
sure you can get it, but you know the big wheelstarted the whole revolution. I'm gonna look
on Amazon as soon as we're done. So what cameafter the big wheel? The space shuttle. Did
(15:38):
you have one of those? Did your parents buyyou a space shuttle? Yeah, for a short period
of time, the Challenger was parked in my backyardbefore it blew up on your birthday. You're
welcome. When you're in the neighborhood withall your friends and they're all pulling up
on their big wheels and your green machinesand you've got like They all pull up Was this
like West Side Story? Rumble what's happening?Yeah. Yeah, it was we had gangs. They're all
(16:01):
pulling up. Yeah, we had big wheel gangs Theywere like wearing aviators and leather jackets
on the big wheel and the green machine pullingup Oh, yeah It was like a biker gang except
on big wheels and green machines and they'relike, what's up kid? We got the trident and
no Juicy fruit. What was we had? Oh the candycigarettes. Yeah Candy cigarettes. Bubble gum
cigarettes. Oh, I guess they were bubble gum.They were all bubble gum. Those were so great,
(16:23):
cause you could make them puff. Yeah. I lovedthose. How do we, the greatest thing about
candy, here's the best part about candy cigarettesor bubble gum cigarettes. Our parents would
buy them. The high level of cancer? No, ourparents would buy bubble gum cigarettes. Our
parents bought us our first cigarettes. Ourparents bought us practice cigarettes, basically.
(16:44):
Here, practice this kid. It's like Bender from...They put us all kinds of things we shouldn't
have, like caps. Remember caps? Like cap guns?Oh, I love cap guns. I had cap guns. Yeah,
except you know what we do, you get those rollsof caps. Yeah. And instead of putting them
in the cap gun like there's supposed to do...No, they come in like a strip. Oh, yeah. I
shit you not, we would get a hammer. Oh, andjust bang them? And just smack a hammer. Oh,
(17:07):
now that's fun. and just smack the cats. Doyou remember those ones that were the little
packs that came in like little white dots andyou'd throw them on the ground? But we wouldn't
throw them in the ground. It's basically gunpowder.But you would hook them at people. Yeah, but
that wouldn't go off all the time. Yeah, butif it did. I remember us doing that at O.L.G.
That'd be nice. Throwing them at people. Orjust taking them and smacking them on somebody's
(17:29):
hand. It didn't usually go off though, if youthrew them at people. You had to throw them
pretty hard on the ground. So we had these bigwheel green machine biker gangs and then we
actually throw those caps at people. I justwish we could go back in time right now because
what I would do is take a whole pack of thoselittle bomb things that you throw on the ground
and put them in a row, right? And then builda jump at the end of it for a big wheel and
then run the big wheel over it so as you'regoing over it, they go, You would see the smoke
(17:53):
coming up before you get to the job And thenyou hit the jump and then you go totally evil
Knievel wrong And then you'd flip it and thenyou'd land on your head no helmet because did
we ever wear anything? No, there's no such thingas a helmet. No, the safety was nonsense. But
listen speaking of speaking of safety beingnonsense The best toy ever speaking of wheeled
toys was the evil Knievel wind-up Oh, we didn'tride it, but we played with it. There's been
(18:18):
a huge resurgence in that toy though. I seethis on Instagram all the time. Maybe it's
just because I follow Evil Knievel stuff. Butpeople are jumping out of the apartment windows
and into pools. What would you say it was about8-12 inches long? Just a little wind-up stand
and you put the little 6-inch Evil Knievel onthe bike. And you cranked the thing. And there
was a release and then he would go flying. Butthe greatest part was Evil was only connected.
(18:41):
by his hands on the handlebars. So he wouldfly off and flip around. Sometimes he would
still hold on. And the thing would wheelie,the thing would jump. The thing could jump
and land. It was amazing. I loved that. We didit with everything. We would jump over like
mud puddles. We would like light things on fireand jump through fiery roots. I don't think
(19:01):
I ever lit things on fire back then. We wouldfind whatever. I wish I did, but I did want
him to crash because when you watched an evilKnievel jump. you know, in the special great
wide world of sports. You're always hoping fora crash. Well you always was crashing. Yeah.
I kind of wanted him to. Not that I wanted himto, look, I loved the evil Knievel. I did not
(19:21):
want him to be harmed, but the spectacle ofit. But that's where we could, like, with the
toy, with the wheeled evil Knievel, stunt cycle.You could jump him off a cliff. Stunt cycle,
that's what it was called. You could jump himoff a cliff, and you got all the excitement
without actually hurting evil. It was less evil.It was the kindness to evil. I'm gonna make
a confession. I loved evil Knievel. I was like,I kinda idolized evil Knievel. I thought like,
(19:44):
that's the pinnacle. of like, that's what Iwould like to do with my life, is to be, I
mean, you know, hey, I broke my elbow on a dirtbike. I feel a little bit, I got a little bit
out. You still have time. You could still bea stunt performer. I could still try to jump
Caesar's Palace Fountain with Harley Davidson.Yeah, why not? That's the other thing, Evil
Knievel was jumping with this giant Harley,probably weighed 700 pounds. Not with dirt
(20:05):
bikes. He was jumping things that you shouldnever jump. He just was, the guy was fearless.
Or jump with bikes that were too heavy to jump.He invented. that whole genre of daredevil.
On two wheels, man. There was no such thingas daredevil. Well, I guess there was, there
were daredevils at carnivals. No, but not onthe scale he did. But not on the scale. When
that was on TV back in the 70s and 80s, youjust like, everybody tuned in. Yeah, oh yeah.
(20:29):
You had to see what was gonna happen. Becausehe was the bravado of the guy. And he would
talk about dying. He would say, would he interview,Howard Cosell would interview him before him.
And he would be like, this is my last jump,then. I just want to say goodbye to my kid.
And he would just have this kind of sense ofdeath was always kind of on his shoulder. It
was amazing. That's how I felt playing withthe toy. The death was always on my shoulder.
(20:49):
That at any point something could go horriblywrong and you would spontaneously combust.
What would happen was I would like break myevil Knievel. Oh, yeah. And you know what happened.
What happens in my parents wouldn't buy me anew one. Yeah, I know. So you had to preserve
them to some degree. We had tape, we had accessto duct tape and things like that. You could
duct tape your, those things were built well.This is the thing in the 70s and 80s, even
(21:12):
the knockoffs were repairable. Yeah, well, okay,but then when you get to talk about knockoffs,
we eventually, of course, eventually at somepoint you get to bicycles, right? I mean, before
you get to drive a car, you get on all theseother little toys and you get your big wheel
and they're all great. You never got to skateboardin between any of that? I never got to skateboard
in between. wasn't that I didn't have the balance.You could I could have built you one. I don't
(21:34):
yeah, and I and I would be in a fucking wheelchairnow if you built I almost put you in a wheelchair
from the dirt bike. That's right. That's a goodpoint. Yeah. Well It wasn't your fault. It
was my lack of skill. No, but uh, yeah Althoughyou kind of you were in a wheelchair for a
little while you had the little knee chair Wheelchairwhen you broke your ankle dude, that was fun
(21:55):
getting around the little Another knee scoot,but it didn't have a kick on the back which
would have been amazing or an electric motorYou looked ridiculous. I mean you did look
stupid. I didn't say that at the time. But nowyou're telling it. But now I can tell you how
dumb you looked. By the way, not as easy toget around in that as you think. It didn't
look easy to get around. Because you know what?Every time you have your knee up on this scooter
(22:18):
and you're scooting, and it's great becauseyou can get around without being on crutches,
but then you would scoot into a room. Scootin a room? Scoot in a room. Scoot in a room.
Then you would scoot in your room. Scoot inyour room. It sounds Swedish. Have you ever
done room scoot? You have. Are you a room scooter?I saw you room scoot, it was embarrassing for
me. I'm a screw-murder too. Just even beingin the room with you was embarrassing. But
(22:41):
you couldn't get around, because you had carpetto navigate, you had different... Carpet to
navigate, and then if you got to stairwell,then you'd need your crutches anyways, but
the worst thing was every time you go into aroom, you're going in forward, right? So what
do you have to do when you get out? Your three-pointturn. Doot! On a knee scooter. Yeah, that's
totally interesting. You had a huge cast! Everythingwinds up being right out of Austin Powers.
(23:04):
Yeah, it totally is. And you're just doing likea 97-point turn. It was a 97-point turn. Was
it a hard plaster cast or was it a boot? Ohno, that was a hard cast. Oh, you had a hard
plaster cast. I broke the fuck out of that thing,man. You did break the fuck out of that thing.
That was the one wheeled thing that I didn'tlike being on. All the other ones going on,
it was a blast. And you had to start on threewheels. I know someday you're going to come
back to the dirt bikes with me and ride.
(23:30):
Going now. Now that I've broken my elbow, we'reeven is the thing you had, you have a broken
ankle, I had a broken elbow. Okay. Done. Nomore breaks. We can go back to riding. Did
you ever break anything when you were learningto ride a bike? Uh, no, but I did break something
learning to ride another wheel. Implementiveof travel implement of travel implement of
(23:53):
the implement the implements of travel aroundWe'll now on discovery this one had eight wheels.
Can you figure out what that is? Oh, I do knowwhat these would be the ever Loving roller
ever loving roller blades. I was on roller bladesfor the first time. Have you seen that that's
a great movie? Yeah, it's it stars Beverly D'AngeloRicky Lee Jones I was thinking Ricky Lake.
(24:18):
Ricky Lake, yeah. Jonathan Winters. And RickyMartin. And Ricky Schroeder. Ricky Schroeder,
there you go. We landed it eventually. Thattook a while, but the landing, you stuck the
landing. So I was on rollerblades for the firsttime, eight wheels. Eight wheels, who needs
eight wheels on their feet? I don't, I shouldn't.Rollerblades were a bad idea. I was on them
(24:39):
at some point. They were huge in the 80s. Everybodywas rollerblading, everybody ditched their
square four-wheelers. I played hockey on rollerblades.Oh, you did? Yeah, that was a lot of fun. See,
you got good at it. I used to play hockey atthe... the CSUN parking structure we would
play. Which got crushed in the 94 earthquake,by the way. By the way, about two weeks before
(25:00):
the 94 earthquake, we were in the parking structureplaying hockey. If we would have been there
at four in the morning, no, luckily we didn'tplay at four in the morning. Otherwise we would
have been buried under rubble. Was it in January?Yeah, it was January 14th or something like
that. Oh, too bad it wasn't the 28th. That wouldhave been amazing, dude. Tragedy, more tragedy
on Eric's birthday. If you had a birthday challengerexplosion and a birthday San Fernando Valley
(25:22):
earthquake, you'd win some kind of amazing.Oh my God, there's a prize. There's some sort
of plaque I would get. Yeah, well I'm sorry.Like a plaque and maybe some roses. And some
gum. Gum, yeah. I think they give you gum forthat. Chicklets, chicklets. Yeah, so I was
on, first time ever, four wheels on both feet.And I didn't know, and so I had the wrist guards.
Oh, in case you fell forward. And I was withKaren and my cousin Ramon, my sister Karen
(25:45):
and my cousin. And I'm like, yay, I'm gettingthe hang of this. Scooting around, I'm like,
I'm gonna take off, I'm gonna go to the bathroomand take, and there was like a some, we were
at the Balboa Park, actually, so. I took offthe wrist guards. Like, I was gonna sit down
even, but why didn't I sit down and then takeoff the wrist guards? I don't know the answer
to that question. I take off the wrist guards,literally the second the wrist guards come
(26:05):
up, I just went flink and my feet went abovemy head. I just lost it. And you know when
you do that, like kick, unroll. Yeah, yeah.It looks like you're kind of, you're doing
a Bob Fosse number. Yeah, I wish I was doinga Bob Fosse number. Obviously I never got as
good as you on the roller blades and I fellright and put my hand down. Oh, of course you
(26:27):
did. Left hand and broke my wrist. Horriblybroke my wrist. I broke it. Badly actually
and it's I still have a little piece floatingin the left and that's why you don't take off
your wrist When I got my x-rays for my elbowwith for the dirt bike accident He was like,
oh you broke that risk badly a long time ago.Yeah, that was me being an idiot. Yeah Yeah,
(26:47):
yeah. Yeah. So that was the end of your oldrollerblading. No, I have rollerbladed one
other time in my life Did you break somethingelse then? Yes. So, wait, no this is a true
story. No, no, I don't know this. I knew thatyou broke it. You seriously broke something
else on Rollerblade? Yes. What? So, I had Daisy.Daisy, my dog, was very young and you knew
(27:09):
Daisy. She was extremely active and anxious.And so. in an effort to bring her anxiety down,
I was exercising her a lot, so I had to runher and walk her every day. And then you watch
motherfucking Cesar Millan rollerblading hisdogs. You know, he has like a pack of like
30 dogs. You think you can be Cesar Millan.15 on each hand. And not only did Cesar Millan
(27:32):
rollerblade, you are no Cesar Millan. He isrollerblading with his signature rollerblades,
which are different. These only have four wheelstotal. I have a pair of two. One big back wheel,
they were stupid, and one little front wheel.And I'm like, I'm gonna order the Cesar Millan
roller blades. So I ordered those and I getliterally the first- What kind of idiot? A
(27:55):
super idiot. So I get out there with Daisy.You would think I would test out the Cesar
Millan roller blades. Before you go with yourdog. I didn't. No. No, so I did- Wrist guards?
Yeah, wrist guards, yeah. Helmet? Newer wristguards, no helmet, no helmet. Newer wrist guards.
I get as far as the street. from the drivewayand the same motherfucking thing. I flew up
(28:18):
in the air, feet above the head, left hand down,smashed into my left hand. Wrist guards, yeah,
guess what? My wrist didn't break, but my elbowfractured. Oh God. Because it just dislocated.
My elbow was, it just hit so hard, my elbowdislocated and fractured. So what your- The
same one that I broke. Dirt biking. So whatyou're saying is you're gonna run out tomorrow
and get another pair of rollerblades. So I'vebeen on rollerblades twice. Yeah, I think it's
(28:41):
time to go back. And I've broken bones twice.Rollerblade. Would you go again? Would you
try again? Never will I get on a rollerblade.No, because skateboarding is so much better.
You can jump off. Yeah, but biking was the best.Everything led up to biking. All right, when
did you get a bike? Your first bike? We hadthree wheels, right, for everything. On my
bike I didn't have three wheels. I had four.I had two. I had two and training wheels. Oh,
(29:05):
training wheels, right. Yeah, we all had everytraining wheels. You had to have training wheels,
because you couldn't balance that. I can nowadmit to having training wheels. So yes. I
don't remember, I remember early bikes likethe banana seat. I had a, my first bike had
a banana seat. Banana seat? I think it was aSchwinn, had a banana seat, blue. A blue banana?
Blue banana seat on a Schwinn. I had a bluebanana on my Schwinn. I'm sorry. On my Schwinn.
Excuse me? Yeah, and I thought it was prettysweet, that bike. I mean, it was 1970. But
(29:31):
was it? Was it sweet? Did you think it was sweetor was it sweet? Dude, look back at those bikes.
They're amazing. I know, but at the time...I did think it was cool. Because I had a bike
I thought was cool. Yeah, but it wasn't a Schwinn.But it wasn't cool. What was it? It was a Huffy.
Don't you get Huffy with me. Huffy! Huffy wasthe laughing stock. It was, it was my first.
(29:58):
Okay. Was the Huffy laughing stock or was itjust you? Wow, what a dick. A little bit of
both, I'd say. But here's the thing, now thisis after the banana seat, by like the first
bikes that you would get, is like when you startto try to get the cool, the BMX, BMX bikes.
So BMX time, right? So everybody, what are theygetting? Back when we were here. The BMX bikes?
(30:24):
Yeah, what was everybody buying? What differentbrands? The Camacho and his son. Come on with
it. What, are you? You think Chico and the Man?What was the bike that everyone was buying?
There were several. Okay, give me. There wasMongoose. There was Redline. Oh, I don't remember
Redline. Robinson. Okay. These were like the-Well, you were really researching the BMX bikes.
(30:47):
And they had like the Moto Mag, remember theMag Wheels? Yeah, oh yeah. They were like super
heavy Mag Wheels. Yeah, yeah, for sure. What'dyou get? A Huffy. Oh, you got the Huffy. And
my Huffy. Because it well my parents are likeit looks like the other bikes, but it's like
one eighth the price Yeah, right and it waslike I thought it was cool because it had like
it was kind of a cool orange color And it moreor less looks like the problem then It wasn't
(31:13):
the cool bike. Did it have a banana seat? No,no, it was the old BMX bike. I was gonna say
that was your problem. Because of the brand,Huffy was like, oh, you have a Huffy, you suck.
I have a feeling with you, Eric, that you havememories of things as a kid that were about
the voices in your head more than the voiceson the playground. Nope. I can tell you for
(31:35):
sure these are voices coming directly at mesaying, Wibblesman, your bike sucks. You got
a hubby and- Like, really? Kids were sayingthat to you? They were, kids are fucking mean,
man. Yeah, because they're riding around ontheir several hundred dollar mongoose with
their Moto Mags and their Robinson. Okay, wellI get all that, but did they actually, wait,
(31:56):
I- Yes, yes, they actually did. Like, what didthey say? They're like, you pussy. You douche.
Canoe?
(32:16):
make or model of bike. Even if it didn't lookany different. I was still like, you got an
orange bike, you got an orange hat, you suck,man. Are you sure this is real? 100 fucking
percent. I'm still in therapy over this shit.All because I couldn't get a mong, like you
know what, I kinda wanna go out. I kinda wannago out and get a mongoose. But not a new mongoose.
(32:37):
I wanna go get, I wanna find one from the fuckingA's. It's probably $40,000. I don't fucking
care. Just because I would redeem myself. Andthen you know what happened? I fucking write
it the first time and I fucking break something.That'd be amazing. You should look for a mongoose.
Oh, you can get them. Yeah, yeah. I wonder how,we can put the vintage. Yeah. Vintage mongoose
BMX bike. I would look like such an assholeon the little DMX A guy in his mid-50s on a
(33:01):
mongoose Mid-50s on a mongoose. I think youcan do it. You can pull it off. While I was
getting teased or when I wasn't getting teasedYou were talking about jumping like the evil
Klineval Yes, the evil Klineval That's whatI had. The evil Klineval Everybody else had
the evil Klineval bike This is the stunt cycleevil I had the knockoff evil clean evil because
(33:29):
it was it was only $12.95 instead of $22.95plus tax installation. Anything anywhere my
mom could save money. With proof of purchaseof your evil clean evil. My mom probably used
five box tops from Cheerios to buy me the evilclean evil stunt cycle. I'm sure she did. But
(33:49):
listen. she was still buying you the toy thatyou wanted, even if it wasn't the real toy
that you wanted. So even on my bullshit BMXbike, what did you do when you got a bike with
two wheels and you learned to really ride it?What did you wanna do? Jump. You jumped, you
jumped everything. Yeah, you wanna jump. Youjumped. You make your own ramps. Yeah, you
make ramps. Or you jump off the curbs. I wasmaking ramps all the time. But we were jumping,
(34:13):
early on, I remember this, how fucking stupidwere we? We were jumping our friends. It's
because of fucking Evil Klinevel. He was theone prompting us to do these. Because we didn't
have buses. And your friend would lay down infront of the jump. Okay, Evil Klinevel's jumping
cars and buses. We couldn't do that. We couldn'tbuild ramps that big. I mean, we could've.
So what do we do? We could build them. Honestly,looking back, I'm feeling like an underachiever.
I feel like we should've been jumping on thesethings. I mean, we could've killed each other.
(34:37):
is an everyday occurrence.
Thanks for listening to the Sons of San Fernando.Don't forget to hit that subscribe or follow
button in your favorite podcast app so you don'tmiss an episode. Drop us a review, we'd love
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(34:58):
the show. We'll catch you on the next episode.
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