Local news show profiles Tony Hawk in 1986

Yeah, we all know who Tony Hawk is now.  But way back in 1986, pretty much only serious skaters knew who he was.  Here's 18-year-old Tony Hawk, two years after the first Powell Peralta Bones Brigade video, skating and talking in front of his first house in Carlsbad, California.

Where were you in 1986?  Many of you may not have even been born yet.  I'm a couple of years older than Tony, and 1986 was the year my BMX freestyle zine in San Jose landed me a job in Southern California, at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  I barely knew who Tony was in 1986, although I had been goofing around on skateboards since 1976.  My co-worker and roommate at Wizard, Mark "Lew" Lewman is the guy who showed me his skate magazines, and got me more interested in skateboarding, along with my boos there, Andy Jenkins.  We covered skating in FREESTYLIN', and Lew introduced me to 19-year-old Rodney Mullen my second night in Redondo Beach, who happened to practice at The Spot, by the Redondo Pier, where we practiced our flatland on BMX freestyle bikes every night.  

As big a name as Tony Hawk was in skateboarding in 1986, skating was still not cool to most people.  Skaters and BMXers were still weirdos back then, though Tony was already making more money than most of the old geezers telling him to "Go get a real job, punk."  That is something we all heard in our late teens and early 20's, while riding skateboards or BMX bikes, in the 1980's.  Action sports has come a long way since 1986.  

Tom Green skateboard edit

As life in general keeps getting crazier, and mosre expensive, here's a little comic relief.  Tom Green is funny, but he also skates.  Here's a cool little fan edit of Tom's skating in different TV shows, movies, and videos.  Enjoy.  

The China Banks (of San Francisco) mini-doc

The China Banks, legendary skate, and BMX, street spot in San Francisco.  This is a great little mini-documentary about this spot.  It Just came out, thanks to those folks at Thrasher.  Enjoy.

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Wee Man, Andy Anderson & friends skating...

Andy Anderson is my favorite skater to watch these days, and he skates the Venice (Sunset?) curbs with Wee Man (aka Jason Acuna) and friends.  

Disclaimer:  Warning, this blog post includes shameless namedropping by a fat homeless guy who lives a couple miles from Hollywood.  I'm not cool now, and never was, so a repeatedly blog about famous people I met or knew back in the day to entertain other losers.

This blog is called "street life," and the streets I was referring to wasn't supposed to be Wall Street and Manhattan's financial district.  But I'm a futurist/economics geek, as well as an ugly, homeless blogger/artist/whatever.  With all the Fed action and financial craziness lately, that's what the last few posts were about.  So here's a fun street skating video to get back to the actual streets.  

Like a lot of people in the BMX/skate world's, I first saw Wee Man in the original Big Brother video, Shit (NSFW or pretty much anywhere) in 1996.  He's painted blue at 7:41 and 40:30.  I had drifted away from the BMX world, but was still riding daily, and would roll by one of the rider houses (H.B. House or Isthmus House) now and then, and that's probably where I saw it.  Having been roommates with Chris Moeller in the early 90's, who saw himself as kind of the Steve Rocco of BMX, we were reading Big Brother magazine (also NSFW or anywhere else) right from the start.  

Like most people, the first time I actually remember seeing Wee Man was the Oompa Loompa skating clip, which I thought was in one of the Big Brother videos, but it was actually in the Jackass TV show, which makes it around 2000.  I also remember a shot of him tied to a pole, like a dead deer or something, being carried around L.A., that must have been in Jackass as well.  From then on, we was part of the Jackass posse, as the TV show got canceled after two seasons and then turned into movies.  

In 2003, after a couple really sketchy years in and out of homelessness, I got my driver's license again, and went back to driving a taxi full time, which is 7 days a week in the cab world.  I was about 210 pounds, not to fat to skate a bit, and I had a skateboard in my cab for a while, since I was living in it (again).  Now and then, when business was slow, I'd stop by the little Huntington Beach High skatepark, which had a curb a little banks I could skate.  

One time I was there when Wee Man rolled up to skate.  I can't say I met him, because I didn't talk to him, but there were only a few of us there, and I did my little kickturns, board slides to fakie on the curb, and my big trick, shove-it to manual over the little pyramid.  Wee Man was ollying the six foot long pyramid top, and getting like chest high to himself. I think he was sliding the flat rail and ledges, too.  But the ollies are what stick out in my mind.  

He can skate.  Not good for a little person, dwarf, or whatever you want to call him.  I mean he's a solid fucking skateboarder.  I kept thinking, "How can that little fucker ollie so high?"  So that's as close as I've ever come to meeting him.  

Coming from the BMX freestyle world of the 1980's, I knew Spike Jonze, because he got hired for my old job as FREESTYLIN'.  Like everyone in BMX in the late 80's, I knew Spike from both riding and shooting photos at contests through those years.  I met Jett Tremaine at one of John Paul Rogers' Loser Thanksgivings, in '98 or '99, where we were tramp skating.  Tramp skating is doing tricks on skateboard decks (no trucks or wheels) on the trampoline.  I managed 720 shove-its, and Jeff was doing solid method airs.  So that's my only connections to the Big Brother/Jackass posse.  They went off to make everyone laugh by damn near killing themselves for comedy in TV and movies, and I drove drunks home as a homeless taxi driver in the 2000's. 

As for Andy Anderson, I just dig his skating.  I met Rodney Mullen two days after I moved to Redondo Beach in 1986, and did a little mini-interview with him in FREESTYLIN' (December 1986 issue).  Then I moved to Huntington Beach to work for the AFA, and spent my weekends at the H.B. Pier, doing BMX tricks for the crowds, and hanging with freestyle skaters Pierre Andre' (Senizergues), Don Brown, Hans Lingren, and later, Darryl Grogan.  Being a well known spot, and at the beach, street skaters (like Ed Templeton and Mark Gonzales) came by regularly as well.  Though BMX was my thing, I skated a little, and I worked at Vision's video company, so I met most of the skateboarders of that era at some point. 

Andy Anderson does a lot of technical, freestyle-ish stuff, but can go big on street, shred transitions, and is original as well.  Plus he's a Canadian, so he's just got the chill vibe as well.  He's just a great skateboarder to watch skate.  So this is a great half hour long video of the famous "Natas curbs" in Venice, then some parks, more curbs, and some street in downtown L.A.  Great video of just skateboarding as fun, everyday stuff.