Speaker 1: Hello, this is Craig Ferguson letting you know that I
Speaker 1: am hitting the road again this week with my Fancy
Speaker 1: Rascal Tour, starting in Boulder, Colorado on August seventeenth and eighteenth,
Speaker 1: and continuing to many other beautiful regions throughout September, October,
Speaker 1: and November. For the full list of dates, please go
Speaker 1: to my website, the Craig Ferguson Show dot collm slash Tour,
Speaker 1: where you can also buy tickets or not see you
Speaker 1: out there or not.
Speaker 2: My name is Craig Ferguson. This podcast is called Joy.
Speaker 2: It's not rocket science. I talk to people I like
Speaker 2: about their pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 3: Here's Tony Hawk, a legend, an icon, maybe the icon
Speaker 3: of the skateboard world.
Speaker 2: Enjoyman, how are you feeling about the way? Are you
Speaker 2: all right? Like I gonna make you?
Speaker 4: That seemed like a much more loaded question, But no,
Speaker 4: I yeah, I broke my leg by year ago. And yes, finally, yes,
Speaker 4: I went through a false start the first time because
Speaker 4: I got back too soon and the impact forced my
Speaker 4: bone to never reconnect.
Speaker 2: Evil shit going on, I mean.
Speaker 4: In hindsight, it's regrettable, it's embarrassing. But I also was
Speaker 4: in denial of it. I thought that I was just
Speaker 4: going through a harder time. So about eight months into
Speaker 4: my recovery, I realized that it wasn't getting any better.
Speaker 4: I wasn't improving in terms of what I could do physically,
Speaker 4: And I went and got X rays and realized that
Speaker 4: the bone was actually further apart than it had been
Speaker 4: post surgery, And went and got it realigned with a
Speaker 4: specialist and waited, and that was that was the key.
Speaker 3: Just wait, do you have a Do you have a
Speaker 3: different pain threshold to normal humans?
Speaker 2: Have you ever had it tested?
Speaker 4: No, but it's it's definitely been noted by by others
Speaker 4: and friends and things.
Speaker 3: Well, he's funny. I watched till the wheels come off. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I was looking at the spells that you were
Speaker 3: taking or what do you see?
Speaker 2: I don't know there's right terminology because I'm not spell right.
Speaker 2: Spill slams? Sure, all right? Or falls or maybe yes,
Speaker 2: all our peace? Like I see some of the hurt.
Speaker 2: You say bail.
Speaker 4: If you see bail, then that's more intentional. And what
Speaker 4: you were seeing there was definitely no.
Speaker 3: One was Yeah, they were like but even from THEA
Speaker 3: when you were a little kid, like everything just like
Speaker 3: slamming into this thing.
Speaker 2: Over and over and over again. Do you get immune
Speaker 2: into it? Is that it's not immune.
Speaker 4: It's more that there's an acceptance that comes with it, right,
Speaker 4: that I need to endure this for the sake of progression,
Speaker 4: and so that that has always been my attitude, and
Speaker 4: so I didn't I didn't mind it so much. Sometimes
Speaker 4: it's worse than others, but not that often. I mean,
Speaker 4: there's there's sort of this. I guess it's more like
Speaker 4: when you choose a life of skateboarding, there's sort of
Speaker 4: a level of pain that you know there's always going
Speaker 4: to be low lying.
Speaker 2: Like all the time. But see, I envy you very much.
Speaker 3: Not about the money and drugs and famoush I've had
Speaker 3: enough of that.
Speaker 2: But but you knew your thing and you have your thing.
Speaker 3: It's not like it was evident any question because you
Speaker 3: said right there you chose a life of skateboarding, or
Speaker 3: you didn't say you chose it, but you used that expression.
Speaker 3: Do you think you chose you because like your dad
Speaker 3: at that point as well, because your dad was heavily
Speaker 3: involved in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 4: I would say that I chose a life of skateboarding
Speaker 4: early on, even when it was not there was no
Speaker 4: path to success because no one had carved that path yet, right,
Speaker 4: But I love what it provided me.
Speaker 2: So I just loved skating.
Speaker 4: But I would say later on there was a sense
Speaker 4: of skateboarding chose me in that suddenly people were asking
Speaker 4: me to sort of be the spokesperson. Yeah, and I
Speaker 4: was willing to do it, but it wasn't what I
Speaker 4: aspired to.
Speaker 2: Did you aspire to at the beginning? Just keep learning
Speaker 2: new tricks? It was pretty simple.
Speaker 3: But it's a funny thing though, because I mean, like,
Speaker 3: you're one of those people that's really difficult to have
Speaker 3: a conversation with. It's recorded not because you're difficult, but
Speaker 3: because the people that are into your thing are so
Speaker 3: messianic about your thing that if I say the wrong
Speaker 3: word instead of spill, I say or slam, I say
Speaker 3: spill or like, people get fucking crazy about it, and.
Speaker 4: It's kind of say less now than before I understand
Speaker 4: what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was funny.
Speaker 3: I watched it because I thought that the documentary about
Speaker 3: you and a lot of your contemporaries Till the Wheels
Speaker 3: Come off.
Speaker 2: That's what it's called. Right till the whill's fall off,
Speaker 2: till wiels fall off. Right, See I said, come off,
Speaker 2: fall off. I've seen that actually in Prince. Yeah, don't
Speaker 2: worry about that.
Speaker 3: So, but I was watching it and because I'm not, like,
Speaker 3: I'm not in that world. I mean I know of it,
Speaker 3: but I'm not inside it. And the athleticism and the
Speaker 3: grace and the style and the craziness.
Speaker 2: Of all of that. What you do is obvious to anyone,
Speaker 2: even a casual glance.
Speaker 3: But what I wasn't expecting to see is first of all,
Speaker 3: the development of the world. I mean, like you were,
Speaker 3: that's like being around at the start of golf or
Speaker 3: something generally.
Speaker 2: In a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: And then you, and I think Mullins as well, a
Speaker 3: very a very strong sense of I don't really think
Speaker 3: it's about the board, and it hasn't been about the
Speaker 3: board for a long time. I feel like it's it's
Speaker 3: something else. It's like a search for grace. It's like
Speaker 3: the way guys climb mountains or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with you there.
Speaker 4: I think that, especially with Rodney and I, we were
Speaker 4: so hyper focused on new moves, new tricks, and we
Speaker 4: didn't know what the goal of that was. It just
Speaker 4: fed us. So we would we learned new chick and
Speaker 4: then move on to the next one, move on to
Speaker 4: the next one. And we didn't really think about that
Speaker 4: we were creating any sort of movement.
Speaker 2: We just had to do it. And then as we
Speaker 2: got older, that became.
Speaker 4: You know, there's an argument that became more of a
Speaker 4: curse than a blessing because we keep chasing it to
Speaker 4: our detriment. Where even Rodney, I mean you see him now, Like,
Speaker 4: let's put it this way. Rodney walks through an airport
Speaker 4: and people come up with courtesy carts, So do you
Speaker 4: need a ride?
Speaker 2: Really? Yeah, that's the truth, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like people do that to me too.
Speaker 4: But skapboard because he walks with such pain, right, but
Speaker 4: he will skate for three to four hours every single
Speaker 4: night on his own.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. So he's more comfortable skating than walking.
Speaker 2: There, Absolutely, yeah, you that way too.
Speaker 4: Still, I would say before I got hurt, Yes, now
Speaker 4: I definitely have a little more hesitation in my skating
Speaker 4: because I should.
Speaker 2: I'm still on the healing path. But yeah, also, like
Speaker 2: everybody else, you get older.
Speaker 4: You get older, sure, but I feel like I think
Speaker 4: what wasn't really talked about in that documentary because it's
Speaker 4: nuanced and it's more My personal thing is that my
Speaker 4: style has changed quite a bit in the last ten
Speaker 4: years in that I'm more focused on low impact skating.
Speaker 4: And I know what you saw there was pretty crazy
Speaker 4: and I did some crazy stuff and whatever, but really
Speaker 4: my focus, especially with tricks, has been more technical, and
Speaker 4: so it's more like board maneuvering and stuff that just
Speaker 4: is on the top of the ramp as opposed to
Speaker 4: ten feet above it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So it's funny because I don't I can see the
Speaker 3: athleticism of it, but I don't understand how it's done.
Speaker 3: It's like if I watch someone play golf, it swim
Speaker 3: even do you know what I mean. It's like, I
Speaker 3: know how it's done, but like I've watched what you
Speaker 3: do and what Mullins does and what all these other
Speaker 3: guys do. I'm like, I don't even know where you
Speaker 3: start with that, you know, I mean, but you've you've
Speaker 3: created I mean you personally as well with the Foundation,
Speaker 3: have moved into this idea of like expanded it.
Speaker 2: There's how many parks have you put together?
Speaker 4: Now, uh, well, we've helped a fund over seven hundred
Speaker 4: over the last twenty years. And I mean that's my
Speaker 4: proudest work and that stems from my extreme sperience at
Speaker 4: the skate park as a kid, because I got very
Speaker 4: lucky in that one of the last parks in the
Speaker 4: US happened to be in San Diego, pretty close to
Speaker 4: where I lived. And that was never lost on me
Speaker 4: that I had that place to go, and I had
Speaker 4: that sense of community and I had that support group there.
Speaker 4: I mean, yes, it was my training ground, but it
Speaker 4: was also just this place of belonging.
Speaker 2: It was like where the kids went.
Speaker 4: It was I mean it was you found me there
Speaker 4: at all hours until they close when school was out.
Speaker 4: But when I had a sense of success in a
Speaker 4: way to sort of help I don't know that the
Speaker 4: the industry or the skaters. That was my first go
Speaker 4: to was I want to provide more skate parks because
Speaker 4: all these kids feel disenfranchised. They love skating and they're
Speaker 4: told not to do it because it's on public property
Speaker 4: or property and it's a nuisance in it and whatever else.
Speaker 4: But it's like, but they found something. It speaks to them,
Speaker 4: and that I think is a healthy outlet.
Speaker 3: What do you think it would have hamm to you
Speaker 3: if if you hadn't found skating or it hadn't found you.
Speaker 4: I think I would have just been doing something really
Speaker 4: tech oriented because I was really fascinated with technology also
Speaker 4: my teenage years and I mean still to this day.
Speaker 4: But I was an early adopter, like I had one
Speaker 4: of the first nonlinear video editing systems, and.
Speaker 3: Really I did because I thought, I guess the answer
Speaker 3: I was kind of expected was that you would have
Speaker 3: been lost without it.
Speaker 4: But it doesn't say I probably wouldn't have felt as
Speaker 4: rich for sure, that I wouldn't have felt as validated
Speaker 4: or or felt like there was something that I could
Speaker 4: do that really fed what I needed in terms of
Speaker 4: creativity wise, right, And so maybe doing video projects or
Speaker 4: something would have touched on that a bit, but I
Speaker 4: don't think it would have provided the same.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting form of creativity as well, doing you know,
Speaker 3: creating tricks on a board. I mean it's it's like
Speaker 3: painting with something that nobody's painted with until or or
Speaker 3: seventy or something.
Speaker 2: Or did you do you think anyone will appreciate it? Well?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think people do, But I just say, what
Speaker 4: back then, especially with the creation, like with Rodney and I,
Speaker 4: when we were doing all these tricks, it was kind
Speaker 4: of considered a circus act.
Speaker 2: Well, it's got a bet of that in it, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean when you guys was doing the tours with
Speaker 3: the you know, standing up in the arena with the
Speaker 3: you know, with the ramps and the motorbikes, and it's
Speaker 3: a little bit of a travel in circus, Isn't it
Speaker 3: a little bit off?
Speaker 2: For sure? Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 4: But what I'm saying is is in our world, skating
Speaker 4: was a pretty small community. We were the outcast of
Speaker 4: that community because all we cared about was tricks. Everyone
Speaker 4: else cared about right style and how much air they get.
Speaker 4: And so Rodney and I were these outcasts, like we
Speaker 4: were outcasts in an outcast activity, and so we didn't
Speaker 4: think there was any sort of there would be any
Speaker 4: accolades in that.
Speaker 2: We just love doing it, do you know.
Speaker 3: For a while I worked with Mick Jagger or writing
Speaker 3: a screenplay that never happened because I was doing it.
Speaker 3: I was on tour with the Rolling Stones for a
Speaker 3: while and I got to see up close how the
Speaker 3: Rolling Stones work, and I was watching Keith Richards, who
Speaker 3: you remind me of a little bit, because he would
Speaker 3: be quite happy if he was playing that guitar in
Speaker 3: a shitty blues band in a pub in London. Fight
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. Or if he's playing the enormo Dome in
Speaker 3: San Diego, doesn't fucking matter. It's playing the guitar the cats.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And is that the same for you on the board? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So even when when you were doing the like when
Speaker 2: things were nutty.
Speaker 3: When you're like you have your own playing and you
Speaker 3: you know, like the crowds are crazy and the money's
Speaker 3: nuts and stuff like that, was it all still focused
Speaker 3: on the board.
Speaker 2: Is that what kept you out of the druggy drinking one? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I believe so. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean I definitely had my own vices and distractions
Speaker 4: through the crazy years, but always the priority was skating.
Speaker 4: And I think that even in my youth, when in
Speaker 4: the eighties when we thought we were having unparalleled success
Speaker 4: and we were doing all, you know, we were doing
Speaker 4: some TV stuff and movie stuff, I was always really
Speaker 4: focused on the skating because I saw my peers, some
Speaker 4: of them get distracted and get caught up in the
Speaker 4: hype and and get hooked on drugs and then they
Speaker 4: lost their abilities. And it was like that was my
Speaker 4: very first example, like, don't don't go to that, Right.
Speaker 3: That's what I thought. I mean, it's not something you
Speaker 3: can do when you're high. Is get on a board
Speaker 3: or is it?
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 3: Right, did you ever like, do you ever give demonstrations
Speaker 3: you ever you know, get on the board and do
Speaker 3: crazy shit when you were massed up?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: I think, my it's funny.
Speaker 4: I remember the skate park I grew up at. People
Speaker 4: would smoke weed in the parking lot. Not everyone, but
Speaker 4: some Oh.
Speaker 3: Come on, everybody, It's California, the whole states. Well, I was.
Speaker 4: Pretty young too, so I remember one day I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go join the crew, and then I came
Speaker 4: back to skate and I just couldn't get it together.
Speaker 4: I couldn't, you know, everything was My timing was off.
Speaker 4: I kept almost almost we call hanging out, which means
Speaker 4: like locking up on the coping where your board sticks
Speaker 4: all right.
Speaker 2: And I just thought, Okay, I can't. I can't do that.
Speaker 2: That doesn't work for me. And drinking is just out
Speaker 2: of the question, right, And you're skating.
Speaker 3: So I think that was I think I'm beginning to
Speaker 3: figure out why I never get into skateboard. But it's
Speaker 3: kind of interesting though, because it is that is a
Speaker 3: real kind of positive thing. If you're talking about all
Speaker 3: these skate parts for kids, if you can't do it properly,
Speaker 3: when you're twisted on booze and olk or in drugs, right,
Speaker 3: you're kind of helping people stay away from it a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 4: I mean, I for sure there is the contingent that
Speaker 4: they equate partying with, of course skateboarding, and they do it,
Speaker 4: and honestly it's probably more of a short lived thing,
Speaker 4: but that's their life. I can't I'm not trying to
Speaker 4: have some just say no campaign skate parts that it's
Speaker 4: more that we want to provide them in the outlet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because when you started, it was it was basically
Speaker 3: it was just dried out swimming pools, right, that was
Speaker 3: that was the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got in at the tail end of that.
Speaker 4: So the Dogtown and Z Boys, I knew of that
Speaker 4: crew as I started, but they were already as far
Speaker 4: as I was concerned, much older.
Speaker 2: Well as the evolution of it.
Speaker 3: If you can take me through it a little bit,
Speaker 3: so that dog Town was is that the very beginning.
Speaker 2: The beginning has there's how it began.
Speaker 4: But basically, the first skateboard, it is said, was a
Speaker 4: roller skate that was dismantled the trucks and wheels were
Speaker 4: nailed onto a two by four, right, and that was
Speaker 4: a skateboard. And then a lot of the Southern California
Speaker 4: people took that as that surfing on a sidewalk, right,
Speaker 4: So then they started developing actually shaped boards out of
Speaker 4: fiberglass and wood like surfboards were made, and then they
Speaker 4: were trying to emulate surfing. Once the big drought hit
Speaker 4: in the seventies in southern California, all these swimming pools
Speaker 4: were dry, and the surfers saw that, oh, that looks
Speaker 4: like a wave, and that's how we got to do
Speaker 4: you surf? I do, yeah, but not as actively. And
Speaker 4: the reason I got into skateboarding because my older brother
Speaker 4: was a hardcore surfer, and so he got into skateboarding
Speaker 4: by default, because that was if you live in Southern California,
Speaker 4: he surfed in the seventies, you started skating. And that's
Speaker 4: how I got my first skateboard was his hand me down.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, he must be very happy for you.
Speaker 4: He's very happy that he can school me in surfing. Still,
Speaker 4: that's what he's happy about.
Speaker 1: Hello everybody, this is Craig Ferguson letting you know that
Speaker 1: my Fancy Rascal Tour resumes this August and continues all
Speaker 1: the way through November. For a full list of dates
Speaker 1: and tickets, please go to my website, the Craig Ferguson
Speaker 1: show dot com slash Tour.
Speaker 3: Well, it's funny that you're you're a lot younger than
Speaker 3: your nearest sibling, right, Yeah, he's thirteen years older than me.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: My son, my youngest son, is nine and a half
Speaker 3: years younger than his older brother. And I was watching
Speaker 3: the energy of you as a young kid. It reminded
Speaker 3: me very much like my own son is very like that,
Speaker 3: like a kind of sixty pound psychopath. Really, I mean
Speaker 3: just like and I had one of those two. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're kind of amazing. I think there's something to do
Speaker 3: with being light as well. See that I was a
Speaker 3: husky little kid. Yeah, so if I fail, it really hard, right,
Speaker 3: if you were sixty pounds and you fall, I think
Speaker 3: it hurts less.
Speaker 4: Maybe, But I think the light and fearless is a
Speaker 4: scary combination. Yeah, that's definitely I had I had one
Speaker 4: of that. We have several children between my wife and I,
Speaker 4: but there was one that was we called him a pixie. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but he would try anything, but almost to the point
Speaker 4: where he had no sense of mortality.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well kids are kind of like that a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but he was off, he was on a different chart
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 3: Do you think that you were more cautious like as
Speaker 3: a parent because you had gone through all of those
Speaker 3: injuries and that the.
Speaker 2: Creation of that world, as that world is forming, I would.
Speaker 4: Say that I probably leaned more towards the other side
Speaker 4: of it in my early years of parenting because I
Speaker 4: was young. I was I was twenty four when my
Speaker 4: son was more and yeah, and I was just joining
Speaker 4: him doing stuff and getting him into skateboarding, and you know,
Speaker 4: he's going down big ramps and I'm pushing him into
Speaker 4: waves and it was just more like, oh, I have
Speaker 4: this friend to do the stuff with. And it wasn't
Speaker 4: I was trying to keep him safe as well. But
Speaker 4: I did think that he had a pretty good sense
Speaker 4: of his limitations, right, and I was thankful for that.
Speaker 4: It wasn't until I had other kids that I realized, Oh,
Speaker 4: they don't all have that alteration gene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny that when you become a parent, and
Speaker 3: just as you get older as well, because I was
Speaker 3: different from my older boy than I was with the
Speaker 3: younger one.
Speaker 2: But they are different too. They are. Yes, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of nurture and nature.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you think like because your dad was
Speaker 3: very supportive to you, at least at least I took
Speaker 3: that for the documentary that you and your dad were
Speaker 3: close and he was very supportive. But the world was
Speaker 3: forming the competitive Is it competitive? I guess it's competitive, yeah,
Speaker 3: competitive skateboarding. But when I looked at that, the thing
Speaker 3: when you first got to do the nine hundred right
Speaker 3: or when you finally cracked how many times did you.
Speaker 2: Do that that day that X games to get to that?
Speaker 4: Now that I think that day was eleven or twelve
Speaker 4: or something. But it's funny that people focus in on
Speaker 4: that because there were plenty of other days where I
Speaker 4: tried it dozens of times?
Speaker 2: Right? But did you get it? Though you didn't get it?
Speaker 3: Why that's why they focused because the day you get
Speaker 3: it is that's the day right, right, But you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like that was a relatively short duration
Speaker 3: of attempts for as far as I was concerned.
Speaker 4: Right when people say you tried lem tones, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's nothing. I tried hundreds of times before that, like
Speaker 4: thousands of times.
Speaker 3: But something like the nine hundred, which I'm not quite
Speaker 3: sure why it's In fact, I don't know why it's
Speaker 3: called the nine hundred.
Speaker 2: Why is it called? That's the degrees of spin?
Speaker 3: Right, So it goes around and two and a half, right,
Speaker 3: so two and a half times in the air and
Speaker 3: then land. You invist each that in your head first,
Speaker 3: and you go through it in your head and you
Speaker 3: create you like a like a painter or does or
Speaker 3: a movie director does.
Speaker 2: Or Yeah, eventually I did that.
Speaker 4: Yes, When I first started trying it, it was almost
Speaker 4: ten years prior to that event, and I really didn't
Speaker 4: know how to spin around that far, how to balance
Speaker 4: my body so that I could be in the position
Speaker 4: to get back down on the.
Speaker 2: Ramp, So I didn't quite have the vision then.
Speaker 4: It wasn't until a few years later when I actively
Speaker 4: started trying it and started figuring out that I could
Speaker 4: possibly get close. That's when I started visualizing it. And
Speaker 4: that's when the chase got accelerated because I was just
Speaker 4: all in on this trick.
Speaker 3: Right, So you you understood that it was possible for you. Yes,
Speaker 3: And the idea of as you're falling as a human
Speaker 3: being is falling through space and you're still having a
Speaker 3: twist and you're going to you have an appointment to
Speaker 3: make with a board. You're going to have to You're
Speaker 3: gonna have to meet that appointment or it's going to hard,
Speaker 3: or you're going to be embarrassed, or you're just not
Speaker 3: going to make the trick. That does the time slow
Speaker 3: it down? Can you slow it down and think your
Speaker 3: way through it? Or is it not possible to calm
Speaker 3: anxiously go through the trick? Does it have to be
Speaker 3: you know, like automatic?
Speaker 2: Does it have to be?
Speaker 4: That's a really good question. I don't say that time
Speaker 4: slows down. It's more that there's a bunch of elements
Speaker 4: that have to come together, and you know it as
Speaker 4: soon as you take off that this one has all
Speaker 4: those pieces.
Speaker 2: Right, So there you take off. As you take off,
Speaker 2: I'm going to make it.
Speaker 4: I would say more often than not, you don't have
Speaker 4: all those pieces, So you take off immediately knowing this
Speaker 4: one's not going to work, but you have to go
Speaker 4: through the motion of it, because to take off in
Speaker 4: that position with that much speed and not spin all
Speaker 4: the way through is the most dangerous thing you can do.
Speaker 2: So you just have to commit to commit to to.
Speaker 4: So what I'm saying is a few times I've done
Speaker 4: it where it didn't happen that day at X Games,
Speaker 4: but it happens. It's happened to be before and after that.
Speaker 4: If I don't get a hold of my board, I
Speaker 4: have to commit my body to that full spin because
Speaker 4: of what I've the position I put.
Speaker 2: It in on upon the takeoff.
Speaker 4: And I learned that the hard way because a couple
Speaker 4: of times I didn't get my board got away from
Speaker 4: me and I just stopped and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: I was like, oh shit, I'm in space. I have
Speaker 4: no idea where the ramp is and where is it
Speaker 4: And then I hit on my back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then that's the worst case scenario.
Speaker 4: So I learned that even if it's not gonna work,
Speaker 4: just go through the motion of it.
Speaker 3: And does it feel like, does it feel like there's
Speaker 3: anything you can do? Like if you go off and
Speaker 3: you go no, everything is see here. But if I
Speaker 3: just do then.
Speaker 4: You definitely Yeah, I mean there's plenty of there's plenty
Speaker 4: of that in our cavalier attitude towards tricks. But also
Speaker 4: in that moment, if you're in competition, you're gonna try
Speaker 4: to make it no matter what. So that's another we
Speaker 4: call them hail Mary's. It's it's like you're gonna just
Speaker 4: throw it down because this is the time it has
Speaker 4: to happen, and if you're gonna crash, it should be
Speaker 4: now do you know what I mean? Like, if you're
Speaker 4: ever gonna get destroyed on this trick because you committed
Speaker 4: to it, it should be in this format.
Speaker 2: Right, So at least they within the bones of the track.
Speaker 3: Sure, right, Yeah, I got it if you had been
Speaker 3: involved in the sport. Now, like if you were like
Speaker 3: Tony Hawk is twelve years old today and you're getting
Speaker 3: involved in it does the sport and I say to you,
Speaker 3: you have to wear this, you have to wear these,
Speaker 3: this protective fit you have, it's still the same as
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 4: No, it's it's so when I was growing up, the
Speaker 4: only way you could have any sense of success in
Speaker 4: skateboarding was to compete, right, that's it. There was no YouTube,
Speaker 4: there's no social media. The magazines were not going to
Speaker 4: cover you unless you went to this big event and
Speaker 4: probably did well. Right, even if you were doing new
Speaker 4: tricks and not placing, they don't care about that. Right now,
Speaker 4: skating is of age. It's way more diverse. You can
Speaker 4: enter skateboarding and never have to compete and still be
Speaker 4: one of the most successful skaters that's ever been.
Speaker 2: Because you can do videos and you.
Speaker 4: Could have your you could have your your you know,
Speaker 4: you could have your big solt. You could be an
Speaker 4: influencer and a skater and it's just a totally different
Speaker 4: it is because of how much it permeated mainstream culture
Speaker 4: in that skateboarding is just more of an accepted form
Speaker 4: of art or sport or activity, whatever you want to
Speaker 4: call it.
Speaker 2: What is it? To me?
Speaker 4: It's yeah, it's it's it's a lifestyle, it's a sport,
Speaker 4: it's an art form.
Speaker 2: But to me, it's it's my salvation. That's what I
Speaker 2: was going to say. It's it's almost like I got
Speaker 2: a sense of that from you.
Speaker 4: I find what you were saying is is like, would
Speaker 4: you have to conform to some sort of team sport
Speaker 4: or uniform or it's something like that. Well or sure,
Speaker 4: if your goals me in the Olympics, Yes, that's your
Speaker 4: path and that's what you're going to have to adhere to.
Speaker 4: But you can just do it in your own voice,
Speaker 4: in your own style, and still make a go of it.
Speaker 3: Right, What about the idea if it was an Olympic
Speaker 3: sport when you were a kid, do you think you
Speaker 3: would have gone that way?
Speaker 2: Do you think you wo? Sure because that was that
Speaker 2: was the only But.
Speaker 3: Doesn't that say I don't know how it's graded in
Speaker 3: the Olympics. Can you bring a new trek to the Yes.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like gymnastics. You go, here's something
Speaker 3: nobody's ever done before. Yeah, and people go okay, wow,
Speaker 3: and you get your tans out of tans.
Speaker 2: Yeah and well.
Speaker 4: And also the judges are all well versed in skateboarding obviously, right,
Speaker 4: and for them to see something new is going to
Speaker 4: probably they're probably going to overscore you for it, right
Speaker 4: because they just didn't expect it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Does it form like a routine, like if you I
Speaker 3: don't know how the sports graded in the Olympics, So.
Speaker 4: The format of Olympics is not any different, really, than
Speaker 4: what you probably saw in the documentary or in other
Speaker 4: skate events. You have a time to run and you
Speaker 4: are judged on your difficulty factor, the speed you kept,
Speaker 4: how you'd use the course, and your consistency.
Speaker 2: The basic elements of it are all the same.
Speaker 3: It's funny though, that talking about it as a spore.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are guys who were interviewed during the documentary.
Speaker 3: When I watched it, I thought, this guy's with a
Speaker 3: neck tattoos, is never going to go to the Olympics.
Speaker 3: He doesn't, he's not even interested in watching the And.
Speaker 2: That was in my day.
Speaker 4: Skating was so counterculture that it was it was akin
Speaker 4: to punk rock music.
Speaker 2: So we're not going to fit in. We're doing it
Speaker 2: our way.
Speaker 3: For that's why I always associated with it, that it
Speaker 3: was like a punk thing.
Speaker 4: Sure, and in that respect, there's extreme versions of that
Speaker 4: where it's like we don't want to do anything that
Speaker 4: is considered mainstream or whatnot. But then if you I
Speaker 4: was so young, I didn't really understand all of that
Speaker 4: narrative maybe, and I just loved what skateboarding was, even
Speaker 4: though it was different and it made me an outcast
Speaker 4: at school, and you know, it was just not the
Speaker 4: coolest thing to do. I just love doing it, but
Speaker 4: also I love the idea that I got to compete
Speaker 4: with all these people that were that liked the same thing.
Speaker 3: Right, And it does seem quite supportive in an odd
Speaker 3: way that people are, you know, they're competitive, but not
Speaker 3: competitive in a way that you want to bring the
Speaker 3: other guy down.
Speaker 2: It's just like I can't believe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think and I also think that shines
Speaker 4: through in the Olympic coverage, right I saw. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you're talking about like I got to go to
Speaker 4: Tokyo And a good example was the women's park event.
Speaker 4: There was one one girl that was absolutely the favorite
Speaker 4: to win, you know, without question, if she would have
Speaker 4: made her whole routine, She's going to win this thing.
Speaker 4: And she just kept missing this one trick and she
Speaker 4: finally almost got it at the end, but still missed it.
Speaker 4: She ended up getting third, and when the whole when
Speaker 4: the competition was over and they gave out the awards,
Speaker 4: all of the other girls lifted her up on their
Speaker 4: shoulders and carried her out.
Speaker 2: Of the venue. That's beautiful. I mean, yeah, what other
Speaker 2: sport could you think of?
Speaker 4: Don't Olympics where they're Yeah, they're all celebrating the third
Speaker 4: place person because they thought she was going to be
Speaker 4: the best.
Speaker 3: And that she tried. Do you get an amount of attempts?
Speaker 3: And then I guess just with no, not with that.
Speaker 2: That's that one.
Speaker 4: It's a I believe it's a forty second routine, right,
Speaker 4: that forty seconds that's it.
Speaker 2: If you fall in the middle of it, you're out.
Speaker 3: So the idea of doing eleven attempts a nine hundred
Speaker 3: is not going to exist.
Speaker 2: And you're never going to see that in the Olympics. No, right, no,
Speaker 2: not at all. But you are going to see the
Speaker 2: ex game still, right, Yes, I hope so, yeah, I
Speaker 2: hope that format continues.
Speaker 3: Are you going to keep skating until the wheels come off?
Speaker 2: I mean that wasn't my quote, by the way, though.
Speaker 4: Remember Yeah, in a sense, I think that I've definitely
Speaker 4: gotten a better perspective on my limitations through this last
Speaker 4: injury I had, Yeah, and that I don't expect to
Speaker 4: come back fully one hundred percent and get back to
Speaker 4: the exact same type of skating I was doing before
Speaker 4: this happened. But I can find some happy medium there,
Speaker 4: and I can find something that where I'm still considered
Speaker 4: a professional. I could still probably put out content or
Speaker 4: whatever it is of some sort of progress in skating,
Speaker 4: but I'm not moving the needle necessarily.
Speaker 2: It's just more of that. There's more personal goals.
Speaker 3: Can you envision you the time, like, you know what
Speaker 3: I need to do the senior pgator.
Speaker 2: Sure, that's already. That's already right, So you get like
Speaker 2: a yellow jacket and tie.
Speaker 4: And it's funny because they're having a few events in
Speaker 4: recent years. In fact, there was one in particular called
Speaker 4: Bola Rama in Bondai in Australia, and they had this
Speaker 4: big bowl event every year. They had the pro division,
Speaker 4: then they had the Master's division, which is basically older pros,
Speaker 4: and then they had the Legend's division, which is super
Speaker 4: old pros like me.
Speaker 2: But legends is better than senior.
Speaker 4: Well legends, yeah, I feel like I'd rather be considered
Speaker 4: legend that a master.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, and also the Master's division,
Speaker 4: like those guys are still pretty much pro skaters, so
Speaker 4: I wouldn't have wanted to be in that division anyway.
Speaker 5: It's like like those guys who are younger and faster,
Speaker 5: and it's more like I would say, it would be
Speaker 5: more like the pros are sort of thirty and under,
Speaker 5: the Masters were like thirty to forty five ish, right,
Speaker 5: and then all.
Speaker 2: Of those old guy legends. Yeah, I mean I love
Speaker 2: the idea.
Speaker 3: Is there any generational kind of get off my lawn
Speaker 3: part of it? Like do you look at kids who
Speaker 3: are coming up now and the boards are better and
Speaker 3: the helmets are better.
Speaker 4: And the I would say there's a sense of jealousy
Speaker 4: that they have the resources to, let's say, try their
Speaker 4: first nine hundred into a phone pit.
Speaker 2: I would have loved that I didn't have that. But
Speaker 2: would you have got to be a legend if you
Speaker 2: if you land on foam, you're never alge. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: I would have maybe kept my front teeth. Yeah. Do
Speaker 2: you think you've spent a lot of money on dental
Speaker 2: bills over the years, Yeah, yeah I did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Let's see, I knocked my front teeth out when
Speaker 4: I was ten or eleven. That was my first being injury,
Speaker 4: and then knock them out about five times.
Speaker 2: Since no kind of mouthguard you can wear or something
Speaker 2: like that, U you could. I mean, I think I've
Speaker 2: passed that time in my life. Yeah.
Speaker 4: But also the cool thing and I and I say
Speaker 4: this a lot, but the cool thing about getting new
Speaker 4: teeth is that you get to pick the size and
Speaker 4: the color.
Speaker 3: So where you're losing this wing lining is yeah, so
Speaker 3: where do you think it goes?
Speaker 6: No, then this sport, it's a sport. I don't even
Speaker 6: know if I buy that it's a sport. Well, I
Speaker 6: think it's more than the definition. Sure, if that's if
Speaker 6: you're looking at the competitive side of it.
Speaker 2: But also there's just this.
Speaker 4: Whole counterculture art form to skateboarding that has no interest
Speaker 4: in competing. So I feel like it's it's a big umbrella.
Speaker 2: It is, I suppose the closest thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's nothing like this physically, but it's kind
Speaker 3: of like golf in the sense that some people play
Speaker 3: it and it's really important to them to win, and
Speaker 3: some people play it and they play against themselves and.
Speaker 4: They play or they or just to be social, right,
Speaker 4: or that's who they hang out with. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: there is there is a whole population of skaters that
Speaker 4: are like my age that they love to go skate
Speaker 4: curbs Sunday morning, eight am. That's their crew. They go
Speaker 4: and skate the grocery store curbs because they're painted red
Speaker 4: and they can grind and and it's low impact and
Speaker 4: still go and do that. Yeah, but my style is
Speaker 4: so steeped in what we call transition. Yeah that I'm
Speaker 4: pretty clunky on curves, Like it's probably more dangerous for
Speaker 4: me to skate a curb honestly than the fourteenth foot ramp.
Speaker 2: And do you still have a ramp at home?
Speaker 4: I have that the ramp that you saw on documentary
Speaker 4: that side. I was riding that yesterday. Really yeah, so
Speaker 4: you are by that's my happy place?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So like if you have you have a
Speaker 2: ride with your wife or something, you're like, you go
Speaker 2: out there, and I would say, it's definitely my way
Speaker 2: to center myself.
Speaker 3: Yes, what happens if you can't get on the ramp,
Speaker 3: you can't go on the board.
Speaker 2: We'll let you know when I get there. He's never
Speaker 2: going to happen. I'm sure it'll happen. Maybe they'll Maybe
Speaker 2: I'll just get a smaller.
Speaker 3: Ramp, get a smaller ramp, or maybe just start wearing
Speaker 3: more foam Where to.
Speaker 2: Get a foam suit? That might be a good look.
Speaker 3: Do you think that like the journey that skateboarding has made,
Speaker 3: do you think it's good. Do you think it's good
Speaker 3: for it? Do you think it's healthier now than it
Speaker 3: was then?
Speaker 2: It's much healthier now than it was then.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 4: I mean there's definitely the naysayers that say, like, oh,
Speaker 4: all this corporate.
Speaker 2: Because there is a lot of corporate Yeah, this corporate.
Speaker 4: Involvement and we don't belong in the Olympics and sell
Speaker 4: out and blah blah. But I still think the core
Speaker 4: of skateboarding is what it always has been, and that
Speaker 4: is a self expression and something that is very creative,
Speaker 4: very innovative, but also so diverse that you can't define
Speaker 4: it as just one thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I it beats me. I don't know how to
Speaker 2: define it.
Speaker 3: But I am shocked by the not shocked, I'm impressed
Speaker 3: and delighted at how different the mindset is.
Speaker 2: From one border to the next. It's a very individual and.
Speaker 4: I think that it's even more diverse and inclusive now
Speaker 4: than it used to be. I mean, the mindset to
Speaker 4: be a skater in the days that I started, you
Speaker 4: had to be very committed to it and almost like
Speaker 4: obsessed with it to the point where you didn't do
Speaker 4: anything else or know anything else, because it just wasn't accepted,
Speaker 4: and so you had to be stubborn and very resilient
Speaker 4: to all the all the criticism you get from the
Speaker 4: outside people.
Speaker 3: Stubborn thing is quite it's quite as the obsession that
Speaker 3: you kind of need. I have a friend who became
Speaker 3: a very very very successful guitarist, and he started when
Speaker 3: he was very young, obviously, and he said, you have
Speaker 3: to be obsessed enough. The expression he used was to
Speaker 3: achieve escape velocity. That you have to be so obsessive
Speaker 3: you have to like go to it four hours a
Speaker 3: day when you're like twelve years old in order to
Speaker 3: get that to make it become something else.
Speaker 2: So you know the ten thousand hours, Yeah idea? Is
Speaker 2: that what they say ten thousand hours on the board,
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 4: I mean that's what they say about anything is become
Speaker 4: an expert player. Ye put it in ten thousand hours.
Speaker 4: But I think that I never thought of it that way.
Speaker 4: It was just I was obsessed with it. It was as
Speaker 4: soon as as soon as the school bell rang, I
Speaker 4: had to figure out how to get to the skate park,
Speaker 4: and I would be there until either it closed or
Speaker 4: my mind got off work. She worked at a at
Speaker 4: a community college as a night teacher, so I had
Speaker 4: that going for me that it.
Speaker 3: Wasn't you still like you still feel that way? Is
Speaker 3: there still a moment in the day like if you
Speaker 3: talked to me and everything, I'm tired of this. Guys
Speaker 3: just really like to go.
Speaker 2: On the boat. No, but it's but it's definitely let's
Speaker 2: just put it this way.
Speaker 4: It's much more scheduled for me now where I know
Speaker 4: the guy have this window of the day and I
Speaker 4: better get there or I'm gonna it's gonna pass me by.
Speaker 3: Right, So you get there and then you get to
Speaker 3: the early board special at the Legends of Skateboarding restaurants.
Speaker 2: You're onto something there all right, Tony is a joy
Speaker 2: to talk to you. Thanks very much.