Speaker 1: Charges. That's created by Portalais and Control Media. It's produced
Speaker 1: by dB Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: time a former Son's player who you might remember as
Speaker 1: t Rex. More video in just a moment, but this
Speaker 1: is Rex Chapman's mug Shaun, and we are learning a
Speaker 1: lot more about the charge up Charging. You're arrested a
Speaker 1: pound and a half of crystal meth on you. When
Speaker 1: did it set in, like I'm probably going to jail.
Speaker 1: I did acid at twelve, I did mushrooms at thirteen.
Speaker 1: I was addicted to cocaine at fifteen, and I had money,
Speaker 1: and I was famous. I had pictures in the magazines.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of pressure for a young kid. I'm
Speaker 1: a good person. I'm not like my friends that kill
Speaker 1: people for fun. Welcome to Charges. I'm your host, Rex Chapman.
Speaker 1: Today on the show, we're joined by a legend, a
Speaker 1: name in person so synonymous with skateboarding and it's rise
Speaker 1: to prominence that it might shock you if you don't
Speaker 1: know it. Christian Hossi was at the front of a
Speaker 1: revolution that took place on the black tops across America
Speaker 1: and in the world in the late seventies and early eighties.
Speaker 1: Oh and he was a pro before he was even
Speaker 1: able to get his learners permit. But like so many
Speaker 1: other young stars in the City of Angels, the demons
Speaker 1: would come for Christian and his fall from grace and
Speaker 1: ultimate redemption are why we're here talking today. This his charges. Christian,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show, and thank you for being here,
Speaker 1: my friend. Thank you very much. Rex, and uh, I
Speaker 1: do appreciate the intro. And um, you know, these badges
Speaker 1: of honor that we have of success stories is you know,
Speaker 1: it's not always the case, and so being that we're alive,
Speaker 1: being that we have this second chance, it truly is
Speaker 1: something that I'm grateful for or and I don't want
Speaker 1: to take life for granted ever. Again, I'm with you,
Speaker 1: all right. Well, Christian, look, I'm not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 1: A lot of my audience probably isn't. It's familiar with
Speaker 1: the newly minted Olympic sport of skateboarding, which we'll talk
Speaker 1: about later on. So for someone who doesn't know, explain
Speaker 1: the world of skateboarding. When you were starting out, how
Speaker 1: did you fall in love with it? Well, my father
Speaker 1: was a surfer in the fifties and sixties, Hawaii, and
Speaker 1: so he met my mother in college and they moved.
Speaker 1: They got married in Vegas, moved to l A. He
Speaker 1: went to art school, she went to work in Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills as a secretary in business, and so I grew up.
Speaker 1: I was born and raised in l A, Hollywood, and
Speaker 1: skateboarding in the late sixties and early seventies was hot.
Speaker 1: It was the sidewalks surfing, you know. It went from
Speaker 1: kind of like surfers on the beach cruising around no
Speaker 1: waves to the earth thing Wheel came out in seventy
Speaker 1: three and that revolutionized skateboarding, and that's when skateboarding took off.
Speaker 1: And guys like Tony Alva, j Adams, Show Go Cuba,
Speaker 1: all the z Boys, the Dogtown guys were from Venice,
Speaker 1: Santa Monica area, Malibu. And I was part of that
Speaker 1: whole scene because my dad was part of the art scene.
Speaker 1: And so as a young boy at five years old,
Speaker 1: even when I was born, his friend Jim Ganzer gave
Speaker 1: him a Macaha board because he was, you know, distributing
Speaker 1: and he was a rep for them. So at six
Speaker 1: months old, I was being pushed across the kitchen floor
Speaker 1: on a Macaha board before I could even walk. And
Speaker 1: when the youth thing Wheel came out was when things changed,
Speaker 1: and when the surfers and skaters of the day like
Speaker 1: Tony Alva went to backyard swimming pools. You went from
Speaker 1: carving the bottom the scum line. We call it scum
Speaker 1: line because that's when there's water, there's water in a
Speaker 1: pool and it creates it's a dark line, and that's
Speaker 1: the scum line. Well, you could only go to scum
Speaker 1: line with like clay wheels. You could barely go over
Speaker 1: the light right, and so now all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they're getting to the tile, they're getting to the coping
Speaker 1: and then they're in the air. And so that's when
Speaker 1: I came in. I came in at six seven years
Speaker 1: old and the year Thinge wheel came out and we
Speaker 1: were like, this is incredible, smooth Cadillacs. They were even
Speaker 1: called Cadillac wheels, and so we were just ecstatic about
Speaker 1: how it felt at the school yards, down at the beach,
Speaker 1: Venice Beach, cruising down the boardwalk. And then the you know,
Speaker 1: skate park started opening up during that time, and there
Speaker 1: was a skate park called Marina del Rey Skatepark that
Speaker 1: my dad ended up managing right after you know, we
Speaker 1: went there, you know when it opened. It only lasted
Speaker 1: probably three years the park's existence. But during that time
Speaker 1: was when I sharpened my teeth, got involved in skating,
Speaker 1: and went from just a little grammat two and a
Speaker 1: gramat is a little peep squeak, a little you know,
Speaker 1: beginner to that year got a full page in Skateboarder magazine.
Speaker 1: How old were you? I was eleven, so nine. I
Speaker 1: went to the skate park ten Marina opened eleven, I
Speaker 1: got my picture in Skateboarder magazine. Twelve, I won the
Speaker 1: biggest amateur contest and then I turned pro at fourteen
Speaker 1: years old, and so that's kind of like my career.
Speaker 1: But skateboarding was like surfing on land, and for me,
Speaker 1: that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a surfer, wanted to be Jerry Lopez, wanted to be
Speaker 1: Larry Berteleman, wanted to be those guys and buttons and
Speaker 1: dank kaloha and so surfing, you gotta get up early.
Speaker 1: It's freezing cold, like the waves sucked. There's a million
Speaker 1: people out. I was like this, there's no reward in this,
Speaker 1: like you know, but I knew that my friends at ripped.
Speaker 1: There was this passion that they had that I knew.
Speaker 1: But when I got on my skateboard, I just emulated surfing,
Speaker 1: and so I got my surfing fixed on land and
Speaker 1: that's what drove me to skate every day to become
Speaker 1: who I obviously became in the skateboard world of the day.
Speaker 1: But even today, you know, skateboarding is still like in
Speaker 1: my blood. I gotta go, like yesterday I went. Today,
Speaker 1: I gotta go. I gotta practice for another event this weekend.
Speaker 1: And so I'm fifty three years old and still got
Speaker 1: to go out and perform in front of five thousand people.
Speaker 1: And I tell you, when you're rusty, you're like, I
Speaker 1: need to like practice, man, that's amazing and fifty three
Speaker 1: and I know that. And you're about to be fifty
Speaker 1: four next week because I'm fifty four on October five
Speaker 1: as well. My friend, are you serio? What birthday? Buddies?
Speaker 1: That's right, let's go, let's go. That was a great
Speaker 1: day in sixty seven. There we go, there we go.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, but I was I was brushing up on
Speaker 1: you and noticed that what what what a cool thing.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so I'm fascinated. Obviously, we we all are
Speaker 1: with sort of people that do things at a young age,
Speaker 1: and you were you're essentially a prodigy at least considering
Speaker 1: to how skateboarding was at the time. Did you know
Speaker 1: you were that good or was it just second nature?
Speaker 1: I assume you had and have perfect balance and you're
Speaker 1: compact and that has to help. But what made you
Speaker 1: so good and did you know you were that good?
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of circumstances and a lot
Speaker 1: of things that attribute to being at the right place
Speaker 1: at the right time, you know, having a father and
Speaker 1: a mother that was supportive, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and my dad going, you want to go skateboard? I
Speaker 1: want to go every day and he's like every day.
Speaker 1: He's like, dang, ten bucks every two hours every day. Oh,
Speaker 1: I need a second job. And then he was like
Speaker 1: he's like, you know what, I'm gonna work here and
Speaker 1: then you'll skate for free. And so he became the
Speaker 1: manager of the Marina del Rey skate Park and it
Speaker 1: was my backyard, and so that was a sacrifice that
Speaker 1: that I take into consideration when I look at all
Speaker 1: my kids. I have four boys, and just to you know,
Speaker 1: see the sacrifice that he made for them, you know,
Speaker 1: and for me, you know, is what I want to
Speaker 1: do for them. And that's something that really is uh important.
Speaker 1: You know. I believe that, uh we as fathers have
Speaker 1: to you know, kind of like um, figure out what
Speaker 1: those ingredients are per each kid. You know, I have
Speaker 1: multiple kids, and so each kid is differently and so
Speaker 1: when I'm thinking thinking about how my father kind of
Speaker 1: like guided me, told me, hey, you have what it takes.
Speaker 1: And then my peers or my my mentors like Jay
Speaker 1: Adams and show Go and those guys that were at
Speaker 1: the skate park, they were like Christian, you got, you
Speaker 1: got what it takes. And those words, those words light
Speaker 1: of fire underneath your bottom that no one can put
Speaker 1: out but yourself. It's only you who could lose confidence.
Speaker 1: Only you can lose the ability to believe in yourself.
Speaker 1: And and there is an element of talent, there is
Speaker 1: an element of balance, there is an element of my size.
Speaker 1: But really those are just obstacles and you have to
Speaker 1: learn how to go over those and you can. But
Speaker 1: it just takes passion. It takes to dedication, it takes discipline,
Speaker 1: it takes um dreaming, it takes having goals, and so
Speaker 1: when I was a young boy, I had big goals.
Speaker 1: So my father was always shoot for the moon, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, And and uh, the only thing
Speaker 1: that's gonna happen is you're gonna hit a star, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Because if you missed the moon,
Speaker 1: you'll nail a star because there's a million of them
Speaker 1: out there. But I aimed for the moon. I didn't
Speaker 1: settle for a star, and I was gonna go for it.
Speaker 1: And Bruce Lee was my idol when I was young,
Speaker 1: and all I thought about was either being Bruce Lee
Speaker 1: or Elvis Pressley. I was gonna be a movie star
Speaker 1: singing to girls, you know, playing my guitar on stage,
Speaker 1: or I was gonna be beating everyone up with no
Speaker 1: shirt on, like clowning them, rubbing my nose, going come on,
Speaker 1: what you know what I mean? You ain't got nothing,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, on the big screen. And
Speaker 1: so for me, those were my like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: what I was aiming at. And with my father and
Speaker 1: all those people around me saying, man, you got this,
Speaker 1: you got what it takes. I think that's the uh
Speaker 1: ingredients every kid needs, every you know, child needs to
Speaker 1: be able to become a champion. What do you remember
Speaker 1: your fourteen and making a decision to turn pro and
Speaker 1: what does turning pro in the world of skateboarding mean?
Speaker 1: At that point, you know, turning pro is everything in
Speaker 1: a skateboarder's career because it's the moment that you're validated,
Speaker 1: you're confirmed, you're basically awarded that. It's like a degree
Speaker 1: right in school, you get a degree and there's an
Speaker 1: accomplishment there that has taken place. And for us back
Speaker 1: in the eighties, a signature model was the pinnacle of
Speaker 1: turning pro. You had your own skateboard, You designed your
Speaker 1: own shape, you had your own graphic, and it had
Speaker 1: your name on it and it represented who you are.
Speaker 1: When you showed up to an event, you had your
Speaker 1: flag and it was your board. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: Ford in his car, Ferrari in his car. It was legit.
Speaker 1: But could you imagine if the driver could design their
Speaker 1: own car and have their name on it. That's what
Speaker 1: it would be like. And today it's when you got
Speaker 1: that first board. What did you feel like when you
Speaker 1: saw it? Oh, it was a dream come true because
Speaker 1: you know you you dream about it since you first
Speaker 1: picked up a magazine, and now it's happening, and you
Speaker 1: just can't believe it because it's it's it's almost like
Speaker 1: winning the Hall of Fame. It's like almost winning that
Speaker 1: one thing that you can only win once in a lifetime.
Speaker 1: It's a lifetime achievement. And then you know, today skateboards
Speaker 1: with your graphics or your name on it aren't as
Speaker 1: sought after as they were back in the day because
Speaker 1: the career of an amateur is way longer now. So
Speaker 1: you could win professional contest as an amateur and stay amateur.
Speaker 1: We're back in our day you could not receive any
Speaker 1: money if you received if you received a dollar, you
Speaker 1: were now professional. So so we would not receive money
Speaker 1: until we finally decided to term. That's why it was
Speaker 1: such a big deal. All of a sudden, you couldn't
Speaker 1: turn it down. It would get you know, at some
Speaker 1: point you couldn't just couldn't afford to turn it down, right, Well, no,
Speaker 1: you could because you're I was fourteen years old, ye,
Speaker 1: but but at some point for you you were gonna
Speaker 1: be too good, you know. But but that's what's happening today.
Speaker 1: Kids are skating amateur and getting paid so wide term
Speaker 1: pro you know, all of a sudden you turn pro
Speaker 1: and it's almost like your exit out. It's like, now
Speaker 1: you're pro, and you got to compete against real the
Speaker 1: pro pros, right or no, yes, yes, there there's an
Speaker 1: element of now you've got to really step it up
Speaker 1: and fit in and become a a legacy. Now it's
Speaker 1: not just your getting your wings. It's not just you're
Speaker 1: you're the rookie of the year. Now it's like you
Speaker 1: need to make your stamp. You need to really come
Speaker 1: and let your presence be known in the skateboard world.
Speaker 1: And it's always with your peers. Like for me, it
Speaker 1: was never with the crowd out. It wasn't with I
Speaker 1: always wanted to impress my peers. I wanted to skate
Speaker 1: with better people than I was. You know, me and
Speaker 1: Tony Hawk would compete and it was great competition because
Speaker 1: we were so different in our styles of skateboarding, whether
Speaker 1: it was technical ability to power and height and you
Speaker 1: know what I did, and you know I came from
Speaker 1: that school, he came from the other school. And we
Speaker 1: battled and that pushed us to be better at both
Speaker 1: our crafts in the style of you know, how we
Speaker 1: approach skateboarding, and that's what will push you. You will
Speaker 1: never be pushed if you're the best, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. You could end up becoming a teacher, you
Speaker 1: become a mentor. But will you grow? Will you will
Speaker 1: you have something a higher bar to aim at? Most
Speaker 1: likely you'll relax, you'll step down and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: the rest comes up and passes you by. And that's
Speaker 1: not what we wanted to be. We wanted to be
Speaker 1: on the cutting edge and that was proven through you know,
Speaker 1: almost a decade and a half half of skateboarding. We
Speaker 1: weren't stopping, we were competing. And then the street revolution
Speaker 1: came in and changed the face of like popularity of skateboarders,
Speaker 1: and then we had to fight for our own again.
Speaker 1: You know that vert is the elite skateboard discipline over
Speaker 1: street or street is oververt, and we're like, no, skateboarding
Speaker 1: is skateboarding. We do it all. And that's why I
Speaker 1: street skated and vert skated, backyard, pool, ditches, flat ground.
Speaker 1: We did it all just because it wasn't about one
Speaker 1: or the other. We wanted to be the best at everything,
Speaker 1: and that's what created our culture and why skateboarding is
Speaker 1: so unique because it's not just a sport, it's a lifestyle.
Speaker 1: It's something you do on and off the board, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's the special factor about skateboarding. How many people
Speaker 1: there Tony hot Well let it all any day, Chrissie,
Speaker 1: I saw Chris, Sorry right now, I siding himself up
Speaker 1: for all the run to the day. This is it
Speaker 1: do a guy for both scares, for all the marvels
Speaker 1: for for fifties six for us on everything you know
Speaker 1: I read about you or seemed to come across about
Speaker 1: you as you linked with Tony Tony Hall, just as
Speaker 1: as far as the timing and the ability and all
Speaker 1: of that. What was your relationship like back in the day.
Speaker 1: What was it like when you guys were young with
Speaker 1: one another. Well, it's funny that me and Tony is
Speaker 1: the only skaters that had their fathers fully involved in
Speaker 1: their careers. So Tony Hawk's dad was running the ns
Speaker 1: A contest and organizing that. My dad was running my
Speaker 1: business and helping do all the graphics, the designs. We
Speaker 1: would hand screen the boards in a garage, two thousand
Speaker 1: boards ourselves, and we would do all the ads ourselves,
Speaker 1: and just that whole process. But to think that our
Speaker 1: fathers were the really the only ones that I can
Speaker 1: remember being there showing up to support their children, and
Speaker 1: then we became who we became is not a coincidence.
Speaker 1: I really believe there's an element of encouragement and support
Speaker 1: that you know, our fathers brought to us that no
Speaker 1: one else did, you know what I mean. And that's
Speaker 1: something that I cherish. That's something that I'm always you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about when it comes to like mine and his career.
Speaker 1: Because of course we had to show up. Of course
Speaker 1: we had to practice. Of course we had to put
Speaker 1: in the work, we had to compete, we had to
Speaker 1: put on the paths, we had to you know, get hurt,
Speaker 1: we had to do all those things. But we needed
Speaker 1: that confidence and our fathers really gave us confidence in
Speaker 1: that support. That is something worth more than any you know,
Speaker 1: um degrees, any type of money. There's some things you
Speaker 1: can't buy in a career, and I think that that
Speaker 1: was one of them. And of course he was born
Speaker 1: and raised at del mar Skate Park. I was born
Speaker 1: and raised at Marina del Ray skate Park. He had
Speaker 1: his mentors, I had mine. It was just the right
Speaker 1: place at the right time. And then when we competed,
Speaker 1: We were friends, we had no issues, but the fans
Speaker 1: were just so aggressively rivaling against each other that it
Speaker 1: was just intense at contest and we we ate it
Speaker 1: up because it pushed us to fight for something. It's
Speaker 1: like when your fans in football are out there and
Speaker 1: you're like, we're losing in Our fans are here, they're
Speaker 1: all pay it. They're freezing with no shirts on and
Speaker 1: it's snowing. I need to win for them to you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, There's this element of you got
Speaker 1: something else to fight for other than yourself. And I
Speaker 1: believe that me and Tony had that you know in
Speaker 1: our fans rivalry that you know is something that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm really starting to put together in my head to
Speaker 1: put a documentary of that together, to create it sounds fantastic,
Speaker 1: and I'm putting that kind of like a script together.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I was just thinking of in my
Speaker 1: mind because I'm thinking about, you know, you've got your
Speaker 1: home skate park, did you skate better on the road,
Speaker 1: did you skate better at home? All of that stuff
Speaker 1: and your fans, Man, that would be golden sign me
Speaker 1: up already. Yeah, I think people would want to know
Speaker 1: the nuts and bolts of the backdrop, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Kristen Hosi is a pioneer of bringing skateboarding
Speaker 1: into the public eye, being sponsored by his idols at
Speaker 1: age eleven in a foreign on set to most. But
Speaker 1: it's the only life you had to lead. Tony Hawk
Speaker 1: helped bring skateboarding to the mainstream. They were friends and
Speaker 1: competitors coming up together. It should have been Christian Hosi's
Speaker 1: name hoisted right next to Hawks. Unfortunately, a pattern of
Speaker 1: drug use emerged and led Christian down a dark road ahead.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1: So here on charges. Of course, we talked about the
Speaker 1: good times, also focus on the dark times as well.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about the first time you did drugs? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, I was probably say seven eight
Speaker 1: years old, asking me and my friend Aaron Murray, pro
Speaker 1: skater friend of mine. We grew up since we're babies.
Speaker 1: You know, our fathers are they're playing blues guitar in
Speaker 1: their living room, their artists, they go to art school,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We grew up in that
Speaker 1: generation to where it was sex, drugs, rock and roll,
Speaker 1: and so for us, you know, as kids were like, hey,
Speaker 1: we want to smoke some weed. They're like, here you go,
Speaker 1: here's some weed. Here, here's how you don't You don't
Speaker 1: roll a pregnant joint, you roll it. You know. They
Speaker 1: taught us how to roll a good joint at eight
Speaker 1: years old, you know what I mean. And so that's
Speaker 1: my first you know time. And then like you know, weed,
Speaker 1: smoked weed probably if we could every day every day.
Speaker 1: So by ten and eleven, I was smoking weed every day.
Speaker 1: By twelve, I'm dealing you know, dime bags at the
Speaker 1: skate park and you're in school, and you're in school, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was in school, you know, going to junior high,
Speaker 1: you know, seventh grade, and my dad ran the Marina
Speaker 1: del Rey skate park. I mean, I'm smoking weed with
Speaker 1: all my mentors. You know, Ja does your dad know?
Speaker 1: I was smoking weed with my dad? Okay, Okay, So
Speaker 1: that's why he gave us the weed. And he's like,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna do it, do it right. Well, no,
Speaker 1: He's like, do the good stuff, you know, don't go
Speaker 1: out and do some bunk and get yourself in trouble.
Speaker 1: And you know, I see a lot of parents doing that. Today,
Speaker 1: they're like, you know what, if you're gonna do drugs,
Speaker 1: do it at home. And I'm like, that's not the
Speaker 1: best way to do it. You know, that's the kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know what, I'm gonna kind of condone
Speaker 1: you doing this. So for me, it's you know, I
Speaker 1: don't condone it. I'm not gonna let you do it.
Speaker 1: You're gonna not do it at my house. And if
Speaker 1: you do it, that's on your time, and I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna encourage you not to do it. What you do
Speaker 1: at your friend's house when you're not at home. I
Speaker 1: cannot control My parents could not control me, and I
Speaker 1: knew that, and I had to take the chance, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, of doing whatever. But I just
Speaker 1: try to educate my kids on drugs, what they are,
Speaker 1: what they look like, what they do to you, how
Speaker 1: they affect you, and the dangers of it. And then
Speaker 1: all right, have a good day, son, be good, be good,
Speaker 1: be good. And I think that that's how our father's
Speaker 1: back and that day kind of did it. So they
Speaker 1: kept us close, taught us how so they don't have
Speaker 1: to worry that we're gonna do something, you know, stupid.
Speaker 1: Smoked some angel dust and not know we're smoking angel dust,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? What was the culture around
Speaker 1: drugs and skating Because I'm I'm not saying it's right,
Speaker 1: but certainly I think there was a perception about the
Speaker 1: culture of skating, uh and what came along with it. Well,
Speaker 1: there was definitely no perception. It was reality, right, it
Speaker 1: was you know, from my crew, the surfer skaters and
Speaker 1: the punk rockers really quickly became the ones that were
Speaker 1: the risk takers, the ones that were getting crazy. Because
Speaker 1: then there was the jock you know, the the freestyle
Speaker 1: guys that did skateboarding and they did the three sixties
Speaker 1: and the handstands, and they wore the short shorts and
Speaker 1: they got the you know, the the uniforms, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, and they were like goody to shoe people. Well,
Speaker 1: we were the opposite. We were the radicals. We were
Speaker 1: smoking weed, were drinking how all chasing girls were on
Speaker 1: the beach. Were there successful skaters who didn't, well, none
Speaker 1: that hung out with us, because you know, we considered
Speaker 1: those people kind of like cooks or Barney's, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, because it was a lifestyle. We weren't
Speaker 1: we weren't trying to be professional. We're trying to just
Speaker 1: live it up and to be the best while living
Speaker 1: it up. So you know, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, collateral damage. There was a lot of people
Speaker 1: that were dying. There was a lot of people that
Speaker 1: were you know, their dreams were getting you know, dashed,
Speaker 1: you know, to the ground because they got into drugs.
Speaker 1: And then there was people who would lose it because
Speaker 1: they didn't you couldn't handle the neighborhood, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And all those factors were the ones that
Speaker 1: we like to break through to be a survivor, to
Speaker 1: be a person that can make it happen. You know,
Speaker 1: I can come from nothing and become a rich person.
Speaker 1: And that's really you know, I came from nothing. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't have money, you know what I mean. We
Speaker 1: were okay, you know, Mom had money to pay our
Speaker 1: bills and give me twenty bucks every day, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But I was not a well to
Speaker 1: do kid. I fought for everything that I had. And
Speaker 1: then when I started making two thousand a month at fourteen,
Speaker 1: fifteen years old on my own, because when I realized
Speaker 1: that I can do it, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: that that I can be a professional business person, and
Speaker 1: then I started my own company at seventeen. And you know,
Speaker 1: along with all that pressure and fame and being around
Speaker 1: your mentors, you end up doing things you really don't
Speaker 1: you're peer pressured into doing. I smoked more weed, I
Speaker 1: drank more alcohol. I did cocaine at thirteen, I did
Speaker 1: acid at twelve, I did mushrooms at at thirteen. I
Speaker 1: was addicted to cocaine at fifteen, quit at like seventeen,
Speaker 1: So you know what I mean, doing like how many?
Speaker 1: I mean my friends were ads, were doctors in Beverly Hills,
Speaker 1: you know, hanging out with the Paul Shores, and all
Speaker 1: these crazy kids were young, just like free, no parents anywhere,
Speaker 1: doing whatever we wanted. And I had money and I
Speaker 1: was famous. I had pictures in the magazines. It's it's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure for a young kid. I have
Speaker 1: no brothers and sisters, so there was no one to like,
Speaker 1: you know, kick you into you know, shape, or or
Speaker 1: to pull you down or pull you up. It was
Speaker 1: just me figuring it out. And I'm glad I had
Speaker 1: mentors that were like, you need to be the best Christian.
Speaker 1: And that's what kind of kept me from going down
Speaker 1: into gang affiliation, um, being a drug dealer, a hustler,
Speaker 1: being a person who would give it up for a
Speaker 1: quick dollar. I had a goal. I had a goal
Speaker 1: and that was and that saved it saved my career.
Speaker 1: It's the only reason why I have accomplished everything that
Speaker 1: I accomplished is because you know, Bruce Lee was, you know,
Speaker 1: a man of conviction. He was gonna do it. Nothing
Speaker 1: got in and I studied his life. I studied his work,
Speaker 1: work ethics, and you know, I did his stretching before contest,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to just be that elite of an athlete.
Speaker 1: And you know, when it started happening and manifesting and
Speaker 1: I started becoming that, it was surreal because you know,
Speaker 1: as the person, everybody hear the guy. You're on this pedestal,
Speaker 1: you're the man, you're dominating, you're winning this, and you're cool,
Speaker 1: you're you know all this stuff, and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: it's such a like a sigh of relief, all that
Speaker 1: hard work you put in. But then you gotta reproduce
Speaker 1: that again next month. You gotta do it again. The
Speaker 1: next month. You gotta go and you gotta come do
Speaker 1: and if you don't do it, you feel lesser than
Speaker 1: next thing. You know, people are chomping at your heels
Speaker 1: and you're just like, wow, Okay, this is a real
Speaker 1: game to play, and that pushed me to continue to excel.
Speaker 1: The perils of pressure for a professional athlete presents enough
Speaker 1: problems as it is. Christian was facing all of that
Speaker 1: and was a drug addicted preteen in the spotlight. It's
Speaker 1: hard enough for an only child to try and find
Speaker 1: themselves in adulthood under normal circumstances, but nothing about Christians
Speaker 1: life and those who surrounded him was regular. My addiction
Speaker 1: issues with opioids have been well documented on this show,
Speaker 1: and we've had all kinds of amazing guests tell their
Speaker 1: tales of overcoming adversity, but none like this. Unfortunately, no
Speaker 1: one can see what was coming next. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back after a word from our sponsors. Well, I know,
Speaker 1: I think you know. I had a problem with opioids
Speaker 1: for fourteen fifteen years, painkillers, rehab three times, and so
Speaker 1: I asked these questions with all due respect. H I
Speaker 1: knew from the moment that I and I didn't my
Speaker 1: whole playing career, I didn't take drugs, I didn't do drugs.
Speaker 1: But the second I took a painkiller late in my career.
Speaker 1: I knew something was different and something changed. I want
Speaker 1: to know what that experience was like for you, And
Speaker 1: if that the first time you had crystal meth or
Speaker 1: any other drug that really sent you to a place where,
Speaker 1: oh this is different. This is something I don't know
Speaker 1: that I can do without. Yeah, I had that experience.
Speaker 1: I mean I did speed, I did Black Beauties, you know,
Speaker 1: back when I was you know, in my fifteen you know,
Speaker 1: doing cocaine and all that. You know, we smoked cocaine,
Speaker 1: you know, free base, we did qua ludes, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, we did so much of that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was fifteen years old doing all this stuff, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I would stay up all night
Speaker 1: and enter a contest and then I'd I'd get second place,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, how did I get second place?
Speaker 1: I could have smoked those you know, you know, and
Speaker 1: and then I realized I can't do that anymore. That
Speaker 1: was kind of like one of those moments where me
Speaker 1: and me and Jay Adam stayed up all night party
Speaker 1: in doing coke with a bunch of people, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I got this contest in the bagless stay up all night.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go skate this contest and win anyway, And
Speaker 1: I went and I basically fell on an easy trick,
Speaker 1: and I was like, and I should have won, but
Speaker 1: I fell on an easy trick, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna do that again. And so no, no,
Speaker 1: I was pissed because I know how good I was.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, When you know that you
Speaker 1: could just beat people when you could stay up all
Speaker 1: night and on drugs, I mean, you're pretty confident, right,
Speaker 1: You're you're thinking I could do this in my sleep,
Speaker 1: one handed tied behind my back. But then I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not superman. I need to really focus and not
Speaker 1: allow that to happen. Because that's when I started winning
Speaker 1: contest was right around then. I was already a prodigy
Speaker 1: at twelve. Right Everyone's saying I'm gonna be the best,
Speaker 1: And so it took me a minute to get there
Speaker 1: in competition because those guys were already the best, and
Speaker 1: there was a good competition, and I had to like
Speaker 1: step in and become you know, uh kind of refined skateboarder.
Speaker 1: And so none of those drugs really did it for me,
Speaker 1: you know, marijuana. I smoked weed every single day. I
Speaker 1: saw Bob Marley twice. I saw him when I was seven,
Speaker 1: saw him when I was eleven, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So I was a Rastafarian through and through. I thought,
Speaker 1: if there was spirituality, I'm like, definitely highly Selassia, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I and I right and so um.
Speaker 1: But then later on in my I think it was
Speaker 1: like nine one. I had a girlfriend, you know in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: lou Roll's utter and for three years, and then we
Speaker 1: broke up. And then I was a single guy running
Speaker 1: rapp at crazy in Hollywood, like single life, playing the
Speaker 1: player life. And then everybody's doing freebase crack cocaine is
Speaker 1: big with all the models, the actors and all the
Speaker 1: industry people and all the parties. And I was still
Speaker 1: not into it. I was like, I'm like at a
Speaker 1: therapy session. All I would do is sit there and
Speaker 1: have to like talk talk them off the cliff of depression,
Speaker 1: talk them off the cliff of like, you know, relationships.
Speaker 1: And it never affected my brain the way that it
Speaker 1: affected a lot of my friends, where they'd get paranoid,
Speaker 1: they would get you know, schizophrenic, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: cocaine did a number. Ecstasy. I did ecstasy a fifteen
Speaker 1: years old when it was over the counter, and and so,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, drugs wasn't a big deal because
Speaker 1: I really didn't lose my mind when I took acid.
Speaker 1: Nothing melted. When I did my shoms, I just laughed.
Speaker 1: So I was fortunate not to have that, you know,
Speaker 1: well unfortunate because then I'm a functioning user. So now
Speaker 1: I can use drugs and it just didn't affect me.
Speaker 1: But then when I started doing speed and I moved
Speaker 1: down to Orange County. In Orange County was like kind
Speaker 1: of like, we're a lot of the bikers, and in
Speaker 1: the underground scene was like they were smoking speed, they
Speaker 1: were shooting speed, they were eating speed, and it was
Speaker 1: all different kinds of speed. And when I tried that,
Speaker 1: all I did was snorted, and I was like, dang,
Speaker 1: I'm ripping. I'm like killing it. Well, all right, this
Speaker 1: is like coffee in a in a in a line,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't make me feel like and I'm not
Speaker 1: having to like basically therapeutic. Everyone around me, we all
Speaker 1: just want to go out and and do stuff longer, faster,
Speaker 1: and more days in a row. I mean I'd be
Speaker 1: up for two three days at a time, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean trying to, you know, find that euphoria of it.
Speaker 1: But really I was just a social person. I was
Speaker 1: into girls, and I would love to talk, and I
Speaker 1: love to go out, and I love to do things.
Speaker 1: So it's what kept me kind of going. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the X Games, the first X Games. You know, from
Speaker 1: what I've read, it seems like it was going to
Speaker 1: be a big, you know, pretty big deal, you and
Speaker 1: Tony back together competing again. But then you don't go.
Speaker 1: You don't go to the X Games. A why and
Speaker 1: then what in your mind were the consequences of you
Speaker 1: not participating in those first X Games, because you know,
Speaker 1: the speculation seemed to be that you didn't go and
Speaker 1: therefore somewhat missed out on your rightful place in the
Speaker 1: minds of people who were, you know, first learning skateboarding
Speaker 1: was a sport. Well, here I got a possession charge, right,
Speaker 1: having a pipe with some speed. Now I have a Mr.
Speaker 1: Meaner drug charge. Then I got another misdemeanor drug charge
Speaker 1: with it being on probation, and now that is more severe.
Speaker 1: Now I have a bench warrant out for my arrest,
Speaker 1: right and so here, I am going to Japan. We're
Speaker 1: about to go to Rhode Island for the first X Games.
Speaker 1: I got a bench warrant. I'm not gonna go. I'm
Speaker 1: running from the cops. I'm running from bench warrant. And
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I don't need the
Speaker 1: X Games. You know what, it looks kind of dorky. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be whatever. And then I saw it on
Speaker 1: the TV and I was like, yep, there it goes
Speaker 1: kind of dorky skateboarding, you know what I mean. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm too cool for school anyway, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I'll come back when I when I when I get
Speaker 1: my bench warrants taken care of. Well, I never got
Speaker 1: my bench warrants taken care of. And I ran from
Speaker 1: the cops from all the way to two thousand when
Speaker 1: I got arrested. Ran from the cops. No idea on
Speaker 1: me running around town, you know, oh yeah, And I
Speaker 1: had a ninety day sentence to do that I ran from.
Speaker 1: Then now I needed to do a six month sentence
Speaker 1: because I ran from that. And now I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going. And what was I thinking? I was thinking,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm living this thrilled life. And this
Speaker 1: is where the romance comes from, when it comes to underground,
Speaker 1: when it comes to like taking risks. You know, I thought,
Speaker 1: I've never been a bad guy. I've never been a
Speaker 1: kid running from cops. In my life. I paid, I
Speaker 1: spent twenty to forty thousand a month on my credit cards.
Speaker 1: I traveled the world with my team. I you know,
Speaker 1: I never had an issue with money, and here I
Speaker 1: am now kind of having issues running around the streets
Speaker 1: trying to play this. You know, like I'm having a
Speaker 1: fun time, and you think you are, you know, having
Speaker 1: a fun time because you're doing things that are like risky.
Speaker 1: I'm running from cops. You know. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: kind of like Bonnie and Clyde, you know, gonna go
Speaker 1: rob another bank and can't we get away with it?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And I really thought I
Speaker 1: was having a good time. But as I look back,
Speaker 1: I can see the despair. I could see the wanting
Speaker 1: knowing who I was, but not being able to get unstuck.
Speaker 1: I was stuck in a rut. And that's the two
Speaker 1: lives that a lot of people live when it comes
Speaker 1: to this, this addiction lifestyle. You you you get addicted to
Speaker 1: drugs or alcohol or anything. You could get addicted to money,
Speaker 1: and next thing you know, it consumes you to the
Speaker 1: point where you'll sacrifice everything for it. You know, my
Speaker 1: list of priorities was family, friends, skateboarding, then parties, then
Speaker 1: drugs and and all that that list turned upside down.
Speaker 1: It was drugs, then it was parties, and then it
Speaker 1: was business, then it was family, friends and family at
Speaker 1: the because you're so shameful, you're so you know you're guilty,
Speaker 1: and you're just not the person you and when you
Speaker 1: know what's good and you know what's right, and you've
Speaker 1: been there, done that, You've been on pedestals, you've been
Speaker 1: a world champion. I know what it takes. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I was missing something. I
Speaker 1: didn't have my own identity. If you'd been arrested for
Speaker 1: the same thing in state cort albeit in California or Hawaii,
Speaker 1: he would have looked at immediate probation or something close
Speaker 1: to it, even with prior convictions. And it makes some
Speaker 1: difference you're involved in the case, whether you were a
Speaker 1: courier or you're a minimal player, or you were a
Speaker 1: significant distributor. It really depends on how the government he
Speaker 1: uses you in the end, and the only way to
Speaker 1: avoid end the federal system is you cooperate. His response was,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to write anyone out. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to point the finger at anyone. Uh and he paid
Speaker 1: the price. The ultimate irony is that everyone else around
Speaker 1: him granted him about everyone else around him had no
Speaker 1: problem pointing the finger at him. So when push came
Speaker 1: to shove, he was left out in the cold. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the Honolulu airport. What was happening in your
Speaker 1: life at that point? You're arrested a pound and a
Speaker 1: half of crystal meth on you. When did it set
Speaker 1: in like, oh shit, I'm I'm probably going to jail.
Speaker 1: Um And what happened to you as a person at
Speaker 1: that point. I've traveled to Hawaii a million times, right,
Speaker 1: carried as much weed as I could carry everywhere. I've
Speaker 1: taken it everywhere around the world, two places where you'll
Speaker 1: get kicked out of country's forever for life. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I just thought they're never gonna check me.
Speaker 1: You know, they've never checked me before, Why would they
Speaker 1: check me now? And then little did I know I
Speaker 1: was set up and that they were waiting for me,
Speaker 1: and all these you know, agents were waiting for me,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know. I just thought they were like
Speaker 1: hand picking me out of the bunch, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I was like, you're crazy, I don't know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. You know this is illegal. You
Speaker 1: can't search me. How old were you? Thirty one, thirty
Speaker 1: two years old? And so I'm just sitting there and
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't know i'd go to jail for
Speaker 1: ten years, you know what I mean. I just didn't think, so,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But no one informed me
Speaker 1: of the circumstances. No one informed me of the repercussions.
Speaker 1: No one informed me that how to deal with a
Speaker 1: situation when agents come up to you. Because now I'm
Speaker 1: a professional now, if they would have done that to
Speaker 1: me today after going to prison, I would have known
Speaker 1: what to do and they wouldn't have been able to
Speaker 1: catch me, and I wouldn't have been busted, and I
Speaker 1: probably would have been dead or eventually in jail again anyway.
Speaker 1: So I'm just fortunate that I didn't have that information
Speaker 1: because it led me to this path that I'm on
Speaker 1: right now. And I'm here on the you know podcast
Speaker 1: with you talking about you know, the charges, and and
Speaker 1: when they're sitting there telling you, you know, look, Christian,
Speaker 1: you're not a drug dealer. You're we know you're christianssy
Speaker 1: and you need to you know, tell us you know
Speaker 1: where you're going, who you're to. And I'm like, you're crazy,
Speaker 1: I can't do that. You do the crime you're doing
Speaker 1: the time. They're like, well, no one retaliates. I'll go, well,
Speaker 1: I'm from Venice Beach and snitches get stitches and you know,
Speaker 1: haven't you watched all the movies And they're like, you
Speaker 1: know what, that's the movies. And I'm like, well, they said,
Speaker 1: has no retaliation. Well, I told them I fit into
Speaker 1: the two percent because if I were to tell on me,
Speaker 1: it would be a problem. And I'm a good person.
Speaker 1: I'm not like my friends that kill people for fun,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, just because you don't pay up,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And so I just was
Speaker 1: like sorry, and they were like, well, you're gonna do it,
Speaker 1: and that at that moment, you know, it didn't really
Speaker 1: sink in until I went in and I walk into
Speaker 1: the pod where they have all the inmates and these
Speaker 1: kids from Christians, soy, what's up? So you're a celebrity
Speaker 1: right when you walk in? Yeah? Yeah right, and they're like, dude,
Speaker 1: saw you on the news. You were on the news.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what's up? And I was like sick.
Speaker 1: I was like, so what are you here for? He goes,
Speaker 1: I'm here for murder. I'm doing a double life sentence.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, sick, nice to meet you, right,
Speaker 1: just a kid twenty one years old, right, And he's
Speaker 1: I'm like, so what's the deal with my case? They're
Speaker 1: saying I'm gonna do ten years, and he goes, yeah, bra, easy,
Speaker 1: kind Bra, You'll be out no time. Ten years, Bro,
Speaker 1: I got a hundred and seventy years. And I was
Speaker 1: like looking at him and I was like, ten years
Speaker 1: is good compared to one seventy, you know. I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: you put it that way. You put it that way, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm out no time. But in my heart I was
Speaker 1: like sinking, like this is true. And that's when I
Speaker 1: really started to like think what is going on? And
Speaker 1: you know, why me? Why me? When you showed up
Speaker 1: to prison though, what was it like being finally forced
Speaker 1: to well, to get clean and how did you how
Speaker 1: did you manage that? Are their programs? You really don't
Speaker 1: even think about that when you're under this kind of
Speaker 1: pressure and stress of like, oh my addiction and do
Speaker 1: I need a fix or do I need to or
Speaker 1: am I gonna have any withdrawals? That was the farthest
Speaker 1: thing from my mind. But I was never a person
Speaker 1: who had withdrawals with anything, you know, in my life
Speaker 1: and with speed, you just go to sleep, you wake
Speaker 1: up and you're fine, you know what I mean. I'd
Speaker 1: stay up for two days, I'd go to sleep for
Speaker 1: twelve hours, I'd wake up, I'd be a little groggy,
Speaker 1: sleep the next night and I'm back to one, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Because that drug comes in and
Speaker 1: out of your system within twenty It's like comes in
Speaker 1: and goes out, and so we're opiates. It's it's a longer, alcohol, longer.
Speaker 1: All those are just such a longer um recovery, you know,
Speaker 1: in your say withdrawals, right, So I really didn't have
Speaker 1: any because I cried out immediately. I'm like, what happened?
Speaker 1: And then my girlfriend at the time saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: we just got a trust in God. You know, God's
Speaker 1: gonna help us through. And that's when I went, I
Speaker 1: need to get a Bible. Went and got a Bible,
Speaker 1: and it was like the first time I'm going to
Speaker 1: open up a Bible in my life. I've been in
Speaker 1: a million hotel rooms. I've stashed my weed underneath the
Speaker 1: Bible in the drawer, going protect my weeds so that
Speaker 1: the maids don't steal it. You know, Hey, that's about
Speaker 1: as much as you know of the Bible. I knew
Speaker 1: like I opened up at one time. I believe in
Speaker 1: my whole life. And I saw columns and numbers with scriptures,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what it's like an index? So
Speaker 1: what a weird, weird book. I guess it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of like you know, Buddhism, Taoism, you know, we're of
Speaker 1: wisdom things. And and I just didn't read one word,
Speaker 1: never read a word in the Bible, never sat there
Speaker 1: and said what does this say? And here I am
Speaker 1: opening it up for the first time. Second day in jail,
Speaker 1: and that's when I had that encounter with God. And
Speaker 1: it was me reading in the Book of Kings where
Speaker 1: King David was about to die and he's charging his
Speaker 1: son Solomon, and he said does. If he'll follow the
Speaker 1: Lord all the days of his life, it will prosper
Speaker 1: him that they'll never be a king, not on the throne,
Speaker 1: and you'll you'll succeed. And I just went where have
Speaker 1: I been? How come nobody speaks of these words of wisdom?
Speaker 1: What was it like for you? You know, you've skated
Speaker 1: your whole life. I assume they didn't have a skate
Speaker 1: park in the yard. What was it like going to
Speaker 1: prison and not being able to skate and then you
Speaker 1: get out and you can skate again? What was that like?
Speaker 1: And once you got out? What were your playing ends?
Speaker 1: Immediately right when you got out? Well, you know what
Speaker 1: I told God while I was inside, I was like, God,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll give up skateboarding. I'll give him
Speaker 1: my family. I'll go to the uh, you know, to
Speaker 1: the desert. I'll go to the jungles, I'll go anywhere
Speaker 1: you send me. You know what I mean, I'll sacrifice
Speaker 1: my life and immediately the Holy Spirit. I'm on my
Speaker 1: triple decker bunk bed by the way San Bernardino County Jail,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting there underneath my blanket where I get
Speaker 1: with my Bible, and I'm sitting there and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the Holy spirits like I gave you your talent,
Speaker 1: I gave you your family, I gave you your gifts.
Speaker 1: And I went like it, Wow, I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the best skater. I'm gonna be the
Speaker 1: best father, I'm gonna be the base husband, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be the best everything. And then I will also go
Speaker 1: anywhere you send me and do anything you want me
Speaker 1: to do. It's like this, you know the charges with Rex.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, Like here I am Lord
Speaker 1: send me, I'll go here. I am stepping into where
Speaker 1: God will send me to go. And that that was
Speaker 1: that moment where I was like, you know what, I
Speaker 1: need to just do what God has called me to do.
Speaker 1: You know, Christian so so well. Put. I want to
Speaker 1: circle back to sports. Um, something I'm just fascinated by.
Speaker 1: You know, I was fortunate in sports and had some success,
Speaker 1: but growing up, you know, your dream of being on
Speaker 1: the USA team, on the Olympic team. I was a
Speaker 1: basketball player. I ended up playing on the USA team,
Speaker 1: but basketball was in the Olympics from well beyond when
Speaker 1: I was you know, from the time I was born.
Speaker 1: It's been going on forever. What in the heck is
Speaker 1: it like for you to have I mean, you came
Speaker 1: along at the invention of a sport and to see
Speaker 1: where it's gone from from when you were nine years old, nine, eleven,
Speaker 1: twelve years old, two, now almost fifty four that what
Speaker 1: you you were doing in backyard pools and in Santa
Speaker 1: Monica is now an Olympic sport. How does that feel?
Speaker 1: How does that make you feel? Well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: incredible because you know, when I was fourteen, I remember
Speaker 1: saying we should be making as much as basketball players.
Speaker 1: We should be in the Olympics. And you know, that
Speaker 1: was big dreams back then because we were just a
Speaker 1: rough around the edges sport, barely like getting new equipment,
Speaker 1: all the equipment, whether it's wheels, trucks, boards, Everything was
Speaker 1: advancing really quickly, the protective gear and all the maneuvers.
Speaker 1: I mean, everything was advancing so quick from to like
Speaker 1: eight seven nine. It was astronomical. But to look back
Speaker 1: and to think about how I felt then, I still
Speaker 1: feel the same way. I thought that we are the
Speaker 1: dominant lifestyle sport in the world because it brings in
Speaker 1: all the other cultures into it. Because we are connected
Speaker 1: to music, were connected to fashion, We're connected to surfing,
Speaker 1: We're connected to snowboarding, were connected to um almost like
Speaker 1: it's it's living. It's not something we pick up and
Speaker 1: put down. And nothing against basketball, football, soccer, you know,
Speaker 1: or any of these other sports that you know they
Speaker 1: do because some of them are passionate. They go and
Speaker 1: play after work and they do their thing. But skateboarders
Speaker 1: are like lifers. It's like you're all in. You bleed
Speaker 1: for this. And you know, when I when I think
Speaker 1: about it being in the Olympics this year, I always
Speaker 1: thought that, you know what, the Olympics need skateboarding, not
Speaker 1: skateboarding needs the Olympics. That's been my mentality since I
Speaker 1: was a kid, Like they wish we were in there,
Speaker 1: but we we we you know, we we we do
Speaker 1: our own thing. You know what I mean. You can't
Speaker 1: you can't tame this. You can't put us in a box.
Speaker 1: You can't control us, you can't conform us. We are
Speaker 1: non conformed, arming and we're gonna be rebels, We're gonna
Speaker 1: be radical. And then how did that do me? While
Speaker 1: I went straight to prison with that lifestyle, you know,
Speaker 1: and a lot of my dreams were down the drain,
Speaker 1: and and and but God revived them. God supernaturally healed
Speaker 1: my body, healed my mind, and to come back out
Speaker 1: and to see skateboarding the way it was and how
Speaker 1: things were going in the early two thousands to where
Speaker 1: I actually wanna two gold medals at the X Games,
Speaker 1: you know in the Legends divisions the only two years
Speaker 1: that they had them, and then multiple contests you know,
Speaker 1: in our in our careers of just you know, the
Speaker 1: Legends or they called the Master's Divisions and all that.
Speaker 1: But for it to finally make it and to even
Speaker 1: have a rider from Brazil, Dora Varella was one of
Speaker 1: my riders that she was a woman who made it
Speaker 1: into the Olympics in my Brazilian you know HUSSOI Team
Speaker 1: Hassi division. It was something special because up, I saw
Speaker 1: you light up right, you just got yeah. Because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a competitor, Like competition is in my blood. Like
Speaker 1: if we're gonna play pool, I'm gonna want to beat you.
Speaker 1: I don't care if you know, you know you need
Speaker 1: some sympathy. I'm gonna smoke you and I'm gonna talk
Speaker 1: smack doing it, and I'm gonna do a triple bumper
Speaker 1: shot just to like rub it in. And that's just
Speaker 1: the school I come from. And so the Olympics is
Speaker 1: that stage. It has nothing to do with personality. It's
Speaker 1: got nothing to do with anything. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: you know, difficult when it comes to the process where
Speaker 1: it's like the qualifications leading up to it. All that
Speaker 1: stuff is a little bit unusual for a skateboarder because
Speaker 1: skateboarders are usually a little more formal. Right, It's just formal,
Speaker 1: very formal, very controlled, and you have to want it.
Speaker 1: And if that happened when it was my day, I
Speaker 1: would have quit smoking weed. I would have went for it,
Speaker 1: and I would have done everything that I could to
Speaker 1: get that gold medal, because that's that's just who I am.
Speaker 1: You should be. I'm thankful that you're here. Uh. I
Speaker 1: can't thank you enough for joining us today. Man. While
Speaker 1: I might not ever be able to do uh any
Speaker 1: cool tricks on a ramp, I want you to know, man,
Speaker 1: I do think you're a well, you're an icon, your legend.
Speaker 1: I think what you've achieved in the sport UH is
Speaker 1: absolutely incredible. My door is always open to you. Thanks,
Speaker 1: my friend. I appreciate that Rex, and it's a great
Speaker 1: and honor to be on your show and I can't
Speaker 1: wait to do it again, and uh meet you in
Speaker 1: person and UH give you a fat hug and say
Speaker 1: thank you same here, thanks for joining us Christian Charges
Speaker 1: Less and the tennis and balls and charges the Celebrity
Speaker 1: Ganks charge if we came along with from Living Long
Speaker 1: Charge severing a Runnians with the law charge Ship Lee
Speaker 1: send the Tanis and ball is a charge is celebrity
Speaker 1: gang forms Charge we came along with from Living Lawless Charge.
Speaker 1: Charges is created by port Lay and Control Media is
Speaker 1: produced by DV Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit i Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts