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-Hear me out with my question first.
-Okay.

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-That question sucked.
-Yeah, man!

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l'm trying to explain this to you,
but you're not getting what l'm telling you.

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-l don't like that question.
-That was good.

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We weren't looking at this
as some kind of future.

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There was no promise in it.
There was no nothing in it.

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People were really living in the moment.

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There were no goals.
There were no aspirations.

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lt started here, in this area.

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That's where it all started.

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You know?
That was the beginning of the revolution.

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We were all punk kids, man.
We were tough kids.

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And we wanted to be something.

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lt turned into, like,
a rock star thing, you know?

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We were treated like kings
at places that we went to.

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l was on summer vacation
for about 20 years.

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It was cool to be in the magazines
and stuff, but, you know,

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the bottom line was
all we wanted to do was skate.

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Craig understood that, like,

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children took the ruins of the 20th century
and made art out of it.

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l was, like, 1 2 years old
and l'm reading these articles,

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and you don't know where your place is
in the world yet.

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And you read these words
and the things that he had to say

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and the way he said them

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and the photographs that accompanied them
and it was like,

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"Wow, l'm really a part of something
incredible, something important."

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In 1975, the second issue of
the recently reincarnated

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SkateBoarder magazine would feature
"Aspects of the Downhill Slide,"

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the first of what would become known
throughout the skateboarding world

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as the "Dogtown" articles.

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These feature articles chronicled
the adventures and exploits

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of Dogtown's Z-Boys.

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They were the badasses.
l mean, they were the freaks of the sport.

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There was a scary thing about it, like,
"These guys will kick your ass."

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They didn't seem like they were
a part of the rest of skateboarding.

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lt seemed like they had
their own thing going on.

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The Dogtown articles were
the brainchild of 26-year-old artist

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and photojournalist Craig Stecyk.

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Using a handful of pseudonyms,
Stecyk would conceive, write,

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photograph and design the aesthetic

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that would come to define
the Dogtown movement.

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When we saw you guys in the magazines,
it was, like,

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"This is full-on. They're living this."

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No one skateboarded, no one rode a board,

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no one was as aggressive
or as radical as they ever were.

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The Zephyr team had guys
with all different styles,

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and, really, it sparked a revolution.

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I think the Zephyr team was straight-out

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the most influential skateboard team
ever, ever to be assembled.

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The Zephyr Skateboard Team
was comprised of 1 2 individuals

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from an area in West Los Angeles
known as Dogtown.

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They were Shogo Kubo, Bob Biniak,

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Nathan Pratt, Stacy Peralta,

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Jim Muir, Allen Sarlo,

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Chris Cahill, Tony Alva,

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Paul Constantineau, Jay Adams,

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Peggy Oki and Wentzle Ruml.

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There is a place
where America's manifest destiny

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collides into the Pacific Ocean.

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A place where the fabled Route 66,

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the roadway of American dreams, terminates.

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This is Dogtown.

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There's an invisible line of demarcation

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from the north side of Santa Monica
to the south side of Santa Monica.

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You're looking at one side of town that
had trophy houses and lots of money.

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And you're looking at the south side
that wasn't like that geographically.

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It was actually a visible financial line,

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where, if you lived above Wilshire,
you had money,

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and, if you lived below Wilshire,
you wanted their money.

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Dogtown was a territory encompassing
the three beach communities

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of South Santa Monica,
Venice and Ocean Park.

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This was the last great seaside slum.

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This was not the beach
that people came to vacation at.

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It was Dogtown, and Dogtown was

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a place where you had to have
eyes in the back of your head.

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lt was dirty. lt was filthy. lt was paradise.

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Dogtown was a faded blip
on the radar screen of popular surfing,

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a rundown coastal resort
inhabited by surfers

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infamous for their aggressive localism
and outcast behavior.

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Surfing in 1 972 or 1 971 was outcast, period.

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Surfing was antisocial, generally-speaking,
in the world of things.

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lt wasn't the thing you did to
build your self-esteem in society.

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It was like... If you were a surfer,
it was like saying you were a dropout.

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lt was not necessarily like it is today,

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where you've got Kelly Slater
making millions of dollars.

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In 1972, 23-year-old surfboard shaper
Jeff Ho,

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24-year-old surfboard builder Skip Engblom

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and 21-year-old artist Craig Stecyk
joined together to form

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Jeff Ho and Zephyr Surfboard Productions.

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In reaction to what they felt to be
the mundane world of commercial surfing,

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the three scraped together
what little cash they had and set up shop

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on the corner of Bay and Main Streets
in the heart of Dogtown.

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They were dedicated to
being anti-mainstream,

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and they were proud to be anti-mainstream.

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I think that we probably started it because
there was nobody else building surfboards

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of a certain type
that we kind of envisioned could be built.

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They were a specialist surf shop.

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lf you wanted the most high-performance
surfboard, this was the shop to come to.

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It wasn't like you were going
into a standard surf shop

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by any stretch of the imagination.

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There was other surf shops,
but they didn't have

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the "bad boy" image
as it came out of the whole P.O.P. culture.

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They created a whole new identity,
a totally separate, unique identity

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in terms of the kind of surfboards
that they made,

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the color of the boards,
the way they were shaped,

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what Jeff Ho was doing
was kind of revolutionary at the time.

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He was exploring
all kinds of design concepts.

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Jeff Ho was the most intense person
I've ever worked for

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in any business environment my whole life.

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Jeff was a madman.
l mean, Jeff would lose it.

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He'd lose his temper.

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He could just erupt on a moment's notice

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and put you through just
the ultimate Chinese water torture

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on any little thing.

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Jeff Ho was recognized
throughout the coastal region

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as an eccentric surfboard shaper

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who pushed the boundaries
of conventional surfboard design.

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The boards that were coming out of
the Jeff Ho Shop were a different design.

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Constantly, Jeff would shape something,
develop it,

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try it, and then go on to the next level.

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l mean, he was, like, a guy
that was like Howard Hughes.

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l mean, he'd make something
and actually fly it.

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He was making it, and he was surfing it.

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So, he was exploring it
as an engineer and a designer,

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and also actually riding it.

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We just wanted to create something

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that was different than the other boards.

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l was trying to develop something
that was new, unique and different.

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Inspired by the wall art tradition
of local gangs

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and the vivid colors
of the area's vibrant car culture,

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Craig Stecyk airbrushed
the Zephyr surfboards

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with a look reminiscent of
Dogtown's culturally mixed neighborhoods.

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lt was to personalize stuff for the user,

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to make something
that wasn't a mass-media,

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garbagey piece ofjunk

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that had been designed in some factory
for everybody else.

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Because we came from
a little bit different environment.

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lt was graffiti art. lt was full-blown,
you know, urban graffiti art on surfboards.

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It was very much an identification
of an environment,

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like where we live. "This is who we are."

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Our history is based on lowriders
and hot rods and Latinas.

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Like, l'd fantasize about chicks
with huge hair and lowriders.

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You know what l'm saying?
Like, you know, little blond girls

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named Buffy just weren't my scene.

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So, therefore, that wasn't what we were at.

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The average surf look at the time,
the aesthetic of surfing,

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was very clean, very powder blue,
very beige,

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you know, rainbows and sunsets
and sandy beaches kind of a look.

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What we were doing was
"the debris meets the sea."

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Using the shop as their front,
Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom

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formed the Zephyr surf team,

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a group made up of the best surfers
in the Dogtown area.

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We were in the midst of rebar and concrete,
airbrush saying, "Go home."

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lt was a statement saying,
"Nothing's gonna stop us,

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"and we're gonna do
whatever the heck we want.

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"And screw you if you don't like it.
We don't care."

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And that was the attitude,
and that was the attitude in the water,

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"We're here and look at us.
lf you don't like it, split."

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We weren't really surfers
in a traditional sense.

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You know, we're from Venice.

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One mile south of the Zephyr shop,

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lying directly on the border of
Venice and Santa Monica,

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was Dogtown's epicenter,
the Pacific Ocean Park pier.

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Around the turn of the century,
visionary land developer Abbot Kinney

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set out to create a European-like community,

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geared towards art, culture and amusement.

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Kinney's dream would become Venice,
California, replete with canals, gondolas,

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and a full-scale replica of the colonnaded
square of its Italian inspiration.

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The coastal zone that ran from Venice
through Ocean Park and Santa Monica

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became the home
to so many amusement park piers

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that it earned the reputation
as the Coney Island of the West.

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Eventually, only Pacific Ocean Park,
known to the locals as P.O.P.,

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an amusement park
atop the old Lick Pier, remained.

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They had this park with
all this celebration of humanity

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and people having a good time,
and they're free,

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and they're out in the ocean and,
you know, the ocean breeze.

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And then, all of a sudden,

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it turns into the worst nightmare
you've ever imagined.

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The party ended in the mid-'60s.

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The beachfront expanse running
from Venice through Santa Monica

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had become run-down and seedy.

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Attendance at the once-magnificent
Pacific Ocean Park plummeted,

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and in 1967 it closed,

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and soon thereafter became a no-man's-land.

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A place where pyromaniacs, junkies,
artists and surfers

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could excel in symbiotic disharmony.

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lt was kind of like the circus had left town.
lt was a little scary for some people.

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lt was like this dead Wonderland.

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I mean, you know, you've got
this carcass of all these rides

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that are rusted and falling apart.

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And it's like, you can hear the voices
and the ghosts of the people

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that were having so much fun there,
and kids like me that were making out

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in the sky balls that were going across
at 1 3, you know.

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It's like everything that
was wonderful and fantastic

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suddenly has gone to death
in this decrepit way.

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And everybody had to
live with that every day.

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Burrowed deep within the derelict pier
and shielded from view was the cove,

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a secret surfing spot wedged between
a jail cell of broken and decayed pilings.

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00:14:03,801 --> 00:14:08,055
This was the most dangerous place
l surfed in California. There's no question.

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You're taking off basically in front of piers.
You're riding through piers.

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There's wood floating around.
There's debris.

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You could get impaled on, like, a fallen
roller coaster track or, like, a piling.

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You knew if you made a mistake
that you were gonna pay in flesh.

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00:14:29,619 --> 00:14:33,705
l mean, you could easily hit your head
underwater, go unconscious and drown.

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00:14:33,790 --> 00:14:36,375
There was one piling in the beginning
that had fallen,

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00:14:36,459 --> 00:14:38,752
called the angle piling,
which you could go through it.

209
00:14:38,836 --> 00:14:40,754
That was a tricky thing to do.

210
00:14:41,005 --> 00:14:45,050
It was one takeoff spot,
and you had to be an aggressive,

211
00:14:45,134 --> 00:14:48,637
"This is my wave. l'm going.
Don't cut me off,"

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00:14:48,721 --> 00:14:50,556
because, if you did get cut off,

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00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:53,392
you were in the pilings,
you broke your surfboard in half.

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00:14:53,476 --> 00:14:55,936
I'd never seen that many surfboards break
in my life.

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00:15:02,819 --> 00:15:04,861
Adorning the ruins surrounding the cove

216
00:15:04,946 --> 00:15:08,198
were spray-painted signs,
warning intruders to keep out.

217
00:15:11,244 --> 00:15:12,911
You didn't go near that place
if you didn't live there

218
00:15:12,996 --> 00:15:14,955
or know the people,
because you were gonna get hurt.

219
00:15:15,498 --> 00:15:18,667
That was an extremely heavy local spot.

220
00:15:18,751 --> 00:15:19,835
There was a lot of fights.

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00:15:19,919 --> 00:15:23,213
You know, people would just physically
stop you and say, "You can't surf here."

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00:15:23,298 --> 00:15:26,300
lt wasn't that we didn't want
other people to surf the place,

223
00:15:26,384 --> 00:15:30,679
but just that other people would come in
and do stupid things to jeopardize your life.

224
00:15:31,264 --> 00:15:33,056
There's limited resources here, man.

225
00:15:33,141 --> 00:15:37,603
There's 1 0 waves every 1 5 minutes,
and there ain't enough for you, pal.

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00:15:37,979 --> 00:15:40,230
You had to earn your rights
of passage on the land

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00:15:40,315 --> 00:15:42,149
by your actions on the land and in the water.

228
00:15:42,233 --> 00:15:44,067
You had to go up on the pier
with a wrist rocket,

229
00:15:44,152 --> 00:15:46,403
hang out and shoot Vals
that came out there, you know.

230
00:15:46,487 --> 00:15:49,197
We would just fly things at
people that we didn't know.

231
00:15:49,324 --> 00:15:51,867
They saw guys that came to the pier
that weren't from the area,

232
00:15:52,201 --> 00:15:54,494
they threw down
pieces of concrete on them.

233
00:15:54,579 --> 00:15:56,246
We'd start firing tiles at them.

234
00:15:56,706 --> 00:15:58,332
All kinds of shit, you know?

235
00:15:58,416 --> 00:16:01,460
People'd throw glass, rocks,

236
00:16:01,544 --> 00:16:03,420
whatever you could get your hands on.

237
00:16:03,796 --> 00:16:06,632
It was really kind of neat because
the water all around was, like, exploding,

238
00:16:06,716 --> 00:16:08,842
as shit was flying at them.

239
00:16:09,927 --> 00:16:11,970
lf they didn't want anybody else
surfing there,

240
00:16:12,055 --> 00:16:14,348
nobody was going to surf there.
That's all there was to it.

241
00:16:14,432 --> 00:16:17,059
Best thing I ever saw was
someone paddle out in the water

242
00:16:17,143 --> 00:16:19,770
with the guy's carburetor
on top of his surfboard.

243
00:16:19,854 --> 00:16:22,481
And goes, "Hey, does this belong to you?"
And dropped it in the water.

244
00:16:23,316 --> 00:16:26,485
You weren't just gonna drive up,
pull your car up and go,

245
00:16:26,569 --> 00:16:30,322
"Wow, what a nice left.
Look, the T's breaking. Let's go out."

246
00:16:32,533 --> 00:16:35,160
You had to earn your way into that, man.

247
00:16:40,625 --> 00:16:44,002
Working their way up through the rubble
and rebar of P.O.P.

248
00:16:44,087 --> 00:16:46,421
was Dogtown's next generation,

249
00:16:46,506 --> 00:16:48,924
a group of aggressive young surfers
who were all eager

250
00:16:49,008 --> 00:16:52,552
to make their mark in hopes of
becoming part of the Zephyr team.

251
00:16:59,519 --> 00:17:02,979
lt's almost like a Mafia, you know?
You get good enough surfing in the water,

252
00:17:03,064 --> 00:17:05,399
and, all of a sudden,
you're a made man now.

253
00:17:05,483 --> 00:17:08,360
And once you got on the Zephyr team,
you had entrée.

254
00:17:08,444 --> 00:17:10,404
You're part of their group.

255
00:17:24,502 --> 00:17:28,088
Getting sponsored by the Zephyr team
as a kid was nirvana.

256
00:17:28,172 --> 00:17:29,756
lt was, like, "Yeah, man!

257
00:17:29,966 --> 00:17:33,885
"They like my moves. They like my...
l'm doing it. l can do it. l'm doing it."

258
00:17:33,970 --> 00:17:36,263
lf you were wearing
the navy blue Zephyr shirt,

259
00:17:36,347 --> 00:17:38,306
you were the shit in the neighborhood.

260
00:17:43,646 --> 00:17:48,400
When we were out here, it was reflecting
more the hardcore urban side of the fence.

261
00:17:48,484 --> 00:17:50,944
You know, the Zephyr crew
was more street kids.

262
00:17:51,028 --> 00:17:54,656
Most of us came from broken homes,
living with our mothers.

263
00:17:54,741 --> 00:17:58,493
Jeff and Skip were like the parent symbol
in the equation.

264
00:17:58,578 --> 00:18:00,579
Skip and Jeff really nurtured

265
00:18:00,663 --> 00:18:04,249
the kind of discarded kids that
wouldn't have had a place to go.

266
00:18:10,673 --> 00:18:12,507
The shop provided identity.

267
00:18:12,633 --> 00:18:15,677
lt was more like a place
where you can go and hang out

268
00:18:15,762 --> 00:18:17,888
and be in the Bay Street environment.

269
00:18:17,972 --> 00:18:20,140
lt was much more like a clubhouse.

270
00:18:20,224 --> 00:18:21,600
Everybody, like, had a little job.

271
00:18:21,684 --> 00:18:24,102
You had to either fix dings
or sweep the floor

272
00:18:24,187 --> 00:18:26,897
or, you know, roll joints for Jeff in the back.

273
00:18:26,981 --> 00:18:28,899
You also knew that behind that door,

274
00:18:28,983 --> 00:18:31,193
there was stuff going on
that no one talked about.

275
00:18:31,277 --> 00:18:35,322
lt was lowbrow and wild and "screw you."

276
00:18:48,669 --> 00:18:51,630
I think there was a lot of
family dysfunctionalism going on,

277
00:18:51,714 --> 00:18:54,508
and l think some of that
came out aggressively

278
00:18:54,592 --> 00:18:56,718
in their surfing and in their skating.

279
00:18:56,803 --> 00:19:01,139
The Zephyr team, in a weird way, because
of the financial insecurity of the area,

280
00:19:01,224 --> 00:19:04,309
people looked at this and went,
"Man, l got to make it now."

281
00:19:04,393 --> 00:19:09,022
We were all hungry for recognition.

282
00:19:09,106 --> 00:19:13,360
So we all put out maximum effort.
We all... That's all we did.

283
00:19:13,444 --> 00:19:15,737
lt was a performance-based environment.

284
00:19:15,863 --> 00:19:18,323
lt was a very, very demanding
group of people

285
00:19:18,407 --> 00:19:19,991
because they knew what performance was.

286
00:19:20,076 --> 00:19:22,285
lf you didn't come out and really perform,

287
00:19:22,495 --> 00:19:24,329
l remember Jeffjust, like, leaving.

288
00:19:24,413 --> 00:19:26,957
We worked. We...worked.

289
00:19:27,041 --> 00:19:30,627
You know, creating new moves,
new this, new that.

290
00:19:30,711 --> 00:19:33,588
Everybody brought something to the team.

291
00:19:33,881 --> 00:19:36,466
Everybody did something different.

292
00:19:36,551 --> 00:19:38,718
Everybody had a different style.

293
00:19:38,803 --> 00:19:41,471
And that's what
the whole thing was all about.

294
00:19:44,433 --> 00:19:47,853
The aggressive performance ethic
infused into these young skaters

295
00:19:47,937 --> 00:19:50,188
by Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom

296
00:19:50,273 --> 00:19:55,277
would eventually result in the undoing
of the entire Zephyr organization.

297
00:20:37,695 --> 00:20:39,571
In the late '50s, skateboarding became

298
00:20:39,655 --> 00:20:43,116
the popular after-surfing activity
of the Malibu beach crowd.

299
00:20:43,701 --> 00:20:47,495
Early on, skateboards took their shape
in the form of small surfboards,

300
00:20:49,206 --> 00:20:53,168
and the maneuvers performed on
the boards were strictly surfing-inspired.

301
00:21:06,849 --> 00:21:08,767
Then, beginning in 1963,

302
00:21:08,851 --> 00:21:13,438
skateboarding began to emerge as
an alternative sport for American teenagers.

303
00:21:13,522 --> 00:21:17,484
California manufacturers,
such as Makaha, Hobie and Jack's,

304
00:21:17,568 --> 00:21:21,905
began forming teams as skateboard
competitions began springing up.

305
00:21:22,365 --> 00:21:24,449
Many of skateboarding's early champions,

306
00:21:24,533 --> 00:21:27,661
skateboarders such as Danny Bearer,
Torger Johnson,

307
00:21:27,745 --> 00:21:29,871
John Fries, Woody Woodward,

308
00:21:29,956 --> 00:21:32,874
Bruce Logan, and the Hilton brothers,
Davie and Stevie,

309
00:21:32,959 --> 00:21:36,461
were among the first
to give the sport a stylistic aesthetic.

310
00:21:36,545 --> 00:21:40,215
For a brief, fleeting period,
skateboarding gained national popularity,

311
00:21:40,299 --> 00:21:42,884
but this popularity would be short-lived.

312
00:21:45,221 --> 00:21:47,973
Skateboarding crashed in 1965.

313
00:21:48,057 --> 00:21:51,226
Virtually overnight,
the young sport disappeared.

314
00:21:59,443 --> 00:22:01,403
Back then, if you skateboarded,

315
00:22:01,487 --> 00:22:03,613
the first thing that came out of
someone's mouth is,

316
00:22:03,906 --> 00:22:08,118
"lsn't that just like the Yo-Yo?
lsn't that the same thing as a Hula Hoop?"

317
00:22:08,202 --> 00:22:12,330
By the early '70s, skateboarding was viewed
as just another passing kiddie fad,

318
00:22:12,415 --> 00:22:15,041
and only the most hardcore
enthusiasts practiced it

319
00:22:15,126 --> 00:22:18,795
as it became nearly impossible
to purchase a commercial skateboard.

320
00:22:20,589 --> 00:22:24,050
lf you wanted a skateboard back then,
you had to go to the thrift store,

321
00:22:24,135 --> 00:22:27,095
buy a pair of roller skates with clay wheels,
cut them in half...

322
00:22:27,179 --> 00:22:31,516
Then, go out in your garage and try
and find an old drawer out of a dresser

323
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:34,561
that was a nice, half-inch or
three-quarter-inch oak, if you were lucky.

324
00:22:34,645 --> 00:22:38,064
Or go down to the hardware store,
and we'd buy, like, a solid piece of oak

325
00:22:39,191 --> 00:22:40,567
or maple or whatever.

326
00:22:40,651 --> 00:22:42,485
Borrow a Skilsaw or band saw...

327
00:22:42,570 --> 00:22:45,572
Make it like a surfboard shape, you know?

328
00:22:45,656 --> 00:22:46,906
And whip it out.

329
00:22:46,991 --> 00:22:49,826
We used to go to Sears,
like the sporting goods section of Sears,

330
00:22:50,286 --> 00:22:52,871
and we'd go in with tools
with just our deck that we made custom,

331
00:22:52,955 --> 00:22:55,832
and we'd put all the new parts
from the stock boards on the shelf.

332
00:22:55,916 --> 00:22:56,958
-Right.
-One guy would be watching.

333
00:22:57,043 --> 00:23:01,212
Two guys would be just taking all the parts.
And then we'd just cruise out of there.

334
00:23:01,297 --> 00:23:05,675
Boards were equipped with clay wheels,
the pinnacle of Stone Age technology.

335
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:09,554
You had to worry about hitting rocks,
sliding out.

336
00:23:09,638 --> 00:23:12,474
Any crack in the sidewalk is
a hazard to your health.

337
00:23:13,059 --> 00:23:17,187
Or a pebble... You hit a pebble,
and the wheel would instantly lock up.

338
00:23:17,271 --> 00:23:19,064
Your board would come to a screeching halt

339
00:23:19,148 --> 00:23:21,483
and you'd fly and you'd smash cement.

340
00:23:24,945 --> 00:23:29,991
In 1972, East Coast surfer Frank Nasworthy
came upon a great notion,

341
00:23:30,076 --> 00:23:34,954
that the petroleum-based product urethane
might make a good substitute for clay.

342
00:23:35,039 --> 00:23:36,915
So, he created Cadillac Wheels,

343
00:23:36,999 --> 00:23:40,710
which would pave the way
for the coming skateboard revolution.

344
00:23:40,795 --> 00:23:45,090
These urethane wheels would just...
It was almost like a 4-wheel drive now,

345
00:23:45,174 --> 00:23:47,592
where the car would just grab the ground.

346
00:23:47,676 --> 00:23:51,262
And you could really, really make hard turns.

347
00:23:51,889 --> 00:23:56,768
lt was the whole beginning
of what skateboarding is today, period.

348
00:24:01,023 --> 00:24:03,274
We were just getting into surfing then,

349
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:05,068
and you could only surf
in the morning around here

350
00:24:05,152 --> 00:24:08,321
because it blows out,
the wind blows out the waves around 1 0:00.

351
00:24:08,405 --> 00:24:12,534
So, you have the rest of the day
to do something, so we skateboarded.

352
00:24:12,910 --> 00:24:15,620
We used to skateboard at this place
called Bicknell Hill.

353
00:24:15,704 --> 00:24:18,706
I mean, it ran right down the street
from the Zephyr surf shop.

354
00:24:18,791 --> 00:24:21,626
We started skating outside the shop
at first, 'cause we were all surf rats

355
00:24:21,710 --> 00:24:23,962
and we were hanging around the shop,
and then they decided

356
00:24:24,046 --> 00:24:27,132
to put this team together and
we all started skating on Bicknell Hill there.

357
00:24:27,216 --> 00:24:29,342
And we were trying to get real low
and, you know,

358
00:24:29,426 --> 00:24:32,887
we would, like, be looking at the surf
and riding this hill

359
00:24:32,972 --> 00:24:37,100
and dropping in and sliding and doing
cutbacks, like we were riding a wave.

360
00:24:37,810 --> 00:24:41,354
We'd work on our Berts, and then
we'd set up cones and do our slaloms.

361
00:24:41,438 --> 00:24:45,024
And, you know, it was really fun
practicing on Bicknell together.

362
00:25:15,556 --> 00:25:17,765
Surfing had everything to do
with everything,

363
00:25:17,850 --> 00:25:22,562
and skating just kind of went along after,
when the waves weren't good.

364
00:25:23,147 --> 00:25:24,647
That's when you skated.

365
00:25:24,732 --> 00:25:28,359
Surfing was it, and skateboarding was

366
00:25:28,444 --> 00:25:30,945
just an extension of our surfing.

367
00:25:32,781 --> 00:25:34,741
l remember being in
the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium,

368
00:25:34,825 --> 00:25:37,702
watching Hal Jepsen's surf film,
Super Session.

369
00:25:37,786 --> 00:25:41,539
And a young Hawaiian surfer named
Larry Bertlemann came on the...

370
00:25:41,916 --> 00:25:45,919
Larry Bertlemann was the fundamental
impact on the Z-Boys thing.

371
00:25:46,003 --> 00:25:48,630
The Z-Boys thing was,
"Larry Bertlemann on concrete."

372
00:25:48,714 --> 00:25:50,006
That's what we were all trying to do,

373
00:25:50,090 --> 00:25:52,842
because Larry Bertlemann
just blew doors on everybody.

374
00:25:52,927 --> 00:25:55,386
He, like, put his hands on the wave.

375
00:25:55,471 --> 00:25:58,806
He was one of the first guys
that I remember doing that.

376
00:25:59,016 --> 00:26:01,017
So we started copying that on the ground.

377
00:26:05,981 --> 00:26:09,525
Larry Bertlemann exploded the status quo
of surfing upright

378
00:26:09,610 --> 00:26:13,071
and redefined the idea
of what could be done on a surfboard.

379
00:26:13,155 --> 00:26:16,407
When l saw Larry Bertlemann in a movie

380
00:26:16,492 --> 00:26:20,620
do a cutback, I wanted to copy that

381
00:26:20,704 --> 00:26:24,082
more than anything in life itself
on a skateboard.

382
00:26:24,250 --> 00:26:27,543
lf l couldn't do it in the water,
l'll do it on a skateboard.

383
00:26:27,628 --> 00:26:30,088
We were surfers, first and foremost.

384
00:26:30,172 --> 00:26:33,841
And the low, pivotal style in surfing
is really functional.

385
00:26:33,926 --> 00:26:36,219
It also has a beautiful aesthetic.

386
00:26:42,726 --> 00:26:44,519
We used to call them, "Do a 'Bert."'

387
00:26:44,603 --> 00:26:48,481
And we'd do that on the banks.
Even on the flat ground, we'd do it.

388
00:26:53,779 --> 00:26:55,863
Five miles northeast of the Zephyr shop,

389
00:26:55,948 --> 00:26:58,700
located in the elite neighborhood of
Pacific Palisades,

390
00:26:58,784 --> 00:27:00,994
was Paul Revere Junior High School.

391
00:27:01,078 --> 00:27:05,707
Three miles east of Paul Revere Junior High
was Kenter Canyon Elementary School.

392
00:27:05,791 --> 00:27:09,627
Four miles east of Kenter
was Bellagio Elementary School.

393
00:27:09,712 --> 00:27:12,797
Three miles south of Bellagio
was Brentwood Elementary.

394
00:27:12,881 --> 00:27:16,718
And four miles further south of Brentwood
was Mar Vista Elementary.

395
00:27:17,344 --> 00:27:20,805
These five schools were built
at the base of steep hillsides

396
00:27:20,889 --> 00:27:22,974
or burrowed within deep canyons,

397
00:27:23,058 --> 00:27:28,229
with walls of banked asphalt constructed
to level out the sprawling playgrounds.

398
00:27:28,314 --> 00:27:30,940
I think skaters were significant
because they actually

399
00:27:31,025 --> 00:27:33,151
took those environments
and they reworked them

400
00:27:33,235 --> 00:27:35,945
and made them into something different,
that was more human, I think,

401
00:27:36,030 --> 00:27:37,572
than what the architects
originally had planned.

402
00:27:39,199 --> 00:27:41,659
That was where it started for us.
That was like our original skate park.

403
00:27:41,744 --> 00:27:44,662
We would just ride bikes there,
with our skates on our handlebars.

404
00:27:44,747 --> 00:27:47,165
Skate all day and break our boards,
and then ride back,

405
00:27:47,249 --> 00:27:49,500
fix our boards and come back the next day.

406
00:27:49,585 --> 00:27:52,170
These perfectly-tapered
waves of black asphalt

407
00:27:52,254 --> 00:27:56,966
would allow for the virtual transmission
of surfing-born maneuvers to concrete.

408
00:27:57,051 --> 00:28:00,136
We were surfing these asphalt waves.

409
00:28:00,220 --> 00:28:03,097
That's what we were doing with the skating.
So we had a surf-skate style

410
00:28:03,182 --> 00:28:05,808
because we had the waves to ride it on.

411
00:28:14,777 --> 00:28:16,569
We were, like, riding really hard and low

412
00:28:16,653 --> 00:28:20,406
and really doing a lot of sliding,
and, like, thrusting kind of moves.

413
00:28:20,491 --> 00:28:22,158
We were always touching the pavement.

414
00:28:22,242 --> 00:28:25,745
lt was all about feeling what you're doing.

415
00:28:25,829 --> 00:28:29,457
Feeling your wheels grinding
and pivoting around your hands.

416
00:28:32,378 --> 00:28:35,630
I just wanted to ride more banks,
go faster, do better turns.

417
00:28:37,883 --> 00:28:42,762
We were totally emulating all of these surfers
that we idolized, on skateboards.

418
00:29:00,614 --> 00:29:05,660
Instilled within all the Dogtown skaters
was a devotion to style.

419
00:29:09,581 --> 00:29:14,377
Going big worked only as long
as you looked good doing it.

420
00:29:16,839 --> 00:29:18,339
You could get all the maneuvers,

421
00:29:18,507 --> 00:29:20,758
but having great style was
what you were really shooting for.

422
00:29:21,301 --> 00:29:23,094
Style was, like, the most important thing.

423
00:29:23,971 --> 00:29:25,138
Style was everything.

424
00:29:43,699 --> 00:29:46,951
l think that was one thing that
really bound us all together, too,

425
00:29:47,035 --> 00:29:51,497
was that we all possessed a surf style.

426
00:29:51,582 --> 00:29:54,834
There was no one in our group
that wasn't fluent.

427
00:29:56,712 --> 00:29:59,797
Individual style was
who you are as an individual.

428
00:29:59,882 --> 00:30:02,633
Whatever flair that you were throwing in,

429
00:30:02,718 --> 00:30:05,094
that's just an extension
of you as your personality.

430
00:30:05,179 --> 00:30:08,973
And everybody's personality is different,
so everybody's style was different.

431
00:30:09,057 --> 00:30:10,766
There were surfers with good style,

432
00:30:10,851 --> 00:30:14,854
and there were surfers that we would call
"cockroach style," or no style, you know.

433
00:30:14,938 --> 00:30:19,150
And if you had a bad style,
right there you had one mark against you.

434
00:30:19,568 --> 00:30:21,444
'Cause you had to look at it.
You had to watch someone.

435
00:30:21,528 --> 00:30:25,656
lf they were skating with a funky style,
they were stinking up the area. You know?

436
00:30:25,741 --> 00:30:28,951
So, after a while,
"Hey, you can't watch that guy.

437
00:30:29,036 --> 00:30:30,620
"He smells." You know?

438
00:30:34,082 --> 00:30:37,710
l mean, the blues are three chords,
but every guy that plays the blues

439
00:30:37,794 --> 00:30:42,089
plays the blues differently,
because that's their own style, right?

440
00:32:43,462 --> 00:32:47,131
We weren't making money off of it,
we didn't think there was any future in it,

441
00:32:47,215 --> 00:32:50,384
and we were doing it
because we loved doing it.

442
00:33:24,836 --> 00:33:29,256
ln the '70s, California experienced
the worst drought on record,

443
00:33:29,925 --> 00:33:33,594
and the city government wouldn't
allow you to water your lawn.

444
00:33:33,679 --> 00:33:36,222
You weren't even allowed to serve water
at a restaurant.

445
00:33:36,306 --> 00:33:39,517
And so, what happened is,
all these swimming pools,

446
00:33:39,601 --> 00:33:43,187
which are abundant in Southern California,
were drying up.

447
00:33:44,272 --> 00:33:48,526
California's drought served as a midwife
to the skateboard revolution,

448
00:33:48,610 --> 00:33:51,570
as hundreds of pools
across the Los Angeles basin

449
00:33:51,655 --> 00:33:53,948
were left empty and unused.

450
00:34:03,208 --> 00:34:07,962
Once pool riding came in, you know,
that's like all that we wanted to do.

451
00:34:10,799 --> 00:34:13,968
We were, like, the first people that
were riding these empty swimming pools,

452
00:34:14,052 --> 00:34:16,512
and we had no idea what you could do.

453
00:34:19,641 --> 00:34:23,936
l remember the first goal, the first day,
was to make it over the light.

454
00:34:24,354 --> 00:34:27,398
That was the first accomplishment
in the pool,

455
00:34:27,482 --> 00:34:30,234
was to "over the light" successfully.

456
00:34:33,697 --> 00:34:38,743
From there, we started doing double carves
and hitting tile on both sides.

457
00:34:39,494 --> 00:34:43,789
Our goal was to get to the lip
and to actually hit the lip of the pool, so...

458
00:34:43,874 --> 00:34:48,252
lt was, like, completely foreign,
mentally and physically.

459
00:34:48,336 --> 00:34:52,882
But the fact that we were surfers, we knew
which movements needed to be done.

460
00:34:52,966 --> 00:34:55,593
We just didn't know
if they were possible yet.

461
00:35:02,893 --> 00:35:05,936
Then it got to the point
where we were getting on one wheel.

462
00:35:06,021 --> 00:35:07,938
All the other three wheels are
out of the pool.

463
00:35:08,023 --> 00:35:11,358
That one wheel's on the coping
above the tile and flying back in.

464
00:35:11,443 --> 00:35:14,403
We were definitely the first guys,
l mean, the whole Dogtown crew

465
00:35:14,654 --> 00:35:17,782
to really take it to the top, to the lip,

466
00:35:17,866 --> 00:35:19,784
and actually grind and pivot on the lip.

467
00:35:19,868 --> 00:35:23,454
You have to understand that,
what they were doing on skateboards,

468
00:35:23,538 --> 00:35:25,331
it just had never been done
anywhere else before.

469
00:35:25,415 --> 00:35:27,333
There was just no such thing.

470
00:35:28,210 --> 00:35:31,962
In a covert convergence,
skaters would come from miles around

471
00:35:32,047 --> 00:35:35,299
to savor the fleeting,
illicit thrills of skateboarding inside

472
00:35:35,383 --> 00:35:37,843
a recently-discovered backyard pool.

473
00:35:37,928 --> 00:35:39,303
Once we found a couple of good spots,

474
00:35:39,387 --> 00:35:41,972
we knew that
there was more of them available,

475
00:35:42,057 --> 00:35:43,891
and we just kept scouring the neighborhood.

476
00:35:43,975 --> 00:35:47,853
We did extensive searching,
looking for backyard pools.

477
00:35:47,938 --> 00:35:50,815
We would drive up and down the alleys
in the Valley,

478
00:35:50,899 --> 00:35:52,399
standing on the roofs of the cars.

479
00:35:52,484 --> 00:35:56,028
Jay got on the top of my car,
and we're driving down alley after alley

480
00:35:56,112 --> 00:35:58,656
in Beverly Hills,
and Jay is on the top of my car, going,

481
00:35:58,740 --> 00:36:01,200
"No. No... Wait! Wait!" You know.

482
00:36:01,284 --> 00:36:03,077
We'd go up and down the alleys
on our bicycles

483
00:36:03,161 --> 00:36:05,204
and jump up and look over the fences.

484
00:36:05,288 --> 00:36:08,457
We'd go up and down canyons, and take
vantage points, and we had binoculars.

485
00:36:08,542 --> 00:36:12,920
We went to places where
the pool was completely filled in with dirt.

486
00:36:13,255 --> 00:36:17,758
We dug out an entire swimming pool
so that we could skate it.

487
00:36:20,095 --> 00:36:22,054
We would find some that were full of water,

488
00:36:22,138 --> 00:36:24,974
but they had to be emptied
one way or another.

489
00:36:25,058 --> 00:36:26,684
l mean, they just had to...

490
00:36:26,768 --> 00:36:30,771
The water had to go and they had to be
ridden, man, you know what l mean?

491
00:36:30,856 --> 00:36:33,065
At one point, we were so guerilla about it,

492
00:36:33,149 --> 00:36:36,360
we had electric pool pumps,
gasoline-operated pool pumps,

493
00:36:36,444 --> 00:36:39,071
hundreds of yards of drainage hose,

494
00:36:39,865 --> 00:36:42,032
brooms, everything you needed.

495
00:36:44,035 --> 00:36:46,745
There was plenty of times we found pools
and we'd throw the pump in there,

496
00:36:46,830 --> 00:36:49,039
throw a wire over a wall, find a live socket.

497
00:36:49,457 --> 00:36:52,835
Didn't know the house, didn't know
any of the neighbors, any of the people.

498
00:36:52,919 --> 00:36:54,003
Water would be running out...

499
00:36:54,087 --> 00:36:58,132
And we'd drain a 30,000-gallon
swimming pool in less than four hours.

500
00:37:03,471 --> 00:37:06,265
Any house that was up for sale,
that had a pool,

501
00:37:06,349 --> 00:37:09,059
nine times out of ten it was drained,
or maybe it had two feet of water in it.

502
00:37:09,144 --> 00:37:12,563
We'd drain the rest out, and we'd skate
until the cops came, and then we'd split.

503
00:37:12,647 --> 00:37:14,189
The tension was really high.

504
00:37:14,482 --> 00:37:16,901
And you had to do what you had to do
here and now.

505
00:37:16,985 --> 00:37:18,777
It didn't come later.

506
00:37:19,029 --> 00:37:21,572
When you have an empty swimming pool
that you know might only be open

507
00:37:21,656 --> 00:37:25,659
for a day, or a day and a half, and that's it,
you've got to skate it for as long as you can.

508
00:37:25,744 --> 00:37:29,663
You had to almost, like,
time yourself to be in there,

509
00:37:29,748 --> 00:37:32,374
trying to get there early in the morning,
trying to get a few runs,

510
00:37:32,500 --> 00:37:34,460
and get out of there before the cops came,
you know?

511
00:37:34,544 --> 00:37:37,504
lt was totally just illegal barging sessions.

512
00:37:37,839 --> 00:37:41,926
And as soon as we heard either sirens,
screeching tires,

513
00:37:42,010 --> 00:37:45,387
someone would yell the magic words, "Bail!"
and we were out of there.

514
00:37:45,472 --> 00:37:47,056
You could definitely get arrested.

515
00:37:47,140 --> 00:37:49,433
l mean, you could probably get charged
a lot of money,

516
00:37:49,517 --> 00:37:53,479
because, let's face it, the pools weren't
the same after we got done with them.

517
00:37:53,563 --> 00:37:55,064
My dad would have killed me, bro.

518
00:37:55,774 --> 00:37:58,400
He would have killed me
if he had to pay that kind of money.

519
00:37:58,485 --> 00:38:02,655
Part of it was the thrill of knowing
that the police could come anytime.

520
00:38:02,739 --> 00:38:04,823
We got caught skating in the Canyon Pool,

521
00:38:04,908 --> 00:38:06,742
and I was hiding up in the tree
looking down,

522
00:38:06,826 --> 00:38:08,911
and there was cops below me looking for us.

523
00:38:08,995 --> 00:38:12,206
And l was afraid l was gonna drop my
skateboard and nail them in the head.

524
00:38:12,290 --> 00:38:13,916
And then l thought,
"God, l'm gonna be arrested for,

525
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,168
"you know, assault and battery."

526
00:38:16,252 --> 00:38:18,629
lf we got caught at a location,

527
00:38:18,713 --> 00:38:22,841
we'd go back the next day, and we would
figure out how to not get caught that way.

528
00:38:22,926 --> 00:38:26,512
So, if they came in the front,
we'd post a lookout in the front.

529
00:38:26,596 --> 00:38:29,306
lf they came in through the back,
we'd post a lookout in the front and back.

530
00:38:29,391 --> 00:38:30,432
We'd go through the side yard, you know?

531
00:38:31,017 --> 00:38:34,979
You got to understand, man,
this is concrete warfare we're talking about.

532
00:38:35,063 --> 00:38:38,440
This is... You know, you might find a pool,

533
00:38:38,525 --> 00:38:41,527
and it's here today, maybe gone tomorrow.

534
00:38:41,611 --> 00:38:44,196
lf you're gonna ride it,
you'd better get on that shit.

535
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:46,031
I see there ain't nobody out there

536
00:38:46,116 --> 00:38:49,410
that even wants to be a little bit mellow,
now is there?

537
00:38:50,662 --> 00:38:52,997
Anybody wants to get mellow,
you can turn around

538
00:38:53,081 --> 00:38:55,499
and get the...out of here, all right?

539
00:39:04,426 --> 00:39:06,844
With the drought in full effect,
there was nothing to prevent

540
00:39:06,928 --> 00:39:10,055
invading skaters from turning
someone's backyard paradise

541
00:39:10,140 --> 00:39:12,141
into a riotous ensemble.

542
00:39:12,225 --> 00:39:16,437
No pool was left untouched,
and any kid could be king for a day.

543
00:39:16,730 --> 00:39:20,274
There'd be five or ten guys
really rocking and rolling in the bowl.

544
00:39:21,109 --> 00:39:24,570
Each pushing each other's limits.
lt was an incredible scene.

545
00:39:24,654 --> 00:39:27,823
You could feel the energy
coming out of the pool. It was intense.

546
00:39:27,907 --> 00:39:31,326
Just to be there standing on the deck
was hardcore,

547
00:39:31,411 --> 00:39:33,579
because you were privy to something

548
00:39:33,663 --> 00:39:36,540
that you don't readily see anywhere else,
you know?

549
00:39:36,624 --> 00:39:39,543
If you were in the pool, standing in there,
getting ready to take a run,

550
00:39:39,627 --> 00:39:42,629
you were even badder.
But if you were an actual player,

551
00:39:42,714 --> 00:39:46,216
you know, busting moves and
pushing the limits of the session going on,

552
00:39:46,301 --> 00:39:49,970
you were a straight-out punk rock star.
l mean, big time.

553
00:39:58,104 --> 00:40:00,147
We pushed each other all the time.

554
00:40:00,231 --> 00:40:03,442
We pushed and praised.
You'd come off of a heavy grind,

555
00:40:03,526 --> 00:40:05,235
and then all your bros are hooting.

556
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,405
We were getting each other's
adrenaline levels so high,

557
00:40:08,490 --> 00:40:10,282
that's how the stuff evolved.

558
00:40:10,366 --> 00:40:13,410
On any given day, anybody was the best.

559
00:40:13,495 --> 00:40:16,330
It was almost like
a daily competition between all of us

560
00:40:16,414 --> 00:40:18,749
to see who could pull off the hottest shit.

561
00:40:18,833 --> 00:40:22,586
And then we'd look up into the shallow end
at each other and go, "Wow!"

562
00:40:23,254 --> 00:40:28,592
When Tony Alva, or Stacy Peralta,
or Jay Adams, or Shogo, or Biniak, or Muir,

563
00:40:28,676 --> 00:40:31,178
any of these guys steps into a pool,

564
00:40:31,262 --> 00:40:34,348
it's like, even if they didn't know them,
as soon as these guys rode,

565
00:40:34,432 --> 00:40:38,227
other people would just want to sit down
and watch and learn.

566
00:40:38,311 --> 00:40:41,522
l mean, that's what it really was.
You talk about special.

567
00:40:51,407 --> 00:40:53,617
So many other sports
are so derivative of something else.

568
00:40:53,701 --> 00:40:56,787
Even what Michael Jordan does,
you know, other people play basketball,

569
00:40:56,871 --> 00:40:58,622
and he took it to another level.

570
00:40:58,706 --> 00:41:01,792
And skateboarding, in a very great sense,
comes from surfing.

571
00:41:01,876 --> 00:41:05,796
But when Tony and Jay and Stacy
started doing it, it was like

572
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,632
it was coming from a whole new realm.

573
00:41:30,572 --> 00:41:32,406
We really didn't know what was possible.

574
00:41:32,490 --> 00:41:34,116
lt had never been done before.

575
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:35,701
l think that people sometimes think that

576
00:41:35,785 --> 00:41:37,661
we were thinking about all this
when it was happening.

577
00:41:37,745 --> 00:41:39,413
Nobody was thinking about it
when it was happening.

578
00:41:39,497 --> 00:41:42,499
l think we talked about it afterwards,
after, like, actually trying these things,

579
00:41:42,584 --> 00:41:46,003
-but it was pretty much spontaneous.
-There were no precedents.

580
00:41:46,212 --> 00:41:50,132
They set precedents every single day
when they went out and rode.

581
00:42:15,283 --> 00:42:17,201
We worked so hard to get those pools

582
00:42:17,285 --> 00:42:18,702
that we didn't want
other people going there,

583
00:42:18,786 --> 00:42:20,078
because we knew if we took other people,

584
00:42:20,163 --> 00:42:23,207
they'd bring other people, and eventually,
the pool would be lost.

585
00:42:23,291 --> 00:42:25,042
We'd just keep them really, like, low profile.

586
00:42:25,126 --> 00:42:27,169
You know, we wouldn't let
anybody know about them.

587
00:42:27,253 --> 00:42:31,298
It was almost like a local surf spot
where, you know, you're not coming in.

588
00:42:32,300 --> 00:42:35,761
And if you came in without our permission,
you were gonna get whupped.

589
00:42:36,179 --> 00:42:38,513
You didn't show up with somebody
at the pool.

590
00:42:38,598 --> 00:42:41,308
You had to have a meeting
about that kind of shit.

591
00:42:41,809 --> 00:42:44,519
You had to have a meeting,
and that had to be voted.

592
00:42:44,604 --> 00:42:47,731
You could argue about it,
do whatever you want.

593
00:42:47,815 --> 00:42:49,816
Bottom line was,
you didn't clear it with the crew,

594
00:42:49,901 --> 00:42:52,361
and you brought someone to the pool,
you know what'd happen?

595
00:42:52,445 --> 00:42:54,363
You couldn't skate the pool.

596
00:42:55,073 --> 00:42:57,574
l'm not shitting you. Almost happened to me.

597
00:42:57,659 --> 00:42:59,660
Let's hold it one second.

598
00:43:02,956 --> 00:43:05,082
With the invention of the urethane wheel

599
00:43:05,166 --> 00:43:09,419
and the ability to ride new terrain
came a groundswell of enthusiasm

600
00:43:09,504 --> 00:43:14,466
as skateboarding once again began to grab
the attention of teens across the country.

601
00:43:14,550 --> 00:43:17,469
Rumors of a national contest
began circulating,

602
00:43:17,553 --> 00:43:20,305
prompting Ho and Engblom
to build and equip their team

603
00:43:20,390 --> 00:43:23,225
with boards and a ragtag uniform.

604
00:43:23,309 --> 00:43:28,897
We had these shirts, we had Levis,
and we had dark blue Vans.

605
00:43:28,982 --> 00:43:32,109
And that was our uniform,
and everybody complied to that.

606
00:43:32,193 --> 00:43:36,238
That's what we wore. That's just
what came up from the neighborhood.

607
00:43:36,322 --> 00:43:38,573
Well, we all pretty much
had grown up together,

608
00:43:38,658 --> 00:43:40,284
you know,
and we had all been riding together,

609
00:43:40,368 --> 00:43:42,577
so there was a lot of camaraderie there.

610
00:43:42,662 --> 00:43:46,581
And yet, at the same time,
there was a competitive drive.

611
00:43:46,666 --> 00:43:49,668
You know, from that P.O.P. energy,
where everyone was riding each other.

612
00:43:49,752 --> 00:43:52,421
lf you're not gonna do well,
you don't deserve to do this, right?

613
00:43:52,505 --> 00:43:54,965
That's what made us, like,
a step above everybody,

614
00:43:55,049 --> 00:43:56,842
is that we were used to
competing with each other.

615
00:43:56,926 --> 00:43:59,886
One of Z-Boys was
always with one of Z-Boys.

616
00:43:59,971 --> 00:44:03,140
And, like, we were so tightly knit as a group

617
00:44:03,224 --> 00:44:06,143
that we sort of used
each other's different qualities

618
00:44:06,227 --> 00:44:09,813
to come up with a style which, in the end,
ended up being unique, you know.

619
00:44:09,897 --> 00:44:15,610
We each had our own style, but it was really
a combination of all of us flowing together.

620
00:44:15,695 --> 00:44:19,364
And Skip and Jeff sort of
assessing our moves, and saying,

621
00:44:19,449 --> 00:44:21,033
"Yeah, that looks good, man."

622
00:44:21,117 --> 00:44:23,827
I remember Skipper coaching me
on how to hold my hands.

623
00:44:23,911 --> 00:44:28,165
And that l was holding my hands wrong,
and that it looked bad, it was bad style.

624
00:44:31,544 --> 00:44:32,794
The skateboard team was good

625
00:44:32,879 --> 00:44:36,006
because it gave everybody
a sense of regimentation.

626
00:44:36,090 --> 00:44:40,427
You know, something that you did from
3:00 till 5:00 every day or, you know...

627
00:44:40,636 --> 00:44:42,846
You know, it's like daycare.

628
00:44:42,930 --> 00:44:45,057
Skip would really hassle you
if you screwed up,

629
00:44:45,141 --> 00:44:46,975
but, at the same time,
he would take your time

630
00:44:47,060 --> 00:44:50,062
and give you the gentle pat on the back.
A little advice.

631
00:44:50,146 --> 00:44:53,106
He kept us in line.
He wanted us to be radical.

632
00:44:53,191 --> 00:44:58,195
He wanted us to be out there
in the limelight. He wanted us to be visible.

633
00:44:58,279 --> 00:45:03,075
He wanted our moves to be recognized.
He wanted all of that stuff for us.

634
00:45:03,159 --> 00:45:06,119
But what he didn't want was,
he didn't want us in jail,

635
00:45:06,204 --> 00:45:08,330
he didn't want us getting
run over by the buses

636
00:45:08,414 --> 00:45:10,957
when we were doing Berts
under the back wheels.

637
00:45:11,042 --> 00:45:16,213
You know? But, at the same time,
he wanted us to be rad.

638
00:45:16,297 --> 00:45:20,050
lf you looked at the story
of Peter Pan and The Lost Boys,

639
00:45:20,134 --> 00:45:24,721
Pan took the children
and they defeated Captain Hook, right?

640
00:45:24,806 --> 00:45:27,557
But in my world,
and in the world of the Zephyr shop,

641
00:45:27,642 --> 00:45:29,059
l would be Captain Hook.

642
00:45:29,143 --> 00:45:33,688
And we, essentially, defeated Pan,
and we've turned them all into pirates.

643
00:45:40,822 --> 00:45:45,784
In 1975, Bahne skateboards, the leading
manufacturer of boards and wheels,

644
00:45:45,868 --> 00:45:48,036
resurrected competition by spearheading

645
00:45:48,121 --> 00:45:51,873
the first major skateboard contest
since the mid 1960s,

646
00:45:51,958 --> 00:45:54,000
the Del Mar Nationals.

647
00:45:55,628 --> 00:45:58,964
The competitive setup was
based on a classic '60s model.

648
00:45:59,048 --> 00:46:03,218
A plywood ramp with a top coat of urethane
was built for slalom racing,

649
00:46:09,851 --> 00:46:13,395
and a small wooden platform
was erected for freestyle.

650
00:46:18,192 --> 00:46:22,571
Attention all skaters,
please report to the freestyle area.

651
00:46:22,655 --> 00:46:25,198
All skaters to the freestyle area.

652
00:46:27,410 --> 00:46:29,953
The dated contest format did not end there,

653
00:46:30,037 --> 00:46:33,331
as many of the top competitors were
performing the upright maneuvers

654
00:46:33,416 --> 00:46:37,210
made popular during
skateboarding's brief boom in the '60s.

655
00:47:20,922 --> 00:47:26,676
We get to Del Mar and there's this
little freestyle area that's about 1 2 by 1 2,

656
00:47:26,761 --> 00:47:30,722
with plywood and some urethane coating
on it or something.

657
00:47:30,806 --> 00:47:32,098
And we're looking at each other, going,

658
00:47:32,183 --> 00:47:34,100
"What the hell are
we supposed to do with this?"

659
00:47:40,441 --> 00:47:43,026
Del Mar would be
the Zephyr team's first introduction

660
00:47:43,110 --> 00:47:45,195
to the world of organized skateboarding.

661
00:47:45,279 --> 00:47:48,114
Their unconventional skating
and disorderly presence

662
00:47:48,199 --> 00:47:51,284
marked them as outsiders
right from the start.

663
00:47:53,162 --> 00:47:56,748
lt was like a hockey team
going to a figure skating contest.

664
00:47:56,832 --> 00:47:59,251
The difference between us and them
felt very real.

665
00:48:03,506 --> 00:48:08,760
Inspired by Larry Bertlemann's low, pivotal
style and the vertical walls of pool riding,

666
00:48:08,844 --> 00:48:11,680
the Z-Boys took skateboarding's
traditional upright approach

667
00:48:11,764 --> 00:48:13,598
and drove it right into the ground.

668
00:48:13,683 --> 00:48:15,892
They didn't like us from
the first part they saw us,

669
00:48:15,977 --> 00:48:20,063
because, you know, we weren't
of the status quo, for what they were into.

670
00:48:20,147 --> 00:48:22,232
People were just looking at us,
like, "Wow, what is this?

671
00:48:22,316 --> 00:48:26,236
"I mean, these guys, man, Zephyr guys,
this isn't skateboarding."

672
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,446
And l remember me and Jay were, like,

673
00:48:28,990 --> 00:48:31,157
"What are you talking about?
This is skateboarding, man.

674
00:48:31,242 --> 00:48:34,160
"What the hell are you guys doing,
you know, nose wheelies and all that?"

675
00:48:34,370 --> 00:48:38,415
We were the rock 'n' roll,
heavy metal of Dogtown.

676
00:48:42,878 --> 00:48:45,630
We came prepared to kick these dudes' ass.

677
00:48:45,715 --> 00:48:49,217
And we got inside their head instantly.
Man, I put on my best pimp gear,

678
00:48:49,302 --> 00:48:52,012
walked up there, pushed these
moms and dads out of the way,

679
00:48:52,096 --> 00:48:54,973
threw down our entry blanks
and asked for our trophies.

680
00:48:55,766 --> 00:49:00,770
We had the ammo, and we knew we were
just gonna bust out and blow minds.

681
00:49:00,855 --> 00:49:03,523
Our purpose was to go there
and shut these guys down.

682
00:49:03,608 --> 00:49:06,943
Shut down Ty Page, shut down Paul Engh,
shut down Hester,

683
00:49:07,028 --> 00:49:10,322
shut down Skoldberg. All those guys, dude.

684
00:49:18,873 --> 00:49:21,583
The first skater from the Zephyr team
to enter the competition

685
00:49:21,667 --> 00:49:24,586
was its youngest and most naturally gifted,

686
00:49:24,670 --> 00:49:28,798
13-year-old Jay Adams,
whose explosive energy and bold moves

687
00:49:28,883 --> 00:49:31,343
epitomized the Dogtown style.

688
00:49:46,901 --> 00:49:49,194
Jay Adams went out
for his first freestyle routine,

689
00:49:49,278 --> 00:49:50,862
the first guy they've seen
of our whole group...

690
00:49:50,946 --> 00:49:53,239
...and we knew that they didn't know
what they were about to see.

691
00:49:53,324 --> 00:49:54,699
And boom! Their world had changed.

692
00:49:54,784 --> 00:49:56,701
It would never be the same
for skateboarding again.

693
00:49:58,621 --> 00:50:00,789
He was doing tricks
he'd never even done before.

694
00:50:00,873 --> 00:50:04,918
l remember Jay doing Berts off the side
of the platform. Remember that?

695
00:50:05,002 --> 00:50:06,670
Off the platform, down onto the ground,

696
00:50:06,754 --> 00:50:08,338
and hopping back up on the platform
and skating.

697
00:50:08,422 --> 00:50:10,090
People were just flipping out.
They couldn't believe that.

698
00:50:10,174 --> 00:50:12,008
And l remember just looking at him,
bugging out.

699
00:50:12,093 --> 00:50:16,012
He was spinning nose 360s crouched on
his board. He'd never done that before!

700
00:50:29,235 --> 00:50:33,071
Many of the competitors, accustomed to
the more upright classical form,

701
00:50:33,155 --> 00:50:34,948
were not impressed.

702
00:51:04,437 --> 00:51:09,607
They were unconventional, and they didn't
care if they were judged well, you know?

703
00:51:09,692 --> 00:51:11,317
They were just there

704
00:51:11,777 --> 00:51:15,488
to, you know, skate and get rowdy
and have fun.

705
00:51:16,532 --> 00:51:20,243
Bruce Logan, Russ Howell and Ty Page,
these guys were great skaters.

706
00:51:20,327 --> 00:51:23,413
But the skating maneuvers
were based on a '60s paradigm.

707
00:51:23,497 --> 00:51:26,833
And we decided to do it
like surfers from the '70s.

708
00:51:27,418 --> 00:51:31,880
They had never bent their knees and done,
like, a Bertlemann turn on their skateboards.

709
00:51:31,964 --> 00:51:35,091
There was not a single soul
that was skating our style.

710
00:51:35,301 --> 00:51:36,885
They were all riding around
like stick men, man,

711
00:51:36,969 --> 00:51:41,306
and we were like slipping and sliding
and jamming, getting in every little pocket.

712
00:51:41,390 --> 00:51:42,849
They didn't know how to judge it.

713
00:51:42,933 --> 00:51:47,103
They didn't know how to put it in
their criteria and spit out a first place.

714
00:51:47,188 --> 00:51:51,107
Some of the girls didn't like the fact
that l skated like a guy,

715
00:51:51,192 --> 00:51:53,318
and so they protested me to the judges.

716
00:51:53,402 --> 00:51:57,363
And one of the judges said that
l skated better than some of the guys!

717
00:51:58,657 --> 00:52:01,868
Peggy Oki took first place
in the Women's Freestyle.

718
00:52:01,952 --> 00:52:05,205
Jay Adams and Tony Alva took
3rd and 4th place, respectively,

719
00:52:05,289 --> 00:52:06,956
in the Junior Men's Freestyle.

720
00:52:07,041 --> 00:52:10,043
And Nathan Pratt took 4th place
in the Junior Men's Slalom.

721
00:52:15,424 --> 00:52:19,969
The Zephyr team's infectious presence
and abundant talent pool whet the appetite

722
00:52:20,054 --> 00:52:23,765
of the industry's most prominent
skateboard manufacturers.

723
00:52:23,849 --> 00:52:28,311
All the other companies decided they needed
one of you guys to be on their team,

724
00:52:28,395 --> 00:52:30,605
so they went after all you guys.

725
00:52:30,689 --> 00:52:32,816
Six months after the Del Mar event,

726
00:52:32,900 --> 00:52:35,819
Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom would lose
the very skateboard team

727
00:52:35,903 --> 00:52:38,321
they'd worked so hard to build.

728
00:52:39,240 --> 00:52:41,908
A year later,
because of mounting business problems,

729
00:52:41,992 --> 00:52:47,330
they would close the Zephyr shop.
It would never again reopen for business.

730
00:52:47,414 --> 00:52:50,542
Jeff Ho and Skip didn't have money
to try and compete

731
00:52:50,626 --> 00:52:53,586
with people that were trying to buy us out,
you know?

732
00:52:53,671 --> 00:52:57,549
And, you know, l think it's kind of sad
that we were bought out,

733
00:52:57,633 --> 00:53:01,094
on one hand.
On the other hand, you know, it's like,

734
00:53:01,178 --> 00:53:03,972
what does a kid do when you put
a candy bar in front of him?

735
00:53:04,056 --> 00:53:05,098
That's sort of what was happening.

736
00:53:06,809 --> 00:53:11,020
That was, you know,
a hard one for me to deal with.

737
00:53:11,105 --> 00:53:15,108
Because I could see that
things were just gonna cave in.

738
00:53:15,276 --> 00:53:19,404
lt was real easy for any company
to come along and just go, okay,

739
00:53:19,488 --> 00:53:20,905
cherry pick what they needed.

740
00:53:21,490 --> 00:53:23,032
There's no way that it could hang together.

741
00:53:23,117 --> 00:53:25,159
There was no way that
the band could remain together.

742
00:53:25,244 --> 00:53:27,829
lt had to go elsewhere,
because there was so much energy

743
00:53:27,913 --> 00:53:31,165
inherent in what was going on,
it had to blow itself up and go out.

744
00:53:31,417 --> 00:53:33,543
We all started to branch off
in different directions.

745
00:53:33,627 --> 00:53:36,546
And we represented different companies
that were competing against each other.

746
00:53:36,630 --> 00:53:39,549
What happened is, after Del Mar,
these contests started to pop up,

747
00:53:39,633 --> 00:53:42,302
and every weekend
we'd be going to another contest.

748
00:53:42,386 --> 00:53:45,555
And then, all of a sudden
we said, "Wait a minute.

749
00:53:45,639 --> 00:53:47,181
"There's something more to this."

750
00:53:47,266 --> 00:53:51,519
lt just became obvious that
something more was gonna happen here.

751
00:53:51,604 --> 00:53:55,565
That it looked like skateboarding
was gonna get really popular.

752
00:54:01,488 --> 00:54:05,742
By 1975, skateboarding was
on its way to a national comeback,

753
00:54:05,826 --> 00:54:08,828
prompting Surfer magazine
to resurrect SkateBoarder,

754
00:54:08,913 --> 00:54:11,748
which had had a brief run in the '60s.

755
00:54:11,832 --> 00:54:16,252
The magazine's second issue would feature
Craig Stecyk's first Dogtown article,

756
00:54:16,337 --> 00:54:20,673
his personal account of
the guerilla adventures of Dogtown's Z-Boys.

757
00:54:27,681 --> 00:54:30,350
Stecyk's words and photographs
became the template

758
00:54:30,434 --> 00:54:33,186
for the attitude and aesthetic
that would come to define

759
00:54:33,270 --> 00:54:36,147
the culture of modern-day skateboarding.

760
00:54:36,231 --> 00:54:42,320
Craig had a way of looking at a situation,
photographing it, writing about it,

761
00:54:42,404 --> 00:54:45,782
and then giving it to kids
and sparking kids' imagination.

762
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:49,160
You know, some kid in Ohio
could look at this and go,

763
00:54:49,244 --> 00:54:53,414
"Man, there's like a dream out there,
and I can have my own dream."

764
00:54:53,499 --> 00:54:56,292
lt certainly was something that spoke to me,
and everybody in Washington.

765
00:54:56,377 --> 00:54:59,545
That kind of Venice, Santa Monica,

766
00:54:59,672 --> 00:55:03,508
vato, wild-style writing
that you guys would incorporate.

767
00:55:03,592 --> 00:55:07,053
That was something, growing up
in Montana, that l just didn't know.

768
00:55:07,262 --> 00:55:09,263
l didn't see it as
a "being Hispanic" thing at all.

769
00:55:09,348 --> 00:55:13,851
l just thought that it was
this crazy style of art, you know?

770
00:55:17,982 --> 00:55:22,902
Stecyk, of course, was the master of,
you know... He wrote a great story.

771
00:55:23,237 --> 00:55:26,030
He was writing it in a way
that it was confrontational.

772
00:55:26,115 --> 00:55:28,825
lt was like Hunter Thompson.
lt was like, "We're...with you.

773
00:55:28,909 --> 00:55:30,743
"We like to...with you. And you know what?

774
00:55:31,036 --> 00:55:32,787
"We're good at it! How's that?"

775
00:55:39,336 --> 00:55:43,423
You're reading this 3,000 miles away,
in a town that has snow.

776
00:55:43,507 --> 00:55:45,842
So, we're living through it vicariously.

777
00:55:45,926 --> 00:55:50,388
And we would live for that magazine.
lt was our radio station.

778
00:55:50,472 --> 00:55:52,390
'Cause you're not seeing
any of these people move.

779
00:55:52,474 --> 00:55:55,184
You're just seeing
the photos in the magazines.

780
00:56:26,508 --> 00:56:31,012
The photos really translated
the velocity of the move,

781
00:56:31,096 --> 00:56:33,431
the way you guys were living.
They said way more than,

782
00:56:33,515 --> 00:56:34,807
"Here's a guy on a skateboard."

783
00:56:34,892 --> 00:56:37,810
They showed a lifestyle.
They showed an attitude.

784
00:56:37,895 --> 00:56:40,146
They showed a code.

785
00:56:40,230 --> 00:56:43,483
lt was aggressive and it was stylish.
lt wasn't mechanical.

786
00:56:43,859 --> 00:56:48,905
You'd see a Dogtown article, with, like,
some, you know, torn-up pants, just ripping,

787
00:56:48,989 --> 00:56:51,574
and you were just like, "l want that."

788
00:56:53,118 --> 00:56:56,496
Dogtowners get to go to Hollywood parties
and they get to hang out with rock stars.

789
00:56:56,580 --> 00:56:59,457
They break into people's backyards
and skate empty swimming pools.

790
00:56:59,666 --> 00:57:01,375
l'm in! Sign me up!

791
00:57:02,252 --> 00:57:04,587
Everyone was into the Dogtown thing,

792
00:57:04,671 --> 00:57:08,007
'cause there was no other skateboard crew
that we saw in magazines doing that.

793
00:57:08,634 --> 00:57:12,595
We mythologized you. We read so much
about it, and we talked about it so much,

794
00:57:12,679 --> 00:57:14,013
while we were skating.

795
00:57:14,098 --> 00:57:16,099
As hard as it might be for some people
to believe, in the '70s,

796
00:57:16,183 --> 00:57:18,643
SkateBoarder magazine was
the biggest-selling magazine

797
00:57:18,727 --> 00:57:20,853
in 1 978 for the entire Southland Corporation.

798
00:57:20,938 --> 00:57:23,648
That's all 7-Elevens.
lt was the biggest-selling magazine they had.

799
00:57:23,732 --> 00:57:26,150
There were a lot of opportunities
to make money.

800
00:57:30,739 --> 00:57:34,992
With the Dogtown articles
came international recognition and fame.

801
00:57:35,077 --> 00:57:38,955
For the first time in history, teenagers
were being offered huge sums of money

802
00:57:39,039 --> 00:57:42,792
to compete in something
previously considered a rogue activity.

803
00:57:42,876 --> 00:57:45,628
We were being paid to ride skateboards.

804
00:57:45,712 --> 00:57:49,465
lmagine a kid today
being approached by Nike,

805
00:57:49,550 --> 00:57:51,968
and Nike saying,
"We're gonna pay you $1 0,000

806
00:57:52,052 --> 00:57:54,345
"to spray graffiti all over the city.

807
00:57:54,429 --> 00:57:57,765
"We're gonna sponsor you to,
you know, spray paint graffiti."

808
00:57:57,850 --> 00:58:02,061
That's what it was like in the '70s to get paid
to ride a skateboard. lt was crazy!

809
00:58:08,902 --> 00:58:11,028
It seemed like free money, you know?

810
00:58:11,113 --> 00:58:13,656
And it just happened that we were
in the right place at the right time,

811
00:58:13,740 --> 00:58:15,032
and we were in the magazines and...

812
00:58:15,117 --> 00:58:17,827
People are looking at these magazines,
you know?

813
00:58:17,911 --> 00:58:19,162
And they're seeing us.

814
00:58:19,246 --> 00:58:23,166
We were treated like kings
at places that we went to, you know?

815
00:58:24,751 --> 00:58:28,004
lt was, like, just red carpets. Everywhere.

816
00:58:28,088 --> 00:58:32,925
And the greatest thing about it is,
we were not the valedictorians of the school.

817
00:58:33,010 --> 00:58:35,761
We were the guys that would have been
chosen last to succeed.

818
00:58:35,846 --> 00:58:39,724
And for some reason, by doing something
that everyone said was a waste of time,

819
00:58:39,808 --> 00:58:41,893
we ended up influencing kids
all around the world.

820
00:58:41,977 --> 00:58:44,729
lt turned into, like, a rock star thing,
you know?

821
00:58:44,813 --> 00:58:47,940
I mean, I went to London, England,
in 1976 or whatever,

822
00:58:48,025 --> 00:58:51,819
they had a bowl named after me inside
an abandoned theater in London, England.

823
00:58:51,904 --> 00:58:54,197
l was like, "Wait a second. This is crazy."

824
00:58:54,281 --> 00:58:57,700
Tony was the first person we knew,
he was becoming famous.

825
00:58:57,784 --> 00:58:59,368
And there were articles on him
in People magazine

826
00:58:59,453 --> 00:59:01,204
and US magazine and Rolling Stone,

827
00:59:01,288 --> 00:59:04,040
you know, and SkateBoarder,
he was the skateboarder of the year.

828
00:59:09,588 --> 00:59:13,007
In 1977, Tony Alva was voted
skateboarder of the year

829
00:59:13,091 --> 00:59:16,552
in SkateBoarder magazine's
first worldwide reader's poll.

830
00:59:16,637 --> 00:59:20,348
Tony's first place, along with
four other places in the top 1 1 ,

831
00:59:20,432 --> 00:59:23,643
thrust the Dogtown skaters
even further into the limelight,

832
00:59:23,727 --> 00:59:26,229
prompting big offers
from deep-pocketed sponsors

833
00:59:26,313 --> 00:59:29,315
eager to ride the sport's growing popularity.

834
00:59:32,527 --> 00:59:37,031
There was only a few guys that were
really making some good money at it,

835
00:59:37,324 --> 00:59:39,700
and Stacy being one of them. l mean, Stacy,

836
00:59:39,785 --> 00:59:42,036
you know, he was making
some good money.

837
00:59:42,120 --> 00:59:46,916
l started bringing home these checks.
And my parents were looking at this, going,

838
00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:49,418
"What's going on here?
Where's this money coming from?"

839
00:59:49,962 --> 00:59:53,881
Stacy was the most commercially successful
skateboarder in the world.

840
00:59:53,966 --> 00:59:55,967
More of his model Warptail skateboards

841
00:59:56,051 --> 00:59:58,469
were sold, I think,
than any skateboard ever produced.

842
00:59:58,553 --> 01:00:01,514
Stacy, you know, handled himself
a little bit more mature than we did.

843
01:00:01,598 --> 01:00:05,518
l got to give him, you know, credit for that,
because he represented himself

844
01:00:05,602 --> 01:00:07,937
a little bit more professionally
than we did, l think, at that time.

845
01:00:08,021 --> 01:00:09,855
He toured the world a lot.

846
01:00:09,940 --> 01:00:13,442
l mean, every time you'd call Stacy's house,
oh, he's somewhere, Australia, England,

847
01:00:13,527 --> 01:00:15,444
Germany, Japan.

848
01:00:15,529 --> 01:00:18,406
l wanted to go out
and show the world skateboarding.

849
01:00:33,755 --> 01:00:34,964
What is that?

850
01:00:35,048 --> 01:00:37,550
lt's a skateboard. What does it look like?

851
01:00:40,262 --> 01:00:42,263
-A skateboard.
-Pretty far out, huh?

852
01:00:55,986 --> 01:00:57,486
I grew up in Santa Monica.

853
01:00:57,571 --> 01:00:59,989
A lot of drugs ran through
the beach that I surfed at.

854
01:01:00,073 --> 01:01:03,159
And l saw a lot of guys that l knew
were going to stay on the beach

855
01:01:03,243 --> 01:01:04,493
for the rest of their lives.

856
01:01:04,578 --> 01:01:07,663
And I wanted to get something out of this.
This was my ticket.

857
01:01:07,748 --> 01:01:12,585
Finally, l was good at something in my life,
and l didn't want to let it go.

858
01:01:20,052 --> 01:01:23,929
In 1979, Stacy Peralta would be
the second Dogtown skater

859
01:01:24,014 --> 01:01:27,600
to win SkateBoarder magazine's
worldwide reader's poll.

860
01:01:33,106 --> 01:01:36,150
He stopped skating professionally,
and then he hooked up with George Powell,

861
01:01:36,234 --> 01:01:39,070
and they started Powell Peralta,
and he began the Bones Brigade.

862
01:01:39,154 --> 01:01:42,948
And he picked all the talent, and
the few guys that he picked at the time

863
01:01:43,158 --> 01:01:44,909
were just revolutionary.

864
01:01:55,295 --> 01:01:57,755
It was just this amazing group of skaters

865
01:01:58,590 --> 01:02:02,802
who were doing for skating
what the Zephyr team did in the '70s,

866
01:02:02,886 --> 01:02:06,138
and he was the mastermind
behind the whole thing.

867
01:02:07,265 --> 01:02:09,934
In a relationship
that would span three decades,

868
01:02:10,018 --> 01:02:15,022
Peralta would hook up with Craig Stecyk
as his creative partner and early mentor.

869
01:02:15,607 --> 01:02:18,275
Through a series of
pioneering skateboard videos,

870
01:02:18,360 --> 01:02:22,530
Stecyk and Peralta showcased
the remarkable talents of the Bones Brigade

871
01:02:22,614 --> 01:02:24,657
to skaters the world over.

872
01:02:27,828 --> 01:02:32,289
They turned that into the biggest
skateboarding adventure ever.

873
01:02:32,374 --> 01:02:35,501
I don't feel I came into my own
until I was behind the scenes.

874
01:02:35,585 --> 01:02:36,669
That's when l flourished.

875
01:02:41,800 --> 01:02:44,969
Although Peralta would become
the most financially successful skater

876
01:02:45,053 --> 01:02:46,554
to emerge from Dogtown,

877
01:02:46,638 --> 01:02:49,765
the two skaters
who best personified the Dogtown spirit,

878
01:02:49,850 --> 01:02:53,602
and who won the most acclaim,
were Tony Alva and Jay Adams.

879
01:03:01,820 --> 01:03:04,238
Jay and I, the thing that
we had so much in common

880
01:03:04,322 --> 01:03:09,285
is that we were both completely out
of our mind, like, mischievous, you know?

881
01:03:09,369 --> 01:03:14,206
We were all crazy, but Jay,
Jay could instigate some shit, man.

882
01:03:14,416 --> 01:03:18,878
Man, Jay was nuts! He would be screaming
and making these goofy faces

883
01:03:18,962 --> 01:03:20,963
at...old ladies on the bus.

884
01:03:21,047 --> 01:03:25,217
Giving her a big rat face, and he's
right in there. Oh, man, it was unreal.

885
01:03:25,510 --> 01:03:28,596
And it got to the point where
the bus wouldn't even pick us up!

886
01:03:28,680 --> 01:03:30,973
-They wouldn't even stop.
-They'd accelerate,

887
01:03:31,057 --> 01:03:33,476
'cause they didn't know whether
they were getting rocks

888
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:36,937
or they didn't know whether Jay was
gonna pull a wig off some lady's head.

889
01:03:37,022 --> 01:03:39,106
They didn't know
what the hell was gonna happen.

890
01:04:14,893 --> 01:04:17,770
Jay was from a broken home, too.

891
01:04:18,730 --> 01:04:21,190
And he had a stepfather
in his life that treated him well

892
01:04:21,274 --> 01:04:25,027
and really pushed him
both in surfing and skating,

893
01:04:25,111 --> 01:04:28,948
and took us places to skate
and pushed in a loving way.

894
01:04:29,783 --> 01:04:33,661
When you're six, seven years old,
you're not thinking "pro surfer" too hard,

895
01:04:33,745 --> 01:04:37,706
but just be a surfer, be a kid, you know?

896
01:04:37,791 --> 01:04:41,460
I didn't really think much about future.

897
01:04:41,795 --> 01:04:43,963
-It just kind of came along, you know?
-Right.

898
01:04:44,047 --> 01:04:47,633
And then, by the time I was 1 2 and 13,
it was kind of already set,

899
01:04:47,717 --> 01:04:50,594
what l was gonna do,
you know what l mean?

900
01:04:50,679 --> 01:04:54,390
l'd just be a skateboarder
and a surfer, you know?

901
01:04:54,808 --> 01:04:56,350
You know what l mean?

902
01:05:04,484 --> 01:05:07,861
Some kids are born and raised on,
like, Graham crackers and milk.

903
01:05:07,946 --> 01:05:10,447
He was born and raised on
surfing and skateboarding, you know.

904
01:05:30,218 --> 01:05:34,597
When God decided to create skateboarding,
he said, "Let there be Jay Adams."

905
01:05:34,681 --> 01:05:37,308
Jay Adams was the most spontaneous
skater that you ever met.

906
01:05:37,392 --> 01:05:40,311
Absolutely, incredibly gifted.

907
01:05:40,395 --> 01:05:46,358
Jay was the most talented,
natural skateboarder, surfer, athlete...

908
01:05:46,443 --> 01:05:48,360
He had an energy like no one l ever met.

909
01:05:48,778 --> 01:05:53,741
There's nobody like him, as far as
"skater" is concerned. He's the original.

910
01:06:12,218 --> 01:06:15,471
When he skateboarded,
you were watching something happen.

911
01:06:15,555 --> 01:06:19,016
That's why Jay's so great, is 'cause
nothing's ever the same, before or since.

912
01:06:19,809 --> 01:06:22,269
You know, Jay doesn't practice.
Jay doesn't redo it.

913
01:06:22,354 --> 01:06:25,648
He doesn't do it twice. He doesn't do it
three times. He doesn't even do it one time.

914
01:06:25,732 --> 01:06:27,733
He's over it before it happens.

915
01:06:28,068 --> 01:06:30,319
He will be in the middle of a maneuver

916
01:06:31,696 --> 01:06:35,866
and have the whole thing collapsing on him,

917
01:06:35,950 --> 01:06:38,577
and somehow in the center of that disaster,

918
01:06:38,662 --> 01:06:42,581
he will make something else
out of it completely, which becomes art.

919
01:06:48,088 --> 01:06:51,382
Jay Adams' skating was
an athletic stream of consciousness.

920
01:06:51,466 --> 01:06:55,761
Through a seemingly reckless approach,
he attempted a series of aerial maneuvers

921
01:06:55,845 --> 01:07:00,015
that would presage what skaters
would be doing in years to come.

922
01:07:02,852 --> 01:07:05,521
When skateboarding finally blew up
and people were able to make money,

923
01:07:05,605 --> 01:07:07,606
he really didn't care.

924
01:07:30,964 --> 01:07:34,925
Everybody cares about money
a little bit, just...

925
01:07:36,302 --> 01:07:40,723
Things don't always work out how you kind
of wanted them to, you know what l mean?

926
01:07:40,807 --> 01:07:43,976
He didn't give a shit about it, and l don't
think that's why he did it to begin with.

927
01:07:44,060 --> 01:07:47,771
He never was interested
in any of the material rewards

928
01:07:47,856 --> 01:07:49,064
that came from skateboarding.

929
01:07:49,149 --> 01:07:52,901
l think that he just basically had
a total "f-you" approach

930
01:07:52,986 --> 01:07:55,195
to the whole commercialism
of skateboarding.

931
01:07:55,280 --> 01:07:59,283
lt was just fun.
You know, before it got too serious.

932
01:08:00,201 --> 01:08:02,327
You know what I mean?
Like in the amateur contest days,

933
01:08:02,412 --> 01:08:04,621
it was just kind of fun and stuff.

934
01:08:04,706 --> 01:08:08,167
And then when it got to
the, like, pro pool-riding and stuff,

935
01:08:08,251 --> 01:08:10,335
it just got too serious and...

936
01:08:10,420 --> 01:08:12,796
What do you mean, "Too serious"?

937
01:08:12,881 --> 01:08:17,176
Just guys didn't seem like
they were having as much fun.

938
01:08:17,260 --> 01:08:23,307
lt was more of a job, and a lot of tension,
you know what l mean?

939
01:08:23,391 --> 01:08:25,893
But when things got commercial,
l think it kind of freaked Jay out.

940
01:08:26,102 --> 01:08:30,773
You know? There was responsibility.
You got to show up at a certain time.

941
01:08:30,857 --> 01:08:33,817
You got to do a demo. You got to...
You got to fly here...

942
01:08:34,152 --> 01:08:37,237
lf you had people coming to you,
promising you something,

943
01:08:37,322 --> 01:08:39,948
making you sign contracts
when you're a minor,

944
01:08:40,033 --> 01:08:43,285
you know, telling you what to do, telling
you where to go, telling you how to act...

945
01:08:43,369 --> 01:08:44,787
Those people didn't care about Jay.

946
01:08:44,996 --> 01:08:47,956
He would be so naive in dealing with
these people and these situations

947
01:08:48,041 --> 01:08:49,541
that he would believe what they said.

948
01:08:49,918 --> 01:08:52,419
People just wanted to have what he had.

949
01:08:52,879 --> 01:08:55,672
You know, they just wanted a piece of him.

950
01:08:58,676 --> 01:09:02,846
lt opened a lot of doors to do a lot of things
that l probably shouldn't have.

951
01:09:02,931 --> 01:09:08,393
Like quitting school and buying weed
and partying, and just that kind of stuff.

952
01:09:09,270 --> 01:09:11,688
But it also did good things, too,

953
01:09:11,773 --> 01:09:15,818
like helped me pay the rent
for my mom and stuff like that.

954
01:09:15,902 --> 01:09:19,822
-Do you have any regrets?
-Yeah, there's regrets,

955
01:09:19,906 --> 01:09:23,450
like, just doing drugs and stuff like that.
You know?

956
01:09:24,536 --> 01:09:29,164
Not skating as much as l should have,
partying too much.

957
01:09:29,249 --> 01:09:32,793
You know, l missed a lot of good times

958
01:09:32,877 --> 01:09:35,504
by doing things that
l shouldn't have been doing.

959
01:09:35,588 --> 01:09:38,298
You know what l mean? Like, just going out,

960
01:09:38,383 --> 01:09:41,677
getting drunk and partying,
and stuff like that.

961
01:09:41,761 --> 01:09:44,513
You know? Where l could have done
a lot of other things.

962
01:09:44,597 --> 01:09:48,976
Or the business side,
where l could have taken it more seriously

963
01:09:49,060 --> 01:09:51,353
and marketed myself, or had someone

964
01:09:51,437 --> 01:09:53,689
market myself differently,
you know what l mean?

965
01:09:53,773 --> 01:09:54,857
Right.

966
01:09:54,941 --> 01:10:00,112
So l guess that's some teeny regrets,
but nothing to cry about.

967
01:10:00,196 --> 01:10:02,656
Right. You're stoked
about what happened, though.

968
01:10:02,740 --> 01:10:03,949
Yeah.

969
01:10:04,951 --> 01:10:06,243
l mean...

970
01:10:07,912 --> 01:10:11,331
There's certain mistakes
that l'd like to change,

971
01:10:11,416 --> 01:10:13,917
but l don't trip on it too hard,
you know what l mean?

972
01:10:14,002 --> 01:10:17,379
Right. Do you want to say what they are?

973
01:10:17,463 --> 01:10:20,757
-l kind ofjust did.
-Oh, okay. No, l... Okay.

974
01:10:28,975 --> 01:10:31,310
Jay's probably lived
one of the hardest lives I know

975
01:10:31,394 --> 01:10:34,229
for someone who's still alive,
you know? And...

976
01:10:36,816 --> 01:10:39,735
You get one chance at doing this.

977
01:10:39,819 --> 01:10:44,865
And if you miss it, you don't get it again.
And that's...

978
01:10:47,577 --> 01:10:50,412
That's the hardest part of it.

979
01:10:50,496 --> 01:10:52,915
That's the hardest part.
And it's hard for me to even see it,

980
01:10:52,999 --> 01:10:56,293
because l see it in a guy like Jay Adams,
and l go,

981
01:10:56,377 --> 01:10:58,128
"He should've had it all."

982
01:10:58,212 --> 01:11:02,507
Jay should have had it all,
and it makes me so sad that he didn't.

983
01:11:02,592 --> 01:11:06,345
Because he was...
He was better than all of us.

984
01:12:05,405 --> 01:12:08,323
My father was like a really hardcore,
you know, real...

985
01:12:08,408 --> 01:12:11,827
He was a pretty strict guy, you know,
and l think that a lot of the things,

986
01:12:11,911 --> 01:12:16,498
a lot of the aggression that came out,
you know, when he communicated with me,

987
01:12:16,582 --> 01:12:19,001
l kind of transferred that
to dealing with people and stuff, too.

988
01:12:36,185 --> 01:12:38,854
Tony made it really known that, "Hey, man.

989
01:12:39,188 --> 01:12:41,940
"l'm gonna be number one, and that's it."

990
01:12:42,025 --> 01:12:44,860
Tony was Mick Jagger. He was the radical.

991
01:12:44,944 --> 01:12:48,030
He was the front man. He was preening.
He was doing the show.

992
01:12:49,741 --> 01:12:51,825
He was the Michael Jordan
of skateboarding back then.

993
01:12:51,909 --> 01:12:54,411
And at the same time,
he was Dennis Rodman.

994
01:12:54,996 --> 01:12:57,039
Tony had a real strong personality.

995
01:12:57,123 --> 01:13:01,043
And when you hung around Tony, you were
pretty much hanging around the Tony Show.

996
01:13:01,127 --> 01:13:03,962
Tony was probably the first person
who taught me what the word "ego" meant.

997
01:13:04,213 --> 01:13:07,758
We all had big egos, but Tony's was
bigger than all of ours put together.

998
01:13:07,842 --> 01:13:10,969
lf a person has a big ego,
they better be able to back it.

999
01:13:12,013 --> 01:13:14,890
And, like, Tony could back his ego.

1000
01:13:14,974 --> 01:13:18,477
You don't achieve those levels of your art

1001
01:13:18,561 --> 01:13:20,479
unless you do have an ego.

1002
01:13:20,563 --> 01:13:22,564
Now Hackett said, when he
used to go to pools with you,

1003
01:13:22,648 --> 01:13:25,400
he said that you'd show up at the pool,
and you'd walk right up to everybody

1004
01:13:25,485 --> 01:13:28,653
sitting in, you know, the shallow end
and say, "That's it, guys. l'm here. Out."

1005
01:13:28,738 --> 01:13:32,032
No, not necessarily.
l might have done that a few times,

1006
01:13:32,116 --> 01:13:34,910
but usually l just let
my skating do the talking.

1007
01:13:42,752 --> 01:13:45,921
His timing and balance
and speed and agility

1008
01:13:46,005 --> 01:13:47,881
were far beyond everybody else's.

1009
01:13:47,965 --> 01:13:50,550
It was just a known fact.
When you saw Tony skate,

1010
01:13:50,635 --> 01:13:52,302
he was so far above everybody else.

1011
01:13:52,386 --> 01:13:56,431
His style, and the way he flowed,
and the lines that he drew,

1012
01:13:56,516 --> 01:14:00,811
he was just a little more advanced
than other guys at the time.

1013
01:14:00,895 --> 01:14:04,940
He could carve a pool
fluently and effortlessly.

1014
01:14:05,024 --> 01:14:07,109
And then, at the same time,

1015
01:14:07,193 --> 01:14:11,071
every turn was attacked
as though his life depended on it.

1016
01:14:16,786 --> 01:14:20,872
He was a really fierce competitor,
and Tony wanted the prize.

1017
01:14:21,249 --> 01:14:24,459
I've always wanted to be the best.
I've always been very competitive.

1018
01:14:24,544 --> 01:14:27,129
My goal was,
l wanted to be a world champion.

1019
01:14:27,213 --> 01:14:29,464
l wanted to be the best in the world.

1020
01:14:30,716 --> 01:14:34,302
In 1977, on ABC's Wide World of Sports,

1021
01:14:34,387 --> 01:14:39,349
Tony Alva became modern skateboarding's
first overall grand national champion.

1022
01:14:47,817 --> 01:14:49,568
At 1 9 years old, getting that title,

1023
01:14:49,652 --> 01:14:51,570
the men's overall world professional
skateboard champion,

1024
01:14:51,654 --> 01:14:52,904
that was a big thing for me.

1025
01:14:52,989 --> 01:14:54,656
You know, that was like
Muhammad Ali, you know,

1026
01:14:54,740 --> 01:14:56,992
kicking Joe Frazier's ass
or whatever, you know.

1027
01:14:57,076 --> 01:14:59,369
Six months after winning
the world championship,

1028
01:14:59,453 --> 01:15:01,454
Tony would shun the sponsorship world,

1029
01:15:01,539 --> 01:15:05,959
and in an unprecedented move, go it alone
and form his own skateboard company,

1030
01:15:06,043 --> 01:15:07,294
Alva Skates.

1031
01:15:07,378 --> 01:15:10,547
That was the turning point because
l'd done everything that l could do

1032
01:15:10,631 --> 01:15:12,132
-riding for other companies.
-Right.

1033
01:15:12,216 --> 01:15:14,467
And l was making them a lot of money
without even having a model.

1034
01:15:19,599 --> 01:15:22,809
ln that way, he was professional, and
he wanted money for everything that he did,

1035
01:15:22,894 --> 01:15:24,853
at some point, because he saw
he was getting exploited.

1036
01:15:24,937 --> 01:15:27,314
So, I started my own skateboard company
at 19 years of age.

1037
01:15:27,398 --> 01:15:30,400
l mean, l was pretty...self-centered
at the time, man.

1038
01:15:30,484 --> 01:15:32,277
My deal was, like,
"l'm gonna make some money.

1039
01:15:32,361 --> 01:15:34,654
"l'm gonna capitalize.
l'm gonna travel around the...world.

1040
01:15:34,739 --> 01:15:37,490
"l'm gonna get laid every...night,
you know?"

1041
01:15:37,575 --> 01:15:38,867
Like, you know,
l'm gonna do it all, right now.

1042
01:15:48,377 --> 01:15:51,296
When Tony Alva came out
with his first ad for his first company,

1043
01:15:51,380 --> 01:15:53,465
it was a complete revolution
in the skateboarding industry.

1044
01:15:53,549 --> 01:15:56,718
People were just up in arms.

1045
01:15:56,802 --> 01:16:01,932
Because here's this guy, standing just,
like, really tough, and it was...

1046
01:16:02,016 --> 01:16:04,851
All of a sudden, the advertisement
was no longer about skateboarding.

1047
01:16:04,936 --> 01:16:08,813
lt had nothing to do with the product.
lt was about attitude.

1048
01:16:14,028 --> 01:16:18,573
There's just no two ways about it.
Tony was a rock 'n' roll star.

1049
01:16:18,658 --> 01:16:20,533
He was so in love with the fame.

1050
01:16:20,618 --> 01:16:22,619
He was so in love with himself.

1051
01:16:24,163 --> 01:16:26,706
He could jump barrels,
he could race downhill,

1052
01:16:26,791 --> 01:16:29,209
he could do freestyle,
he could do street style,

1053
01:16:29,293 --> 01:16:33,171
he could ride vert.
He did it all better than anybody.

1054
01:16:33,256 --> 01:16:36,007
He was one of the pioneers
of the progression of skating.

1055
01:16:36,092 --> 01:16:40,220
I think that he really helped show
what was possible on a skateboard.

1056
01:16:40,304 --> 01:16:42,347
Tony Alva's an icon that

1057
01:16:42,974 --> 01:16:46,476
l could look up to
when l first got into the sport.

1058
01:16:46,769 --> 01:16:49,854
He is the most important skateboarder
of all time, in my opinion.

1059
01:16:49,939 --> 01:16:52,023
You could look at the photos,
you could look at the film,

1060
01:16:52,108 --> 01:16:54,192
you could look at the guy talking back then.

1061
01:16:54,527 --> 01:16:58,571
So far, since l was, like,
the innovator of vertical skating,

1062
01:16:58,656 --> 01:17:01,241
and l'm, like, the oldest one and l'm only 21 ,

1063
01:17:01,325 --> 01:17:05,453
we're saying that there's really no limit yet
to the, l think, "oldness" that you can be.

1064
01:17:05,538 --> 01:17:10,250
Tony is the Chuck Berry of skateboarding.
He developed a style of playing,

1065
01:17:10,334 --> 01:17:12,836
and Tony's gonna play that style
his whole life.

1066
01:17:12,920 --> 01:17:15,630
That's what he does,
and that's what he's always done,

1067
01:17:15,715 --> 01:17:17,048
and that's what he'll always do.

1068
01:17:17,133 --> 01:17:20,302
There's no way that you can really say that,
"He's over the hill," or anything,

1069
01:17:20,386 --> 01:17:23,138
until the guy just totally drops out
of the whole scene and isn't recognized

1070
01:17:23,222 --> 01:17:25,307
as a, you know, person of high esteem

1071
01:17:25,391 --> 01:17:27,892
in the world of professional skateboarding,
or whatever he's doing.

1072
01:17:28,644 --> 01:17:31,313
I mean, if there was
a skateboarding hall of fame,

1073
01:17:31,397 --> 01:17:34,149
l think Tony Alva is the first name
that should go down.

1074
01:17:53,044 --> 01:17:54,586
We lived...

1075
01:17:55,629 --> 01:17:58,923
We lived at a place called the Dogbowl.

1076
01:17:59,008 --> 01:18:02,427
We were there every day,
just about, skating all day.

1077
01:18:10,561 --> 01:18:14,814
In an ironic twist of fate,
it was on the grounds of a posh estate

1078
01:18:14,899 --> 01:18:17,609
in the affluent neighborhood
of North Santa Monica

1079
01:18:17,693 --> 01:18:21,029
where the Z-Boys came together
for their final sessions

1080
01:18:21,113 --> 01:18:24,282
in what they considered
to be their crown jewel.

1081
01:18:27,161 --> 01:18:29,037
There was a kid, Dino, that lived there.

1082
01:18:29,121 --> 01:18:33,083
He was dying of, like, brain cancer,
and he was a skateboard enthusiast.

1083
01:18:33,167 --> 01:18:37,545
You know, the kid's gonna die. He went
to his father and said, "Hey, listen, for me,

1084
01:18:37,630 --> 01:18:39,756
"empty the pool. Let my friends skate here."

1085
01:18:40,299 --> 01:18:41,633
The next day, he was there with the pump.

1086
01:18:42,093 --> 01:18:43,927
Two days later, we were in there skating.

1087
01:18:44,470 --> 01:18:45,887
Every afternoon, after surfing and hanging,

1088
01:18:45,971 --> 01:18:49,140
we would go to his house,
hang out with him, and just skate his pool.

1089
01:18:52,186 --> 01:18:55,855
At a place you cannot even imagine,
people can't imagine, the huge pool,

1090
01:18:55,940 --> 01:18:59,818
in a beautiful property,
you're allowed to skate it.

1091
01:19:00,736 --> 01:19:03,738
Dogbowl was the only place
where we could skate in peace.

1092
01:19:03,823 --> 01:19:06,074
That was like a skate park to us,
because the owner

1093
01:19:06,158 --> 01:19:07,659
would let us skate and watch us skate.

1094
01:19:07,743 --> 01:19:09,744
There was all these dogs
that lived around the pool,

1095
01:19:09,829 --> 01:19:11,746
and they would always hang out
and just stick their mugs

1096
01:19:11,831 --> 01:19:13,748
right in like Friedman's camera lens
or in like...

1097
01:19:13,833 --> 01:19:17,085
That's how it eventually
got called the Dogbowl.

1098
01:19:21,006 --> 01:19:24,217
The Dogbowl sessions were definitely
the heyday, like, for all of us.

1099
01:19:24,301 --> 01:19:29,305
Guys used to go there every day and
just skate, and skate, and skate all day long.

1100
01:19:30,683 --> 01:19:32,809
We perfected a lot of things

1101
01:19:32,893 --> 01:19:37,522
and had a lot of time to spend in one pool.

1102
01:19:50,703 --> 01:19:53,204
Almost the entire original team
would be at that pool in one day,

1103
01:19:53,289 --> 01:19:54,456
which was, like, kind of weird.

1104
01:19:54,540 --> 01:19:56,624
It's kind of like it was back
to the old Zephyr shop in a way.

1105
01:19:56,709 --> 01:19:58,960
'Cause you had this whole group of guys,
and it was in Santa Monica,

1106
01:19:59,044 --> 01:20:01,963
and it was the most incredible pool ever,
and you didn't want anyone else there.

1107
01:20:02,047 --> 01:20:06,342
The crew, like, in a way, probably
was not like that maybe ever before.

1108
01:20:06,427 --> 01:20:09,387
'Cause all of a sudden,
everyone is famous and they know it.

1109
01:20:09,680 --> 01:20:12,223
-But we're still pushing each other.
-But that's it.

1110
01:20:12,308 --> 01:20:16,060
You're pushing each other. No one else
is around. lt's just the original crew.

1111
01:20:50,554 --> 01:20:52,805
Eventually, we were hitting the top so hard,

1112
01:20:52,890 --> 01:20:55,808
and just grabbing the sides of our boards,
just the rail and stuff,

1113
01:20:55,893 --> 01:20:58,978
we started to pop out
and actually do aerials.

1114
01:21:04,068 --> 01:21:05,985
It just changed the whole ballgame.

1115
01:21:06,070 --> 01:21:10,949
That time, fall '77, is when
T.A. did the front side air in the pool.

1116
01:21:12,701 --> 01:21:16,871
I mean, everyone is there, and people were
doing little bits of aerials in different places.

1117
01:21:16,956 --> 01:21:21,543
But what Tony did one day, l think
it was in September, he goes up,

1118
01:21:21,627 --> 01:21:26,130
pulls the board up, turns in midair, comes
back down into the pool, and makes it.

1119
01:21:27,091 --> 01:21:32,387
lt was fucking unbelievable. lt's something
that you... lt could be described today,

1120
01:21:32,471 --> 01:21:34,889
but you just don't understand
because it's a given, and it's seen.

1121
01:21:34,974 --> 01:21:38,017
Now, other people have said that people
did aerials at other places, other times.

1122
01:21:38,102 --> 01:21:41,563
No one did it like Tony did,
and no one did it as well.

1123
01:21:41,647 --> 01:21:45,650
And no one did it with style for many years
to come, outside of that crew.

1124
01:21:46,485 --> 01:21:50,363
There are points of evolution in every sport
and every art form

1125
01:21:50,447 --> 01:21:54,659
that center around significant events
which define all that follows.

1126
01:21:54,743 --> 01:21:58,454
When the Z-Boys began skateboarding
inside empty swimming pools,

1127
01:21:58,539 --> 01:22:02,333
they destroyed the status quo and
challenged the idea of what was possible.

1128
01:22:03,502 --> 01:22:05,378
Tony Alva followed this line

1129
01:22:05,462 --> 01:22:10,174
when he propelled his body and board
above the coping and into the air

1130
01:22:10,259 --> 01:22:15,346
as aerial base maneuvers would become
the departure point for the next generation

1131
01:22:15,431 --> 01:22:18,016
of modern skateboarders.

1132
01:22:23,522 --> 01:22:27,233
Dogtown was the actual beginning
of all of vertical skateboarding

1133
01:22:27,318 --> 01:22:29,527
and modern skateboarding
as we know it today.

1134
01:22:29,612 --> 01:22:31,613
That was the beginning.

1135
01:22:31,822 --> 01:22:36,492
lf you look back, you don't see a skateboard
contest like you did in Del Mar today.

1136
01:22:36,577 --> 01:22:41,497
You don't see a flat ground, you know,
some guys doing 360s and pirouettes.

1137
01:22:41,582 --> 01:22:46,502
They're all doing it in pipes. And basically,
a half-pipe was what a swimming pool was,

1138
01:22:46,587 --> 01:22:49,881
but we just hadn't figured out how
to build a half-pipe back then yet,

1139
01:22:49,965 --> 01:22:51,674
so we had to empty swimming pools
and ride them.

1140
01:22:52,509 --> 01:22:54,719
There wouldn't be any X Games,
there wouldn't be any vert skating,

1141
01:22:54,803 --> 01:22:59,182
there wouldn't be anything at all
if it wasn't for most of the boys

1142
01:22:59,266 --> 01:23:02,060
that l skated with and competed against,
and that whole scene.

1143
01:23:02,144 --> 01:23:03,603
That's where it all started.

1144
01:23:06,732 --> 01:23:11,319
Craig Stecyk saw what we were
doing before anybody else did,

1145
01:23:11,612 --> 01:23:14,489
and he believed in it as a culture,

1146
01:23:14,782 --> 01:23:16,991
and he presented it as a culture.

1147
01:23:17,076 --> 01:23:20,995
People thought this was some, like,
stupid thing that little kids did.

1148
01:23:21,288 --> 01:23:25,041
Right? Craig Stecyk understood it
as more of an extension of society.

1149
01:23:29,421 --> 01:23:30,838
I think it was an act of significance.

1150
01:23:30,923 --> 01:23:33,007
l think you guys were doing
some profoundly different things.

1151
01:23:33,092 --> 01:23:38,179
And l think nobody appreciated that at
the time l got involved with dealing with it.

1152
01:23:38,263 --> 01:23:40,431
Skateboarding could have easily,
without Craig Stecyk,

1153
01:23:40,516 --> 01:23:44,060
become little league baseball.
lt would have just been a novelty.

1154
01:23:44,144 --> 01:23:47,563
But, you know, the way Craig presented it,
and the way he wrote about it,

1155
01:23:47,648 --> 01:23:51,776
l mean, it really brought it to another level,
and it gave it a significance.

1156
01:23:54,905 --> 01:23:57,990
The whole Dogtown thing said,
"lt isn't a ball-and-stick sport.

1157
01:23:58,075 --> 01:24:00,535
"lt isn't about winning or losing.
lt's about the process.

1158
01:24:00,619 --> 01:24:02,995
"lt's not about the ends.
lt's about the means."

1159
01:24:03,080 --> 01:24:05,581
You know what? This sport isn't
just a stepchild of another sport.

1160
01:24:05,666 --> 01:24:09,043
It's really, almost, an art form.

1161
01:24:17,970 --> 01:24:21,639
l think we were all looking for the best time.

1162
01:24:21,724 --> 01:24:24,767
The best ride. The best grind.

1163
01:24:24,852 --> 01:24:28,271
The best carve. You know?

1164
01:24:28,355 --> 01:24:30,857
The best barrel. Yeah.

1165
01:24:30,941 --> 01:24:35,695
Not to outdo each other,
but just to aim for the best, you know?

1166
01:24:35,779 --> 01:24:39,323
'Cause the feeling you got from that,
it's undescribable.

1167
01:28:00,317 --> 01:28:03,444
Finding an empty pool like that
was like finding a secret,

1168
01:28:03,528 --> 01:28:05,529
you know,
like a secret surf spot or something.

1169
01:28:06,239 --> 01:28:10,534
lt's like finding
the most beautiful virgin woman.

1170
01:28:10,702 --> 01:28:14,413
There was like a sensuous,
kind of like, exciting feel to it.

1171
01:28:14,498 --> 01:28:15,623
lt was like having, you know, sex.

1172
01:28:15,958 --> 01:28:17,083
l mean, that's what it was like.

1173
01:28:17,167 --> 01:28:20,670
So it was like,
every time we found a pool like that,

1174
01:28:20,754 --> 01:28:26,133
we had the experience that, you know,
here's somebody who's unridden.

1175
01:28:26,218 --> 01:28:28,386
l mean, l don't know how else to explain it.

1176
01:28:39,773 --> 01:28:43,317
I remember one time, Jay said,
"Come check this out."

1177
01:28:43,402 --> 01:28:47,196
And there was an alley right across
from his house on Highland,

1178
01:28:47,280 --> 01:28:50,574
and l went down there,
and l hear this, "Tink, tink, tink, tink."

1179
01:28:50,659 --> 01:28:53,285
l'm like, "What is that?"
And Jay's in hysterics.

1180
01:28:53,370 --> 01:28:55,246
He goes, "Just watch, man. Just watch."

1181
01:28:55,330 --> 01:28:59,041
All of a sudden, l see this cat come out
of this under car parking garage,

1182
01:28:59,126 --> 01:29:04,839
and it's got a 3-foot piece of string
tied to its tail with a tin can with rocks in it.

1183
01:29:04,923 --> 01:29:06,841
And l'm like, "You got to be shitting me!"

1184
01:29:53,472 --> 01:29:56,015
Back then, we weren't wearing
all these pads,

1185
01:29:56,099 --> 01:29:59,143
and if you take a look
at some of the still shots from back then,

1186
01:29:59,227 --> 01:30:02,688
you'll see that l'm on the wall
with nothing on.

1187
01:30:02,773 --> 01:30:05,191
l mean, if you fall then,
you're gonna get hurt.

1188
01:30:05,275 --> 01:30:07,610
We didn't care.
We just wanted to get radical.

1189
01:30:24,086 --> 01:30:28,672
Okay, really quickly.
lt was August, the dog days. lt was hot.

1190
01:30:29,508 --> 01:30:32,510
l was drunk.
l was drinking papaya juice and vodka.

1191
01:30:32,594 --> 01:30:35,221
l was sitting on a bus bench
in front of the store with Craig.

1192
01:30:35,305 --> 01:30:38,140
l went to Craig, "Hey, Craig, you know,
these are really the dog days,"

1193
01:30:38,225 --> 01:30:40,643
and he went,
"Yeah, this is really a dog town."

1194
01:30:40,727 --> 01:30:42,645
And l went, "Yeah, it is a dog town,"
and he went,

1195
01:30:42,729 --> 01:30:44,355
"'Cause you know, we live in Dogtown."

1196
01:30:44,439 --> 01:30:47,066
That's the truth. That's how it happened.
That's the story. Period.