Going Deep with Chad and JT - Ep. 80 - Tony Hawk Joins

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

What up stokers, we have an epic episode for you as we have the legend himself, legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk, joining us for the pod. We dive into the 900, X Games, the early days of skating,... and relationships. Enjoy stokers!

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Starting point is 00:00:00 What's your dream? No, it ain't Just JT What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream?
Starting point is 00:00:12 What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream?
Starting point is 00:00:12 What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream?
Starting point is 00:00:12 What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream?
Starting point is 00:00:13 What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream?
Starting point is 00:00:13 What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream?
Starting point is 00:00:13 What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream?
Starting point is 00:00:14 What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? What's your dream? First one, we're interviewing Tony Hawk. It was awesome. He's super smart and he was on it. The second one is that the first 15 minutes of audio didn't record properly.
Starting point is 00:00:33 So we tacked that on at the end of the interview because it just sounds shitty. But he actually talks about some really cool stuff in that section, like landing the 900 at the X Games and all of the work he put into Tony Hawk Pro Skater the game. So I would recommend listening to all of it. And yeah, enjoy the episode. It's up right now. Later Stokers. We were talking about Tony Hawk. I kind of wanted to learn more about your childhood and stuff and growing up in San Diego.
Starting point is 00:00:53 I grew up in Orange County, so not far from here. Yeah. I grew up in San Diego. My dad was in the Navy. He retired here. And kind of normal, I don't know, middle class, suburban life, public schools. Uh, I started skating mostly because my, my friends were doing it as a hobby and my older
Starting point is 00:01:16 brother was a surfer. And so he skated as well. And, um, I got one of his hand-me-down boards and that's how I started. Were you good right away? No, not at all. In fact, I remember the first time I got on the board, I pushed down the driveway and was yelling, how do I turn, how do I turn, how do I turn?
Starting point is 00:01:34 And then I ran into the fence and got splinters in my hands. Really? Yeah. And I didn't think much of it. Like, I liked it. It was fun. But I ended up going to the skate park on the invite of a friend of mine for the first time, maybe about six months later. And that's when I knew that's what I wanted to do because I saw these literally guys flying out of pools.
Starting point is 00:02:00 Yeah. And I was like, this is it. This is what I want to do that at any cost. Was that like Z-Boys style kind of time period? yeah and i was like this is it this is what i want to i want to do that at any cost was that like z boys style kind of time period it was kind of at the tail end of that right you know there's a lot of misconception that somehow like i was part of that there's like a direct correlation i was nine years old right when those guys were superstars yeah but but definitely their influence was part of that whole movement despite with skating pools and with doing aerials.
Starting point is 00:02:27 And that was it. I mean, once I saw people doing aerials out of swimming pools, that was like, I didn't... Your eyes just went big and you were like, I gotta do this. Yeah, I didn't want to play any other sports. I just wanted to do that. Nice. How long did it take for you to drop in on vert?
Starting point is 00:02:41 It's weird to say in my era because we were skating pools that that sort of varied in depth as they went up to the shallow end yeah so i just worked my way up to the the deep end okay um and so i don't remember thinking like this is the moment i'm you know i mean it's not like this this great separation of i can jump in on me or I can jump in vert. It was just more like, I can jump in on the deep end now. And it wasn't so, it was a different time.
Starting point is 00:03:11 Yeah. It's hard to say. If I had to guess what age I was, I was probably 11 or 12 at the time. Were half pipes around at that point? Or was it just pools? Not in the traditional sense. There were a couple,
Starting point is 00:03:23 there were kind of, there were novelties. Like Pepsi had a demo ramp that they put on a float and it was clear and it was literally a half pipe. There was no flat bottom. Okay. There were no decks on it. Yeah. So that's kind of what ramps were back in that time.
Starting point is 00:03:39 Yeah. Um, it wasn't until I'd say early 80s where people started building backyard ramps that were proper that you could actually do tricks and do stuff maybe that wasn't possible in a pool. Gotcha. Would you skate to school? Yeah. Yeah. Especially in elementary school. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:10 In my high school, the first high school I went to, there was this drainage ditch that ran almost along the length of where I lived to the school. So on the way home, I could ski the drainage ditch all the way down the reservoir. At that time, skating wasn't really like people weren't doing it to be cool. It was sort of like for the love of the sport, would you say? When I started, it was more like a fad fad it was like yo-yo of the time okay and so kids would skate and then they would grow out of it yeah um but if you kept skating then you were just marked as as basically a nerd because it was like why are you still skating right it's like doing karate when you're in high school everyone's like, it's normal when you're like 11.
Starting point is 00:04:45 Yeah, pretty much. And also just that it wasn't cool anymore. So it was hard to get any sense of validation or accomplishment, especially at an age when you're just trying to fit in. But at the same time, I kind of found my crew at the park and I enjoyed it too much to worry about what my classmates thought of it. So those were your boys. What kind of person were you in high school? I was a good student.
Starting point is 00:05:13 I was in the advanced classes. Nice. I would have been considered a nerd, but because I skated, it was like double whammy of you're a nerd and you're uncool because you skate yeah so for the most part i was just kind of a ghost through the hallways like i didn't really want to draw any attention to myself because it was never a good thing what was it like you know because you're pretty much professional by 15 right or 16 yeah well 14 but again that it was a different
Starting point is 00:05:42 era but it just meant that you moved up in in competition classes you didn't no one was offering you a contract okay there was not some great celebration it was just more like okay you can't cruise in as an amateur anymore because you're winning all the events so you have to turn pro and so the way i turned pro was checking the box that said pro in the entry form to the next one instead of the one that said amateur yeah that was it that was the barrier yeah that was it yeah and it was like no one there was one guy peering on my shoulder like oh and cool you're pro what was it like when you you know travel to go to like a contest win the contest then come back to high school like did you gain notoriety within like really a little bit because i was in in Southern California, so there was some acceptance of it.
Starting point is 00:06:26 It was more of a surf culture. But for the most part, no. People didn't. Some people knew that a skateboarder went to their school, and maybe even some knew my name, but they could not pick me up at a crowd, no way. Right. Were you beating pros right away when you got on there?
Starting point is 00:06:44 When I first turned pro pro i got fourth at the first event i went to nice yeah yeah i mean i well it didn't have it like it wasn't always stellar but i did pretty well and was that the bones brigade uh i was on the bones brigade at that time yeah nice what's stacy peralta like for the people who don't know he directed dogtown and or dogtown and the z boys and the bones the Bonesburg documentary. He's awesome. He was really the first person that recognized my skills and my ambition when most people thought I was kind of a joke. Because I was really scrawny as a kid.
Starting point is 00:07:20 And so when I was skating, I had a really strange style, but I had been creating all these different tricks and I was learning tricks. And he was one of the first persons to see me and say like, hey, you know, just kind of inquire about what I was doing and about a possible sponsorship. And that was kind of a shock to my peers because it was like, him?
Starting point is 00:07:43 You're going to sponsor him? Right. You know, and I was intimidated as well because it was already like steve calero mike mcgill rodney mullen like those guys were on the team yeah rodney mullen interesting guy yeah he's a he's a genius yeah yes he's a genius physically and mentally i heard him at the beginning of bones brigade he like describes himself as a child he's like i didn't know I was allowed to speak. I talked in whispers. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:08 Yeah. Well, he had a pretty rough childhood. Yeah. I don't mean to make fun of it, but it's like. Yeah. It's like his intensity. He was almost like a poet the way he was talking. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:17 Yeah. No, he's he really is like on a different level of intelligence. What was it like when you guys were just kicking it on tour together, or with all those guys? I think he and I connected the most because we were both pretty nerdy in that sense, in terms of schooling and interests. But also, he and I were creating tricks and we didn't really have any other peers
Starting point is 00:08:41 to bounce stuff off of because we were just sort of doing these things and no one, either they couldn't or they didn't care to, to try the things we were trying. And so he and I would bounce ideas off each other, even though he was doing stuff on the flat, which is freestyle. And I was doing stuff in the pools,
Starting point is 00:08:58 in the air. We both had different ideas of what's possible in those realms. And so he and I would sort of share, share inspiration. Well, that's cool. So for instance, I created the,
Starting point is 00:09:11 the air walk move, which is taking both feet off your board in the air. He figured out how to do that on the ground to Ollie up, grab his nose and kick both his feet out. Wow. And that was because I learned that in the pools and then he used to do a trick where he would flip his board with his fingers this is before kickflips were invented and so you'd have to do it with your hand and so i figured out how to do that in the air
Starting point is 00:09:35 in the pool so directly from rodney that's the finger flip finger flip yeah wow so you guys were like creating a skating language together basically basically. Kind of, yeah. But really, we didn't know to what audience. We just loved doing it. You know, it was very little appreciation at the time. Well, yeah, because then it was pretty popular for a while. Then it plummeted for a bit, right? Right.
Starting point is 00:09:59 But I think that's the thing. The isolating part of that was that skateboarding was this super got really small. The community was very small. And then for someone like me, I was an outcast of that community because of the way I skated. So it was very isolating. What made you an outcast? Because I wasn't doing the cool, like I wasn't doing the big aerials and the big slash grinds like the you know the surfer dudes i was just doing these tricks and they just thought i was a robot and so they used to call
Starting point is 00:10:30 me that they used to call me circus skater and just like a robot and so were you able to detach from that stuff i mean throughout your career when like you go it was more that i had a couple friends that that had the same sort of vibe and i just relied on them for validation and for support because the world of skating was kind of older at the time too. So it was super intimidating. And if you weren't cool, you're just out. So in the nineties, it's where it went through a little bit of a lull. Uh, what was sort of your mindset going through that point of how to overcome that? Or did you, were you just going to stick with skating no matter what? Well, I always knew I wanted to keep skating.
Starting point is 00:11:10 I didn't know if it was possible to do it for a living, especially in the early 90s. I did whatever I could to make it work. I mean, I was taking the most odd jobs as a skater. One time I was a consultant of commercial where they had skaters but they were younger than me um another time i uh i did demos in six flags parking lots on a vert ramp three a day for 100 bucks but you know it made like i paid the bills yeah and it made it work and it allowed me to keep skating.
Starting point is 00:11:47 And I kind of navigated that as best I could. Went on a severe budget for my lifestyle. It was like Taco Bell, like $5 Taco Bell. Absolutely, Taco Bell and Top Ramen, like everything. What were your parents and GF saying at the time? My parents were supportive. I mean, it was hard for them to see my income shrinking so drastically because my income was was basically being cut in half every month because it
Starting point is 00:12:11 was all royalty based so people weren't buying as many shoes people weren't buying as many skateboards um the truck company couldn't afford the salary they were giving you and then you know i just watched my watched my income dwindle. So they were concerned just because at that point in my life, I had two mortgages. I had a son on the way. And it was like, what the hell are you guys doing? What are you doing? You're going to find a job.
Starting point is 00:12:37 And I did actually at that time borrow money from my parents to buy editing equipment because I knew how to do video editing. And this is all before computers. So everything was like tape to tape. And I knew enough about that to get freelance work doing that. So I actually did that for almost a year on top of skating. And I was doing, so I was putting videos together for different companies, So I was putting videos together for different companies, including skate companies and one video game company, ironically. And eventually I took the equity out of my house and started a skateboard company because I thought that was my transition from being a pro skater to someone behind the scenes. And it allowed me to stay in the skate industry. And I had a good eye for talent so I could put together a really good team.
Starting point is 00:13:27 Did you get that from Stacy or did you kind of, yeah, I mean, he was the, he was the catalyst cause that's what he did. He was a pro skater. He teamed up with George Powell, started Powell Peralta,
Starting point is 00:13:37 found his own team and then did it. So we were just, I was just going through the same cycle. but the hard thing was, is that skating was so small. So it was very risky to start a skate company at the time, but I saw that skating had come through so many cycles of popularity before that, that it was sort of due for an upswing and I wanted to, to be in the right place at the right time. Did you take the time to learn about business or did you just partner up with
Starting point is 00:14:05 someone who sort of had that expertise? Who also put in his money. He was an ex pro skater, but he had a business degree. Yeah. So I trusted him to do most of that. Um, like the paperwork and the, you know, the business plan and things like that. But I definitely dove in and learned a lot of it because I felt like I should, I, you know,
Starting point is 00:14:25 I couldn't just be clueless to all that stuff. Yeah. You're like a super smart dude. Well, it was, it was not something I was really interested in though. You know what I mean? I didn't know how to edit your like purchase order AP classes and net sales
Starting point is 00:14:36 and, and, um, all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, there were only, uh, there were three of us originally for Birdhouse.
Starting point is 00:14:46 Wow. We were all doing everything. I did all the ads. I did all the videos. I was doing all the tours. I was lining up every single thing, graphics. It was crazy. That's awesome.
Starting point is 00:14:57 Who do you think is the smartest person who ever lived? I have no idea. How could anyone answer that?'s tough but i'm always curious what people think well i mean or how they answer i guess i feel like the default design sign right because he beast mode yeah yeah he showed us the theory of relativity and studied what we couldn't see what's that he like showed us what we couldn't see yeah yeah that kind of stuff or stephenking, who kind of explained time and space. Right.
Starting point is 00:15:29 I think the thing I gleaned from Stephen Hawking is that the fourth dimension is time. And I think I never really understood that until I read his book and he made it clear. Oh, that's interesting. Time is crazy. I mean, that's a very easy thing to say. But I mean, like, I think it's the most precious thing. And then also the way that we just have to move through it. We're just all fixed.
Starting point is 00:15:47 You know what I mean? We don't have much choice. Yeah, you kind of get stuck in a rut, too. How do you mean? I don't know. You get into a routine and all of a sudden time is gone. Because it's like, oh, I did the same exact thing over and over and over and over until I got old. But your life is so diverse, too, in your experiences, right?
Starting point is 00:16:04 Yeah, I definitely, I like to break out of my comfort zone and that's something I learned probably through the more difficult years where I was just like, I have to embrace all these different things because I don't know what is going to work. And I don't know what is the future for me. And I can't just stay in my mode of,
Starting point is 00:16:20 I skate and I learn tricks and I get videos and I make products. I had to really figure out my mode of i skate and i learn tricks and i get videos and this is and i make products like i had to really figure out that that you've got to expand your possibilities and you've got to embrace new challenges did you party um not extensively i i definitely went through you know we were young and skating was popular and we were whatever for lack of a better word superstars in that area and in that world and we were in we were in our late teens so it was like yeah it's a party but but i saw enough of my friends party so much that it affected their
Starting point is 00:16:56 abilities and that stuck with me i was like i can't i i have to skate i know what got me here i know why I'm here. Skating is the priority for sure. Did you ever like wrestle with the temptation? Like, was it hard to resist or you kind of had that clear mindset? Sometimes it honestly got harder into my older years because that's when things really skyrocketed
Starting point is 00:17:18 in terms of popularity. And some of my injuries were a lot more severe. And so, you know, painkillers and all that stuff, like that stuff just seeps into your, it becomes addictive so quickly. It grips you, yeah. Even though you don't have any intention of ever, you know, it's not like,
Starting point is 00:17:37 oh, I want those pills because it's making me feel good. It's more like I need those pills for this pain. And then suddenly you're like, I don't need the pills for the pain i just need them right and that's when it starts to get hazy and that's when you don't you know you don't realize that suddenly you're you're you're part of the opioid problem yeah um and definitely i went through a small phase of that where i had to make a very distinct realization that I don't need these. I'm just doing these
Starting point is 00:18:06 because it's making me numb to everything else. And you're running a huge enterprise at the same time too. So it's like, you're kind of doing great. It's totally self-defeating. It's absolutely, it's because you don't want to deal with things that are uncomfortable. That's the bottom line. You don't want to deal with things that are uncomfortable. Like that's the bottom line.
Starting point is 00:18:26 You don't want to come out of your, you don't want to deal with reality. And so you just end up sort of being numb to the world through those alternatives. Do you view skating as sort of a drug? Like it's sort of that, the adrenaline rush and stuff, that's sort of a drug like it's sort of that the adrenaline rush and stuff that's sort of your drug in life yeah i think i think that once i figured out that i could be creative in skating and be innovative that became the buzz that i would always go after and and definitely
Starting point is 00:18:59 you have to have something to replace that at some point in your life because it's not gonna last forever and and that was probably the struggle that I had in terms of when my pro career, you know, sort of apex and it was like, well, what is next and what is going to give me that fulfillment? And, and I had to really figure that out.
Starting point is 00:19:18 And that's definitely my family. And that's, that's, you know, what I've come to hold as the most important thing in my life. And is, And that's what I've come to hold as the most important thing in my life and is what the very first thought I have when making decisions of things to do. How many kids do you have? I have four of my own kids and then I have two stepkids.
Starting point is 00:19:38 But three are now in college. So we did that. That worked. Good job. Yeah, success. And then one is my oldest son, Riley, is actually like he is a musician he's a pro skater he owns a coffee shop he's in new york modeling for rag and bone right now like nice he's he's fine right yeah and then the three of the boys are in college one more is gonna graduate in a couple years of high school and daughter is, um, she's the only girl she's 11.
Starting point is 00:20:05 Do they think you're cool? Um, that's a good question. I feel like you have so much evidence you could show. Yeah. But also I, I definitely am the one to, you know,
Starting point is 00:20:17 have to put the rules out there. Right. Um, and the one to answer to, if something is, is troubling them you're the taskmaster of the yeah I think that
Starting point is 00:20:28 when I'm there and when we get to do stuff it's cool I think that my schedule and the time away from them gets hard for all of us and so that would be probably the time when they think I'm not so cool right I'm not frivolous with my time when they think I'm not so cool. Right. You know,
Starting point is 00:20:45 I, and I don't, I'm not frivolous with my time or with what I choose to do. Like I used to, yeah. And I used to be in a worse shape where I'm like, yeah, movie premiere.
Starting point is 00:20:52 Sure. Let's go. Oh, trip to Italy for your charity event. Of course I'm going to go do that. You know? And now I, I realized that that stuff is not important. The importance is to really be present for your kids.
Starting point is 00:21:03 And so they know that if I'm gone now, is something that is high priority high priority were you worried about your son pursuing a career in skating because i feel like in hollywood like some actors are worried about their kids like going i wasn't only because he was so advanced when he was young yeah and it wasn't any sort of nepotism it was like rather they can do these giant crazy tricks at age 11 um and it's not because it's not like a job where you can hide gave him an advantage or anything yeah people are snowed by his name yeah and if anything he had to he had to prove himself even further yeah yeah because they thought he did have some sort of favoritism and so um i wasn't, what worried me more was that
Starting point is 00:21:46 I did see him start to shy away from skating around age 12, 13, because he did feel those pressures and he felt that attention and he didn't like it. And so he kind of pulled away from skating, but he kind of found it again because a lot of his close friends had been skating all those years and they found their own little crew and their own style of skating. They called
Starting point is 00:22:11 themselves the Shep dogs and started making their own videos. And suddenly he was his own skater in terms of his style and his, his, um, terrain. So, you know, he's not skating half pipes. He's not doing McTwists and stuff like that. He was just doing street stuff. And so, in that way, he forged his own path and people recognized it. And eventually, he got a whole set of sponsors that had nothing to do with me. And, you know, if anything, that shows that he has the acceptance and the validation. So, it's sort of a core thing for you is that you should do things that you love to do or sort of find your own.
Starting point is 00:22:51 It seems like with skating or with anything you do, it's sort of when you're in this mode of creation or doing the things that you really want to do, that's when you found the most success. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think it's just more that i felt happiest when i was doing what i loved even if it was for no money yeah and so in those in those more difficult years financially i don't think of those as strife or struggle like for me i was still getting to do
Starting point is 00:23:21 what i loved for a living i didn't get to stay in the nicest places. I didn't get to buy the fancy cars, but I went to work happy. And so I think that's probably the message that I try to leave with people is that if you really are doing what you love, you're going to just enjoy working. And that's far more important than going to a job you hate just to make a
Starting point is 00:23:46 bunch of money do you ever think what would have happened though if like the x games didn't happen or something like that like if i guess you kind of trusted that skating would come back because you had seen the like you mentioned the rise yeah i don't really i i mean there was definitely a perfect storm of different influences and opportunities around the time when the X game started that, that all helped to, to, uh, to raise the profile of skating. So,
Starting point is 00:24:11 but it wasn't necessarily just the X games. It was like, no, I mean, that definitely helped that to help put on the map. I think our video game came in just as X games was coming in. And then that was sort of the tipping point where skating went into a popularity that we had never seen.
Starting point is 00:24:26 But also, with or without X Games, I always felt like skating spoke to a younger generation where it's exciting, it's daredevil, it's individual pursuit, it's artistic, it's creative. And I always wonder, why doesn't the general public see that especially when i was young and when skating was so chastised and i was like why don't they see that this is super cool and we don't have to follow any rules and we you know you can do stuff that's crazy looking and and and self-fulfilling um but it was just all it was all ball sports you know it was all yeah baseball basketball um soccer football like that was it dude it's living west hollywood like there's just kids skating everywhere just skater kids it's just part of it it's just part
Starting point is 00:25:16 i kind of don't like them i'm like an old man now i'm like off my block dude but yeah well i think i think some are a little more uh gregarious with where they skate and and what danger they put pedestrians in so i agree with you there but and they just give me a vibe like like you're not one of us yeah yeah i think that's that's the strange shift now is that the skaters are the cool kids at school right and that just was not the end and it's hard it's so hard if i've got great hair like kids today where i'm like you don't understand i had to hide my skateboard at school it was the furthest thing from cool like i used to get picked up by jocks and swung around while i was walking to class so when you see skater kids now do you just go you're welcome no you see a skater kid with like a hot girl no if anything
Starting point is 00:25:59 it gives me more perspective like don't don't take it for granted right because everything could turn again right it could be rollerblades yeah treat everyone with respect that's all i gotta say that's what pulled me towards action sports kind of was like oh i can be cool a little bit yeah me too i was in i sucked but i was into dirt biking and it was like i'd watch those videos and like in between them like doing like you know backflips with them like partying with girls and like a lot of those videos are about the lifestyle and i was like this is awesome yeah and watching the x-men devil lifestyle there's something i always love that's so random but the mountain dew helmet i forget who had it but i was like i want that helmet so bad oh yeah
Starting point is 00:26:33 some of the writers they all wear that yeah yeah it's not about the style and just like i just love mountain dew wait ask him about a about jake brown oh yeah yeah so one of the most memorable moments for us is the jake brown. And you were commentating on that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was your sort of going on in your head when you first saw it? Like, did you think he was a goner? And how did you want to handle that? Well, no, I can't say I thought he was dead.
Starting point is 00:27:03 Yeah. No, I knew it was bad. i knew and i didn't i didn't know if he'd wake up yeah yeah in that moment right um sorry i don't mean to laugh either and we had never i mean it was heavy like i yeah but it was it was a weird time because we i had just started doing commentary around that time yeah we we were not prepped or did anyone tell us what happens if there's a heavy injury? Yeah. You know, there is protocol that comes with that, with being an announcer,
Starting point is 00:27:32 that you're supposed to follow. Yeah. And we had no training in that. Yeah. And so I got a lot of heat because he was laying there and I said something like, I can't believe you made that 720. And that was true. Like he had never made that trick before,
Starting point is 00:27:46 the trick they did across the gap. He had never done it before. So he made it, and because he was trying to recover on the way up the ramp is what- Launched him out. Flying out, yeah. And so I got a lot of heat after that.
Starting point is 00:27:59 Like, why would you say that? I was like, I'm trying to feel dead air while you're seeing this lifeless dude on the ground. Like, I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah, and you're trying to be nice to him. You're giving him, like, credit for his accomplishment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was just a weird, like, that still kind of haunts me
Starting point is 00:28:14 that people think that somehow I was being callous about it. Oh, really? No, not at all. Yeah. I was like, I don't know what to say. Like, it was frightening. Yeah, it felt like you were going to die. And we're live.
Starting point is 00:28:22 Yeah. And, you know, and no one is in our ear saying, what do we do? And so it was like, and then he got up, which was also insane because any modern medical expert will say, do not get someone up. Yeah. That's a great part about the culture of the sport. Destroy their body.
Starting point is 00:28:43 Yeah. But everything was the Wild West. I mean, that was it. Like with the skating, Destroyed their body. Yeah. But it was, but we, everything was the wild west. I mean, that was it. Like with the skating, there were no rules. We didn't have paramedics ever for any event. So the paramedics that were there were not the most highly trained,
Starting point is 00:28:55 more like skater friends. Yeah. They had a degree that were like, yeah. Sal Masichela is like, they're the best medical staff in the business. And I was a little skeptical. I was like,
Starting point is 00:29:02 are they the best? Yeah. But also, but, but there's something to be said for jake brown is he's so stubborn and determined he may not let anyone right yeah keep him down like that's very likely so i can't i can't blame them but it was just such a heavy moment and um and then for him to walk away was absurd yeah he has always wondered about that. You're doing commentary, and you're on the mic, and then you're like, what do I... I would have panicked, because I would have been like,
Starting point is 00:29:31 I hope he's not dead. I got a problem with... I always say the worst thing I'm thinking, so I'd be like, please don't be hurt or dead, Jake. I think the worst is that we cut to a commercial, we cut to a commercial, and we came back, and he was still laying there that was the hardest part and it was like oh we're back cool
Starting point is 00:29:48 thanks for putting us back on the air my parents were talking about that they like told me about it they were like do you hear about the so that's how it widespread the whole yeah yeah yeah you know what though had a big impact
Starting point is 00:30:01 I think there was an important shift of mentality at that point because those guys have been toying with mega ramp stuff for a long time well for a few years up to that point and they kept making them bigger and making them fast like going higher and higher and that was sort of the line of demarcation what was like this is too much this is too big it's too dangerous. The risk factor is too high. And from that point on, they focus more on tricks at a manageable height.
Starting point is 00:30:31 And the height is still huge. I mean, we're talking about like 15, 20 feet in the air, but they weren't going for the records anymore. Right. And I think that that was important. Like it had to happen. Totally. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:42 And luckily it was Jake that survived that incident. Yeah, I remember like the crash reel about Kevin Pierce, the snowboarder and like the same thing, half pipes keep getting bigger in snowboarding. You know, how high they go sells more viewers or whatever. But it's just like at some point
Starting point is 00:30:57 you got to be responsible to the riders, right? You got to interfere and be like. But obviously there are different mindsets and people are going to go off and do their own thing and try to go higher and bigger and whatnot but i do feel like that moment was you know especially the ones the pioneers of that movement were who were bob burnquist and um danny way they were both like all right let's just try to do tricks right they got scared by what they created like a noble or something well it was just kind of like all right that's the ceiling of height that's all we need to go right at this point we've reached
Starting point is 00:31:28 the human limit we've reached the limit and and then they started doing tricks that had never been done because they realized like we still have 10 to 15 feet of air to do all these tricks that we've never had before so you know that around that time like bob did a fakie to fakie 900 no one never done that what someone did a 1080 where do you get inspiration from like outside of skating like do you ever get it like you see a movie or you listen to a song or like reading or like just life experiences i don't know i'd say most of my like skate trick ideas come at moments of calm like if i'm just falling asleep or i have a moment of silence in my house somehow.
Starting point is 00:32:10 And I think like, I think about skating or I think about something I've been trying and I was like, oh, what if this, you know, twist this or do that? It's usually just sort of my own private moments when I, or if I'm skating and something goes awry, like my board flips the wrong way. And then it's like, oh oh what if i would have caught it and brought it back like sometimes they're just happy accidents are you constantly thinking about skating like are you unable to turn it off because like for comedy with us where it's like the mindset it does consume me yeah you always have yeah and it's weird now because like i said i'm older and i know i'm not gonna go break any records or anything but um but definitely there
Starting point is 00:32:44 are things that yeah that I think about where I go, okay, next time I go skate, I'm going to go work on that. Who's your greatest rival? I think, well, competitively through the years, there have been different sort of, they're not even rivalries because we all skate together and like I said,
Starting point is 00:33:06 it's all this individual pursuit anyway. But through the heavy competitive years, for sure I was pitted against Christian Ossoy in the 80s because Christian represented style and big airs and I represented tricks. And so it was like people had to choose their camp. And he was usually us first and second
Starting point is 00:33:24 through those, through like 84-ish to 88. And what was your guys' relationship like? We were fine. I mean, we, you know, we enjoy, I respected his skating immensely. Like I wanted my backsteaders to look like his. Right. But definitely people had to choose.
Starting point is 00:33:39 And then this started to be like this thing where he represented certain types of, like certain products or or he represented norcal and i represent southern california it's a norcal socal thing i remember yeah and yeah yeah he was from la but because his sponsors were more northern california they were like yeah well he was indie he was indie okay okay yeah so anyway that happened and then and then through the x games years it was more like me and danny way or me and andy mcdonald because we were usually on
Starting point is 00:34:11 the top from the standings mcdonald always wore yellow was that yeah yeah i remember that still oh he still rocks yellow all the time yeah yeah he's got like a steve jobs specificity to work yeah that's what's up do you ever have moments where you sort of psych yourself because skating is such an incredible thing and it's so advanced do you ever like psych yourself out where you're like wait a second how do i do this again you know i mean because like with comedy i'll be like oh i'm supposed to make these people laugh how the fuck yeah we're both dealing with that like when we have shows like we had a show a show in San Francisco on Saturday and like a ton of people showed up to see us.
Starting point is 00:34:46 And me and Chad were just like, are we sure they came to see us? Like, how do we make them laugh again? I think my experiences with that have been when I set out to do something new, that there's like a new type of ramp and I commissioned to have some ramp built.
Starting point is 00:35:04 Like for instance, the first time i ever did a full loop ramp um no one had actually done it and so i had one built and i actually i the funny thing is it was at a time when skating was kind of in a lull so i had to pay for the building of it even though airwalk my sponsors said they were going to pay for it and driving up to it and seeing this monstrosity of a loop, you know, like a Hot Wheels track that's 14 feet tall and thinking it's on me. Yeah. Yeah. No, no one is coming to help.
Starting point is 00:35:37 No one else is like, it's not a, it's not some team effort. Right. Right. It's like, how are you going to figure that out? And then everyone's staring at me when I drive up, like,'t know good luck with that like i wasn't serious i have those moments all the time like where if i'm like the most mature man on like a bus or something like that i'll be like oh if something goes wrong on the bus it kind of i'm i'm looking around i'm like i'm always like worried about crisis i'm like who can i turn to to like help and then i look around
Starting point is 00:36:02 i'm like i guess it's me, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when it's in a case like that, it's like no one else even wants to try it. And so I have to overcome this, all these doubts and even the fear of seeing it and just think like, I decided this is possible. I have to figure it out and it's going to be hard.
Starting point is 00:36:21 And it was, I mean, I got rocked a couple of times doing the loop, but I figured it out. How long did it take you to first attempt it? Like, did you just go for it, or did you sort of think about it for a while? I went for it. I put some...
Starting point is 00:36:36 Luckily, we were near a YMCA, and they had gymnastics mats. Okay. So we just sort of stacked gymnastics mats in it. And I ended up just sort of crashing into the wall as it went over vert and then falling into the mats so um the hardest thing about the loop it it it's not that it's that it's particularly hard you have to change your mindset into it not being a trick because it's just a carve okay as in the simplest terms and so you can't
Starting point is 00:37:10 change your body positioning you can't pump the way that you pump a half pipe because that sort of your pump is over after you know one quart of a radius so you have to figure out how to sort of hold the pump all the way through until you reach the ground again it's hard to explain yeah but it's very subtle and it's it's almost impossible to change your thinking in those terms if you've only ever ridden half pipes does does the notion of being first motivate you like you're like like with the 900 or with the loop the fact that you're kind of in like uncharted territory it's more about being unique i think that yeah i wanted to do it sure i would have loved to but but it was more like no one was thinking about doing that so it wasn't like some race to figure this out right it was more like oh that's something
Starting point is 00:38:00 different i think i can do it let's have that build it wasn't like a bunch of people like we gotta do the loop go build a loop i'm let's have that build it wasn't like a bunch of people were like we gotta do the loop go build a loop I'm doing it first you know it wasn't like that at all right with the 900
Starting point is 00:38:10 it was a little different because there were a handful of us that were trying it through the years and yeah any of us wanted to be first but for the most part we had all been trying it
Starting point is 00:38:18 for so long it was like we just wanted someone to finally do it because it was like it was eating us up you know the first time I ever because it was like it was eating us up you know we the first the first time i ever tried it was in 1986 and i just landed on my back and then danny way was in
Starting point is 00:38:33 a video called risk it and he actually put it on the wall in 1989 he didn't make it and they cut the video like right when you put on the wall but that showed it like that was a breakthrough for us because that showed us that it's possible. And then a handful of us were trying it through those years, like mid-90s. Yeah, basically mid-90s. And whatever,
Starting point is 00:38:55 there's a lot of folklore and false narratives about how I came to do it. But we were all trying it together. They had many best trick events leading up to the X Games. You know what I mean? Like there's this whole story that was like i was spying on someone to figure out how to do it it was like dude i bet we all were trying it at every best trick yeah like there was no secrets yeah right um did you ever did you ever beef with rollerbladers
Starting point is 00:39:21 like at the skate park i tried rollerblading for a year because i was inspired by brink i really related to the front guy and the skaters every time i would try and rollerblade they would just like they'd be like you better not drop in on this ramp like this is yeah i didn't fall into that just because i came from an era of of being ridiculed just for skating yeah um and honestly in those years of rollerblading's you know height that allowed more skate parks to exist because skating skateboarding was kind of dying it was it was in a very low in popularity and because rollerblading came in skate parks stayed open and built ramps and so that benefited us it benefited me um and like whatever gets you active i don't care yeah you know it didn't matter to me yeah um so no i didn't but but like i said i came from a different generation
Starting point is 00:40:16 and i was doing demos with like i was a special guest at rollerblade demos so it was like team rollerblade and tony hawk that's cool did you ever think how well your name suits what you're doing oh yeah it didn't feel like that when i was in high school and they called me bony cock so not really man kids are vicious they can come up with a nickname for anybody very quickly yeah and then you have the tony hawk foundation that how many skate parks have you built around yeah um is it international now or is it just within the u.s uh we have an international outreach program but mostly in the u.s uh we've been going for 17 years now and helped to fund
Starting point is 00:40:57 i think over 800 parks at this point that's awesome um and those are mostly in the u.s we do have an international outreach program with Skatistan. And so we help to fund their projects in South Africa, Cambodia, and Afghanistan. Whoa. And one in Jordan. I've said one. Wow. They're building one in Jordan.
Starting point is 00:41:15 So yeah, we trust their model and their projects. And if anyone wants to do stuff internationally with us, we will give them advice and resources, but we don't give funding because we'd have to be established in those countries. Gotcha. Okay. Guys,
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Starting point is 00:41:44 I know I have, cause now I'm using scent bird and whatever you and say, wow, you smell amazing. What cologne are you wearing? I know I have because now I'm using Scentbird. And whatever scent you may be wearing, you have good taste and you know what you like. But your great taste is also expensive and you end up with a shelf full of half-used bottles. I can't tell you how many Abercrombie Fierce bottles I have just laying around. It's messed up but not anymore because with scentbird i found a great way to have great taste without breaking the bank whether it's versace gucci or dolce and gabbana scentbird.com keeps me smelling good month after month and um i love the eu de toilette that's my favorite one guys check it out for you say day toilet you did toilet you did toilet
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Starting point is 00:44:32 What up Lords of Stoketown? This is for JT specifically. I got a dilemma in my hands, if you know what I mean. I'm trying to stop watching porn so that the only things I do with my dong are dropping it, draining the lizard and introducing it to honeys. What's some advice you charismatic Caravaggio have on ways to wean yourself off of adult entertainment? I'm a porn addict, so I don't watch it anymore. Wow.
Starting point is 00:44:56 I think you just have to realize you're stuck in a cycle, and that it's not giving you any true enjoyment. You're just doing it because you don't know how else to break out. And so I think that if you consider that you're really not doing it for pleasure, you're just doing it because you don't know how else to break out and so i think that if you consider that you're really not doing for pleasure you're just doing it because you have this addiction that's probably the the best on the surface explanation i don't know what you know i'm not i can't say that i know about support groups or anything like that but there
Starting point is 00:45:22 are they exist for sure yeah i go to them to them. They're, they're solid. Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, I mean, I, I,
Starting point is 00:45:28 I guess that's the thing is that you just got to realize that you're, you're trying to assuade some pain in your life through that distraction where it's going to be easier to just deal with reality and to, to deal with whatever uncomfortable situations you're avoiding by just sitting around watching porn. Cause it's such a waste of time. I think that's the, that's the thing is you see, if you really think about how much time you've wasted doing that, that's when it can hit you.
Starting point is 00:45:53 That's crazy. Yeah. They had to put it like that. I got a couple of great American novels. I just fucking lost to my hand. Yeah. I could, uh,
Starting point is 00:46:04 there's videos on YouTube, you you know about like the negative effects too or and then also it's inspiring like celebrities who abstained yeah like mike tyson or jim carrey that would say that that always inspires me to stay away then that's a big range of dudes yeah well i but also you know i also feel like i wouldn't just abolish porn per se like maybe that you know some I also feel like I wouldn't just abolish porn per se. Like maybe that, you know. No, some people can. Yeah, there could be a healthy relationship with it.
Starting point is 00:46:30 A good call. The thing that concerns me more about having young kids and having porn so available to them is that it gives them a false sense of how to treat someone else. Yes. And that's important. Like, you know. My man. Yeah, it should be a mutual experience
Starting point is 00:46:47 and you should be really catering to someone else as well as them catering to you. Yeah. And so much of the porn is like just for the dude. Yeah. It's like watching a getaway driver and being like, oh, that's how I'm going to drive a car or something like that. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:47:01 And if you get in a real life situation, girls will be like, what the hell is wrong with you yeah and dude like i'm not your puppet yeah a couple practical steps too or uh i have chad has um the password for my phone so it has parental restrictions on it so i just don't even have access to it and then on my computer i have net nanny and so i can't look at it anywhere and yeah well i guess those are are all strong deterrents. And I forgot the password. I do worry about like, I don't want to tell everybody to like get off porn
Starting point is 00:47:31 because I really still respect the porn stars I used to watch and I want them to be able to make a solid living. Wow, that's a really interesting angle on that. I can't watch it anymore, but I hope you guys are all doing well. I still want them to have healthy lives and to be employed for sure. He's well aware of their bios and their full. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Everything. I can't watch it anymore, but I hope you guys are all doing well. I still want them to have healthy lives and to be employed. For sure. He's well
Starting point is 00:47:46 aware of their bios and their full everything. I'm a nerd. What up, Chad? What up, JT? I come to you seeking major advice. I have this longtime best friend who I hang out with and party with almost on the daily. He has a sister who is one year younger than him who always has had interest in me. Obviously,
Starting point is 00:48:02 I never entertain the thought because she's my best friend's sister. But over the past year, puberty hit her like a truck and in an incredibly good way. She's a Betty. And now more than ever, she's been hitting me up and extremely open about wanting to hook up.
Starting point is 00:48:13 The whole squad is interested and wants to take a dive, but I am considered the ringleader, so I feel obligated to do so first. A little weird there. The devil is tempting me. Yeah, they kind of took a turn. Yeah, but here's the major problem.
Starting point is 00:48:24 My bro goes absolutely ape shit if anyone so much mutters her name even if it's a positive thing i told her how i can't do that to my best friend but she's starting to become irresistible and frequent in her attempts to seduce me i need guidance to pursue to safely pursue this matter sincerely well the whole idea that that there's a group of you trying to pursue that is and you're the leader that that's a weird angle on that that's that's a more that's more disconcerting than a lot of ego in that yeah that's more disconcerting than just uh well it's my best friend's sister yeah um which by and far is going to complicate things no matter what even if you do or you don't that's going to be complicated um so either don't or have a genuine heart-to-heart conversation with
Starting point is 00:49:12 your friend like hey your sister and i are really interested in each other and and you know have that uncomfortable conversation and make sure if you do want to pursue her to like make sure that's what you really want instead of being like yeah not because the leader of this team yeah you're the chosen one yeah from your group not like kobe where it's like i eat first when he's like playing basketball yeah it's like these are like people we're talking about he talks to his friends like look i'm the head of the team so we vote you yeah the guys need me to do this yeah yeah right i gotta set the tempo i've been voted i guess the worst thing you do is is to do it without the knowledge of your friend because he's definitely going to find out and it's going to blow things up i had a call
Starting point is 00:49:56 i had a friend who wanted to hook up with another friend's sister and i was like i knew he didn't really care about the girl that much but i mean they were both like adults and i was like i was like dude don't do it don't do it and then he's like i'm gonna do it i was like well then i'm gonna hook up with your sister and he was like i don't care and i was like all right well as long as you're like not being hypocritical in your pursuit that's a litmus test yeah a little bit i mean you know obviously if you're gonna date this person and it's your friend's sister you got to be extra careful and and really like her if you're going to pursue it. Like maybe with the intention of dating.
Starting point is 00:50:28 With the intention of dating. For sure. I soft pedal it sometimes. All right. Dear dudes, the girl I'm talking to now is someone that I've been on and off with for years. And even though we're currently talking again, her parental units absolutely hate me. What are some ways I can raise their stoke and help them learn to like me again? Well, he doesn't give any insight as to why why they don't like him so I would say be respectful
Starting point is 00:50:50 to them um be uh productive you know right have a good life that you can talk about yeah yeah like have a have a life that you are proud of and so that you're likely to present it as such. I don't know. That's a pretty lofty request to not have any background. This is from the movie Summer Catch, but mow their lawn. Like if you just volunteer to mow their lawn.
Starting point is 00:51:14 Yeah, but see, that turns into sort of an Eddie Haskell thing. Right. That's my era. No, I get it. You're just playing to the, but maybe you're not really that person you're presenting yourself to be.
Starting point is 00:51:22 Right. But if you do it every day for a summer, it's going to be hard to discount. Okay. Well, that's one approach. Well, we should find out if he really likes mowing lawns, so then if he's actually into it. Are your kids dating?
Starting point is 00:51:38 Yeah. Yeah. The older ones. When they bring over a person, are you tough? No, I'm not tough. I mean, I'm approachable and I try to be, I guess, for lack of a better term, liberal to open ideas and their ages and what they're really going through and not be in denial of that kind of stuff like my parents were.
Starting point is 00:52:02 I'm just trying to get to know them and to to make sure that they have a healthy approach to their relationship because you know with my older son like he's he's has more complications with women who are adults and and you know there's a lot of things that go with that and and i've actually had better conversations with him in his later years now than i did before. For sure. Like this, these are real life challenges.
Starting point is 00:52:31 These are things you have to push through if you want to maintain an intimate relationship. And, you know, on the surface, that stuff seems super easy when you're young and whatnot. And now, you know, he has a better understanding of why some of my relationships fell apart and
Starting point is 00:52:43 why I went through all this journey and whatnot. Did you find it difficult with skating and stuff, that sort of life? That was part of it, but I think I just wasn't prepared emotionally to have true intimacy in my early years. I wasn't raised like that. My parents were not that warm like that. It wasn't a house if I love you
Starting point is 00:53:06 and that kind of stuff. So I didn't learn and my parents didn't, they got along, but you know, it wasn't true loving relationship. And so I just didn't learn that stuff. So I had to learn that later in the hardest ways. I feel that sometimes. Like there's like a disconnect from that my, from my parents,
Starting point is 00:53:26 I think. Yeah. I mean, and you, you have to, you have to learn to embrace those challenges and not be, not just distract yourself with something new or something else and to really be present and, and, and work through things because ultimately it's way more rewarding. I mean, I've, you know, I'm, I'm a little old to be figuring that out, but that is what I have found in the last, say, like six to eight years where I realized that true intimacy is far more rewarding than glitz,
Starting point is 00:53:56 than the new thing, the next thing. Yeah. In intimacy, it's like, it requires so much vulnerability. Yeah, that too. And relinquishing control prepare it to to put yourself out there but also the at the same time it you get it back and that is that's the best part i'm learning about that how to be more vulnerable and honest and i found it to be actually really fun because before i would have like a wall up and i was like and i was like oh vulnerability like ew like i'm just gonna be tan or whatever but now
Starting point is 00:54:30 i'm starting to be more honest and stuff and i do find it to be a lot more fun and life just is a little bit more and you're using all of yourself yeah and the conversations are better you know i'm not like hiding something it's more like uh there's i can feel more of a connection yeah yeah i definitely when you when you let go of hiding stuff it's it's so liberating yeah and suddenly it just feels like everything is more vibrant yeah it's interesting yeah i had this big secret that i was a virgin until i was 24 and i thought i was gonna die never telling anyone that and then then I went to therapy and I unloaded it to my therapist. And it just felt like the weight of the world fell off my shoulders. I was like, I don't need to put this burden on myself.
Starting point is 00:55:12 And nobody else really cared that much. Yeah. I mean, my boys obviously thought I was a little dorky. But it wasn't like damning. They still liked me. Couldn't you use that to your advantage, though? Where you put it out there and you're like, I haven't.
Starting point is 00:55:27 And people are like, all right. Then you're the focus of attention. Let's figure this out. I was like, let's fix it. Yeah. All right.
Starting point is 00:55:33 What up guys? So I need a girl's bathroom. What up guys? So I need some advice on how to relate with my coworkers. You see, I'm a full-time PhD student and full-time stoker, but every time, but every,
Starting point is 00:55:43 but everyone I work with is a total nerd. I mean, real big-time full-on nerds who play Dungeons and Dragons every weekend night have never even tried to chug and definitely don't pool. Recently, I had the honor of serving as a groomsman at my boy's wedding in Texas to get the squad fired up. Basically, he meets a girl on a flight. They make out on the flight because he was wearing a funny cowboy hat. And they have some double vodka sodas and he gets rubbed down. When he gets back to work on Monday,
Starting point is 00:56:09 I was fired up to tell the story to all my coworkers. Upon hearing my story, which is objectively a major stoke factor, they were not fired up at all and actually appeared mad. Before I knew it, I had five angry nerds scolding me
Starting point is 00:56:21 for being disrespectful to the other people on my flight. I don't understand how i can continue working in this environment please help um how to continue working yeah i yeah i mean uh i think he means just like how's a lot of there's a lot of layers to that yeah how can he coexist with these dudes if he's got such better stories that they can't even wrap their head around anything? Yeah, I guess.
Starting point is 00:56:48 But there's also... I mean, who knows if anyone even knew what was going on on the plane. I have a lot of questions. Yeah, I'd say for this guy... I think maybe there is also the argument that they're projecting against him because they wish that was sort of thing was
Starting point is 00:57:05 happening to them right um maybe maybe not but maybe he left a detail in that was disrespectful right about this girl it's an interesting question like is his there's a lot of facets to it right is his version of the email cutting out some details from the story that is what made it off-putting to his coworkers that is that could be disrespectful. And in that case, more power to those guys for setting him straight. He could just revel in the fact that he shares this enjoyment with his squad.
Starting point is 00:57:34 And so he can kind of be like, alright, sort of like what you were saying, how you found your crew. That just sounds like such a teenage boy fantasy brag thing. There's a line in the movie Broadcast News where William Hurt's talking to Albert Brooks and he's like, what do you do like fantasy brag thing there's a line in the movie broadcast news where like william hurt's talking to albert brooks and he's like what do you do when your life exceeds your wildest dreams and albert brooks looks at me goes you keep it to yourself oh yeah yeah yeah good call and like i
Starting point is 00:57:54 mean you dude you had this great experience the fact that they're not reveling in it with you i mean that is a little bit of a bummer but i think you just got to accept that people live different lives and maybe they just can't wrap their head around it. And I think he kind of wanted them to just tell him that he's awesome. Yeah, he was definitely doing it for high fives. And they didn't do that. Which isn't a cool thing to do either. You guys don't think I'm awesome.
Starting point is 00:58:16 I'm out of here. Yeah, yeah. See, that's the thing. Was the angle more that I use this girl or was it more like, no, this was mutual. Yeah, maybe tell the story in a more romantic, beautiful way. And we're getting married next week. Challenge yourself to tell the story better next time
Starting point is 00:58:35 or to experience it better. And then you might get a better response. Win the nerds over. A lot of ins and outs, a lot of what have you. And then I proposed to her on the Brooklyn Bridge. Throw in some Dungeons and Dragons details. And then we went back to my place and played dungeons dragons now i dig it yeah i dress like a knight all right just one or two more how do you get the boys to venmo you back for drink without sounding like a mega douche should you call them out if they
Starting point is 00:58:59 keep doing it after you let it slide once for a drink? Yeah, if your boys aren't paying you back after you cop them some drinks. Huh. I guess you could... I know how Venmo works. I guess maybe you could shame them on Venmo. Oh, good call. By emojis.
Starting point is 00:59:19 Yeah. Right? I like that. Because it is its own social network of sorts. Yeah. You could comment on their... If you see some transactions, be like, oh, you sent $10 to Matt? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:59:29 Figures. You got all these disposable funds because I'm getting none of it, dude. Pizza with Shelly? Must have been nice. And then also, I think you just stop getting them drinks. You know what I mean? Yeah, fully once. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:59:41 You're like, nah, dude, that fund has been sealed. No help here. All right. Yo, big dogs. Want to congratulate you guys on an amazing podcast. I'm 17 years old, big leader in the community, love entrepreneurship and our boy T Rob and constantly think about starting businesses for a while though. I have had no spark at all for dating, not gay though. Okay.
Starting point is 01:00:02 All of my dogs have girlfriends, matter yeah but i don't feel pressure to date because of them i think i just need to be patient and find that beautiful angel but my mind is just constantly on a rager my question for you guys is simply what do i do how do i ignite that fire back into my heart for dating and meet beautiful girls i'm tricky in that i want to have a girlfriend but have no spark thanks so much you guys are a blessing what is do we define rager as someone that's going out and raging one night stands or he just wants to party i think he's part of the party just party well i think maybe you've got to realize that your life could be more fulfilling with someone in it that you love that you can share your life with um and that maybe you could also share in their life and provide things
Starting point is 01:00:47 for them he's 17 too yeah well but i'm surprised that at 17 you lose interest in dating right yeah i mean dating can mean all kinds of things it doesn't mean you're stuck with one person so um just i don't know what can you say like it's it's amazing out there it's um you know having relationships even if you're gay like to to be sharing your life with someone else um in the most smallest ways can be far more rewarding than just thinking you're okay on your own all the time for sure yeah maybe he has a skewed idea of what dating is like or having a relationship is like because i feel like a lot of people might like shame it be like oh then you're like stuck you're like in like jail or whatever they don't really see the true benefits of it so maybe like what you're saying
Starting point is 01:01:38 yeah well that's that's but that harks back to you just have to embrace the intimacy of it yeah and if you're not embracing the intimacy of it, you're distracted and you're just looking for the next thing. Yeah. And then that's just the relationship killer. And it seems like his brain moves fast. You know, he's talking about entrepreneurship and starting different businesses. So he's obviously a little precocious and ahead of himself because he's 17.
Starting point is 01:01:59 So I think, dude, just relax. Like you might have that spark more than you think. That can not benefit you in the end if you're only focused on a career because that is another thing that will just kill a relationship like you're workaholic and no time for anyone else and then when you do make time you don't really keep you don't keep your promises in that sense and then you go back to just working non-stop and and it's hard it's hard to keep that balance. That's the biggest challenge of my life is balancing my time so that I am present for my family, but I'm also effective in my job.
Starting point is 01:02:32 Tony, I think that's a good place to close it. That was a beautiful segment. Dude, you've been awesome the whole time. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming in. This was so awesome. Thanks for coming down to my ramp. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:02:43 Guys, it's awesome. Guys, check out the ramp if i could skate at all i would do it yeah i was looking at that vert that's like four feet of vert you said we charge it that's crazy yeah well like i said my ramp's bigger so it's a little easier yeah i was when i was a kid i would i was skating and i would go up to the half pipe and just look down i'd be like i can't do it. Right. I dropped into the edge. Yeah. I dropped in like a couple of times. I broke my wrist and my career.
Starting point is 01:03:08 Oh, that'll do it. Yeah. Yeah. But I should have stuck with it, but water polo came surfing. I don't know. Yeah. You had other passions that percolated. All right, you guys.
Starting point is 01:03:18 Well, thanks for having me. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for doing it. Yeah. Appreciate it. Cool. Great.
Starting point is 01:03:21 Thanks. Thank you, dude. So we're back uh so stoked we're just talking about how stoked we were about we're doing the beefs and legends and babes without tony hawk and uh we're just so stoked on him he was a beast we were both nervous that's the most nervous i've ever been doing yeah yeah when i was first talking to him when we first met him i was i started talking about the uh his half pipe and pipe. And, uh, I'm like, yeah,
Starting point is 01:03:45 that vert now in my head, I'm like, why are you talking to Tony Hawk about how scary vert is? Right. For me, it wasn't even his, like, it wasn't even his legend as like a skater and stuff.
Starting point is 01:03:56 It was like, he's very, as a person on top of it. Very smart. Yeah. He has a lot of command and, uh, he's smart guy.
Starting point is 01:04:01 Super smart guy. Really cool dude. So, well, so many accomplishments and just, yeah. It's cool how I love his core message of like, he just followed what he loved and it wasn't for like the fame really.
Starting point is 01:04:16 It was like, he's just doing what he loved to do and just cultivating that creativity and stuff and just that progression. And it feels like he's still progressing. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, Tony, thank you so much for doing the pod, dude. It was a real dream come true for us. stuff and just that progression and and it feels like he's still progressing yeah yeah so i mean tony thank you so much for doing the pod dude it was a you're a legend real dream come true for us
Starting point is 01:04:30 and thanks to al magical for uh setting it up thank you al yeah um all right chad who is your beef of the week uh my beef of the week is uh slim jim because i love slim jim so it's an actual beef of the week oh yeah that's a play on i'm playing with the words a little bit did joe do that last week too he did okay right on yeah damn it uh i just remembered maybe that's why i was in my dome but i love slim gym it's always there to keep me in ketosis in times of need um you know oftentimes i'll be out and about running around doing whatever you know just like looking for different shampoos or different um types of t-shirts i can wear and i'll be like oh fuck i forgot to eat i need to eat and what comes through in the clutch every time slim jim thank you slim jim i know people say you're gross but i don't think you are i think
Starting point is 01:05:22 you taste delicious and i ignore all that stuff that's actually in you because you keep me in ketosis. So thank you. Beautiful beef. What's your beef? My beef of the week is Kobe and Shaq. Oh, I mean, this is one of the greatest beefs in sports history. And it's because they were teammates. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:05:39 And it's these two alpha dogs jostling for control of a team. And they both had claim to it because Shaq was the most dominant player in the NBA, but Kobe was a harder worker and it was probably the toughest shot maker in the league. And it worked for a while. They won three titles. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:05:54 I mean, there's only a couple other teams that have done it and they were always fighting over like, you know, Kobe being more of a passer. And like I said, Shaq working out more and they just couldn't figure it out. Shaq goes to the heat Heat wins a title without Kobe and the NBA salivates over this and sets them up as the
Starting point is 01:06:10 Christmas Day game Christmas is always the biggest game and they have it Lakers versus Heat and I remember watching that just be like oh of course Kobe scores the most points but the Heat win and then a couple years later because Kobe's in the uh wilderness for a while with Smush Parker and a bad team. Sorry, Smush. He ends up getting to the finals, but loses to the Celtics. Then Shaq in the off season does a song at a club. He gets up on the stage, grabs a mic and goes,
Starting point is 01:06:35 Kobe couldn't win one without me. Eat my ass. And also blames Kobe for his marriage. And then he's like, just eat my ass, eat my ass, eat my ass. But then Kobe comes back, wins two titles, and they now seem like they're friends so i think they just needed distance from working together for them to really appreciate how they both wrote brought up each other's level
Starting point is 01:06:53 and they just did such goofy stuff like kobe one time was on tv and they were asking him how him and shaq's relationship was and he was like it's fine and they were like well did you ever call him to like apologize about this stuff he goes no i don't have his number everyone's like you can't get shaq's number dude just weird moves by both of them but it was fun growing up in socal and watching them win titles and uh yeah it was a it's a big time sports beef dude uh have we covered on the pod chudwin's story about shaq i don't think we have his mom so our buddy chudwin his mom uh is at the end of a game his mom was approaching shack to get an autograph for his basketball for her son's basketball and she's like excuse me um mr o'neill would you be able to
Starting point is 01:07:38 uh sign my son's basketball he's like shut your. Whoa. Strider has good experiences with him when he valets his car. Yeah. I told Strider he's a good looking dude. How do you have that be like the first thing you say? Right. Shut your ass, woman. Shut your ass. Yeah, I obviously had my personal issues with Shaq where he kind of like
Starting point is 01:08:00 disrespected me and some other fans trying to get his autograph. But then I've also heard good things about him. Like on the set of Shazam, I heard he worked his ass off or Kazam. Yeah. I feel like he's known generally to be a good dude. Yeah. I think he lost that night. That's why he's pissed. Yeah. When he launched a big podcast, his podcast, he had Kobe on as his first guest and he introduced Kobe as the greatest Laker ever. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it's cool that they could come so far.
Starting point is 01:08:31 Good use of shut your ass, too. Yeah, he loves ass because he told Kobe to eat his ass, too. It's a big ass. Seven foot one, 400 pound booty. Booty ball, bro. Chad, who is your babe of the week my babe of the week is the uh school level in tony hawk 2 nice yeah uh fitting yeah no i'm i'm my legends and babes are kind of like in the theme of tony hawk because we're in his hawks lair hawks lair um dude that's it's gotta be one of my favorite levels in tony hawk 2
Starting point is 01:09:06 i love the video game so much uh tony hawk 2 i think is my favorite you know i'd say underground was legit like super legit and i loved it but i mean tony hawk 2 really that's what that's what got me into the games that's what really captured in my interest especially the school level and i don't know it's not like the most extreme level you know it's not like they have like huge ramps and stuff it's it's more like how it's i think how it's so you're like oh i'm at a school and i'm just shredding it up and they um there's just something about it that i loved it was just like it was so simple yeah you could do so much so much with it I'd have to play it again to give you guys more detail because I haven't played it in probably like 12 years or something.
Starting point is 01:09:49 But I just want to give a shout out to that level. It's legit. And the video games in general. They're babes. They are so hot. Dude, I would do tricks for like 10 minutes, like one combo because you do the manuals, you know. I do like kickflip, manual, dark slide,
Starting point is 01:10:05 people grind, smith grind, you know, for like 10 minutes and be like dude i play for hours just switch off with a buddy and just keep going yeah it's amazing who's your babe my baby of the week is close to what you've been talking about burger meat dude you know yes chad's got me accepting who i am to myself and i am keto although Although I had a banana yesterday, but, uh, one of the staples of my keto diet is burger meat. I order burger patties all the time, oftentimes with cheese and I love them. It's a great dish and nobody really fucks up a burger patty. You can get it almost anywhere and you're in good shape. Even at the airport. I mean, obviously my favorite is the flying Dutchman from in in and out but i love burger patties from far and wide and uh i'm just glad you're in
Starting point is 01:10:49 my life you sexy motherfuckers that was beautiful chad who is your legend of the week my legend of the week is the x games dude um when i was a kid growing up my favorite time of the year, and yeah, I'm talking over Christmas, was watching the X Games. Is someone skating right now? Yeah, I think Tony's kids are. Wow. Or his boys. His bros are skating. It's pretty wild, guys.
Starting point is 01:11:19 Man. I want to go skate. We're literally watching the X Games. Yeah. My legend is out the window. Yeah, it it's happening behind um it's my favorite time it was my favorite time of year growing up to watch like those those like it was like a week or two the best sponsors taco bell mountain dew other sponsors so many cool events it was summertime people were getting extreme people were getting you know bob burnquist uh tony hawk freaking um who are some of the dirtbaggers travis pastrana
Starting point is 01:11:52 who's that brian brian deegan cory hart dude i just loved watching all of it i love taking it all in i love the style i love the feel i love the fact that it was just hot is in the middle of summer and people were getting extreme, and it got me extreme. Everyone there was cool. Everyone was cool. And it made me just want to get outside and freaking rip it up. And, dude, when it would come down to the finals,
Starting point is 01:12:13 I was always the most into vert bike, like vert BMX. It would always be Dave Mirra, rest in peace, and Jay Miron. And then it would always come down to the final run, and you were like, it was just sitting there with bated breath like, holy shit, like who's going to pull this gold off? Well, what do you think of motocross? Do you think it was like too inaccessible? Racing or the jumps?
Starting point is 01:12:34 The jumps. No, I like the jumps. They're cool to watch, but like, was it kind of like you're like, it's too sort of fantastical. Like there's no way I could ever do anything like that. I could see that, but I felt closer to them because I actually dirt biked a little bit. Okay. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:12:49 So I had more of like a, I mean, it was all a stretch of the imagination for me, but with dirt biking, I was like, all right, yeah, I hit jumps before, but with skating, I can't even like, you know, I can't drop it. Yeah, I guess that's a good point. Yeah. Did you dirt bike?
Starting point is 01:13:03 I dirt biked five times. my parents were not down it's dangerous as fuck dude everyone i know got hurt yeah i my first time i went my buddy sean took me and he had me like sit behind him on the dirt bike and he was just hauling ass and i was like what the fuck are you doing dude it scared the shit out of me yeah i always think that the most wild people are the people who are amped when the other person is driving yeah like if someone else is driving like a maniac and you're like yeah go go go yeah like that's pure like uh psycho junkie and it makes you think about the amount of trust you have to put into someone to ride on the back of a motorcycle. You know? The person driving is dumb. The person behind them is loyal to the dumb person.
Starting point is 01:13:48 Yeah, he has loyalty to dumb. Dude, I had a friend, Joe Black. He's my dad's age, but he would race in the Baja 500 and they blast on a dirt bike for like a whole day. He's doing 90 miles an hour through the dunes. Boom! Hits a horse.
Starting point is 01:14:04 Sorry, guys. I know that's sad, but he smacked a horse so me and my brother come visit him at his house full body cast just drilled up to his neck with a medical wrap and then he like punctured his lung they had to like airlift him out of there he cracked like three of his ribs did the horse explode so i go how's the horse because fuck the horse it's dead sorry guys i know it's a tragedy i love horses so much it's my favorite animal but it was funny when joe said that that is funny he never cursed either like he would get mad at me when i was a kid if i said like shoot it's funny that body got fucked the horse dude he's like fuck that horse it's dead um. Joe is an action sports maniac, so I'm thinking about him a lot.
Starting point is 01:14:48 When we interviewed Tony Hawk, I'm still jacked on it, guys. Hello Zone? No, no, no. Joe Black, who actually has the same name as Brad Pitt in the movie Meet Joe Black. Chad, who is your legend? Yeah. Okay, my legend of the week is Mr. Sands.
Starting point is 01:15:01 Mr. Sands was my seventh grade English teacher, and at the time, I thought he was the coolest guy who ever lived, and now in retrospect, I realize what a weirdo he was. Like he would do bizarre things like get high in his car, but also be high in class, I think, and just like derail the subject for the day. And then she'd be like, guys, I've seen an alien before. And then we'd all be like, really? And then he goes, yeah, I was driving down the highway and down the other highway came two bright lights that were 12 feet above the air. And he'd start drawing it on the board. And I'd be like, this is the best fucking English class
Starting point is 01:15:31 of my life. But he also had a temper. So once in a while he would cuss. He broke a ruler in front of Samar's face. She was a little annoying, but you know, a teacher shouldn't do that. And he was just totally irresponsible, but in a way that was very relatable, like he lost the grade book. So he's like, I'm just going to give all of you b's and i was like fuck yeah because i had f's but the a students were like that's bullshit and me and all the other f students were like shut up shut up so we got the b's in hindsight obviously they were right mr sands totally responsible and then at lunch he didn't want to hang out the other teachers so he would just let the kids come into his class and he let us set up an xbox and we would just chill in his class at lunch and play. But he ended up getting fired because he threw a chair at one of our teachers, Mrs. O'Connor. Yeah, bummer.
Starting point is 01:16:21 but I have to tell the truth. At the time when you were my teacher, you were my favorite. And when you told the class that you were leaving after throwing the chair at Mrs. O'Connor, we all cried and I meant those tears because you were the man. Thanks, Mr. Sands. Chad.
Starting point is 01:16:35 Chad's checking out the skating. It's hard not to watch because there's just a bunch of people ripping. I feel like we're the nerds and they're the cool kids. Yeah, for sure. No, they don't give a fuck about podcasts These guys don't listen to podcasts They listen to vert
Starting point is 01:16:49 Yeah They like hang out with each other and like build experiences But I love podcasts Oh this kid's good Yeah he's ripping Oh nice rock and roll dude Comes into the quarter pipe Oh monster 180
Starting point is 01:17:04 Solid Dropping in here comes teddy debasi oh he's got good pace he's coming up the wall oh with the coping classic nose stall we are in skateboard nirvana right now my friends i wish you were here if you could borrow my eyes i would be a happy man for you would be seeing some of the most epic skating that has ever been done boosh oh with the casual grace of a leopard oh and the hardcore strength of a mule chad what is your quote of the week?
Starting point is 01:17:47 My quote is, um, it's from Lords of Dogtown. Dude. Dude, he's got the inner ear problem. Suck my inner ear, J-Boy. Epic comeback, dude. Fire comeback. He really got him. He's like, he's got the inner ear problem he's like how about you suck my inner ear which i don't even know how you do that no i don't either but
Starting point is 01:18:11 that's what i think makes it such a spectacular burn is that like you're basically saying my butt but it's more clever all right my quote is from a knight Tale. I was shocked to find out A Knight's Tale didn't make back its budget on its box office grosses, but it's a cult classic. I mean, everyone remembers it. And I always really liked James Purefoy who played the king in the movie or the prince rather, Prince Edward. And we don't realize this until about a quarter of the way through. And then he says this when Heath Ledger isger is stuck in the uh the stocks because they find out he's not a knight he goes what a pair we make huh both trying to hide who we are both unable to do so your men love you and if i knew nothing else about you that would be enough but you also tilt
Starting point is 01:18:58 when you should withdraw and that is nightly too because earlier in the movie heath ledger found out that he was prince edward but he still went against earlier in the movie, Heath Ledger found out that he was Prince Edward, but he still went against him in the joust when everybody else dropped out. And he was like, no, if this prince is in this tournament, it's because he wants people to respect him as a jouster. I'm not going to give him carte blanche just because of his title.
Starting point is 01:19:15 Let's go. And like he said, you tilt when you should withdraw. And that is nightly too. So what up, a knight's tale? And rest in peace, Heath Ledger. R.I.P., dude. My dog. Boom clap, Stokers. And thank you to Mr. Tony Hawk.
Starting point is 01:19:29 Thank you, Tony Hawk, for coming in. Stokers, thank you for listening. Make sure you come in with those fire reviews. Should I lay down a review of the week right now? Hit it, baby. Because we love those reviews, baby. They help us in more ways than you guys know. I'm always checking the number to see how
Starting point is 01:19:46 many reviews we get and i'm comparing it against other podcasts uh they say compare and despair but sometimes if you're in front of someone it actually feels kind of good so this comes from this is subject line ah dude ah by trash i just want to say this is subject line, Aw, Dude, Aw, by Trash. I just want to say this is the best pot out there right now, my dogs. My stoke tank has never been full list consistently. Every time I hear Chad and JT, they just fill my life up with positivity. Thank you, dude. Me and my bros have never been so stoked,
Starting point is 01:20:19 and it's all thanks to Chad, JT, Strider, Joe, and Aaron. Stoked that you included Aaron. Aaron, beast, dude. Thanks for reminding me every week, after week, to get after it and never let a schmole bring you down. You dudes are my legends of the week. Thank you, dude. And thank you for the review. And Stokers, thank you for tuning in. Thank you, dudes. And we miss Aaron, but also big thanks to Jay Farney for the filming today on the Tony Hawk podcast. We could not do it without him. The setup we have here looks like a Michael Bay movie. We got like five cameras going and no issues. So that's my dog helping out.
Starting point is 01:20:48 We're about to pull off a massive stunt. And you can see where I'm pointing. Guys, you have never seen Jay Farney, but imagine at the other end of my finger is Jay. There's a sign in here that says Big Tuna, Texas. That's Jay. That's awesome. Jay, you're my Big Tuna, Texasas jay's from texas population huge
Starting point is 01:21:08 huge all right guys that's it for episode 78 9 yeah or 80 yeah one of them we've been doing more lately so we're losing it one of those episodes we're getting up there fellas and ladies thank you dudes crosshouse legends boom clap st, legends. Boom clap, Stokers. What's up, Stokers of Stoked Nations? This is Chad Kroger coming in with the Go Deep with Chad JT podcast. Thank you so much for coming on the pod. Sure, thank you.
Starting point is 01:21:38 Also, congrats on the 20-year anniversary of the 900. That was yesterday, I believe. Oh, June 27th, yeah.une 27th okay thank you cool cool yeah yeah that's uh that was actually one of my first memories is watching the 900 oh yeah yeah oh that's awesome did everyone at the games know you were going to go for it that year like i didn't know i was going to do it so oh really yeah it was it was very spontaneous um i mean i had been trying
Starting point is 01:22:05 it off and on over the years and and gotten really close actually like land one broke my rib as i was coming down um and so by that time in my life i'd kind of given up on it because i'd gone through so much injury and and struggle with it and then when that night came around, it was the best trick event. So I had something in mind for the best trick because I had done it before, the Southern Trick. Is it 720, right? 720 burial. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:22:34 Burial 720. And so that was my only plan. And I made it early into the event. And so then it was like, what's next? Right. And I think the announcer said something too like why don't you try my note and i was just like oh not that thing again you know it was really more like all right well here's what it looks like that was that was my mindset i was like i'll try
Starting point is 01:22:54 it and i'll show you how they work but but then you have a dog on a bone um i think i think what happened was uh at that time especially in, there weren't that many good ramps. And that ramp was especially fast. And it helped a lot for doing a trick like that because it gave me more height. And also that it wasn't – the ramp was true in the sense that, like, each wall was the same. So you could take it for granted. You didn't have to adjust at all. And between those two things, that gave me the advantage to actually be consistent
Starting point is 01:23:29 with my spin and with the technique. And then at some point I was like, wow, I'm getting a lot closer. Right. If I try to land it again, I might break my rib. But if it's going to happen, it's going to happen now. Wasn't the slight tweak you made, like a shift in midair like a weight
Starting point is 01:23:46 shift is that what you found um to land it or yeah it was mostly because the one the the times that i had tried to make it in fact the one time that i really got close was like 1995 or 96 i put it on the wall and i was riding down and i was just leaning too far forward. So I crumpled into the flat bottom. And I did that too during the X Games, but I didn't get so hurt. And so in that moment, I thought, well, what if I shift my weight while I'm spinning? And luckily it gave me that time to think about that. And then when I did shift my weight,
Starting point is 01:24:22 I ended up falling backwards. And so I just kind of split the difference. Oh. And that's when I found the words. How long would you have kept going
Starting point is 01:24:29 that night? Uh, either until I was in an ambulance or on the podium. Two options. Yeah, that was about it.
Starting point is 01:24:39 I wasn't going to give up because I was tired. Yeah. Or on TV, you're like, oh, they're still on. I didn't really,
Starting point is 01:24:45 that wasn't a concern because the time was up for the event. So in my head, I was just doing it to make it finally. Right. I really thought
Starting point is 01:24:53 we were off air because it was a live event. Oh, really? Yeah. And it was a 20-minute session and so I had gone, but the time had expired. And that was fine.
Starting point is 01:25:01 Like, that wasn't the goal. Right. But they ended up running it live over time just because they saw that happening. Yeah, it was great TV. It was amazing. I remember watching it too. How long did they extend the time? That's a good question.
Starting point is 01:25:17 I'm not sure. It was probably five or ten minutes. Okay. When you pull something like that off, how do you celebrate? It's weird, especially in skating, through the years, there's so many tricks that I've really wanted to do
Starting point is 01:25:35 and most of the time I haven't been able to do them. And you have been expecting it for so long that it's just more of a relief. It's not like this, oh my God, I did it! It's like, ah, finally, you just got just more of a relief. It's not like this oh my god I did it. It's like finally you just got it right behind you. It's a weird, it's validation and you feel good about it but there
Starting point is 01:25:52 isn't this great celebratory thing. I mean there it was because the context of the event and the crowd and my peers and stuff like that but I've done plenty of other tricks here on this room where I was trying it for, I don't know, maybe
Starting point is 01:26:07 months or a year, and then I did it, and it was just like, crap, just check that one off like an over- Do you have sort of the mindset of whenever you sort of, you complete the 900 or whatever, are you immediately kind of like, alright, what's the next trick? Or are you able to sort of fast thing it?
Starting point is 01:26:25 Yeah, after that, not long after that, I started trying variations of it. I started trying different grabs. I tried to varial it. I couldn't. But definitely, that was always my mindset. I mean, at my age now, that's not really the – like nowadays, it's sort of like I want to try something that maybe is a little more technical.
Starting point is 01:26:44 It's not high impact. It's not a lot of spinning. And I want to try something that maybe is a little more technical it's not high impact it's not a lot of spinning and I want to do that and I don't think of like that's the stepping stone to something else it's more like I'm just happy to be
Starting point is 01:26:52 learning a trick at my age yeah just like mastery but it's not like a spectacle as much yeah it's more for the it's more like
Starting point is 01:27:00 for the hardcore skaters to appreciate right you know the the nuances of the difficulty factor. For sure. So what kind of tricks are you pulling off now
Starting point is 01:27:09 or the new ones that you're learning? It's more sort of lip trick grind stuff. Okay. So I have a couple things in mind that I've been wanting to do recently that just require this sort of, the best explanation I can have is like a coping dance where I'm just trying to shift from one grind to another
Starting point is 01:27:28 while still sliding across and doing it like blindside so it's backwards and I don't know it's hard to explain if you want to know the details, the trick I want to learn is alley you frontside lip slide to
Starting point is 01:27:43 kick it into a backslide. Gosh, yeah, that's what I want. For sure. I think I can picture that. And it's like, to the layman, to the non-skater, it's going to be like, what is he doing? Shifting around when coping,
Starting point is 01:27:59 but the difficulty factor is high. Sort of like riding a switch. A little bit, yeah. And it's also just more that you can't see where you're going, the difficulty factor is high. Right. Sort of like riding a switch, like. A little bit, yeah. And it's also just more that you can't see where you're going, can't see what you're doing, it's all in the feeling of it.
Starting point is 01:28:10 Yeah. That's cool, so. That's kind of where I'm at with my skating, sweetie. So you grew up around here? I grew up in San Diego,
Starting point is 01:28:18 yeah. San Diego, yeah. Are we, no, we're not in the city, are we right now? We are in Vista currently.
Starting point is 01:28:23 Okay. This is my office, this is where my ramp is. It's badass. Yeah. A huge ramp, guys, for those of you. Are we right now? We are in Vista currently. This is my office. This is where my ramp is. It's badass. Yeah. A huge ramp, guys, for those of you who don't know. Yeah, I actually bought this. I bought this building before it was built and had them change the height of the ceiling
Starting point is 01:28:35 before they built it so that we could put the ramp in here. Oh, cool. And I actually bought it for the ramp because this ramp was always on tour. And that was the only time we ever got to ride it was when we were on the road and then when we were home it was just in storage and i said why do we have the best ramp in the world i don't get to ride it unless we're on the road right so i got this building and then all the businesses here kind of fell into place have you ever touched like the bars when you hit uh my friend touched that pipe. See the lower pipe? Yeah. Wow.
Starting point is 01:29:05 It's about 20 feet above the... Yeah. He hit it with his nose. What? On purpose or on accident? On purpose, he's aiming for it. Nice. How did he come down from that?
Starting point is 01:29:14 Quickly. Did he land? He made it. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. That's awesome. So this was on the Boom Boom Hop Jam tour? Yeah, this is that radio.
Starting point is 01:29:24 Oh, wow. Nice. Our buddy Strider went to that. I wasn't allowed to go.? Yeah, this is that radio. Oh, wow. Nice. Our buddy Strider went to that. I wasn't allowed to go. I was in trouble at the time. Oh. He went to City, last week. I think Anaheim?
Starting point is 01:29:31 Okay, yeah. Diva played. Yeah. Oh, the band? Yeah. Nice. Whip It Good? Yep.
Starting point is 01:29:38 Dude, they're great. Yeah. They're one of my favorites. Well, your music, we wanted to ask you about Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Did you help curate the music for that? Because it had such a great soundtrack.
Starting point is 01:29:47 Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I wanted to represent skateboarding culture and skateboarding soundtrack and so,
Starting point is 01:29:53 as we got down the line, especially after the first two games, then the, you could put more storage on the discs because they went from CD to DVD
Starting point is 01:30:04 and it was next up to that and so we were able to put a lot more songs on it discs because they went from CD to DVD and whatever was next after that. And so we were able to put a lot more songs on it and so the soundtrack was much more rich. And I just kept throwing out suggestions from my past and from the stuff I listened to at skate parks and stuff. So that's what I wanted to represent. The newer bands that they had in it, especially like the first two,
Starting point is 01:30:23 for instance, Goldfinger, Mill and Cullen, Power Man 5000, that was all more on the music side of Activision to get. My contribution was more like the Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Primus, Buzz Lightyear, that kind of stuff.
Starting point is 01:30:39 Gorilla Radio always comes to mind whenever I think of the game. Oh yeah, Rage. Everyone has their song. The people who are in the game, they always have that one, like, that's the song. It's not that. It's Ace of Spades. Or it's the gold finger, pretend I'm Superman.
Starting point is 01:30:56 Yeah, that's the one I remember the most. Because I'm no Superman. Yeah, that's it. And I want to talk to you about getting your name on the game. Because I heard that was like, it almost didn't happen but because it did the amount of, I guess it's kind of gauche to talk about, but the amount of money you made
Starting point is 01:31:11 was way more because of that? Yeah, it wasn't there wasn't a discussion that my name wouldn't be on it it was more that there were a few different companies trying to do skate games at that time and one actually approached me about being involved
Starting point is 01:31:26 and that game did come out it was Thrasher Skate or Die but I was in early talks with them and then Activision called me because they heard that I had been talking to this other company and they said hey we are also working on a skate game why don't you come check it out
Starting point is 01:31:44 and so I went to Activision and when I saw their demo of what they were doing even though it was based on a different game it was actually the character that i was first played was bruce willis with a gun on his back because the the engine was um made from a game they had already done called apocalypse that featured him. So the first incarnation of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was Bruce Willis skating through a desert with a gun on his back. Wow, that's awesome. That's a cool game too.
Starting point is 01:32:15 Well, I mean, that's just because they're, you know, using the Karakus just to get through. But when I saw that, I thought, this is it. This is the direction because the controls were intuitive. And I knew that with my resources and my connections that we could make something that really spoke to skaters. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:32:36 How directly involved were you in the design of the levels? Mostly, I was more involved with the design of the levels that included real skate spots yeah so my input would be like we gotta do san francisco yeah we gotta do china banks we gotta do the wharf you know what i mean like that would be my but then some levels are just made up like school is made up and that's their deal. So that's kind of how... I always thought that was based off Hollywood High. Is that not true? I think my buddy just told me that. No, I don't think so.
Starting point is 01:33:11 I mean, there was one... One of the schools had the Leap of Faith. Yeah. And that was based on an actual school skate spot here in San Diego. Okay. But the rest of it wasn't designed around the exact same school.
Starting point is 01:33:24 Okay. Gotcha. Do you play video games? I used to for sure these days my biggest the most let's see the most I play is with my daughter playing Super Smash Brothers or Mario Kart
Starting point is 01:33:41 right more just to bond with your kids yeah because the other kids, you know, they're playing Fortnite and they're playing NFL and it's not even that,
Starting point is 01:33:51 it's just more like the time suck. Right. I wish I had that much time to play, but I'm usually off and running. Yeah, I don't have one either
Starting point is 01:33:57 because I think I would just use it too much. Yeah, I mean, I love it. Like, if I was their age, that's exactly what I'd be doing
Starting point is 01:34:04 for sure. You know, I'm just not at an age where I can. For sure. I mean, love it like if I was their age that's exactly what I'd be doing for sure you know I'm just not at an age where I can for sure I mean and it's amazing like the technology
Starting point is 01:34:10 is insane now yeah do you have a desire to build another game create another game uh always sure
Starting point is 01:34:17 if the right opportunity comes along yeah um I would really love to remaster
Starting point is 01:34:24 our old games too but but that's going to require a lot of negotiations because I haven't worked with Activision in a while. Cool. Wait, should we check this? If you need advice These guys are really nice
Starting point is 01:34:43 You wanna know What to do and where to go When you need someone to guide you There's no place to have a girl beside you Go in the dream Go in the dream Let's go in the dream Go in the dream We'll see you next time.

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