It’s April 28–29, 1979, and the first Dog Bowl Pro contest is on at Marina. The best skaters in the world have come to our park, and of course Aaron and I are there too—not as competitors, but as kids skating around and hanging out in and under the bleachers. Undercover, as it were. From beneath the bleachers we’re as close to the action as can be, and we observe every little thing the pros do and say. There’s a big gap between them and us, but we’re taking notes not only on their skating but on how they live, which is way beyond the edge.
Everyone turns to see Alva show up in a stretch limo. He’s always pulling something rad like that. Last year he arrived at the Skateboarding World Championships in a one-piece gold suit that Elvis’s designer custom-tailored for him. What a rock star! Jay Adams is also a rock star, but low-key in his approach. Jay doesn’t really like contests or the spotlight so he lurks in the shadows, letting TA bask in the light.
Our friend Polar Bear is ripping on everyone and leading on the first day of the competition, but a fall on day two ends his dominance. Bert LaMar ends up winning, followed by David Andrecht. A kid who would become a close friend, David Hackett, tears into third.
Polar Bear, who will die of a drug overdose many years later, is a close friend and one of the only older guys who skates the little bowls with me. I’m twelve and he’s around seventeen. Most of the established guys are like seventeen or eighteen, and they skate only in the Dog Bowl or one of the other big bowls, like the Upper Keyhole. The big bowls are basically owned by Polar Bear, Shogo, Marty Grimes, Jay, and TA. TA is older, like twenty-two, and there’s something about the way he cruises up to the park alone with his shades on and his beanie pulled down low, cholo style, in his blue-gray Toyota pickup. He’s all business when he comes to skate. At other parks he pushes his way to the front of the line, but at Marina that’s not necessary. Everyone gives him room and instant respect, and he skates hard, leaves his mark, and leaves. While his aggressive attitude sometimes gets him into trouble at other parks, at Marina he’s a god and can do no wrong.
We younger guys don’t know what real sponsorship is, but I begin getting a kind of secondhand sponsorship through Jay. At his stepfather’s house Jay loads me up with new Z-Flex boards and wheels and real copers for my trucks. Jay’s family has a shed in the backyard and we also load up on weed there, smoking out every time I stop by. I’m soon getting my first sponsorship as Tracker begins flowing me trucks and Vans flows me shoes. Now I’m set. I spend my time either at Jay’s house, my house, or Marina. When Jay cruises over to my house, we smoke pot right out in the living room, where we also shoot pool and listen to Bob Marley, Gregory Isaacs, the Cars, or the B-52s.
One of the older guys offers me coke but I pass on it, because I don’t think I’m ready for it yet. For some reason, I agree to smoke heroin once, though—but just enough to know that I hate it. Thank goodness it doesn’t suit my style, because all anyone wants to do on heroin is sit around. Lagging is not for me.
DEL MAR SKATE RANCH. THE YEAR I TURNED PRO. © GRANT BRITTAIN.
“I can’t lag; I’ve got too much to do, like spend all my days and most of my nights skating the best skatepark in the world, Marina. Once the park closes for the night and everyone else splits, I turn on the lights for whatever bowl my friends and I want to skate—another perk of my dad’s job—and we roll long into the night in private sessions.”
Marina Skatepark is located on the outskirts of L.A., sandwiched between the on- and off-ramps of a freeway and a baseball diamond, and surrounded by potted trees from a nearby nursery. The fence is lined with eight-foot-high murals Pops has painted of all the top skaters. By night the place is totally dark except for whichever one bowl we light up. It’s like a stage at a rock concert, and we’re both the main act and the audience. We fire up fat joints and blast air, hooting each other on as we invent moves that nobody has seen before but that will soon become famous.
Marina is like home to a lot of kids, and I realize that many of them are there all the time because they don’t have much of a family to go home to. Sessions at Marina replace family time for many locals. I have a loving home, but that doesn’t matter. Marina is where my heart is, and these skaters, along with Pops and my mom, are my family. We love the place so much that sometimes Pops and I sleep there, smoking weed until we fall asleep in the back of his Volkswagen van. In the morning it’s up early to skate and start the process all over again.
Marina is not just everything to us; it’s big in its own right. Film crews arrive every other month, it seems, and the documentary Skateboard Madness is filmed there. Big punk bands play there as well, and Devo’s original “Freedom of Choice” music video stars Stacy Peralta, among others, skating at Marina. Commercials and educational movies are filmed there also, all using skateboarding to illustrate some moral about being a responsible young person and a good citizen. They never shoot a video on the dangers of drug abuse, but maybe they should, even though I suspect nobody would listen.
There are a lot of heavy drugs being used, but nobody considers pot a real drug. For skaters, weed is like the air we breathe. It makes sense to us to skate stoned, but not to some of the older guys—guys like Stacy Peralta. I know now, looking back from the year 2012, that he’s right when he says, “Why do you need to get high when you skate? Skating gets you high.”
One of Marina’s owners, Dennis Ogden, remembers how bad we were:
A LOT OF PEOPLE REEKED OF WEED WHEN THEY CAME TO THE ADMISSIONS AREA, AND IVAN AND CHRISTIAN HOSOI WERE SOME OF THE TOPS AMONG THEM. MY MOM IS KIND OF STRAITLACED, AND AT FIRST SHE’S AGHAST WHEN SHE SEES THE ENVIRONMENT THERE. BUT EVENTUALLY IT SEEMS NORMAL, EVEN TO HER. WITH KIDS LIKE CHRISTIAN, WEED IS JUST PART OF LIFE. HE’S BARELY IN HIS EARLY TEENS AND HIS DAD AND A LOT OF OTHER ADULTS DON’T SEE ANYTHING WRONG WITH HIM SMOKING WEED. CHRISTIAN IS BECOMING THE BEST GUY WE HAVE EVER SEEN, SO WHAT CAN ANYONE SAY?
Despite all the weed, drugs aren’t the only important thing to me. My goal is to become like the big guys. Take Shogo Kubo, one of the great, now nearly forgotten skaters of his time. He’s Japanese like I am, and at first I pattern my entire style after him. He’s fast, fearless, and smooth. As I gain skills, Shogo, Jay, and some of my other heroes push me to leave the little bowls and skate the Upper Keyhole (nine-foot-deep pool with coping and tile) with them. All the big bowls look deep and dangerous to a little kid, but I finally suck up all my fear and follow them into their land of the giants.
The little bowls are four and six feet deep, while the Keyhole is nearly twice that. I’m used to the little bowls, where you have to pull off the wall super hard to not lock up on the lip. When I try skating that way in the Keyhole, it doesn’t work. At first I bottom-land, but after a few tries, I finally pull it. By the end of that first day I’m blasting two-feet-out airs, one-foot-out frontside airs, and hand-on-coping inverts. I’m in solid with the main guys now. Once I’ve tasted the big bowls, the little bowls aren’t interesting to me anymore. From now on, I’ll leave little bowls to little kids, or use them for warming up. I can’t wait to skate the big bowls in the big contests with the big boys.
THE BOYZ
Skateboarding is our art, and because I’ve grown up in an artist’s home, I can never be just another follow-the-leader skater. Everything, from the way we dress to the way we skate, bears our own original stamp. There’s never any discussion about school or where we’re going to work when we grow up. The present and the future are all about skating with our friends in Venice and at Marina. We can’t see it when we’re in the midst of things, but both places are on the leading edge in creating radical social change in youth culture. And leading that culture shift are TA and Jay.
Everything about TA is attitude, and we memorize his every move. He’s not your typical surf/stoner guy. He’s really smart, and he has a presence like nobody else, always doing his own thing in his own way. He’s one of the first pros with his own company, Alva Skateboards. Guys like TA and Jay are forging their own identity
, something that will later translate to the identity of the thousands of kids around the world who look up to them. But nobody has any idea that they’re birthing a new culture right then and there. It’s always been a toss-up to me as to what is cooler, TA’s step-aside style, or Jay’s go-with-the-flow approach. These guys are my heroes, and even though they’re several years older than me, we have a lot in common. Since TA is fading from the scene, Jay and I hang out all the time.
Without even wanting to be, Jay’s at the forefront of the revolution. He’s a natural though reluctant leader: everybody wants to copy what he does. Since the beginning he’s been a naturally blond surfer dude who leads everyone in that style. Then one day he shows up with a Mohawk and everyone tries to copy that. Well, they can try, but there’s only one Jay Adams.
For a young skateboarder, hanging out with Jay is like a novice musician hanging out with Mick Jagger. He’s like the coolest guy ever, placed in a bullet-proof young-adult body. He’s mischievous, funny, and willing to try anything. I learn everything I need to from Jay; he’s a free-spirited, soulful skater, a legend in his own right. He’s never won a skate contest that I know of, but he’s still one of the most highly revered skaters of his day.
This one guy at Marina has a chip on his shoulder about Jay. He’s kind of a vato gang guy and a crackhead who’s extra spun cuz he also smokes PCP. The guy says every time he’s reminded of Jay, it makes him want to fight him. That’s a crackhead for you, right? One day TA’s had enough and he finally punches the guy, knocking him back over the bicycle rack. That’s the last we ever see of him.
The American hard-core punk scene is coming on strong in L.A. Skateboarding and punk together are a match made in heaven—or some might say hell. Black Flag plays a lot of our contests, and the Circle Jerks, Fear, and other famous punk groups rock Marina regularly. When live music isn’t being pumped in, we skate to recordings of the Meteors, the Ramones, the Cars, the B-52s, Devo, Selector, the Specials, Madness—all that. If you get a chance, check out some of the underground footage of us skating at that time. When you do, listen to what’s being played in the background; you’ll probably hear the Ramones singing, “I wanna be sedated,” which is ironic since, in fact, almost all of us were.
Tony Hawk isn’t from Marina, but he’s been there nearly from the beginning and will remain there all the way to the end. These are some of his early memories of our park:
THE FIRST TIME ANYONE EVER OFFERED ME WEED WAS AT MARINA SKATEPARK. I WAS ELEVEN YEARS OLD AND I QUICKLY TOLD THE GUY NO. HE LOOKED AT ME IN AMAZEMENT AND SAID, “WOW, A STRAIGHT SKATER.” NOT THAT THERE WASN’T WEED AT OTHER PARKS, BUT MARINA WAS A LOT MORE RUGGED.
I REMEMBER ONCE THAT THESE HORDES OF PUNKERS STARTED POURING INTO MARINA. THIS WAS LIKE ’79 OR ’80. I HAD SEEN PUNKS BEFORE, BUT THIS WAS A LEGIT CREW. I ASKED SOMEONE WHAT WAS HAPPENING AND THEY TOLD ME THAT THE CIRCLE JERKS WERE GOING TO PLAY. THAT NIGHT THE COVER FOR THE CIRCLE JERKS ALBUM, GROUP SEX, WAS SHOT THERE. THAT KIND OF THING NEVER HAPPENED AT THE OTHER PARKS. NO WAY! HONESTLY, MARINA WAS PRETTY INTIMIDATING IF YOU WEREN’T A LOCAL.
I’m twelve years old when I’m introduced to acid by two seventeen-year-old girls who work at Marina Skatepark. I’m at one of their houses, high as a kite. But I don’t remember seeing anyone’s face melting or having any hallucinations or out-of-body experiences. I’ve done acid hundreds of times since, and I never really do hallucinate. All I do is laugh, skate, and rage.
Every day’s an adventure at Marina. With all the punk bands playing there, a lot of punkers start hanging out. Punkers and skaters usually mix pretty well. The skate punk thing is starting to take off, so a lot of the time the two groups overlap: they’re the same people. But both punk and skateboarding are about aggression, and when a large crew of punkers get together, trouble’s gonna break out for sure.
One day these punk bands, the Circle Jerks and Fear, play. This big Indian guy has been hired for security. As big and tough as he is, even he can’t stop trouble from starting. One fight starts out small but escalates into a gang-style brawl that spills over into the parking lot—it’s basically the skinheads against the skaters. TA is standing next to the security guard, cuz they’re friends, when suddenly, out of nowhere, this kid runs up and socks the Indian guy. TA turns and socks the kid and begins pounding him against the trunk of a car. Meanwhile, this little skinhead comes up and just blindsides TA. He hits hard for a little guy, and TA spins around and slinks back inside the park. I follow him inside and by then his eye is swollen shut. I’m like, “Dang! You got rocked, bro!”
Everybody knows that skateboarding is rowdy, but no park is ever as rowdy as Marina. It erupts like this from time to time and that’s part of what we love about it. Once we even see this massive girl-fight that seems to last forever. I never had so much fun as a spectator!
As I’ve said, skateboarding is performance art to me, and while it’s about winning, I’m even more interested in expressing myself to the crowd. Doing big airs is my favorite expression, so getting higher and higher is just a natural progression for me. The more the crowd cheers, the higher I fly—simple as that. I feed off people’s responses, just as they feed off mine: by the end of the show they’re screaming and I’m flying. My reward comes in attracting the cutest-looking girls I can find, and lots of them. My strategy’s been working pretty well so far. It’s actually been working since the age of nine, when I made out with a girl of eleven at the Renaissance Faire, behind the archery area.
FIRST MAJOR CONTEST WIN AT THE MARINA DEL REY SKATEPARK GOLD CUP SERIES. TWELVE YEARS OLD. 1980. © GLEN E. FRIEDMAN
“DON’T GET CAUGHT, STUPID”
I’m always holding weed, but somehow I get busted only twice for minor possession. The first time I get picked up I’m in eighth grade. Some friends and I are cutting class and smoking a joint in the alley behind the school. Suddenly a pair of undercover cops spring from the bushes and order us to raise our hands. I comply, but I won’t toss the joint because it contains some really killer weed. One hand remains closed around it, hoping to protect it from inspection. No such luck: one of the cops is like, “Okay, what’s in your hand? Open it.” What can I do? I open it and show him the joint. He confiscates it and I’m thinking the hypocrite will probably smoke it later.
The cops handcuff my friends and me and drive us out in front of the school. When the car pulls up, everyone—including our teacher—races to the window and peers out at us. I’d wave, but I’ve got these metal bracelets on that keep my hands pretty still. So I just smile and shrug my shoulders at my classmates. The cop uncuffs the others right there and lets them go.
I’m not so lucky. Since I’m the one with the joint, one officer forces me back into the car and drives me to the station, where Pops is called. When he swings by to pick me up, he plays the game for the cops, saying something like, “I’m sorry, officer. I can assure you nothing like this will ever happen again.” He signs me out and we get into his car. On the way home, he chuckles and says, “Dude, why you gettin’ busted?” When I tell him about the undercover cops, he’s like, “Yeah, just don’t get caught, stupid.” At home we fire up a fat joint and life goes back to normal for a while.
A year later a friend and I are strolling through Veterans Park in Westwood with a chunk of hash that we’re about to smoke in a ceramic pipe of mine. Suddenly my friend says, “Dude, what are those people doing in the bushes over there?” As we jog away, knowing that whatever they’re doing could mean trouble for us, I throw the hash but hang on to the pipe. My friend’s following close behind, and for some reason he scoops up the hash again.
Then we hear, “Police! Hold it right there.” We turn and watch as two officers close the distance. “Are you guys doin’ drugs?” one asks. “No,” I respond, which isn’t exactly a lie, since we haven’t smoked anything yet. They tell us to raise our hands. Before we do, my friend, who looks about to cry, chucks the hash toward them, and it lands right at one cop’s feet. The cop picks it up and t
hen notices that we haven’t followed orders. “Okay, hands on your head,” he says.
While they’re searching my friend, I toss the pipe into the bushes. One of the cops sees me do it and retrieves the pipe. He brings it over and says, “Is this yours?” When I deny it he hits me on the head with the pipe. Then he hits me in the ribs and asks again, “Is this your pipe?” Again I say no and he hits me in the ribs again and asks again if it’s my pipe. This could get old fast, so I say, “Yeah, I guess so.”
My friend’s crying as they shove us into the car. Me, I’m just chillin’, thinking that the car looks familiar as I check the side of the driver’s face and recognize the cop who busted me at school a year earlier. He looks in his rearview mirror and asks, “Didn’t I bust you once before?” Making my face blank, I answer, “I don’t know, dude.”
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