Now my friend is howling and pleading, “No, please—please don’t take me in.” I know this kid’s family, and they’re not gonna be happy. Me, I’m all good; I’m just gonna be told I’m a dummy for getting caught again, and then Pops and I are gonna spark up another fatty.
COMING OF AGE
I spend endless hours on my skateboard each day, and it pays off when I win the Gold Cup amateur series. I’m twelve years old and have beaten the top amateur skaters of all ages. I start the season slowly, in twenty-eighth place at Oasis. Then I move up to ninth at Big O, and at Colton I score sixth. I finally end up winning the contest and the entire series at my home park, Marina. I feel I’m improving so fast there’s nothing left to do but turn pro. I’m riding for the biggest skate company in the world as the top amateur of the prestigious Powell-Peralta Bones Brigade.
Top pro Stacy Peralta is retired by then, and co-owner of Powell-Peralta. After my Gold Cup victory I tell him of my plans to turn pro, but he says I need to wait a couple years. “A couple years!” I reply. “There’s no way I’m waiting that long.” To a twelve-year-old, two years is an eternity. I reason with Stacy, saying, “Look, I’m doing more advanced tricks than most of the pros; I can place in the pros right now.” When he doesn’t budge, I quit the team. Later, when Pops is asked why I left Powell-Peralta, he replies in his usual poetic fashion, “The bird has flown.” Problem is I didn’t fly into anything better for a long while.
LAKEWOOD SKATEPARK CIRCA 1981. (FRONT ROW: LEFT TO RIGHT) LESTER KASAI, LANCE MOUNTAIN, STEVE CABALLERO, BILLY RUFF, MICKE ALBA, TONY HAWK, MARK “GATOR” ROGOWSKI, AND ME. (BACK ROW: SECOND FROM RIGHT) STEVE KEENAN.
Once I leave Powell-Peralta, Denise Barter of Dogtown Skateboards asks me to ride for them. She sponsors Tony Hawk, Mark “Gator” Rogowski, and Mike Smith. My affirmative reply is instant. “Dogtown: the team that Shogo Kubo rode for! And I’ll get my own Dogtown Hosoi model!” “Yeah and I’ll turn you pro right away,” she says. Once I agree to ride for Dogtown, I have my graphics made up for my new model. Unfortunately, Dogtown goes out of business before my model ever gets released.
Stacy has this to say about my leaving his company:
IT WASN’T BECAUSE HE WAS TOO YOUNG; I WANTED ALL MY SKATERS TO BECOME THE BEST THEY COULD AS AMATEURS, SO WHEN THEY TURNED PRO, THEY WOULD IMMEDIATELY MAKE A SPLASH. BUT IT WORKED OUT: WHEN DOGTOWN WENT UNDER, I HIRED TONY HAWK. SO I LOST ONE GREAT SKATER AND REPLACED HIM WITH ANOTHER GREAT SKATER.
I was just starting to come into my own and get more vocal at the time. Prior to that, I was pretty quiet with people I didn’t know, as Stacy recalls:
WHEN CHRISTIAN WAS REALLY YOUNG, AROUND TEN OR ELEVEN, I DON’T RECALL EVER HEARING HIM SPEAK. I THINK AT ONE POINT I ACTUALLY WONDERED IF HE WAS MUTE. IT WASN’T UNTIL AFTER HE TURNED PRO THAT HE REALLY STARTED TO PROJECT, NOT JUST IN HIS SKATING, BUT WITH HIS PERSONALITY. I NEVER UNDERSTOOD HOW A KID SO QUIET COULD DEVELOP THIS ROCK-STAR PERSONA.
I don’t think Stacy understands me at all as I’m entering my teen years, even though he’s watched me skate since I was a little kid. He knows I’ve got the ability, but he’s seen me coming out of smoke-filled vans at the contests, hangin’ out with some of the wilder guys like Jay, TA, Duane Peters, and Ray “Bones” Rodriguez. It will take years for me to see Stacy as an individualist, with the courage to swim against the tide. As a kid, however, I’m too immature to understand. We simply look at guys who don’t smoke as barneys, kooks, straightedges—you know. My thinking is, You’re over there; we’re over here. That’s your scene; this is our scene. Later.
As I mentioned, whenever I skate an event I focus on the girls in the crowd. I can have a hot chick any time I want, but if I win the contest it’s a slam-dunk guarantee that I’ll get the best one of all, and sometimes more than one. I’m like a kid in a candy store with nobody guarding the register. I’m thirteen when I have sex for the first time. The girl is cool and she’s a virgin, like I am. But I don’t have to sneak around or anything to have sex. In fact, Pops drives me over to her house to pick her up and then drives us back home, where we do it in my own bedroom. I actually think Pops is kind of proud of me, like, Yeah, my kid’s becoming a man. Years later I hook up with that same girl again, and one day she calls to say I got her pregnant and she had an abortion. I ask if she needs any money and what her mom thinks. She says her mom just laughed. Exactly what I feel is lost to time, but the experience doesn’t cause me to slow down any.
Having sex makes you cool with your friends, but it’s like a powerful drug: I want more of it all the time. No wonder a popular expression links sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. They all tie together, since rock ’n’ roll (or punk) and drugs help get girls—the types of girls I want as I’m starting out, anyway. I’m just a kid, but I’ve developed this adult, rock-star lifestyle and high style.
ONE OF A KIND, PAINT PEN GRAPHIC BY POPS. CIRCA 1985. © CHUCK KATZ.
WEED AND OTHER CLOSE FRIENDS
It’s 1980 and I meet this guy Eddie Reategui at Lakewood Skatepark. We hit it off right away. Eddie’s a good skater and well on his way to becoming one of the top guys. I still have really long hair, and he recently told me what everybody tells me at that time—that the first time he saw me skate he thought I was a girl. Apparently he told his friend, “Look at that chick—she’s ripping.” The friend replied, “That’s not a girl; that’s Christian Hosoi.”
Eddie and a friend have stolen a pot plant the size of a Christmas tree. Later some other guys steal it from them, but not before Eddie and his friend trim off most of the leaves and put them into a garbage bag. He has a burrito wrapper, and we use it to make a giant Cheech & Chong–size joint that we smoke with Pops in his car.
Eddie and I hang out all the time and enter the same contests together. Pops drives us down to Del Mar for a contest, and when we stop in the parking lot, Eddie gets out of the van, grabs his stuff, and begins walking toward the nearby hotel. When I ask him where he’s going, he looks back and says, “I’m going up to the hotel.” Then I tell him, “No, dude, this is the hotel,” meaning the van. Things are pretty ghetto in skating still, and we sleep in the van a lot. It’s actually great fun. Grant Brittain, who works at the Del Mar Skate Ranch at the time and will later run the place, remembers us staying there and recalls seeing billows of smoke pouring out the van’s doors.
Grant talks about that time:
I STARTED WORKING AT DEL MAR IN 1978. THERE WAS A HOTEL RIGHT UP THE STREET, BUT EVEN IF YOU COULD AFFORD IT, IT WOULD BE LIKE TWENTY PEOPLE CRAMMED INTO ONE ROOM. SO A LOT OF SKATERS SLEPT IN THEIR CARS, IN THE PARKING LOT. ONE OF MY FRIENDS LIVED IN THE PARKING LOT IN HIS PLYMOUTH DUSTER FOR LIKE SIX MONTHS. A LOT OF BUSINESS PEOPLE HATED SKATERS, AND THAT’S ONE OF THE REASONS THEY BULLDOZED THE DEL MAR SKATE RANCH IN ’87. THEY WERE BUILDING A HILTON AND DIDN’T WANT TO HAVE THESE GRUBBY SKATERS AROUND.
OVER THE YEARS I SAW ALL THE BEST SKATERS PASS THROUGH DEL MAR, AND I CAN HONESTLY SAY THAT HOSOI WAS ONE OF THE BEST OF THEM ALL. DEL MAR WAS TONY HAWK’S HOME PARK, AND HE WAS AMAZING THERE. SO WAS CHRISTIAN, BUT COMPARING HAWK AND HOSOI IS LIKE COMPARING PAUL MCCARTNEY AND MICK JAGGER.
In the morning Eddie and I barge into Micke Alba’s hotel room. Micke and his older brother Steve are among the top skaters at the time. Micke is there with some girl, and even though he’s only a little older than us, he doesn’t want us around. He throws us his car keys and snaps, “You guys beat it,” before he slams the door on us. We have girls of our own, and we’re delighted to drive them down to the beach in Micke’s car.
Eddie’s driving until he gets scared and tells me to take over. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I fake it, saying my usual, “I’ve got this.” Except for the few times my dad has let me drive his van up and down the driveway or around the block, I’ve never driven a car. Leaving the beach I back up, smack into the car behind us, go forward, and hit the car in front of us. A few broken taillights later we somehow make it back to the park alive.
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p; Later, back in L.A., Eddie and I brag to Pops that we know how to drive. He says, “Oh, cool,” flips us his car keys, and we’re off. I tell Eddie to drive and we cruise around L.A. before slipping into one Hollywood young-adult club or another.
My friend Mofo (Morizen Foche) is the photo editor of Thrasher magazine. I think he’s the first one to call me Christ, and when he tags me with that in print, it sticks. I have no idea what the name really means, other than what I hear—that Christ is supposed to be God. That’s cool, cuz I’m looking to be the god of skateboarding. Besides, it fits perfectly with the move I’m known for, the Christ Air, where I launch and then form a cross with my hands held out to the sides, my board in one hand. Yup, Christ is a killer nickname.
According to Mofo,
I FIRST MET CHRISTIAN WHEN HE WAS ABOUT TWELVE YEARS OLD. EVEN THEN HE WAS HIP AND HE COULD HANG WITH AN OLDER CROWD. SOCIALLY AND CONVERSATIONALLY, HE WASN’T THAT DORKY, AWKWARD KID. THAT WAS PROBABLY DUE TO HIS UPBRINGING, CUZ HIS DAD’S REALLY HIP TOO. WHEN I WORKED FOR THRASHER, I WOULD WRITE EVERYTHING OUT BY HAND. IF SOMEONE’S NAME WAS ROBERT, IT OF COURSE BECAME BOB. DAVID BECOMES DAVE. THAT’S WHEN I STARTED WRITING CHRISTIAN’S NAME AS CHRIST. THIS WAS ABOUT THE TIME THAT THIS BAND CRASS CAME OUT WITH AN ALBUM CALLED CHRIST THE ALBUM. IT WAS THEN THAT I DESIGNED THE THRASHER COVER THAT SAID “CHRIST” ON IT. AFTER THAT, EVERYONE STARTED CALLING HIM CHRIST. BUT CHRISTIAN WAS ONE OF THOSE GUYS THAT MADE MY JOB EASIER. HE HAD SO MUCH TALENT; ALL WE HAD TO DO WAS CAPTURE IT.
I’m one of approximately thirty-five legit pro skaters in the world. Most of them barely make a living. Nobody cares, though, because we’re all about having fun and living in the moment. Our lives are all skate, skate, skate, party, party, party. It won’t be money, money, money for a few years. When we’re on our boards, nothing else matters; we’re just innocent and free to create.
I concentrate on the art of skateboarding and lay the groundwork for the moves I’ll become famous for, like the patented Christ Air I just described, plus the Rocket Air and a one-footed air, all performed as high and stylishly as possible. By then Tony Hawk is finger-flipping and making up new tricks almost weekly. But I don’t hang out with him personally, only at competitions. I mainly hang around with hard-core stoners and old-school skaters like Jay Adams.
The best skateboarders in the world have passed the torch to my generation and me, and it’s now up to us to keep things burning. It’s just days before my fifteenth birthday, and I’m champing at the bit to prove myself against the top pros. The time finally arrives, but even without Stacy to hold me back, it’s taken over two years. I’m a pro skater and riding my own Sims Rising Sun model. We’re skating Pipeline Skatepark in Upland, California, and I’m a combination of stoked and nervous as I face the empty pool. The new pros—Tony Hawk, Gator Rogowski, Lance Mountain, and Neil Blender—are all there, and we’re like a pack of hungry dogs, ready to rip into raw meat. But the established pros aren’t gonna just lie down and die. Guys like Steve “Cab” Caballero, Eddie Elguera, and Duane Peters are still ripping hard and locked in these heavy battles for the top spot. Other skaters who have also rocketed to legendary status in the sport are Upland local boys Chris Miller and Steve and Micke Alba.
A lot of the major tricks in skateboarding are being invented at this generational transition, and if I miss a beat I’ll fall behind and everyone will say, “You should have been there; you really missed out.” History is being made, and I intend to write some history myself.
From the first, everyone is just blasting at Upland, and that’s when I break out my first original trick, the Tweak Air. I earn the respect of my new peers and end up getting fourth place. Cab, being his usual phenomenal self, wins that one. Lester Kasai flies into second by blasting high airs. He’s riding my model, so that’s not a bad showing for my boards and me. I’ve fulfilled one of my dreams—that of competing with the pros—but neither Tony Hawk nor I is near our full potential yet. We’re more blending in than dominating. But blending in is not what we came to the party for.
REACHING INTO A BAG OF STICKERS TO STOKE THE KIDS. © GRANT BRITTAIN.
SCHOOL DAZE
Only one thing interferes with having the best life ever: school. But I’m not gonna let anything so trivial as an education screw up my life. I don’t want to be stuck in a classroom when there’s so much to be learned on the street, so I don’t really take school seriously. I wear whatever clothes I want, including Bob Marley shirts that I top off with a pot leaf necklace. It doesn’t bother me that people know I’m stoned, and when my teachers comment on it, I laugh and admit it, saying, “Okay, you got me; I’m stoned.” Weed permeates my entire world. In fact, it’s the smell I most associate with my upbringing. Just fun for the whole family. After a rough day at school, I return home, light up a joint. On the days I ditch school, I hang out and watch reruns of Bewitched, The Family, The Honeymooners, and Get Smart in the front room, laughing my head off. Nothing wrong with that.
The school I attended at Hamilton High in L.A. was called Westside Alternative School, but everyone knew it simply as “Area D.” Suddenly the school changes locations, and that new spot couldn’t be any better—directly across the street from the Venice pier! My school is now situated in surf/skate central. Am I the luckiest kid in the world or what? Studying anything out of a book is the last thing on my mind. I’m getting the education I need on my skateboard, doing drugs in the street. Venice is like a trip around the world any day of the week, but on the weekends it’s a carnival of clowns, musicians, jugglers, street vendors, tourists, drug dealers, surfers, and the world’s best skateboarders—all competing for the crowd’s favor, in one place. It’s a lot gnarlier than most of the other skate towns of the time, and that works for us.
Neither my mom nor my dad lives in Venice. Pops lives in midtown L.A. and my mom lives in Koreatown, which is only about fifteen miles from Venice. Still, with L.A. congestion, it can easily take half an hour to get there. My mom drives me to school every morning and then fights traffic back to Beverly Hills, where she still works as a secretary. I skate the boardwalk before and after school, until Pops picks me up in the evening.
Considering the amount of weed I smoke, I’m a fairly good student. Amazingly, I have a good memory, and thanks to my mom I have pretty strong organizational skills. Occasionally my competitive nature works to my advantage, in that I like to get better grades than other people. I cheat only once, when I haven’t studied for a test. Then, in lieu of actual preparation, I write some crucial info on a tiny piece of paper, then tape the paper to the Converse star on the side of my shoe. Crossing my legs, I can look down and see all the answers and copy everything down. Guaranteed A. Usually, though, I get my grades the old-fashioned way: I earn them. When the top student in our class is caught copying off my paper, all my little stoner buddies feel kind of proud.
I’m sick of school and look for ways to get out of class. I hit on the idea of asking my teacher if I can skateboard on my own and get a PE grade for it. She agrees, on the condition that I write down all the hours I skate. I skate far more than I ever attend class, and if I wrote down the real number of skate hours, she wouldn’t believe me. I record half my skate time and it still equals three hours a day. That satisfies the PE teacher and I ace that class. Next I ask my art teacher if I can do all my art assignments at once. She gives me all the assignments for the semester, and I complete them in a single week. With two fewer classes, I’m out of school by noon. Even with such a light schedule, though, I still cut class as often as possible.
My skating career is starting to kick into high gear, but my teachers won’t let me take my schoolwork on the road. One day when I’m in tenth grade Pops picks me up and I tell him, for the umpteenth time, “School is lame. I wanna quit.” He says, “Okay, quit—but you’ve gotta tell Mom!” That sounds funny now, but not surprisingly, my mother freaks when I tell her. Even so, I’m granted the freedom to make my own choice, and from that day forward I stop attending schoo
l.
WESTMINSTER RAMP. ROCKET WHEELS PHOTO SHOOT. © GRANT BRITTAIN.
My newfound freedom allows me to skate and hang out in Venice full-time. Anything goes in that town, and I fit right in, partying hard, wearing wild clothes, and dying my hair different colors—even trying green polka dots once. My friends and I basically run the streets.
VENICE BEACH JUMP RAMP DAYS. HOSOI FAMILY COLLECTION.
ROLLING IN THE FAST LANE
I win my first big pro contest in Vancouver, Canada, in 1984. Eddie and I are kind of like a tag-team, where he dominates the amateurs and I begin to dominate the pros. Everything’s going as planned, and we both win our divisions in Vancouver. Shortly after Vancouver we fly to Arizona together for the next event. Eddie’s brother lives in Arizona and has offered Eddie a car to keep if he’ll pick it up there. I have a round-trip ticket for Arizona, but after the contest Eddie talks me into driving home to L.A. with him. The second we get on the road, however, the car starts sputtering. The heap won’t go over fifty miles per hour. To make matters worse, Eddie is so tired that he keeps falling asleep behind the wheel.
I know how to drive for real by then, but I don’t yet have a license, so I decide to let Eddie continue the driving while I serve as copilot. We work out a system where he sits in the driver’s seat and does most of the driving, but I keep my foot on the gas, and when he nods off to sleep I steer. As needed, I yell “Brake,” and he comes to long enough to get us stopped. This works pretty well: he sleeps for hours while I steer the car from the passenger seat. This is cool on the empty roads in the desert, but when we approach the L.A. freeways, it gets downright insane. I finally have to wake him up so he can get us home.
We somehow make it home to L.A. without dying and drag into my place, where we both crash for a while. When we wake up, Pops makes us breakfast and tells Eddie how to get home via the freeways. Eddie drives off, though we later learn that his car dies on some freeway interchange, miles from his house. He’s stranded there until a cop pulls up and rescues him. It’s a good thing the cop doesn’t search the car, because we always have weed on us.
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