WAIKIKI BEACH. SCOTT OSTER, ME, AND SERGIE VENTURA. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
BURNIN’. ©IVAN HOSOI.
In Hawaii, we cruise through town, stopping to rage at various clubs, when for some strange reason the girl with Oster steals a NO SMOKING sign from a hotel. Back at our hotel afterward, all of us are crammed into two rooms. With that many people in each room, with five surfboards and all our bags stacked to the ceiling, it’s usually a disaster area. Needless to say, we’re not exactly on good terms with housekeeping. The maids are at the point where they don’t want to clean our rooms anymore, so when they do clean and find that sign, they use it as an excuse to call the cops.
The cops come to the door and say, “You’ve got stolen property in your room.” I say, “Stolen property? I’m no thief.” I’m convinced that they have the wrong room. I’m a little uneasy, though, because I know that one of my friends has an ounce of weed stashed in the room safe. The cops are persistent: one says he can arrest me for that stupid sign, and I’m like, “Really, you’re kidding? You’re gonna take me in for a NO SMOKING sign?” I keep talking to the cops, acting nice and being apologetic, trying to distract them while my buddy, right behind them, is getting his buds out of the safe.
As soon as he removes his weed, I say, “Okay, we’ll go; we’re outta here.” Because of that sign we’re kicked out of the hotel—it’s an Outrigger, which most of the hotels in Hawaii are—and we’re barred from staying in any other Outrigger for a year. Now we have to find somewhere else to stay, all because Scott Oster’s girlfriend wants a NO SMOKING sign. Ridiculous!
HOSOI SKATEBOARDS AD AT PATTY SELLER’S “PERFECT RAMP.” HOSOI FAMILY COLLECTION.
540 MCTWIST AT GRANT FAKUDA’S RAMP IN KANEOHE, HAWAII. © IVAN HOSOI.
MOUNTAINS OF PINK JELL-O
On our next trip to Hawaii, we again have a big entourage, including Oster and a recovered Aaron Murray. We’re just off the plane, and the first thing we do after eating plate lunches at Rainbow Drive Inn is head to Kaneohe to pick mushrooms. We have to commando over a fence into the mushroom-rich field, lying low and crawling around as we seek the biggest cow patties, which contain the most mushrooms. We need to avoid the field’s owners, cuz they’re making money from selling the ’shrooms, and we hear they have shotguns loaded with salt pellets that they don’t hesitate to use on intruders. As always, we like that element of danger. We eat some ’shrooms, pick some more, and throw some in a bag to eat later.
WAIKIKI HOTEL ROOM BALCONY. ME, SCOTT OSTER, ERIC DRESSEN, AND SERGIE VENTURA. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
I’m driving and we’re all starting to ’shroom as we head back to town. But to get back to our hotel we have to drive through the Wilson Tunnel. Everyone’s laughing hysterically—even me, though I’m tryin’ to maintain and make it through without ending up as part of the wall.
Somehow we get up to our room in Waikiki, way up on the seventeenth floor. Someone’s like, “Let’s make paper airplanes.” First we tear pages out of various magazines in the room and fold them for flight. Then we launch our planes off the balcony. We quickly finish up all the magazines and look around for something else to use, settling on the phonebook. We’re all making the best paper airplanes we know how; we’re churning them out like pros. We make all different kinds of them, throwing them off the balcony, until we’ve torn through the whole phonebook. We’re looking for more paper when someone glances down and discovers that there are paper airplanes everywhere—on every car, every rooftop, all over the street. Not wanting to get thrown out of yet another hotel, we close the balcony door and race down to the garage. We split, heading for this place near town, Manoa Falls.
Manoa Falls is just inland from Waikiki. It’s a beautiful place, and you can hike right up to the falls. Beyond that, though, there’s a big fence with a KEEP OUT sign. We jump right over the fence, of course, and head up the trail. It gets steeper and steeper until it’s pretty much vertical. Then there’s no more trail, just ropes. After a while even the ropes quit and go to vines. Then there are no vines—nothing to hang on to—and we’re just climbing up wet volcanic rock to who knows where, still frying our brains out on ’shrooms and totally ignoring the fact that we’ve gotta come back down at some point.
There are like ten of us, all really competitive friends and skateboarders, and so of course we have to have a race for the top. After a while we’re hanging on to this vertical wall by our fingertips and our toes, really high up. When we look down it feels like we’re a mile up, and we’re trying not to fall. When somebody says that we should puff a fatty, everyone agrees that it’s a good idea. We have weed on us at all times: there are some joints stashed in our hats.
Problem is we’re not in a position to smoke anything. We’re trapped there, balancing against the side of the wall, our hands in use for safety. We can see a pool with a flat area just a little ways away from us and conclude that we can smoke there. But we have to get there first, which means stepping over to one rock, letting go of any support, and leaping off in hopes of landing in or near the pool. The rock’s really slippery, and the water’s rushing off the cliff right beyond it. It would be easy to lose our footing or mistime our jump. If anyone does, he’s gonna die for sure. But we’re all just laughing, clinging to the rock, ready to take this leap of faith by pushing off the rock to get to the pool.
Aaron makes it first, and one by one so does everybody else. Finally it’s Oster’s turn. As he kicks off the rock, his foot slips. Everyone holds their breath as he does the running man in midair over the rock before trying to push off with his other foot. That foot also slips, and now he’s scratchin’, desperately trying not to go over the falls and down the cliff. If he doesn’t make it, I’m gonna have some real explaining to do to the authorities and especially to his dad. He barely makes it into the pool. Then we’re all laughing, rewarding our accomplishment of not dying by smoking a joint or two.
Someone hikes a little further up and we all follow him to the top. We’re just trippin’, standing on what Aaron would later describe as pink Jell-O. Way down below we can see trees growing out from the side of the cliff and a jungle all the way to the bottom. If you’ve ever seen this area you know it’s pretty much vertical, but for some reason we decide not to take the trail back to the bottom. Instead, we venture where there’s no trail, facing down the mountain, backs to the wall, just kind of crab-crawling at first, then grabbing branches and vines, swinging on anything on our way down, jumping from tree to tree, hooting and screaming insanely.
Once we’re back to the bottom pool, we see our friend Eric Dressen, who was too fried to climb. He’s there alone with two models—Block swears they’re mermaids—swimming in the pond. The girls end up hanging out with us for the night.
As the sun sets we head down the mountain, and simultaneously we come down from the ’shrooms. Back in our hotel rooms, it’s time to get ready for a night of partying on the town. The day’s over; the night’s just beginning.
IN RIO DE JANEIRO WITH BLOCK. ON THE WAY UP TO CRISTO. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
THRASHER MAGAZINE COVER. AIR OVER NICE, FRANCE. © THRASHER MAGAZINE.
THE ONE AND ONLY AARON MURRAY
Aaron and I have never lost that feeling of freedom we got when we climbed trees to the top as little kids. It’s fun when you’re young, but it doesn’t always work so well when you’re grown up.
We’re on Speedway in Venice, and this guy is there with sheets of acid. Aaron buys some, eats some, and gives some to anyone who wants a hit at the party we’re attending. Suddenly we see Aaron on the roof—and then he jumps. Where usually there might be a soft landing or a pool below, now it’s nothing but concrete. Somehow he manages to grab a power wire with one hand, holding a beer in the other. “Anybody want a beer?” he says, laughing hysterically. I don’t remember how he finally gets down, but I know that he’s like the rest of us in a way; none of us ever seem to think things all the way through.
; Maybe Aaron and I are just born that way. As a child he once fills a trashcan with water and jumps into it from his roof, having gotten that idea from seeing someone jump into a teacup from a diving board in a cartoon. After he lands in the trashcan, he has to wiggle around to tip it over just to get free. I’m just glad he didn’t have a teacup around, or he probably would have used that.
This one time, we’re staying at a hotel in Waikiki. We’re all hanging out at the pool, chillin’, when he tells us he’s gonna jump into the pool from the fifth floor. Now, the pool is only five feet deep. Still, he takes off, running up the stairs in his trunks and Chuck Taylors. We’re like, “Cool, let’s video it.” We knew he was crazy, but we didn’t think that even he would actually jump from there. Suddenly we see him way up there. He vaults over a little wall on the stairwell and stands on the ledge for a moment. He’s just a speck, so far up—there’s no way he’s gonna do it. Next thing we know he’s just flying toward the water! Suddenly there’s water everywhere, and he jumps up out of the pool like he’s shot from a cannon. Five floors up into five feet of water, and no injuries. Not a scratch. The hotel workers hear the commotion and bolt out as we slink away, acting like nothing has happened. If they’d seen what happened, we would have been kicked out of yet another hotel.
I guess Aaron’s got this thing about jumping into water. Rusler remembers one time at my house when Murray was looking at the pool and mumbling, “I can make that.” Before we can try to talk him out of it, we hear his feet on the roof. He’s up like twenty-seven feet, which is bad enough, but the pool is a long ways out from the roof. Next thing you know he’s in the air Butch Cassidy style; he’s this flying squirrel in trunks and sneakers. He lands on his feet with a huge splash, stands up, smiles, and says, “I told you I could do it.” I ask, “Don’t your ankles hurt?” He replies, “Yeah, a little bit.” That pool was only four feet deep.
AARON MURRAY. ©IVAN HOSOI.
HANDLIN’ MY BUSINESS. POP’S ART IN THE BACKGROUND. © IVAN HOSOI.
WHY I LOVE SURFERS BUT HATE SURFING
Hawaii, as everyone knows, is a surfer’s paradise. On one occasion when we’re on Oahu there are great waves, so I borrow some boards and invite everyone I’m with to surf. I’ve never been a surfer except as a little kid, riding the shore break with Pops at Kailua Beach. Never one to back down from a challenge, I decide to surf with the guys. Aaron, Dressen, Block, and all my other friends who surf take me to this spot they know. The waves are breaking way outside.
I have a little five-foot-ten Thruster, and I start paddling out, following far behind them. Turns out the break is about a quarter-mile from shore. I finally get out there, exhausted, and find that the waves that looked so small from shore are really massive. It’s getting dark, and the tide’s getting low. The guys all catch waves and look at me and yell, “Catch the next wave in!”
I’m out alone as the biggest set of the day pours in. I spin around and start paddling for the moon, scratching for the horizon. Everything’s turning black as the waves shade the water beneath them. Somehow I barely make it over each wave, five or six of them in each set, hoping that none of them will break too far in front of me. When the set finally subsides and I finish paddling, I look back to see that I’m so far out that the hotels on shore are just dots. Everyone’s already halfway in, and now I’ve got to paddle in alone, without ever catching a wave, and thinking how much this sucks. I’m stoked to get back on solid ground, but I can barely hold my arms up for the next three days.
A few days later the guys take me to a place called V-Land, in the area known as North Shore. They tell me to paddle out with them, saying, “Look, it’s mellow. Come on!” I’m thinking about paddling out when all of a sudden Oster, who’s first out, comes back in. He’s bleeding from his chest after getting dragged over the coral reef. What am I thinkin’? Aaron and Oster are full surfers, and they want me to go out there? Those guys are nuts. Finally our friend Johnee Kop, another skate legend, says, “Okay, let’s go to Diamond Head.”
Although Kop assures me Diamond Head will be mellow, I get out there and can see sharp coral reef and sea urchins directly below me. A wave breaks just beyond me. I white-knuckle my board and get dragged over the reef, at this point not caring that the board I’m riding isn’t mine. Finally I lose my board in the whitewater and start swimming in. This is not mellow at all and I am not stoked—in fact, I almost drown swimming in. I’m really glad to see shore, but when I arrive there’s this big local guy who wants to kill me because my rogue board nearly hit him.
Riding the waves in California with Jay and Shogo is even worse. Those guys head for the surf at four thirty in the morning. I don’t know why, but I sometimes go with them and watch as they ride waves, playing it close to a bunch of big rocks. The whole time I’m thinking how crazy they are and how I could have slept in, cruised to the skatepark at noon, and skated with a bunch of hot girls watching, instead of freezing alone on some wet rocks. And my friends wonder why I rarely surf!
DEATH OF THE PARTY
I celebrated my twentieth birthday at Chateau Marmont, the hotel in Hollywood where comedian John Belushi died from a speedball. That’s the name given to an often deadly combination of heroin and cocaine: it takes you up and down at the same time, until your heart has had enough and finally gives out. But that’s not on my mind this night. I’m here to celebrate.
We go out to a club for those twenty-one and up, but I have the door open, letting thirty of my friends in, all under age, some as young as fifteen, and all them rowdy skate punks. The place is packed with these gnarly dudes, and it’s just insane. A fight breaks out in one corner, and everyone watches until another fight breaks out somewhere else. I’ve never been in a fight in my life and work at breaking them up whenever I can.
We spend the night and the next day at Chateau Marmont. I look out at the pool and at the big trees surrounding it. It crosses my mind that you couldn’t just jump out of one of those trees into the pool, cuz it’s way too far a jump for anyone. Well, almost anyone. Aaron is still intoxicated from the night before when he climbs high into one of the trees, swaying back and forth so he can use it as a springboard. He’s got the branch flexed back as far as it will go, and when it starts to spring forward he jumps. He barely makes it into the pool that time.
Most of my time is spent in Hollywood or Venice Beach. These are exciting and strange places to be a skater, and I love the artist, movie star, and rock-band energy that vibrates through the streets. As a kid I had a friend named Jamie Slovak. Jamie is the younger brother of Chili Peppers’ guitarist Hillel Slovak. I’m friends with Hillel and the rest of the band, but I’m closer with Jamie because he’s my age. We hang out on Melrose in front of Fairfax High almost every day, skating and terrorizing the tourists.
Years later Hillel will make headlines when he dies from a heroin overdose. I attend the funeral. This is a really sad day and a wakeup call for the Chili Peppers and all those who are in our scene and the music world.
But I don’t feel a need to change any more than I already have. After all, in my mind I’m no longer using anything that could kill me.
THE FIRST MANEUVER I INVENTED, THE TWEAK AIR. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
ANDRECHT HAND PLANT AT MY HOUSE IN HOLLYWOOD, CA. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
“When you’re all about raging like I am, you look forward to one day more than all others. That’s right, your twenty-first birthday. My twenty-first arrives right on schedule, October 5, 1988. There’s a lot more to celebrate than just staying alive for over two decades, though that in itself has been quite a trick.”
Life is about as close to perfect for me as it gets in this world. I’m at the top of my game in both vert and street skating, battling it out for first on vert ramps with Hawk and with guys like Tommy Guerrero in street skating. I appear on TV and in countless videos, and I’m moving into a popularity that soars past the world of skateboarding. I’m featured on a Converse poster where I hav
e nothing on but my Converses. The caption reads, “All you need!”
I continue to push my skating, my image, and my partying. Everywhere I go people recognize me, and while I don’t know all of them, I know everybody I care to. I have the respect of my peers, and since I’m generous with my friends, I have more of those than I can count. Everyone is healthy and happy, and most are prosperous. What better time to celebrate with an insane party?
I have some T-shirts made up for my twenty-first with graphics of a dog biting a skateboard on them. I give them out to all my friends at the party, but it turns out I don’t have one for everyone since over three thousand people attend. I’ll spend over $15,000 on that bash by the time it’s finished! That’s a lot of money in 1988, but to me it’s worth every cent, since a person turns twenty-one only once.
I want to mark that occasion in my own style and yet in typical Hollywood fashion, so I rent an entire floor of the Park Plaza Hotel, including the ballroom and the restaurant. Max Perlich is the DJ, and Skatemaster Tate is the MC. Hot local bands Schoolly D and Charlie Chan get the crowd pumped as they rip a few sets to warm things up for reggae star Eek-a-Mouse.
The place is booming when Eek-a-Mouse takes the stage dressed like a skater, with a borrowed Pro-Tec helmet perched on his head. He’s a big act back then, and the crowd just goes off when he rolls out. The helmet doesn’t fit him. Besides being a big act, he’s a big guy—huge, like six-foot-six. Most skaters are about half his size. He’s squeezed into a pair of elbow pads that look the size of dimes on him. He’s not wearing shoes as he rides out on Tate’s longboard. He stops, grabs the mic, smiles broadly, and says, “It’s my friend’s birthday-y-y-y.” When he starts singing “Happy Birthday,” everybody joins in. Having a few thousand of your best friends sing “Happy Birthday” to you is one insane rush.
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