A twenty-first birthday is the closest thing we have in the United States to an occasion that symbolizes a kid becoming an adult. It’s also the first time a kid can buy alcohol legally. Of course, you need alcohol for such an occasion, and we are well supplied. Just as at my twentieth birthday bash last year, not everyone is old enough to drink legally—not by a long shot. But some of my younger skater buddies are pushing to get into the bar, and who’s gonna stop them? There aren’t any graduates from finishing school here, but street kids and a gnarly mixture of artists, actors, musicians, models, dealers, and gangsters, all colliding with a wall of crazy skaters. Everyone’s surging with energy, and they’re all easily set off. Fights break out here and there, but the music just keeps bumping. As I said before, I’m no fighter, but I don’t mind seeing a good brawl from time to time. These guys don’t disappoint.
So…those are some of the highlights of an amazing night and what looks to me, when I get up the next day, like the perfect launch pad for the next phase of my career.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC STADIUM DEMO WITH SERGIE VENTURA. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
RISING SON
My friend Ice-T has just finished a rap song called “Body Count,” and he wants to run a skate video over it. He has Duncan and me gather all the skate videos we can find, and he edits them to the music, showing all these skaters slamming down hard. Smashing your face into concrete fits perfectly with “Body Count,” and I’m paid $4,000 for my trouble. With some of that money I buy an immaculate all-white 1977 Eldorado Biarritz Caddy with gold trim, white-leather interior, and hydraulics, letting me lift it or drop it at will. It’s the perfect ride for the club scene. Thanks, Ice!
Ice invites us up to his place in the Hollywood Hills. From the balcony he points and says, “Madonna lives down there.” He’s a cool and smart businessman, especially considering where he’s from: the streets and the L.A. gang scene. I admire him and what he’s done, but I’m thinking that one day I’m gonna move up here and I’ll be telling someone else what he told me. For now, though, I’m content living right where I do. Echo Park is beyond halfway there.
You don’t usually think of stoners as being career-driven, but I sure am, and it’s paying off. Everything I put my hand to works out, and I continue to break new ground in skating, business, and the publicity I get for it all. I never save any money, though, because it flows like water and I don’t anticipate a drought anytime soon.
There are no more than fifty pro skateboarders in the world, and only a few of them seek to make an actual living at it. And yet at a time when the average NBA player is taking down maybe $300,000 a year, my estimated annual income stands at nearly $350,000. I appreciate the success, but to me money is nothing more than fuel to keep the party raging.
Even with all the distractions at the business end of things, skateboarding is still the most important thing in my life. Most skateboarders are specialists, good at either vert or street. Having grown up at Marina Skatepark and on the Venice boardwalk, I’ve learned from the best in both, and I win or place in every street or vert event I enter.
I’m on a roll all the way to Japan, where my name is huge. People tend to be much more reserved in that country than they are in California, and their style is basically the polar opposite of Brazilians’. But I really love Japan and the Japanese people. In addition, I enjoy helping break down the cultural barriers between us. From the first I’ve been received there like a full-blown celebrity, and I feel totally at home.
ABOUT TO GO UNDERGROUND. HOSOI FAMILY COLLECTION.
JAPAN. BLOCK, SERGIE, POPS, AND ME.
WITH MISTER KAZAKI, THE SANTA CRUZ SKATEBOARDS DISTRIBUTOR IN JAPAN. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
It’s 1990 and the Lotte gum company has flown a bunch of us to Japan for a big skate contest. Jay Adams, David Hackett, Dave Duncan, and Mofo are the judges. In all we travel there with an entourage of about thirty-five skateboarders. We’re all on the same plane, partying hard. As I move up and down the aisle with my ghetto blaster at full volume, I see guys chopping lines of coke on the armrests. When we drink our section of the plane dry, one of our friends demands that the flight attendants hit up first class for their alcohol. She refuses, telling us to keep quiet and try to get some sleep. No chance that’s gonna happen. Craig Johnson yells right in her face at the top of his lungs, “Bring me more beer now!” She bursts into tears and runs away, but she returns with a bunch of beers to keep him quiet. It’s a full party in the air, lasting for hours, until everybody else is sick of us.
As we’re landing, Jay plays an Andrew Dice Clay cassette at top volume. He cues up the tape where the comedian says, “What do you use to blindfold a Japanese man?” Answer: “Dental floss.” We’re laughing hysterically as our fellow passengers, many of them Japanese people heading home, look on in disbelief. I can tell they’re really irritated with us, but true to their polite and reserved style, they don’t say anything. When we get off the plane, the cops are there to meet us. They don’t detain or arrest anybody, but they escort us to the personal bus that they have waiting for us.
First prize in the Lotte event is $7,500 for vert and $7,500 for street. All expenses are paid for everyone, and even the judges make out, each earning $5,000 for the week. We’re treated to the best of everything. While the kids all go crazy for us, their parents don’t know what has hit them. (I’m bummed now, in retrospect, that we were so rude and served as such bad examples, but we never thought of that then; it was all about us. Pedal down, join us, or get out of the way.)
Jay is on the judges’ stand, but he looks bad; something is clearly wrong. I find out later that he took a full bottle of NoDoz the night before. Suddenly he freaks out, thinking he’s having a heart attack, and he gets rushed to the hospital. Turns out instead to be a full-blown anxiety attack.
I take out both the street and the ramp events, get a huge trophy, and return home with the equivalent of $15,000, the biggest cash prize in skateboarding history to that point. The money is paid in Japanese yen, which translates to a lot of paper. I shove it into every article of clothing, in my luggage and carry-on, to transport it out of the country. We celebrate in Japan and all the way home, on the plane. When Pops picks us up at the airport, we carry the celebration on in the car. I’m laughing and shouting as he drives, throwing handfuls of money into the air as if it were confetti. I have so much cash coming in that this seems like Monopoly money. I never contemplate not being able to get more. I’m so cavalier about cash that I carelessly stash a big wad of yen behind the TV at my house, and I forget about it until I find it by accident about a year later.
LIEN JUDO AIR. APRADO SKATEPARK ON THE BEACH IN RIO DE JANEIRO. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
AIR OVER A RAMP IN ITALY. © MORIZEN FOCHE COURTESY OF THRASHER MAGAZINE.
CH-CH-CH-CHANGES
According to the skate media, vert is basically dead. To some this is a slap in the face they will never recover from. As much as I hate admitting it, vert really is over, at least competitively. But I’m not stuck in any one gear; I’ll need to adapt (or die with it), expanding my already strong street-skating roots. According to Stacy Peralta, “When skateboarding changed, Christian was right there to change with it.”
Not all vert specialists cope with this very well. Just as they did when the parks closed down, some skaters quit skating, and others seem to quit on life altogether. Some of my friends who have dabbled in alcohol or hard drugs before now retreat deeply into them. For many it’s a one-way trip.
Many of my early skate heroes abandon the scene completely, and I hear rumors that TA isn’t skating much and is getting out of control. I realize that’s possible, but I know not to believe everything I hear. Everyone in the skate world talks about TA the way people in the music world talk about Bob Marley. Something’s up with TA, but I’m not sure what. Maybe a girl, maybe a drug. Actually, the way we’re all living, it could be just about anything.
It doesn’t take long for
Jay to completely drop out of the skate scene. Like TA, Jay still rips, but he doesn’t like how commercialism has puffed up so many egos. He no longer wants the identity of Jay Adams, professional skateboarder, opting instead for Jay Adams, guy who surfs and skates for fun.
Jay is fully locked into his punk-rock thing and plugs right into the rage, chaos, and pandemonium which that scene often inspires. “For me to have a good night,” he says, “someone else is gonna have a really bad night.” A good example: Jay and Polar Bear attend a Suicidal Tendencies party, where Jay steals a six-foot-long sandwich that he stashes in the trunk of his car. The two of them drive to this place called Oki Dog on Santa Monica Boulevard. Once at Oki Dog, they spread the sandwich out on the table and invite everyone to join in eating it. Of course, that’s bad for business, and the Oki Dog’s owner tells them to leave. Jay nearly starts a fight with the owner, but he and Polar Bear eventually do split. Out on the street again, they’re pumped full of adrenaline and rage. When they see two guys walking arm in arm toward them, Jay shouts something derogatory. One guy responds with a heartfelt “F--k you!” Jay returns the words, and it’s on.
Jay’s taking off his shirt to fight when the guy runs over, socks him, and knocks him down. Polar Bear swings immediately and knocks the guy out. Jay struggles up and charges at the other guy, knocking him over a row of newspaper machines. When the guy that Jay knocked down finally gets partway up, Jay runs over and kicks him in the face. Both guys are unconscious when Jay and Polar Bear split.
After they leave, five or six guys who’d been watching come up and one of them finishes the job, kicking the guy to death with a steel-toe boot. Jay and Polar Bear are arrested for their role, and Jay ends up doing four months in jail for manslaughter. The guys who actually committed the murder go free after falsely testifying against Jay and Polar Bear. That’s the way Jay tells it, and I have no reason not to believe him.
Life continues down a dark path for Jay when his brother is killed and his mother dies, both within a few months’ time. According to Jay, “I was so angry I wanted to shoot everybody; instead, I shot myself,” meaning that he put needles into his arms. Soon he’ll face other charges and other problems, all stemming from his being strung out on heroin.
I can’t imagine that even worse news is coming, but there it is, announced on TV. It’s February 1991, and Louanna and I—still together at that point—are spending a rare quiet night at home, cuddled together watching A Current Affair or some other TV news show. We’re shocked by a big story about pro skater Mark “Gator” Rogowski, who has allegedly killed Jessica Bergsten. What? Jessica is a friend that I introduced to Gator. The whole story is so brutal that we can’t believe it.
We all know and love Gator, and we certainly had no idea he would ever do anything like this. Rusler remembers seeing him shortly before he got arrested. According to him, “Gator was unique and funny and we all got along,” he says, thinking of the old days. “Then one day we saw him at a tradeshow, carrying a Bible. We called to him, and he ignored us like the plague. Christian and I didn’t say anything; we just looked at each other and wondered what was up. We had no idea of the complexity of his problem, but we knew that something weird was going on.”
Not long after Gator’s arrest for murder, he calls me from jail to say that Jessica accidentally suffocated. I was short with him: “Gator, Jessica’s dead; you have to tell me the truth.” He repeats that it was an accident and then says he hasn’t been to court yet and that his calls are being recorded.
That’s the last time I speak to Gator, but he sent me a letter recently apologizing for not being truthful with me at the time. He’s now serving thirty-five years to life, and I hear that someone stabbed him in the throat, as prison justice for what he’d done. Now I realize that he was crying out for something back then. I only wish I’d had some words of wisdom to offer him at the time.
VENICE BEACH PAVILION. QUARTER PIPE TO WALL. HOSOI FAMILY COLLECTION.
“Ever since its birth in the 1960s, skateboarding has risen and fallen in popularity. Many companies start up in the good times, make money for a while, and fold in the next downturn. Since styles in skating evolve so quickly, it’s a tough business; very few companies survive for more than a decade.”
In the early ’90s the entire skate industry hits one of those walls and chases the rest of the economy into the black hole of recession. Nearly everybody in the industry gets smacked down. Prior to 1992 I’ve made hundreds of thousands of dollars each year just for skating. I’d make $1,000 an hour for a skate demo, for example. That’s more than my attorneys squeeze from me. It seems as if there’s no end in sight to the empire I’m building. Then the hangman pulls the lever and the floor falls out. It’s not fatal for me, but it about kills the skateboarding market and I’m left standing alone.
I’m forced to put Hosoi Skateboards on hold, which is okay, but now one of my major sources of income—the sponsorship with Santa Cruz Skateboards—is being cut. They’ve gone up to paying me $8,000 a month by this time, but with the economy in the tank, they’re gonna cut me back to $1,500. Only $1,500? I’m insulted. That’s what I made when I was fourteen. I spend more than that on weed! I’m so pissed that now my main motivation in competition is to demolish every Santa Cruz rider. They’re all my friends, but I can’t wait to smoke every one of those dudes when we face off at an event. Nothing personal, mind you. One by one I take ’em all down, and it feels good. But I can’t savor the victory because my other big sponsor, Jimmy’z, has just been sold to Ocean Pacific. Without Ganzer’s creativity and leadership, the company fades until it’s nothing but a memory. That’s about it for my income. Now what?
CORPORATE TO CORE
Brad Dorfman is the owner of a skate-clothing company called Vision Street Wear. Vision is coming on strong, thanks to Dorfman being a smart businessman, so I call him to set up a meeting. At the meeting, I tell him straight out that his clothing brand sucks.
“You mean my stuff’s not cool?” he asked, startled by my response. “Not cool with my crew,” I reply, knowing that he knows that my crew are the tastemakers in the skate industry. If they don’t like it, nobody’s gonna get near it.
Brad and I settle down to talk things out, and I convince him of the value of sponsoring me. I agree to endorse Vision’s line and have them do board production in exchange for $60,000 the first year. Things go well until Dorfman begins focusing on the burgeoning snowboard industry. Orders for my skateboards pour in to Vision, but the wood needed for them is tied up by the snowboarding department. My boards simply aren’t getting made.
When Vision doesn’t work out, I’m left with nothing except what trickles in from demos and contests. Now I’m making even less than I did at fourteen. A lot less. Basically a few dollars more than nothing.
Even at my peak, the expenses from my high-rolling lifestyle nearly equal my income. I need tons of cash to keep the machine burning clean. I somehow continue hanging on to the W. C. Fields house and Louanna. That relationship, once fueled by nothing but fun, is now strained by the realities of life. We begin arguing all the time, and the tension snaps the cord that kept us together. Soon it’s over and Louanna moves out, this time for good.
No sooner is Louanna gone than some of my hard-core skater buddies move in. Ray Bones, Peter Bill, and Robert Rusler are now there full-time. Eddie Reategui already has a room there, and Pops has been there since the beginning, living downstairs. True to form, we continue to rage while our world crumbles, spending down to the last penny. There’s nothing and nobody to hold us back.
The best nightlife in the world is happening either in my bedroom or up the street on the Strip, even though I can no longer afford any of this. Oh well—since the match is lit, might as well burn it all to the ground.
RAY “BONES” RODRIGUEZ, ME, AND CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
Eric “Lil Man” Garber is a regular guest at the house; he hangs out and skates there a lot. The
driveway’s made of brick and stones. It’s super steep and slippery. I’m out of town when trouble happens, but I’m told by those on hand that this is how it went down: Lil Man has parked the new Mustang 5.0 that his dad gave him at the top of the driveway. Some say he forgot to set the parking brake; others say someone—I won’t say who—loosens the parking brake and pops it out of gear. Anyway, the car rolls down the driveway, picks up speed, hits a rock ledge that acts like a jump ramp, and gets launched high into the air before landing on the roof of one of the bungalows below. Apparently the car stands up on end for a moment before it comes crashing down: boom! It’s on the news that night, talking about how they have to remove the vehicle with a giant crane. If you need a better visual, think Blues Brothers meets Animal House on steroids and weed with skateboards blasting through the air, along with the best friends and the hottest girls.
Besides skating, getting high, and hustling chicks, we love playing pool. We play for hours on end, days on end. Oster and Rusler are my main pool partners, and we basically own every table we ever hit. Here’s what Rusler has to say about our pool-playing days:
IF YOU SAW CHRISTIAN’S DOCUMENTARY RISING SON, YOU KNOW THERE’S A PART IN THERE WHERE I SAY, “BRUCE LEE’S A LEGEND; CHRISTIAN HOSOI’S A LEGEND—GUYS LIKE SCOTT BAIO? I’M SORRY, BUT CHARLES IN CHARGE ISN’T A LEGEND.” I SAID THAT BECAUSE OF ONE PARTICULAR NIGHT WHEN WE WENT OUT TO PLAY POOL. IT STARTED AFTER WE ROLLED INTO HOLLYWOOD BILLIARDS TO FIND A GAME. ONE NIGHT THERE’S SCOTT BAIO WITH THIS GUY JUSTIN MURDOCK. THEY’VE BEATEN EVERYBODY IN THE PLACE, SO THEY THINK THEY’RE PRETTY HOT.
Hosoi Page 12