When Sergie finally finds me, he realizes that all the stories he’s heard about me being emaciated and out of my mind are untrue. (He told me recently that he’d heard that someone saw me under the Huntington pier with a toy gun at six o’clock one morning, talking to myself and apparently out of my head. That never happened.) He can see that I’m not my old self, but I’m nowhere near as bad as he’d heard. He hints at the idea that I should get clean, and we talk for a while. To get him off my case I lead him to believe I’m on the road to recovery, which I’m definitely not.
Other close friends like Scott Oster also locate me and try talking sense into me. To Scott I look faded and gray, not the same guy I was when he saw me last. As well-intentioned as he is, his words of encouragement don’t penetrate. He and my other friends mean well, though—and God bless them for trying.
Block is more direct:
I HAD GIVEN [CHRISTIAN] SOME MONEY FOR A LAWYER AND HE DIDN’T SHOW UP FOR COURT; AND OF COURSE HE HAD NO PLANS OF PAYING ME BACK. I WAS SO MAD THAT I LEFT A RECORDING ON MY PHONE MACHINE: “ANYBODY CALLING, LEAVE YOUR NAME AND NUMBER. IF THIS IS CHRISTIAN HOSOI, F--K YOU; YOU’RE GOING TO PRISON.” I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE SLAPPED HIM IF I SAW HIM. AROUND HERE, YOU DO WHATEVER’S NECESSARY TO GET YOUR FRIENDS TO LISTEN. ONCE THAT’S OVER, YOU GIVE THEM A HUG. WE WERE A LONG WAYS FROM THE HUG. WHEN EDDIE OR DUNCAN CALLED TO SAY THAT CHRISTIAN WAS IN PRISON, I SAID, “I DON’T GIVE A S--T. THAT’S WHERE HE NEEDS TO BE.”
Where others see me as a drug addict throwing my life away, in my mind I’m an artistic rebel on the run from the law. This is something new for me, and kind of a fun rush at first. I’m afraid to drive around in my car for fear I’ll get picked up, so I skate around town, sometimes carrying a dartboard, looking for a place to find a game of darts and hunker down with a little meth. I sometimes carry a file with me and use it to carve notches on my skateboard. Years earlier I had invented the Hammerhead by altering the traditional deck of a skateboard. That was a huge success, so I figure maybe I can do something radical in board design again. Of course, most people just think I’m whacked out and neurotically filing away on my skateboard. That’s how rumors begin, right?
I’m always on the go, driving here and there (as long as it’s out of our local police jurisdiction). Occasionally I’ll hustle enough cash to fly between California, Hawaii, and Japan, where my name still carries considerable weight. Like many other places, Hawaii has fallen to the crystal meth epidemic. There’s lots of “ice” in Hawaii, so I’m more at home there than ever.
IDENTITY CRISIS
Meanwhile, Eddie and Duncan are still trying to hang on to Focus Skateboards. They get a booth at the San Diego Action Sports Retailer Trade Expo. I love the party atmosphere at that annual tradeshow, so I fly in from Hawaii and drop straight into the show. What I didn’t know but soon discover is that two bail bondsmen, twin brothers (with identical moustaches), are there searching for me. The picture they have of me is an old one, though, with long hair, necklaces, and earrings. I show up with short hair and a clean-cut look—a recent effort to convince the world, and myself, that I’m not an addict—so they don’t recognize me. Focus is taking its last gasp and could certainly use my help, but I stay clear of our booth so I won’t get busted.
A rising young skater named Choppy who’s being called the new Christian Hosoi is apparently hanging out at our booth. The bail bondsmen roll up and say, “We’ve got some free passes for Christian Hosoi.” Choppy says, “Yeah, that’s me.” They handcuff him and say, “Okay, Christian—you’re busted.”
Choppy tries to set things straight, saying, “No, I’m not Hosoi; I’m Choppy Omega. There’s been a mistake here. Look—that’s me on the cover of that Thrasher magazine over there.” From what I hear he was crying. They were making it pretty rough on him, I guess, since they really had it in for me. They say drug use is a victimless crime. Try telling Choppy that. Later Choppy says that was the only time in his life he didn’t want to be me. (It would get worse, of course. But if he knew how my guts were churning all the time and how frustrated I had become even then, he wouldn’t have wanted to be me at all.)
There’s a ramp set up at the show, and my partners in Focus want me to skate a demo. I say, “No, they’ll find out I’m here and I’ll get busted.” Duncan’s the announcer of the event, and he claims he won’t call me Christian when I’m on the ramp; he’ll call me Holmes, which is one of my nicknames. I really do want to skate for the crowd. It would be a rush riding right there in front of the guys who are out to capture me. Finally I agree.
As I skate, Duncan’s saying, “Holmes is up, blasting a big method air.” It’s fun hiding in plain sight, and the bail bondsmen pay no attention to some skater named Holmes on the ramp. Unfortunately, when I finish skating the demo some kid gushes, “Dude, did you see Christian? He ripped that ramp.” One of the bail bondsmen overhears him and says, “What, Christian Hosoi’s here? Where?”
I get wind that they’re on to me, so I head for the door. An old friend of mine, wanting to talk, catches my arm as I move past. He doesn’t realize what’s up—I haven’t seen him in a long time, so he probably isn’t aware of my troubles—and he obviously wants to hang out. I feel bad about it, but I throw him off and jog for the exit.
Just as I hit the sidewalk, luck comes to my aid: there’s my friend Big Daddy Larry, driving by in a cab. I signal him to pull over, and I climb in the cab. When I explain my situation to Larry, he offers a suggestion. He says he’s leaving town but still has a few days left on his room, and I’m welcome to use it. Slipping me his room key, he drops me off at the hotel. I stay there a few days, enjoying the adventure of hiding out, before moving on. I’ve always lived on high doses of adrenaline, and being on the run and dodging cops all the time supplies its share of that natural drug.
NOSE GRIND TAIL GRAB ON A HANDRAIL. LOS ANGELES, CA. © CESARIO “BLOCK” MONTANO.
FRONTSIDE TAIL GRAB. BACKYARD POOL. © GRANT BRITTAIN.
“I’d probably be a millionaire right now if I had skated in the first Extreme Games (an extravaganza that would become the X Games). Then again, I would have had to be clean and in shape to have a shot at gold, and I was neither.”
When the first X Games is launched in Rhode Island in 1995, skateboard competition finally hits the world stage. With his stellar showing, including first place in vert, Tony Hawk becomes the first skater to be a household name and a truly major sports figure. I hear that someone in the sports world is calling him the Michael Jordan of skateboarding. They’re not calling me at all—but hey, Tony deserves the title.
The media needs someone to challenge Tony. Guys like Chris Miller, Lance, Cab, and me are capable of beating him on their best days, but I’m in no condition to challenge Tony. Besides, I’m thousands of miles away from the event. I’m living in Japan, where I’m skating a little and partying a lot. I celebrate the news of his victory by lifting my pipe and taking a hit.
FROM HIGH AIR TO THIN AIR
A few months earlier I flew to Japan to do a demo with skate stars Omar Hassan, Tony Hawk, Wade Speyer, and some other guys. We skate various demos and I show up for the last few minutes each time, when I have to. Unlike the days when I deliberately made everyone wait and it got fans stoked, now I’m just being slack, and I can tell that people are getting irritated with me. When it comes time to return home to L.A., I tell Tony and Omar that I’m gonna stay. Not only am I trying to dodge incarceration with this decision, but the entire X Games concept seems lame to me at the time. I figure it’s just another corporate method of making money off something that’s traditionally been soulful and underground.
Here’s what Tony Hawk has to say about those days:
IN 1995 CHRISTIAN, OMAR HASSAN, AND I, ALONG WITH SOME OTHER PRO SKATERS, GOT INVITED TO JAPAN. OMAR HAD MENTIONED TO ME THAT CHRISTIAN WAS IN BAD SHAPE, BUT I WAS EXCITED TO SEE HIM AGAIN. I DIDN’T KNOW IT THEN, BUT THIS WOULD BE THE LAST TIME I WOULD SEE CHRISTIAN FOR NEARLY A DECADE.
ES
PN CAME TO JAPAN TO INTERVIEW ME AND CHRISTIAN FOR WHAT WERE THEN CALLED THE EXTREME GAMES. THE GUYS FROM ESPN WERE ACTING LIKE THE X GAMES WERE SAVING SKATING, AND IN A WAY I THOUGHT THEY WERE RIGHT. WE WERE STILL SKATING AND DOING WHAT WE’D ALWAYS DONE, BUT NOBODY FROM OUTSIDE OUR LITTLE CIRCLE REALLY CARED.
I NEVER SAW CHRISTIAN SLEEP ON THAT TRIP IN JAPAN. I KNEW SOMETHING WAS UP BUT DIDN’T KNOW WHAT, SPECIFICALLY. THERE WASN’T MUCH HAPPENING IN SKATING, AND NOW WE WERE GETTING PAID LIKE $300 A MONTH FROM THIS COMPANY IN JAPAN, AND THEY EXPECTED US TO SHOW UP ON TIME AND SKATE. I WAS LIKE, “YEAH, SIGN ME UP.” THAT’S WHAT WE HAD TO DO TO MAKE A LIVING AT THE TIME, AND IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.
WE HAD DONE OUR DEMOS AND THIS GUY ASKED US TO STAY AND DO MORE SHOWS. THEY SAID THEY’D PAY US MORE. OMAR AND I SAID, “SORRY, WE CAN’T; WE’RE GOING TO THE EXTREME GAMES; WE HAVE TO GO TO THAT.” WE KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST THING WE’D EVER SEEN. I REMEMBER CHRISTIAN SAYING, “I’M HERE; WHATEVER YOU NEED.” CHRISTIAN WAS SLATED AS ONE OF THE MAIN GUYS TO WATCH AT THE X GAMES. TO ME, IT WAS CRAZY, HIS STAYING IN JAPAN. OMAR LATER TOLD ME THAT HE THOUGHT CHRISTIAN WAS “TWEAKING.”
OMAR AND I WERE TALKING AFTER THE X GAMES, SAYING, “CHRISTIAN WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS—HE’D HAVE BEEN THE MAN HERE.” IT WAS SAD FOR SKATING, CUZ THERE WASN’T A LOT OF PERSONALITY SHINING THROUGH AT THAT TIME, AND CHRISTIAN COULD HAVE OFFERED THAT AND MORE. I DIDN’T SEE HIM AGAIN UNTIL THE X GAMES IN 2004.
Grant Brittain, who was TransWorld Skateboarding’s photo editor at the time, recalls it this way:
THE FIRST X GAMES WAS NOTHING LIKE ANYTHING WE’D EVER SEEN IN SKATEBOARDING BEFORE. THEY DIDN’T EVEN WANT THE SKATERS TO WEAR THEIR SPONSORS’ LOGOS, EVEN THOUGH THAT’S HOW ALL THE SKATERS MADE THEIR LIVING. THERE WERE THESE BIG-SCREEN TVS, AND THE ORGANIZERS KEPT PLAYING TONY’S AND CHRISTIAN’S INTERVIEWS ON THEM. THEY WERE THE ONLY TWO GUYS FEATURED ON THE SCREEN, AND EVERYBODY NATURALLY THOUGHT CHRISTIAN WAS COMING. THERE WERE ALL THESE RUMORS THAT HE WAS HIDING OUT IN HAWAII, BUT HE NEVER DID SHOW UP. I KEPT HEARING HIS VOICE, AND I’D LOOK UP AT THE SCREEN AND DISCOVER THAT IT WAS OLDER VIDEO CLIPS OF HIM TALKING.
Since there’s now a bench warrant out for my arrest, I’ve gotta keep air travel to a minimum. After I’m told I have to leave the hotel in Japan, I stay at the house of a rich kid I met through the skating community. He skates and does ice, so we have a lot in common. He even has a ramp in his garage!
Meth is a heavy-duty epidemic in Japan; lots of people out there do it. Living in Japan is expensive, even without the drug costs, but my friend is funding it all. We’re having a great time: every night, all night, we skate and party—different girls all the time. It’s almost like we’re re-creating the scene I had going in Orange County.
One thing that’s different about Japan is that major businesspeople smoke meth somewhat openly there. I visit big publishing houses, for example, and suit-and-tie businessmen pull out crazy-looking glass pipes with water in them and smoke meth with me.
My problem with the X Games is similar to the one I have with our current company, Focus. These people want me to conform so that they can market me as something I’m not. I can’t see it, but by then it hardly matters; I’m not marketable to anyone but other speed freaks, and they don’t have a lot of expendable income. Who’s gonna pay a drug addict (even one who functions reasonably well) to do anything other than act or play rock ’n’ roll? Fans who had seen me skate against Hawk in the past might have missed seeing me at the X Games, but the general public is basically unaware of my existence. As big as I think I am, the show goes on without me. I’m yesterday’s news.
A few years prior to the X Games, big skate companies had paid ESPN to get our events aired. Now, bigger companies than we’ve ever associated with are paying skateboarders for the right to record and market them. That sounds good, but if they’re paying us, that means they own us, right? We’ve lost control of the direction of skateboarding.
To be fair, the X Games eventually develops into an awesome event and becomes something healthy for skateboarding. At the time, however, I think I’m above it all. I’m not, of course; I’ve become nothing more than a partying fool, hanging on to a thread of pride while believing I’m nobody’s puppet. It’s great making your own choices and being free, but that doesn’t describe me—not anymore. I’m being held by a set of strings more powerful than any corporation could dangle me from. And these strings are strangling me and everything I’ve worked so hard to build. Meth is ruining it all—my company, my cash, my friends, my family, and my health.
On the rare occasions when I do enter some obscure contest, I no longer threaten the top spot but am lucky to get eighth place after guys I could have destroyed any day of the week, if I were in good skating shape. Though I don’t look like those before-and-after pictures you see of withered meth skeletons with no teeth and with scabs all over their faces, I can feel something eating at me, down in my soul. I showed more sense than this at seventeen when I quit coke after realizing it was taking me down. What helped me quit coke was the fire within, motivating me to be a winner. That’s no more than an ember now.
Without that fire, I don’t have a hope of skating clean or skating well. I’m falling behind quickly. Skateboarding is changing again, and the new tricks are becoming increasingly difficult. Of course the companies all want to hire the new pros to promote their stuff. I have no illusions about trying to dominate the new crew of seventeen-year-old kids doing back flips on vert ramps, and I’m sure not gonna risk breaking my neck doing 720s against some freckle-faced kid half my age. I’m not jumping through hoops for anybody.
FATHERHOOD
Let’s back up a little. While I’m living in Huntington Beach I get to know a woman named Kim Baird. We see a lot of each other, and I stay with her off and on during my at-large days. She gets pregnant in 1997.
BIRTH OF RHYTHM. 1997. HOSOI FAMILY COLLECTION.
I continue smoking meth all the way through Kim’s pregnancy, but she quits doing drugs before she even realizes there’s a child growing inside of her. I’m determined to be there for the birth: when my son is born, I’m in the delivery room, telling Kim to breathe and push. At the crucial moment the doctor says to me, “Get over here; you’re going to deliver your baby. You’re going to catch him like a football.” He shows me where to sit and how to hold out my hands. I yell for Kim to push one final time, and she gives it all she’s got. Suddenly…there’s my boy, and I catch him! He’s blue and his head is shaped like a cone. I think, Oh no, something’s terribly wrong, or he’s dead. But it turns out all right.
I’ve never lost my desire to do things differently, so we give our son an original name, Rhythm. He’s lived up to that, being right in sync with the beat of life every minute. We both love him from the moment he emerges, but I’m not ready to settle down in a normal relationship and be there to raise a child. As amazing as my son’s birth is—as amazing as he is—I feel little direct connection with him; in fact, I have no connection whatsoever to anybody.
As soon as we’re all home from the hospital I resume my drug ritual, smoking meth morning, noon, and night. The months go by and Rhythm begins to grow up, but I remain stuck in my childish drug world. I continue doing drugs and take my son with me everywhere, even to the bars and drug houses when I’m out to score.
I often flash on all the fun times I enjoyed as a child with my family. I want Rhythm to experience that too, but I don’t see it happening. It would be nice to be at his side as he moves out into the world—to skate with him at the parks and show him how to ollie and trespass, how to carve ditches and drain pools. I dream of family vacations and Sunday night dinners with Grandma and Grandpa. For the first time I’m aware that my actions have far-reaching consequences. Maybe I really can’t have it all. I’ve chosen one way of life over another, and my choice carries a high price tag. I’m searching for something that will bring me lasting satisfaction; and family life, as great as it is and as much as I want it for Rhythm, just isn’t it
.
How can I have any sort of family life anyway, when I’m surrounded by dealers and drug addicts? When I’m not staying at Kim’s apartment or with a friend, I’m out on the street skating around with the homies looking for some dope. Kim’s place provides a pretty cool home when I need it or want to get away—my own little meth/love den in her garage. I have a sleeping bag back there, along with all my clothes and a few skateboards.
I’m cool with sticking around for a while, but Kim and I are always fighting. I’m committed to her in my own uncommitted way. She repeatedly accuses me of going out on her, and I use that accusation as the excuse to do whatever I want—which is to do drugs and find chicks to do drugs with. I need to get away from Kim, and initially that’s easy. I hang out in the garage where I can blow glass pipes from propane torches to get high and play darts with the guys. After one particularly brutal argument with her, I roll back to the streets for an extended time, moving from house to house, party to party, high to higher. Still, the door isn’t completely closed at Kim’s, and I keep relations open with her so that I can see her and my son.
At this point I figure that I’ll do drugs for the rest of my life. I’ll eventually quit meth, I tell myself, but there’s no question I’ll smoke weed, which I’ve never really considered a drug anyway. I have a vague long-range plan of being an artist and following in the footsteps of my father, passing on my thoughts and ways to my son. There’s no doubt that he and I will get high together and party together, and that he’ll inherit the ashes of the world I’ve burned down.
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