Annoying Rodney Mullen in 1986

In the last post, I told about meeting Rodney in August of 1986, and shared the short interview I did with him, along with a ton of links.  Here's a bit more.

In those days right after meeting Rodney, Lew spent his spare time at work trying to figure out some trick that Rodney wouldn't be able to do.  Then Lew and I would head down to The Spot in Redondo for our nightly sessions.  After we'd been riding for an hour or two, Rodney would roll up on this black, rickety beach cruiser he called Agnes.  He'd tape his fingers and get ready to skate.  Then he'd get to practicing.

Up until that time, every BMX freestyler or skater I'd met went out and sessioned.  We'd ride around, try some old tricks.  Go get something to drink.  Hang out for a while and heckle our friends, and then maybe try some new trick for a bit.  Rodney PRACTICED.  He would warm-up and then skate non-stop in a little area for 2 1/2 or 3 hours.  In that time, he MIGHT step off his board two or three times back then.  The word "perfectionist" doesn't even begin to describe it.  It was like watching an Olympic athlete training on a skateboard.

After Lew and I were tired out.  We'd roll over and watch Rodney for a bit.  Then Lew would challenge Rodney with his impossible trick idea of the day.  The only one I remember was when he asked Rodney to pop an ollie and then land in a one wheel wheelie.  Rodney immediately replied, "I don't have the balance for wheelies."  Really.  Then he tried the trick.  He was a freestyle skater, and they rode their trucks so tight that there was almost no movement.  On the second try, Rodney landed on one back wheel and set it down pretty quick.  On the third attempt, Rodney snapped an ollie, landed directly on one back wheel, and then rolled a good fifteen feet before setting the other wheels down. After five or six days of thinking up "impossible" skate tricks, and watching Rodney land every one in a few tries, Lew gave up.

He would usually talk to Rodney a minute or two when done riding, and then head home.  I started hanging out longer watching Rodney, and we'd wind up talking for a bit.  One of the first nights, Rodney let me try his board.  I rolled about four feet then fell off because the trucks were so tight.  He laughed.  A couple nights later, Rodney showed me how to do the original kickflips.  Before he did ollie kickflips, he did them as a pressure flip.  He'd start with both feet pointing forward on the board, and then press down to one side.  The board would flip sideways and he'd land on it in a normal stance.  With his help, I landed a couple that first night on his board.

One night I finished my session, and headed up to the pier to get a Coke.  Riding back down the bike path, towards where Rodney was skating, I heard another skater rolling through the parking garage on my right.  The sounds got closer until some dark haired kid on a street board ollied the curb high, four foot wide concrete island between the parking garage and the bike path.  "That must be that Gonz guy," I thought to myself, as he skated up the bike path towards Rodney.  It was.  I had heard Lew and Andy Jenkins talk about Mark Gonzales, THE street skater then in 1986, although Tommy Guerrero was a close second.  Mark rolled up to Rodney, and they started talking.  I decided to sit on one of the concrete benches and hang out as the two of them talked.  They start comparing tricks, and at one point, Rodney started showing Mark how to do ollie impossibles.  Nobody did those on the big street board then.  Mark came pretty close, but never landed one that I saw.  They went on trying different stuff as I chilled with my Coke 50 feet away.  Mark skated off after a while, Rodney went back to his intense practicing, and I headed home.

A few days later, Lew and I were both talking to Rodney, who was staying with older freestyle skater Steve Rocco at the time.  Rodney mentioned that Rocco absolutely HATED BMXers.  Lew replied, "You know, we have a bunch of I heart BMX stickers at work that some guy gave us."  We all decided it would be hilarious to give Rodney a pack of 50 of those and let him stick them all over Rocco's house.  The next day Lew gave Rodney the stickers, and we all brainstormed crazy places to stick them.  Rodney got to work on Operation I Heart BMX the next day.  He plastered all 50 all over Rocco's house, including one right smack in the center of a canvas Rocco was about to paint.  According to Rodney, Rocco went ballistic and searched the house ripping them up.  But he didn't find all of them.  When Rodney headed back to Florida a couple weeks later, there were still BMX stickers he hadn't found.  We all got a good laugh out of that.  What's even more funny is that when Rodney flew back out to stay with Rocco about three months later, Rocco found two stickers in places he never thought to look, and flipped out again.  I <3 BMX, but Steve Rocco doesn't.

In those few weeks hanging out with Rodney, I saw him learn some new tricks.  Fingerflip daffy ollies (later called fingerflip ollie airwalks), half flip underflips, and handstands to inward flips to board.  That's in addition to the double kickflips, helipops (flat ground Caballerial ollie), 720 shove-its, 360 flips, and all the other stuff he was doing then.  He even mentioned that Stacy Peralta, creator of the Bones Brigade, was trying to talk him into doing some street skating.  Rodney said he had no intentions of ever doing that.  And then Mark Ternasky slowly and steadily talked Rodney into it.  then Rodney Mullen completely changed the game in tech street skating.  For years afterward, every time a young street skater told me he wanted to get sponsored, I gave him the same answer.  "Go watch old Rodney Mullen videos, pick three Rodney tricks that no one does, and learn them down a five step."  No one ever actually did it.  But it would still work today.

30 years ago I met this kid name Rodney Mullen...

This clip above is the legendary and innovative skateboarder Rodney Mullen all you skaters know of, the guy who invented most of the elemental tricks street skaters rely on.  But this is the Rodney Mullen my roommate Lew introduced me to in August of 1986 at The Spot in Redondo Beach, California.  The thing about rolling up on some skater or BMXer is that you never know what that kid is going to do in the next 20 or 30 years.

Rodney talked in a kind of a weird, soft voice.  His board was flat and he put lots of wood screws in the ends of his board so it wouldn't delam too quick when doing pogos.  He pulled his socks all the way up to his knees, and tucked them into his knee pads.  Again, that helped on the pogo tricks.  He had already invented the flat ground ollie, the pressure flip style kickflip, the ollie kickflip, the 360 flip, the double kickflip, the ollie impossible (technically a pressure flip) and a bunch of other stuff.  He was the 8 or 9 time world champ of freestyle skateboarding.  He was the undisputed top freestyle skater in the Golden Age of vert skating.

 I started hanging out after I was done riding my bike and watching Rodney skate.  We'd hang out and talk when he was done.  After a while, he started asking me how a new trick looked or if this trick should follow that trick in his next contest routine.  We were both wound pretty tight, and we hit it off.

I was stoked when the crew at FREESTYLIN' said I could do a little interview with him.  At the ripe old age of 19, Rodney was heading back off to college and debating between a future in engineering or medicine.  He was staying nearby in Hermosa Beach at the home of then washed up freestyle skater Steve Rocco.  This was about a year before the whole Santa Monica Airlines/World Industries idea happened. The interview landed on page 56 of the December 1986 issue of FREESTYLIN'  Here it is:

Steve: "First of all, let's get some basic background on you.  Age, how long have you been skating, sponsors, etc."
Rodney: "I'm 19 years old and I've been skating for 9 1/2 years.  I go to school at the University of Florida.  I skate for fun.  Oh, and I'm sponsored by Powell-Peralta, Independent, Sundeck, Swatch, Style Eyes, and... that's it... I think."
Steve: "Speaking of school, what are you majoring in?"
Rodney: I don't know, I've been in engineering.  It's kind of weird... thinking about growing up.  I'm going to check out medical school, 'cause my grades are okay.  Plus my dad says I should try it, 'cause engineers work to hard for their money."
Steve: "I heard you have like a 4.0 average."
Rodney: "Yeah, it's like 3.98 now, I think, 'cause I got a B+ in physics, but it's still okay."
Steve: "Yeah, that's okay (laughter)."
Rodney: "I can't stand humanities, though!  I can get through all the physics and calculus, but..."
Steve: "How long do you plan to keep skating?"
Rodney: "I don't think about it, it's sort of scary.  Just as long as my body will take it.  I'll skate forever, just playing around.  As far as pushing hard goes, I don't know."
Windy (Osborn, the FREESTYLIN' photographer): "How many hours a day do you skate?"
Rodney: "About three."
Windy: "Do you have a special place you skate at?""
Rodney: "At home (in Florida), there's this church where I skate.  It's perfectly lit and it's just heaven."
Windy: "At night, right?"
Rodney: "Yeah."
Steve: "This place (Redondo Pier-The Spot) is pretty good, too."
Rodney: "Yeah, it's nice here."
Steve: "Okay, let's get into some 'Lew type questions.'  What's your favorite smell?"
Rodney: (Laughter) "Uhm... rain.  No, uhm... kittens."
Windy: "You can smell the rain?"
Rodney: "Yeah."
Steve: "Oh, let's see... any other profound thoughts?"
Rodney: "Just try to be an individual when you skate.  Don't look at others, don't think about others... it just brings you down."
Steve: "So do whatever you think?"
Rodney: "It comes out of you... that's how it gets good."
Steve: "Any favorite music, groups, anything like that?"
Rodney: "I'm getting more diverse now, I guess.  Joy Division is my all time favorite.  New Order.  I like Stiff Little Fingers, Marginal Man I like now, and Beethoven and Vivaldi."
Steve: "Pretty wide range."
Rodney: "Yeah, I guess so.  That's about it."
Steve: "My trademark question here:  What is the meaning of life?"
Rodney:  The meaning of life is... kittens playing with yarn."
(Long pause)
( Windy laughs)
Steve: "Okay, thanks. (Click).

This was the first and only interview I did at my short stint at FREESTYLIN'.  I'd done a bunch of interviews for my zine, but never a real magazine.  My interviewing skills left a lot to be desired.  When Rodney said the meaning of life was "kittens playing with yarn," I thought that was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard.  But I never forgot it.  As the years have passed, I've come to think he was right on the mark. 

 Rodney on video:
Rodney in 1980 in San Diego
Rodney and Stacy Peralta in 1980
Rodney skating the banks at Del Mar in 1983
Rodney at Del Mar freestyle contest in 1984
Rodney at Del Mar in 1985 (rare bail)
The Bones Brigade Video Show ( 1984- Powell-Peralta) 8:04, 22:59
Bones Brigade 2: Future Primitive (1985-Powell Peralta) 19:58, 41:05, 41:54
Rodney at Oceanside contest (1986- Unreel Productions) 
Bones 3: The Search for Animal Chin (1987-Powell-Peralta) 41:12, 42:16, 43:57
Bones 4: Public Domain (1988- Powell-Peralta) 21:26- Triple kickflip
Rubbish Heap (1989- World Industries) He's at The Spot in Redondo (BMXers know) at :39, and is dragged kicking and screaming into street skating at the end
Questionable (Plan B- 1992)
Virtual Reality (Plan B- 1993)
Second Hand Smoke (Plan B- 1994) The beginning of this clip was shot at the exact spot where Windy Osborn and I did the photo shoot and interview above for FREESTYLIN'
 Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song (1997- Dwindle Distribution)
Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song Round 2 (1999- Dwindle Distribution) at :37 you can see the photo Rodney got on the issue of  FREESTYLIN' that my interview with him was in.
Opinion (2001-Globe Shoes)
Rodney Mullen vs. Daewon Song Round 3 (2004- Almost)
The Man Who Souled The World (2007- Big Entertainment/Whyte House Productions)4:43, 13:46, 17:30, 20:14, 23:19, 31:02, 34:58, 38:37, 39:35, 40:32, 41:12, 43:51, 44:06, 1:00:20, 1:01:05, 1:02:17, 1:02:53, 1:04:05, 1:07:14, 1:08:10, 1:09:19, 1:15:43, 1:19:17, 1:20:40
United by Fate (2008- Globe Shoes) 4:01
Rodney Mullen 2008 (raw footage) session
Rodney Mullen on Innovation (2012- The Smithsonian's Lemelson Center)
Rodney Mullen sits down with Tony Hawk (2012- RIDE Channel)
Rodney Mullen- From The Ground Up (2013)
Rodney Mullen and Tony Hawk in conversation (2013- Innoskate/Smithsonian's Lemelson Center)
How Context Shapes Content (2013- TEDx USC)
On Getting Up Again (2013- TEDx Orange Coast)
Rodney's Bones 1 video outtakes, narrated much later by Stacy Peralta
Crazy Rodney stories from Bones Brigade documentary
Rodney Mullen- A Beautiful Mind (2014- The Berrics)
Pop An Ollie And Inovate (2015?- TED Talk)
Rodney  (2016-Vogue)

I'm touring the country this year on The White Bear's Let's Make a Scene Tour, spreading ideas that your city's future depends partly on it's art, music, and action sports scenes.  To learn more, or get me to your shop or city, check out my Go Fund Me campaign at the link above. 

Robots ARE stealing our jobs... Here's one idea on how to deal with that

In this well researched, well thought out TEDx Talk in Vienna, super smart guy Federico Pistono explains how we need to create a new kind of society to deal with the fact that robots and automation are taking over millions of our jobs, and will eventually take almost all of them.  He sees the answer in what he calls an "open source, DIY, self-sustaining world" with technology doing all the drudgery work. 

Its a bold and bright idea.  But here's why it won't work.  What we call "civilized society" is really a small number of people using fear, intimidation, corruption, and propaganda to control a huge population.  His concept would only work if an elite few could find a way to control everyone else, because that's what civilization is.  

Here's where I do agree with Federico, we need to find new forms of human work until the inevitable collapse of society happens.  And it always does.  Pretty pessimistic, but that's the reality we're facing in an age of exponentially growing technological advances. 

This is why I'm blogging about building Creative Scenes

About four months ago, October of 2016, a new Cheesecake Factory restaurant opened in Greensboro, North Carolina, ten miles from where I live.  If you check out this news clip from WFMY News 2, you'll hear that over 7500 people applied for 255 restaurant jobs.  That's not a typo, 7,500 people, enough to populate a good-sized small town,  applied for jobs at a SINGLE NEW RESTAURANT.  Greensboro has about 285,000 residents, so that's a big chunk of the population. 

This kind of thing is happening across much of the country.  We have a huge jobs issue in this country, and the main issue is that towns and cities that thrived during the Industrial Age don't know how to create jobs in the new Information (or Digital or Creative) age.  The old rules don't apply any more, and many civic leaders are so busy with day to day issues that they haven't learned this yet. 

Creative Scenes, like art scenes, music scenes, video/filmmaking scenes, action sports scenes, boutique shop scenes, and entrepreneurial scenes are now a significant part of the job creation process.  They create and incubate small businesses, and they also help attract the clusters of tech workers that major tech firms look for when opening a new facility.  This is a HUGE issue and not many people are really working on it at the grassroots level.  So now I am.  Stay tuned for more on this subject.

Scenes These Days: Bike Life

I ran across this clip over the weekend while looking up what all my former roommates from the P.O.W. BMX House in the early 90's have done.  Todd Lyons, who is now brand manager for SE Bikes, narrates this clip about a ride out in Philadelphia last year.  I'm in a tiny Southern town these days, and largely out of touch with big city happenings.  So when I saw this, it amazed me how big the scene is, and how guys doing wheelies on cruiser sized bikes has become an urban movement. 

From my years in and around the BMX world, I know how a little scene can grow into something much bigger, even an entire industry, as the years go by.  I don't know where the Bike Life movement will go, but as an old school BMX rider and former industry guy, I know the vibe of having a bunch of guys (and gals) getting together and having fun riding. 

Props to Third Eye Productions for putting this clip together, and to Todd and SE Bikes for giving some props and support to a new kind of bike scene emerging.  Also, props to the police in Philly for taking a positive approach to the scene.  There's so much negativity these days, it's great to see good vibes on bikes happening in a new way.

How four broke BMXers accidentally turned into a highly influential bike scene

In 1989, at the main bicycle trade show early in the year, a mantra was being said over and over, "BMX is, mountain bikes are the future."  Yes, the mountain bike industry took off.  But BMX racing and BMX freestyle weren't dead, they just had most of the bike industry money siphoned off and put into mountain bikes. Dozens of pro riders in both racing and freestyle suddenly lost sponsors and their income.  But us hardcore riders kept riding. 

Four pro BMX racers rented a two bedroom apartment in Huntington Beach, California, shared bedrooms, and cut living expenses to a bare minimum in order to keep riding and racing.  Those guys, Chris Moeller, Dave Clymer, John Paul Rogers and (I think) Alan Foster, discovered a way to live cheap and keep riding every day as the U.S. slid into one of the longest recessions ever. 

Before long, other riders liked the "BMX House" idea, and those four and a few others rented a four bedroom, two bathroom house on Iroquois street in Westminster, California.  Westminster is the city just inland of Huntington Beach, and is quite a bit cheaper to live in.  For the next four or five years, a series of BMX riders and industry people lived cheap in that house.  The riders named themselves the Pros Of Westminster or P.O.W.'s for short.  They meant no disrespect to the true military P.O.W.'s, but the name fit and it stuck.  In those few short years, the P.O.W. House scene changed BMX riding forever.  The scruffy bunch of guys became known as some of the best dirt jumpers in the world, and some top racers as well as street riders.   I know, I was one of the guys who lived in that house. 

But before I needed a cheap place to live, I was the first video producer to shoot video of the P.O.W. House and riders in their backyard in 1990.  That is the clip above, from my 1990 self-produced video, The Ultimate Weekend.   None of us had any idea just how big of an influence that crazy house would have in the bike world.  We just wanted to live cheap, ride a lot, and try to pick up women. 

The other day I scoured the You Tube for clips of the guys who lived in that house, and here's the blog post that led to.  Even I was amazed by how much stuff I found.  And even though I've written well over 1500 blog posts about those early BMX days, this post is my most popular ever, getting over 800 page views in less than 48 hours.

This blog is about building, nurturing, and growing creative scenes, and the P.O.W. House legacy is a prime example of how a few people pushing each other to progress can turn into much more in later years.  

It's official... Donald Trump has been named a threat to the global economy

Here's the link to the article.  Only took him 20 days.  That has to be some kind of record.  OK, enjoy your weekend...

Big Island Mike Castillo and Tattoos in BMX

Here's "Big Island" Mike Castillo wearing what I think is one of his Where? Wear T-shirts at 2-Hip contest in Arizona in '92 or '93.  Mike was one of the few BMXers who flew over from Hawaii in the early 90's and wound up in Huntington Beach for a while when S&M Bikes was still a pretty tiny company.  I'm not sure who dubbed him "Big Island," but it was probably Chris Moeller, who's known for throwing out nicknames that stick.  Mike's actually from Oahu, which is one of the medium sized islands, but "Medium Island" doesn't have much of a ring to it.  He's in the S&M Bikes video 44 Something, shooting video of Keith Treanor (3:01) at the commercial shoot and riding the mini ramp (17:38) in Arizona.  He wandered east at some point, and worked for Hoffman Bikes for a while. 

In 1995, when S&M Bikes owner Chris Moeller bought a condo, and I was renting a room there, Mike rented a room for a while, and we sessioned on our bikes regularly.  He was a pretty mellow guy then.  That time period, the early 90's, was when some BMX guys started getting tattoos, usually really bad ones.  It's hard to imagine now, but when we were kids, tattoos were almost always pretty simple line drawings in dark green ink, and most often found as a single tat on the forearm or shoulder of a military veteran, or on bikers.  The old school, hardcore Harley bikers, before the Yuppies started buying Harley's.  Most tattoos came with stories of drunken nights in Singapore or something while on leave in the military.  Upstanding citizens didn't get tattoos in the 1970's and 80's.
Then something started to change in the 80's.  Musicians, like Brian Setzer, and a few others showed up in music videos with visible tattoos.  Skateboarders Art and Steve Godoy and Duane Peters started showing up in magazines with tats.  In the early 1990's, members of the infamous P.O.W. House of pro BMXers started getting really bad tattoos from some guy with a handmade tattoo gun made from a HO gauge model trail engine.  One guy got "P.O.W." (Pros of  Westminster), but it looked more like "D.O.W."  We joked that it was for the Dow Jones stock average.  Soon after, Dave Clymer got a target tattooed on his shin, so every time he slipped his bike pedal and gouged his shin, he could score the scars.  It seemed funny at the time.

But that broke the ice in the BMX world.  Throughout the mid 90's, more and more people in the action sports world started getting tattoos.  Tats also became more prominent in the music world, and by the late 90's even super models were starting to get little ankle tattoos.  The art form exploded, as did the creativity and ability of tattoo artists.  I could see the trend taking off, and decided not to get any.  I wrote a piece in a zine once that while tattoos were starting to become flat out amazing in quality, I never saw a piece of art I wanted to carry around for life.  And if I did, I'd probably just make a copy and put it in my wallet.  Obviously, I was one of the few standouts as tattoos and piercings lurched from the counter culture into the mainstream.  I did finally give myself a brand at work on night, but that's another story.

Big Island Mike drifted away from the HB scene, and word got around that he became a tattoo artist.  I heard he worked at the Shamrock Social Club in Hollywood at one point.   Years later, I was driving a taxi in Orange County, and on the radio morning show, then hosted by Dicky Barrett of The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones.  He had a Tat-Tuesday segment every week.  He announced that BMXer Rick Thorne was in his studio getting a tattoo from Big Island Mike.  Since I knew the guys, I called in to the show, and Dicky answered during a commercial break.  I said, "Tell Big Island you have The White Bear on the phone," so he did.  Mike took the phone and we talked for a minute or two.  Dicky came back on the radio, "Big Island?  The White Bear?  What... am I on a reservation?"

Several years later, I ran into Mike at a BMX contest and we were able to catch up on what we'd both been doing.  But he looked a lot different.  Like most of us he gained a few pounds, but he also had years worth of tattoos visible.  When I first saw him at a distance, I thought some Mexican gangster was at the contest.  Then I walked up and realized it was Mike.


Here's Big Island Mike Castillo in this clip at the Hale Nui tattoo shop he works at in Honolulu,  Hawaii.   I haven't talked to Mike in years, but last I did he was still the chill guy I was roommates with in '95.  Mike's just one of the cool and highly creative people I met through my years in the BMX world. 

Bushwick NYC: From drug dens to art hotspot to gentrification

I just ran across this documentary about a great scene I'd never heard of, Bushwick in Brooklyn.  It's a great documentary about the power of art helping to rebuild a neighborhood, and all the good and bad that comes along with that.  NSFW. 

Christian Hosoi video stills from 1990

Back in 1990, vert skating legend Christian Hosoi teamed with Vision Skateboards on a company called Tuff Skts.  I got the job of following Christian and his crew around with a camera for three days hooting video and then editing a promo video.  The original promo I edited was about seven minutes long.  The women in the Vision promotions department didn't like all of it, so I cut the "official" version down to about 4 1\2 minutes, with background music from Muddy Waters and Bad Brains.  I lost my copies of the promo, so the sole version left I have access to is this super short version with lame music that appeared on Sk8-TV on Nickleodeon in 1990.

 And here's a few stills of video I shot of skater Christian Hosoi in 1990.

 Frontside tail grab at height at his ramp in Echo Park.

 Frontside grind with hands behind his back in a big rectangle pool off the 14 freeway.

 Hosoi was not known for lip tricks, but he'd been working on a few before this photo/video shoot.  Alley-oop nosegrind.

 Frontside 5-0 in a pool next to a crack house in Van Nuys.

 Blunt on the 9 foot section of his ramp.

 Watching his boys ride, rectangle pool off the 14 freeway.  That's John Swope on the right.  We met him at the Van Nuy's pool the day before, where he was doing some of the best Smith grinds I've ever seen.  In 1990, Christian Hosoi partnered with Vision Skateboards in a new company called Tuff Skts.  It didn't last long, but I spent three full days shooting footage with Christian and his guys Block, Joey Tran, and Little Man, and we met John Swope along the way.  On the first day at Christian's house, high on a hill in Echo Park (outside downtown L.A.) surfer Christian Fletcher was hanging out and skating and his dad, surf filmaking legend Herbie Fletcher, was shooting film.  Pretty epic day.