Danny Way | The Nine Club With Chris Roberts - Episode 195

well we are back huh we're back at the nine club everybody today we have a very special special special guest mr danny way is with us stoked man thank you guys for having me dude how are you man good everything's good yeah absolutely nice to be here hey we're stoked to have you here thank you so much for coming by dude absolutely appreciate that how's everything going with you right now you just got back recently from medellin right yeah i was down in columbia um just getting some uh basically just rehabbing from some injuries yeah long a bunch of injuries accumulating you know and and uh so i finally took a little time out to address it you know i had a couple surgeries and then flew to columbia like a couple days after i had these surgeries to get these stem cell treatments oh you flew there after the surgery yeah i had both my knees not any major surgeries but like cleaned out at a bunch of like debris floating around in my joints like cartilage and bone chips and bone spurs that were growing in there sure so i dealt with it all i did all three at once and then two days late later i flew to columbia because uh we we also did some micro fracturing on the cartilage surfaces where i have like you know where it's really thin where it's almost bone on bone so they like drill all these little holes inside the into the cartilage so that it's you know it bleeds and it also you know kind of aerates the surface of the cartilage and that way when they put the stem cells in they would have an ability to integrate into the cartilage surface a little bit easier in return replicate what you know the cells that they're uh they're attaching to wow i love the fact that you were documenting that the whole way yeah yeah it was cool to watch man i liked it i don't understand stem cells that much i'm not hip to it but i'm learning you know as we go and everything so it seems like a really great you know thing that's being developed here but we just in the united states i think we need to get better at it here and figure it all out right now yeah that's certified or right yeah it's not fda approved well there there's a difference in stem cells there's the ones that i just had are called mesenchymal stem cells and those come from like the umbilical cord but they do do stem cell treatments in the united states and they and they're called auto stem cells and they come from your bone marrow or your fat cells okay so but those cells have already been defined or coated you know yeah um so you know they're and they're also you know as old as you are and it's it's hard to get the volume that you would essentially need to be able to do any you know to make an improvement in those areas that they're injecting so i think it's almost like i mean i've done the treatments here and didn't have much results from it um you know it's great in concept but the real deal is is the mesenchymal stem cells and the only place you can do that is out of our country and there's only a couple clinics that i know of in the world that are actually creditable you know yeah yeah i would say that or are trustworthy to go to okay so the one happens to be in columbia which is called bio excuse me bio accelerator bio bio accelerators the leader in you know stem cell uh science amazing how do you even find that out though like how do you like he's got connections yeah but do you have someone that had yeah do you know someone that went there and you're like oh cool like like or do you have references to that or uh absolutely um i actually got a referral from jason ellis he had gone down there and he was telling me he had good results and uh so he connected me with one of the you know one of the reps that essentially works for the company and i built a relationship with them and and next you know i was you know taken care of like flew flew myself down there but they treated me for free they took you know such good care of me and amazing um you know what uh and out of all the you know sponsors or or things that i get you know like ships that are gifts that i've had for my skateboarding career like i didn't know i would end up this beat up at this stage of my you know life and career but it happened and you know to have support in that way at this junction is pretty amazing oh yeah i'm like you know i would have paid whatever i had to i guess you know because you get desperate and you're just like man i just want to feel good i want to skate and um but yeah when they're like no we got you that's like wow oh that's so cool yeah yeah that's awesome that you documented it especially on their behalf and they're being seen you know what i mean yeah it's kind of like a right commercial so to say yeah no i mean that's you know i think that's the incentive for them is obviously they know that you know i'm going to be a spokesperson for them and they're obvious you know they're they're pretty confident that the treatments are going to pay off sure because you know essentially they're on blast because i am a walking you know testimonial so and i told them you know if you guys want me to be you know if you want me to represent them that represent this in that way like i got to be honest if it's working or not yeah go ahead we want you to be completely honest because we know it's going to work and right you're you know you're going to definitely feel great and it's going to work wow so i'm only like six weeks into it um how do you feel now good they told me it would be about three months before i started to really notice but i'm also coming off the surgeries i just had so i'm kind of i don't know what's going on in there other than i am getting better you know i was on crutches up until maybe like a little over a week ago maybe two weeks now uh so i really don't know where i'm at as far as what the stem cells are gonna yeah you're healing in two different yeah absolutely wow but i am healing quick considering that's good yeah so i you know i'm being i'm optimistic that i'm pretty confident based on you know the science behind it and it it really you know it all makes sense yeah so um i would have a hard time believing that it would not have any effect so speaking of the being a testimonial like you you've been through crazy injuries and still skated on i mean with the great wall of china you broke your foot like we'll get into all that for sure surfing breaking your neck like i mean good god i mean yeah it's been a rough road you know bro but like you said though as a skater like all we want to do is skate right and you just want to like whatever you whatever it takes you know whatever gets back to it you know we've all been we've all been there as skaters you know yeah i mean skateboarding is definitely an abusive you know hobby yeah definitely has like you know the consequences are are real and yeah you know it's like especially when you skate like you yeah i mean you get to a point of no return too you know it's like at this point i'm like well what's another blowing out knee gonna matter which i just found out when i was in colombia that i do have another blowing acl on one of my knees oh so i'm like when did that happen i don't even remember when it happened oh my goodness so i gotta figure that out that's on my to-do list right now this is a random ques i never asked this hey it's like how many bones have you broken and how many surgeries have you had do you even know i think it's 28 procedures now from the orthopedic surgeries but the bone breaking thing like i've had you know a handful of broken bones but it's more like it's more torn ligaments and and and you know cartilage destruction that or de generation that's like you know the things that you can't really you know repair completely yeah like bones will heal pretty much you know they there's a good chance that if you break your bone it's going to heal and you're not going to have any problems moving forward but when you rip soft tissue you know it just never heals the same it's like you know tissue's like fabric and once you tear it you can sew it back together but it's never gonna you know have yeah it's never gonna you know have the flexibility in the movement that it had before and then cartilage you just you know it's like the analogy would be like you get one set of bushings in your trucks your whole life you know oh my goodness so like that's it you know it's like and they're not making any more bushings so you got to take care of those bushings well but so that's the whole thing with the stem cells is you know the the you know the science behind it is that should be able to produce new cartilage tissue and right and those areas that are pretty degenerative should be able to you know start to to heal bend themselves and get back to it wow it's incredible man yeah i love it dude i love it injuries yes it's a it's a big part of you know my story but definitely a big part of skateboarding but i don't know why i've had just like a run with this injury thing that's like a trench that i can't seem to climb out of ever you know i had a hip surgery a long time ago and i couldn't imagine what you went through but it's something that happened with me where like i'd even know it was coming you know one day it started to hurt yeah what the hell and like did that what happened at the end with these surgeries that came for you were you just like not feeling right at a certain point or something happened that kind of triggered like dude i got to get surgeries like the first like real surgery i had was i mean i had broke my elbow and and i had surgery on that but and that never healed correctly i can't even straighten this arm but that was minor because you don't walk on it you know it's a different kind of injury because it'll heal but you're not like standing on it with your body weight every day um but was the first injury i had that kind of like started this whole you know domino effect of surgeries was i tweaked my knee and blew out my acl and then that you know i went through the rehab i had the surgery went through the rehab did like you know almost 12 months of of rehab before i started really pushing it and then like within like a month back in on you know back back in skating every day i just ran out of something and it wasn't even that big of a deal but just the way i planted my foot i had like a little bit of a knee tweak but it just tore the ligament back in half and uh i still had to start all off like back from scratch again and you know at that point i was like wow i just had you know 12 months out and my muscle in my leg my quad muscle had atrophied so much that you know it was like i can't just go back in and have another surgery right now because the atrophy is so bad right i need to rebuild the muscle and uh you know then i started looking into alternative strategies of like what i could do other than doing like you know human tissue um acl um you know um strategies which led me to you know calling matt hoffman and asking him what he would do and and then he started telling me about these synthetic ligaments that he was that he had been using that can get you back into the game like in a couple months and that you know you don't have to spend you know nine to 12 months in rehab so i started you know looking at alternatives you know procedures like that and next you know i'm in you know europe getting these uh synthetic ligaments put in my knee and and then one thing led to another and you know and then i fell shortly after that and blew out my shoulder and i had to have surgery on my shoulder and then next you know you know i mean it's just like i don't know it's like it was like i want to say like 30 years old is when when it started all happening it's like a domino effect like boom this happened i'm better boom another thing happened yeah and i don't and from that point on it's been like you know it's definitely been a rough path but there's you know there is a flip side to it you know it's taught me a lot about you know health and wellness and i've got a default education in medical stuff you know and like orthopedics and you know it's not that i really wanted to go through it this way to get educated in that sense but um but you know i'm trying to take the good in it and you know i'm trying to you know learn something from it and apply it you know to other things and definitely you know have had a lot of people come to me over the years with like hey man i don't know what to do i threw out my knee or you know and i have a lot of good information to share with people at this point yeah you know i'm happy that i'm in a position to do that and there's a lot of things that i've you know had to learn acquire the knowledge through you know the hard way through a pretty treacherous path that i feel i'm you know i have i'm grateful that i can actually share that knowledge with other people and say don't do this and don't do that and if you you know if you do this you might have this you know the repercussion or if you don't ask these questions you know when you go see your doctor he might do this and yeah so there's a lot of people i've helped in that way and it's you know i feel you know it's a good position i feel like you know i like to give back in that way so knowledge is wealth is that what i'm saying health is wealth right yeah health as well yes knowledge is wealth also yeah absolutely but sharing the knowledge is key you know i mean it's like well even it comes down to even the smallest part is like what to ask your doctor a lot of people get in there and they just kind of let the doctor go and then they don't ask the right questions and all of a sudden they're having surgery when they may not even need surgery or they can go this route or that route and all it is is just talking to the doctor you know and figuring it out absolutely and like you say like you go to your doctor you know if you're not experienced in in in the situation that you're dealing with there's there's a lot of key questions that you could ask and and and you know that could have been the defining moment in getting a totally different result 100 you know and there's you know if it's just like an acl surgery like where are you getting the tissue from you know like what is your surgery technique right it's almost like an interview like you're interviewing the doctor you know and a lot of you know people just don't have they don't have the experience or the understanding until they actually go through it right you know and a lot of people just trust in their doctor and that's what it is you know if they have a good result they'll know they never even question it and never even to need to know these things but you know some you know there's a lot of people that don't get the results they're looking for and then they start asking questions later and you know that's when you're like well if you would have known this you could have maybe asked these right questions you would be having a different you know be in a different situation but anyways that's you know the the upside to what i've gone through is that i do have good information to share with people and i'm happy to do it right right yeah man uh it's yeah i even say like just don't lie to your doctor either you know go in there tell the truth tell what happens because there's no point i mean you lie to him you know what what's the doctor going to do you go in there you say you don't smoke and they take they take blood and they're like bro you smoke yeah yeah yeah like why not just like eat i don't know you try to put on some weird like front when you go to the doctor it's insane yeah totally because you want to seem as healthy as possible yeah like everything's good but um man wait and we'll i'm sure we'll get into more of the injury stuff because you have been through a lot and the helicopter and i mean the career we could spend 10 hours here you know which i hope we do which i hope we do yes i'm down to do it okay the injury stuff is boring you know i mean it's like i you know unfortunately it is a major piece of my career puzzle but you know but yeah it's it's not like it's it's a dark it's the dark side of things and it's just so exciting you know we hear this from the outside of like yo he went to the great wall he did this he busted his head he broke his ankle and then he went back the next day and did it and you're like what the hell is this guy's a super human it sounds like it's like made up like it's like a like superhero story but it's real like a fairy tale or like a fable or something you're like wow eliminating what-ifs is is is you know how do i put it you know having a situation like the great wall of china i mean you can look back and be like what if for the rest of your life yeah but if you didn't try you can't eliminate the what-ifs you know so it's like that that has been something i've learned throughout my career many times is like you know at least close the idea of like well if i would have only tried one more time or if i only would have done this differently then the result would have been that right right lisa would have tried and you know went off the side of that ramp or whatever it would have we would have you know at least i would have to look back and go okay god only would have tried it one more time what would happen god well you did it yes yeah you did it bro you can talk about that an hour later well let's i i don't know dude oh no back and forth i'm sure the timeline will like end up back there you know because it is fascinating you know to like us skaters who you know we go through an ankle injury or we go through this but you know i've never heard of anybody breaking their foot and still going you know it's crazy you know put yourself in that predicament though and being in my shoes like okay like you spent several years trying to put this together yeah you've got all this money vested in it you know i've basically gone around everybody and got them to spend money on this thing and you know and and i have one opportunity to do this and it's like never going to get this chance again yeah true and you know i'm sitting there like well what what am i going to do just go home and not try like right how would i ever be able to live that down like totally it's you know the shame of that would be the the consequence of of trying and having something else go wrong i get you i get you for sure for sure at least i can live with the fact like okay i tried and yeah you know i got hurt more or you know something else went wrong and or you know whatever the result ended up that if it wasn't success at least i would have known that exactly i couldn't have tried any harder but i mean not only the weight on your shoulders of everybody being involved in this but you know the fact that they you know made a national holiday so people could watch and they they wouldn't even let you skate the ramp to test it out on the on the first day and that that's when you got hurt right because you said i got it i got to do this yeah they didn't want me to even step foot on the ramp because they were afraid that the media would you know get a clip and leak it so i had to wait you know they had like government of government officials on the scene you know waiting basically until the sun went down to make sure that nothing happened that one try that i slid in was like the government officials left it like 10 minutes before the sun was you know down too far or enough where i couldn't see yeah and so i ran up there and you know i was cold i wasn't warmed up and like i was like i just got to know if everything's the calculations are correct and and found out real quickly that they were they were not right because they ended up uh adding an extra lip on to it or something right i looked at it and i could sense that something was off oh straight from the get-go from the get-go so i built an extension on it the first go and i should have built it even bigger so it wasn't enough and uh but i could visually tell that the dimensions were screwed up okay wow just the the way that it the trajectory was going and then the length of the game just yeah just how proportion it was from stepping back from the other side of the valley there i was looking at it and just going it just looks like there's not enough rolling right and then they also built the deck like the landing ramp in the deck like with a square angle like an edge you know that's interesting yeah instead of like a hump yeah which you know i could have got a little bit of forgiveness coming up short you know i knew right away that that was a problem because i was like if i come up short i'm done like there's no getting out of that it's um and i literally came up like a foot short you know like that close and i'm like do i dive over this thing you know should i go head first because i might be able to like superman yeah like and you only have like a millisecond to make these decisions in that situation and you're like if i don't make it over and i'm going head first so i'm going to really get broke off yeah and that i mean so instinct instinctively i you know decided to go feet first but man just like one foot further and i would have cleared the edge of that but that square edge changed everything you know and like that was another one of the things that was on my drawings and everything it was supposed to be around a rounded lip because i would have been able to get away with it if it was rounded i would have been able to squeak in yeah so what exactly happened your foot hit the the edge of it or you know it's an angle like that i just came up like a foot uh short okay landed on my right ankle and then tumble tumbled into oh man now you're going like close to like probably 45 48 miles an hour on that oh my god and you're just like the rag dog yeah so but wouldn't it break exactly yeah what would you break um i broke the end of my i had like an evulsion fracture on the inside of my ankle on my tibia okay and then the end of my fibula back here on the edge so it broke in two places yeah ripped the the tendon off the bone um wow so that was it was pretty trash like the you know i would i would have never tried to do anything on on that injury like that i mean it took a special like situation like that to to get me like in a minus in the mindset where i'm like no matter what i gotta i gotta do this like really anything else i can do but do it yeah so i mean i i assume the minute that that happened you're laying there being like holy like i'm sure there was so many emotions going through your body like wow that this is this is a disaster like the worst thing basically yeah worst possible scenario i was very familiar with the distance of that gap like you know um and i actually i made the gap a little bigger for that jump because i wanted to be like a record-sized jump okay but it wasn't anything that i was like oh i you know i would have been that foreign to you right you know the the issue with the design is what really screwed it up like there was an issue with you know the um the government had like appointed their con their workers like they had to have like their crew working with my crew gotcha just you know for cultural reasons right there was a language barrier though because our guys didn't speak chinese and those guys didn't speak english and they're working in metric and we're working in standards a lot of so there were variables tons of variables and a lot of things got lost in translation wow and uh you know so but the the the jump that was you know it was something that i was pretty comfortable with sure um but you know in that circumstance just yeah i mean it didn't didn't work out the way it was supposed to but normally i would have been able to you know do that yeah i went into it with a pretty like i got this mentality you know and i was planning on like sessioning the thing like i wanted to you know film a couple of cool tricks so yeah that was my my vision when i was going over there it wasn't like i'm gonna get hurt and it's gonna be a survival mode situation i was like man i'm gonna be able to do like you know if i can session this thing for an hour i can probably get like 10 cool tricks over and have like a little video segment you know that i'd filmed over that thing and that was what i was really hoping for yeah yeah so once the ankle injury happened i was just like man i just got to get this done and turned into a full survival situation how did you even think you could recover or not recover but how did you think you could even do that yeah where you said you have to wrap that thing yeah like quarter zone shot like when did you make the decision yeah of like okay i can if i do whatever i need to do for the ankle i could i could pull this was it that day or the next day or i mean immediately you know my mentality was like let's go to the hospital and see what's going on and like let's figure out what we can do to like get through this you know so i had a friend with me that was an american doctor and we went to the to the hospital and there was like a you know an american um like uh trained doctor there so she knew how to speak english and uh basically gave us you know access to all of the supplies in in the in um in the surgery or in the emergency room there okay and so we went and got all kinds of things you know just like lidocaine and um you know some basically all the wraps and things i would need i had a lot of stuff with me already i came you know with you know with the idea what happens if i get hurt so i had some stuff but for the most part what i what i really relied on was the lidocaine the numbness yeah we numbed it up which was you know you can't feel your foot no that's that that wait a minute back foot or front foot back foot so that became a problem because you know like definitely needed the lidocaine to be able to endure the pain right but it did leach into my the bottom of my foot so you know at first i was like okay this is going to work and then the more the time went on i started feeling my foot getting numb oh god and then i started having problems with knowing where my foot was on the tail of the board oh my god i was like sitting up there like fire to drop in like having to like make sure it's in the right spot oh my gosh yeah i'm just thinking like i get my tooth done and i can't drink water properly like imagine trying to skate like dead foot like being on this huge ramp yeah yeah it was it was an interesting feeling to have like a numb it felt like i had like a club like you know i don't know if you surf in the wintertime you might know this feeling but yeah when your feet get numb out there it's like your feet almost feel like they're like foreign objects attached to you so that was you know a bit of a challenge but i had to wrap you know i i numbed it with lidocaine and then i wrapped it and did all the bracing and all that stuff and once i you know shot it like once i jumped over it the first time and i had to walk up those stairs to drop in it was like you know ten flights of ten stories to get up to that topic so doing that and then just like once my adrenaline started pumping and like my blood started flowing it's like right you know i could kind of like you know see that i could get through this you know like i started to go okay i got this like yeah it was just that first drop in though it was like who knows what's going to happen right now and well that's the thing i was going to ask is how do you even get warmed up for something like that like how do you climb ten or nine stairs it warms up at 10 places i know but i mean just that board feeling and like oh man it's numb i mean listen like you said you you it's something that you're used to doing you know but still there's that now that now that this numb factor you know yeah the num factor was definitely a twist but you know and the way that we built that roll in it was on top of like a little wall that teed off the main part of the wall and there was you know 50-foot drops on each side of that thing you know we built like a little like like you know like barrier wall after the first like the first day i didn't have that so you know the idea of you know taking a hard rider left and flying off that wall was in my mind in the beginning you know but the next day i mean regardless if that would have you know happened or not right you know it was you know i had the wall there but it was still on my mind you know like what happens if i drop in and it gives out like oh my god you know i mean am i going to shoot off this jump and fly to the side to the right or to the left or am i going to come up short and land in the back of the ramp like so all those things are going through my mind and once i jumped over it and i was like oh i cleared it and i landed in you know in the sweet spot where i could land i was like okay i got this but damn definitely yeah that was that was probably the most you know challenging scenario i've ever had in any any predicament did anyone else know other than like obviously your doctors and stuff did the other officials know that you broke your ankle um no no no not really no i didn't really you know other than just my close friends and family that were there like yeah nobody really know what was going on they just knew i took a hard fall and you know okay you didn't throw on an instagram post there was an instagram at that time it was like right before the social media area throw out a tweet you know what what happened what year is that i'm sorry 2006 or five or so okay so i don't know yeah forget let me you can look it up but i think it's 2006. i mean obviously like that was fine all right it probably felt awesome but what when you landed what happened like what was going through your body like oh you were probably relieved like well you know and then i had to stare at this quarter pipe going closer oh i wasn't that relieved if you watched the videos of me dealing with that because like you know the other thing that happened is they built the the quarter pipe way too close you know the landing ramp of that thing was twice as long as it normally would be and then the flat bottom ended up twice as short as it's supposed to be so you didn't have that time so i had twice as much landing ramp to catch more to build up more speed and then i came into the bottom and there was hardly any flat bottom so like if you watch the video you can see me speed wobbling all the way through the apex of the on the on the ones you know on the bottom of the roller all the way into the air you can see like a slight wobble and i'm literally like just hanging on for dear life if i wobble out you know like the jake brown situation like that was yeah it's real you know jake hadn't had that happen yet but i was visualizing that in my mind the whole time like if i wobble out and i get ejected it's going to be so that was you know that was one of the the biggest fears i had once i knew i could get over that then i'm like okay now i got to deal with the quarter pipe how many times how many times did you do it how many times did you jump it uh five times five times what was the point of driving jumping to five to different tricks or whatever it was dealing with the quarter pipe like i was just like i did you know i jumped it the first time and i purposely jumped off just to make sure okay make sure that the distance was there and then i made it four times in a row but i i was struggling with the quarter pipe because of that fact factor i was just telling you about with the um speed wobbles and there was also like a um like a a tailwind that was blowing super hard so like pushing you pushing me so i was getting this extra speed and then i was also drifting over the deck of the ramp and that quarter pipe was like you know the normal mega ramp quarter pipe is 27 feet tall okay that one was 32 feet tall so i you know i made everything a little bit bigger yeah i was hoping that it would all worked out the calculation was a bit on point because i wanted to do a bigger air than i ever did or done before and that was like you know i had the speed because of the landing ramp was so big i was like okay this is like maybe the opportunity to like raise the bar on the high air stuff okay so you were saying that you know you wanted to you know it was a quarter pipe that was giving you problems do you consider if you don't if you don't make it if you don't do the quarter pipe it wasn't like a make it wasn't like a line or is it just cool you did the mega awesome whatever happens next or is it that line that that makes you feel like you you did it well it just depends what you're trying to achieve yeah i was there to jump the wall right so like the quarter pipe is almost like a it's like the hay bales or something that's okay what do you do with all that speed how do you scrub that speed yeah you know without a quarter pipe what are you going to do make a runway out for like a half a mile parachute you know the quarter pipe you know it's jumping the wall was it was was the goal with that okay although in my mind you know i really wanted to make sure that i made it just to have the line feel from my personal satisfaction sure but it wasn't important at the point where i was at like with how you know hurt i was and then just knowing how like how fine of a line it was before i wobbled out and got ejected off that quarter pipe like i felt like i i walked away at the right time you know right and walking up those stairs and you know it was also like one of the hottest days like in in china that they had all year and it was super human so oh man i was completely exhausted by the fourth or fifth try the fifth try i went on like i was literally so you know lightheaded and dizzy and i was just like man am i gonna you know if i am i getting greedy should i just walk away and just call it you know yeah you gotta know when to fold them in that situation i think i did the right thing right yeah right and you did it five times yeah i jumped it five times you didn't get the video apart but you made history no i mean i did i mean you know i'm i'm always like hard on myself we're our own worst critics i'm never satisfied so you know yeah i really wanted to make you know an error on that quarter pipe and yeah i mean dude look at this right i know dude yeah for anybody that's looking he's a little speck over there in the middle of the uh photo yeah this is yeah it was wild imagine bro yeah who's i i mean was it your idea to do this it was my idea and just it's crazy how quickly it it we were able to make it happen just based on like my manager um was out at you know at coachella and we just been bouncing these ideas around and this was one of them i was just in china like you know for uh for some you know for some product that we're developing that i do with skateboarding but um i was down there and checking out some factory and on the way back there was just like on the on the magazine in the seat back pocket on the plane there was a photo of the great wall and i was just like bing yeah like you know the mega ramp stuff was starting to evolve pretty quickly so i was like man it would be so cool to like find a location to build this thing to kind of put it in perspective because being out in the desert it's really hard to get scale you know like it's you know it's not really doing it justice so that you know that jumped out at me and then um my my manager was out at coachella just partying you know and he bumped into somebody at one of the parties that you know at coachella and and the guy was like you know my dad's really connected down there and you know he could probably make that happen and you know and next thing i know i'm down there meeting with the government and and these this is all unfolding it's like crazy a story of how it all came together because it's like some guy coachella at a party yeah you know you think he's just drunk or whatever he's like this guy's full of over here dude but he guy was connected enough he made it happen man it was like craziest thing it was it was meant to happen yeah yeah incredible man well congrats on that like you said you you made history bro that's a gnarly dude yeah i've never been to the great wall i'd love to go one day and check it out but uh you know anyway probably maybe we'll have to do a 2.0 great wall listen i i need to be there when we go skate china if you're skating the streets people look at you like they're like what the hell are you doing right i couldn't imagine but they look like what's he doing what's what's this ramp i mean not to mention that they had a day of uh work free so people could watch this on tv yeah i mean we're talking billions of people yeah it's a lot of people oh my god yeah it's a trip man pay-per-view you could have made a fortune i mean yeah i think it was a little you know considering how things have evolved with social media and and just skateboarding and you know everything since then until now like the evolution of our industry and just you know how many people care and you know now it's in the olympics and i just think that we were maybe it was a little bit premature of being able to get right yeah you know the you know it didn't have the ability to reach so many although it did reach the whole you know chinese you know population sure on the day off that they had but for the most part yeah it was you know looking back at it now i was like man it was still pretty underground then they charged everybody a dollar bro but nowadays i think you know if you said yeah i'm gonna go jump to great walleye china people would make a much bigger deal out of it yes that's true that's true especially with social media and everything man yeah i had a lot of people like not believing that it was going to even happen damn proved them wrong that's damn sure well let's let's do this let's change directions and take it back to you know when you started skating and everything like i i'm always interested in like how somebody discovers skating or like did you see somebody on the road was it a family member like a christmas complete you got like how how did you how did this come into your life well when i was a kid my you know um my stepdad he was a surfer and he always had skateboards around and uh you know i i was introduced to surfing at a really young age as well but the skateboards were just sitting there always and you know i started using it as like my vehicle to get around and i would you know as like two years old i would you know push on one knee type thing and you know from that point on i like had a connection with the skateboard obviously you know i evolved to standing up on the skateboard you know at some point but like you know i remember the first time i touched it i was like i felt like you know this was my vehicle of choice like crazy so i was infatuated with it as a as a kid yeah you know to the point where i you know i think i was like five or six and i got my like first real skateboard you know that was like mine that and at that point i was you know obviously standing up and pushing around on a skateboard um but we lived in cardiff and del mar skate park was you know a few miles away down the freeway and uh my my dad and my brother and i were driving down the freeway and you could see from the free you know from the freeway you could see the actual pools and you could see the skate park oh wow and we got a glimpse of it and uh you know we were like whoa what's that and my dad was like well let's go check it out you know so he took my brother and i there to to see what was going on and you know that day we just my brother and i became infatuated with skateboarding just watching you know watching these guys skate pools blasting arrows out of pools and just could not believe like it just seemed magical like it was possible and uh so that same day our dad got us memberships and bought us completely you know started okay and from that point on that was like the catalyst you know that was it like wow so do you remember your first the first setup you had um a sims board ripper nine okay going trucks um yeah that was damn snake wheels but okay that wasn't like the first board i had got you that was the board that i got that day at the skate park that was like you know um i guess the first board that i had that was like ready to go escape true did you pick out the little parts and stuff or was it kind of uh put together for you this one was well it was put together but i think i got to pick like the wheels like there was a couple things that i exchanged out on it i got like two-tone wheels and stuff okay but like it wasn't for the most part like you know it wasn't like the full custom setup that i got you know down the pathways but um it was great starter kit yeah yeah yeah so del mar was it then i i assume you were there all the time as much as i could be i mean we didn't live you know you know i did obviously you know as a kid and shortly after we got introduced to the del mar skate park my parents split up and then i got moved away and um ended up in vista which was a lot further out and uh so you know we didn't have access to del mar every day but you know we when we could get a ride or whatever we would go on the weekends and stuff but that's when we started building ramps i was going to say where were you skating in vista just building your own ramps we started building ramps and this is also right around the time that street skating started to emerge gotcha so like it kind of forced you know you know our skate scene and vista you know the the click of guys that we you know that came together that we started skating with you know we all skated del mar yeah and then we were forced to start building ramps and then street skating started to emerge and then we all started street skating just because it was you know we didn't there was no difference like we didn't segregate like different genres of skateboarding back then right like we skated you know yep yep and street skating's happening and all the guys that skated street skated too so there wasn't like a line between the genres of skateboarding that's all i knew it's like you know okay cab skate street yeah oscar skate street kendall skate street yeah like you know all these guys that i see ripping the vert ramp are all street skaters yeah gone skates vert you know you know it's like there was hensley skated for before street yeah yeah yeah you know so it's like i was i think blessed to grow up in in that era because of that reason you know like it by default i was just you know learning how to skate everything at the same time yeah and it was because del mar was you know del mar was also having like insurance issues on the regular so they were shutting it down you know it'd be closed down for a while then they would open it back up and not only did we live you know a you know a 20 30 minute drive away right but sometimes it just wasn't open you know so the um we just got you know in the rhythm of building our own things to skate sure and then street skating when we didn't have a ramp to skate were you watching videos back then or just looking at magazines or we were watching the pal videos you know there was there wasn't have any videos around yeah videos of course a lot of content contest videos and you know vision had a couple of videos as well yeah but for the most part it was the pal video the pal videos yeah and which went on to get sponsored by powell yeah which is like you know as a kid being a connoisseur of the bones brigade and like skating del mar skatepark and you know being a little kid and watching tony pull up and skate and like being so in awe of the of the whole bones right movement you know to be end up you know on the bones brigade at one point was like it's it it was all so surreal and it happened so quickly from you know from feeling like i was just this little kid that was learning how to skate the next thing i know you know i'm being you know i'm becoming a part of something that was so unachievable or untouchable to me as a kid it just you know it was a lot happened how how quickly was that happening like what what was the catalyst to get you on powell were you filming stuff or were just the people you were around well i was scared was that your first sponsor by the way was powell your first or you had to it's no it wasn't it was no i i started getting boards from team la soy and that started from being down in san diego and mission beach at these you know these uh events they call big wednesday okay so yeah what you guys saw was due recently with western those guys is just us just re you know rekindling i love it i love it so big wednesdays were popping off in the middle you know like 1985 86 or 87 like that little time period you know launch ramps were getting pulled out like there was a shop down there called hammels and they would have these skate demos every wednesday and then those things started blowing up so big that you know they started you know moving around from in front of animals down the way because there was these big parking lots in mission beach and they had like double-sided curbs over there and then you know cars started showing up with launch ramps over cars and there was some spots where you could do like launch ramp to wall ride so just those those big wednesdays started getting out of hand like crazy and just by chance my stepdad was living you know he lived in mission bay on a boat for a while so i would go down there to hang out with him all the time and i would find myself in mission beach just skating around and you know when these big wednesdays started to pop off i was at the right place at the right time and i had been street skating quite a bit because i was you know living in vista skating with hensley and you know brendan chefell my brother mario rubicon all these guys yeah these guys are all the guys that you know we went to you know they're a couple years older than me they're my brother's age my brother's like three and a half years old but that three and a half years i mean they seem so much older right so much older yeah and i was always a little kid trying to fit in and uh and it wasn't so easy because i got picked on and beat up on and you know i was always having to prove myself to get validation and it just never ended so you know a lot of my drive that i had in skateboarding was built on that game from that came from that yeah and my only you know sort of retaliation to these guys for tormenting me you know and not allowing me to hang out was the only thing i could do is be better than them check that out guys i learned right right so you gotta like you know not let me come hang out and skate with you guys well then i'm gonna go like figure out how i can like figure get good at something you guys can't do yet you know and then show up and and you know how can you like kick me out of the scene right now yeah i'm better than you better you better stay with me now i think you know having been in that situation i started to progress with my street skating skills pretty quick you know von trampera and the ho ho plants and yeah i had a big bag of ho ho tricks and the lawn tramps were my thing for a while so showing up at big wednesday showed up there one day and like you know he was building a new team for his uh for for his soy street you know team hassoy was had to deal with santa cruz for a minute and uh he was building a new team and he had dennis martinez um you know legend skateboarder from the 70s uh kind of heading up the team manager position and dennis lived in san diego so he's he'd been pulling together different guys to be on christian's team so i got you know i got sponsored to ride for christian for street skating that day it wasn't like for bird skating although that was something that i did regularly i wasn't you know it was not why i got sponsored by christian got you from that point on i started getting boards from them and then you know i got asked to cruise to a couple demos one was in las vegas and arizona i went to arizona with these guys and i'm like 13 years old and you know my mom you know it's pretty trusting and pretty cool to drop me off with a bunch of guys at that age to go to another state you know and be you know jumping in a van right she doesn't even know and uh so you know i went on a couple of trips to those guys like that and uh that was like the first you know my first introduction to like being accepted into a scene or you know validated by any other pros or um and let alone christina yeah it was it was pretty surreal you know i mean you know i'm and they're not much you know they're older than me but you know looking back now these guys were probably i was maybe like 12 13 these guys are in their like early 20s gotcha i remember on one of those trips we you know we were on our way out to like arizona and we pull into like a parking lot at a park and like sitting in the van for hours because these guys are trying to get weed before we went okay yeah and i didn't obviously smoke weed at that age at all but um you know but i definitely grew up around it so i knew what it was gotcha so i mean i'm sitting there for like you know five it seemed like 10 hours sure and i'm just like this like i just want to get to the skate spot like you know that's all i cared about was skating right when's the next session you know these guys are like well we need to get our wheat yeah don't worry about it relax little okay we got it yeah so get there and i remember this that trip so vividly because license the lbc boys album just dropped and uh christian you know had that on in the van on repeat for like three days straight and uh you know by the time i got back from that trip i knew every word every song and uh yeah but that was it that was an amazing time and shortly after that um you know the guy that was running team soy dennis was struggling with some drug problems and he just wasn't you know he was getting product to give to us and he was trading it for other things and like i wasn't getting any board support that i needed so vision you know i had an opportunity to escape revision uh there was a demo in this skate demo like a half pipe demo with this lady named gail webb okay yeah webb's like legendary like you know she's like probably in her 60s now but she's a skate like you know back in the day in the 70s she knows all the you know og you know legend pros she used to be on like team pepsi with like tony alba and like that wow so she comes from that era but she she you know she built a ramp and she did all these demos and she tries to you know just support like young kids trying to get into skateboarding and like she's she's amazing this woman so there was this demo at the local skate shop in vista and i showed up there you know and and uh asked if i could escape the ram and she's like no you know i liability reasons whatever and i'm like you know all right and then eventually she might jump on the ramp and then later that day um you know like tony showed up in a limo with kevin starve and lester and um adrian the main and um rosscop and you know like all the time crows just showed up at this demo and this was like my golden moment you're like here we go boys like this was you know and gail webb worked with visions she's like they sponsored her demos and stuff so okay you know i was definitely getting on the radar with some of these people but like this demo was like the catalyst like where i got to really prove myself with the top pros being on the ramp at the same time wow because i'd go to del mar and there'd be heated sessions and these guys would just snake me all the time or whatever but this was like the one day that i got an opportunity to like just give it give it everything i had and so um you know gail after that demo was like hey i think i can hook you up with vision you know and vision was blowing and was huge at that time they made shoes and clothes and i was just like okay well i love hassoi he's my all-time favorite you know what i mean um but i didn't opportunity not i had you know i had no money as a kid you know like i was you know my boards were just destroyed from board to board my shoes we had holes in them and duct tape all over them and so i was just like i need product i don't know what else to do so that led me to jumping on vision gotcha and uh and i started doing more of those demos for gail webb and um and then i started bringing matt hensley with me and hensley you know shortly after got sponsored by vision and we started um you know skating just amateur contests you know skating for vision and the nsa contest and stuff yeah and uh you know that was going well for a while and then there was a contest in las vegas and i flew out there um and i was supposed to get a ride back with the vision team and they had like a vision van and it was like kelly rose grands and beedle his brother and uh who else was i think there was ron allen was in that thing nice but whatever it was i went out there and the vision i was like 13 years old at this time the vision team manager left me in las vegas and i had like no money no nothing and uh that left me like on purpose like just yeah i don't know what happened yeah the van's gone i don't think it was on purpose okay so i just i mean it wasn't intentional like we're just gonna leave this kid these guys are out part like i don't know what the deal was i just think they just forgot right literally fried from the night so i'm like sitting i know that feeling i remember because at the hotel i remember these guys were out like going out and they were getting wasted and i was just waiting for the contest because that's all i want to do with skate that's all i cared about so yeah i got left at this contest and then it was like literally getting dark and then you know i'd seen a guy throughout the day that had a po like long ponytail was hanging out with brian lottie and he was kind of just you know i could see he was like coaching lottie a bit and okay he had a good vibe he came up to me and he's like man you look like you're in a in a tough position like where'd you guys go and i'm like i don't know i don't know what you know they took off i don't know what i'm going to do and it ended up being mike ternansky oh wow so he's like man i'll get you home like you know i'm not going to leave you hanging here like that's crazy those guys left you and so that was you know there was that was the moment where i like really evaluated what was going on with vision okay that doesn't mean that i jumped right on h street at that moment okay so there's a twist in this story okay okay mike told me about the new company they were starting and he's like hey we've stoked have you involved blah blah and wow you know he's like but you know don't worry about it you know this is i'll fly you home it's not like a contingency thing like we'll make sure that you get home safely and we can talk about that later okay was that your first time meeting mike yeah that's amazing yeah it was yeah yeah and he was so giving in a sense of like yeah i got you bro you're gonna get home yeah yeah yeah it was amazing so i mean he saved my you know i don't know what would have happened at that point right 13 year old kid no cell phones i was broke like i didn't have a dime in my pocket so he got me home and then right around that time i had been you know skating tony's ramp tony's ramp just got finished being built and uh i was skating mcgill's had just got built so i was sessioning those ramps and um bucky had flown out and was staying at tony's so i started skating with bucky at tony's while he was hanging out there and then conversations one thing led to an another of like the idea like maybe jumping on powell you know so i have in my mind i'm like man h street you know and i was good friends with john schulte's as well and john skated for h street you know and he was a good friend of mike and tony mag and so i've got and then hensley's hanging out at skate camp at visalia skate camp for santa clara skate cam and mike is like one of the directors of the skate camp hensley i were both on vision he's getting you know he's solicited to skate for eight shoot at the skate cam we're not together gotcha and i'm ending up at you know at tony's house and i'm getting like you know some like hints of maybe ride for powell from bucky so like hensley and i were trying to do you know we were trying to stay on the same teams but he decided to leave vision to jump on hatred because he was connecting with mike so hard which was a great move for hensley yeah so i was a little bit like wait a second who are these guys and like you know i knew tony mag was involved but i was like it's a startup company man like maybe powell's the right move and you know growing up in you know in the era that i did and seeing the bones regained like the animal chin video future primitives like it was just the idea it was just it was surreal um to skate for uh dream come true i decided to to explore that you know so next thing i know i'm i'm on a train up to santa barbara with bucky and uh we decided uh or he you know i was going to go up there and meet todd haysing as a team manager and get some boards and just check out what was going on and ended up on a trip a film trip with uh steve sayas mike valeli shows up and then we're in you know in a bw bust i think that's what steve's eyes had back then and out driving out into the mountains and uh behind santa barbara out towards bakersfield okay um there's a ramp out there and uh i think the ramp is called venacopa the area but that's uh it's the segment that i had in public domain with bucky oh okay so one thing led to another really quick you know i was like on this train going up to to get some boards of power bucky next you know i'm in a van heading out to a film shoot with stacey peralta oh my god you know so like it all it was unraveling so quick and i was just in awe and so you know next you know i'm at this ramp and stacy's coming out to film bucky and i'm there and i'm like you know riding pal boards and stacy's coming and next you know i'm getting filmed and stacy's you know filming me and you know i didn't know if i was on pal yet or not right um but i was riding their boards and i was getting filmed for the video i guess yeah it started to click that like i think i'm what's happening i haven't gotten a word yet but this is looking promising it hadn't been officially solidified yet but i remember after the session that day with stacey i i'd like asked him like so what's going on here with 13 at 13. that's some balls right yeah dude i was so scared did you even mention it but i didn't know i was like am i like you know i just didn't know which direction it was headed i just it seemed like it was heading that direction right i just needed to ask him and he was like what do you are you of course man he had already thought like it was already solidified okay so i was just like trying to prove myself all day and that's essentially the footage that the video part that i have in public domain is like you know the first time i met stacy filming um for uh filming that video part and essentially thinking the whole day like i gotta like i gotta win this guy over i gotta do everything i could possibly do to get on powell and here's my shot and maybe it was a good thing that it wasn't solidified till that evening you know because it it kept me you know literally yeah the fire you know yeah i mean maybe it would have been burning either way but yeah i was kind of glad though that it was like you know it was like the reward after the hard work of the day or whatever it just you know so that's that's why i ended up on powell okay and uh you know i'm on pal for you know like about a year year and a half and and there's some things going on and you know hensley's on h street eight street's starting to take off and they're working on a video and i'm hearing about all these trips and mats going on with mike and you know next thing i know my friend steve ortega is on h street and all the guys from my hometown are being taken care of by 8th street the guys i grew up skating with so i felt kind of left out even though i was part of the bones brigade you know the bones brigade had like a young team but they had a pecking order you know it's like it didn't really matter i guess how good you were it's like there was certain you know like clicks you had seniority based on how long you had been on the team you know and i don't feel like i was going to be able to like progress you know to the level i needed to right to get to where i needed to go with my skateboarding at that time like i felt like i was a little bit suppressed and there was other guys in front of me which is totally cool i get it um and i was you know to this day i was still up skating for powell like it's one of my you know i'm i was flattered and honored and to this day i have nothing but good things to say about it because you know powell still is like one of those things it's like i love palpable that doesn't know it's one of the dopest companies ever and still is right yeah um so but it just you know at that point i needed you know i needed some other components applied to where i was at and like traveling was one of them so there was a contest in houston texas a shut up and skate contest and i really wanted to go and i've been telling todd hastings the team manager hey i need to go to this amateur contest you know it's like for a vert contest it was a very important contest for me to go to got you and you know i know at that age you know the other amateur you know especially amateurs like you know bucky was from the east coast maryland or whatever and he's a little he's a year and a half older than me but like at that age we know like i know where all the other ripping you know the other kids are around the planet that are my age that are skating well right and there's another kid in texas named david nielsen you know that was doing 540s and all this stuff and you know and he he was just ripping and uh that was the contest like you know i needed to i felt like i needed to be at this contest to prove myself yeah if i didn't show up there would have been a big deal you know right like you wanted to go to head to head with this guy not like you know i was friends with him so it wasn't like that you know but just like you know i mean back then contest mattered yeah yeah so like people turned pro the contest you know you would have like rankings and contests were like how you turned pro back yeah it wasn't like oh you film a video part you turned pro right that's not how it worked right so like typically you know with the nsa uh you know the amateur series that they did they would have the regional events and then the guys that won the regional events would go to the semi regional events and then to the finals and the guys that won the finals would turn pro and it doesn't you know it's all based on that you know back then sure so i had like a little bit of a bad year with the nsa like i didn't make it into the final i was like an alternate okay and and i knew that like that was going to sabotage my ability to keep going and and so this this houston contest was a big deal because it was like it didn't take any qualifying to go to this contest and i didn't just go i knew the right guys were going to be there that i needed to compete against so um you know i called hastings a couple times like yeah we're gonna fly you out there and then the week of i call them like hey what's up with the plane ticket like i need to get out there and you know he's like well we've decided to boycott it we're not gonna go and i was like boycott it what the does that mean i was too young to even understand the politics like that so it didn't make sense to me and you know then i'm talking to hensley because obviously we're skating and hanging out all the time and he's like dude we're flying out on wednesday to houston and i'm just like my buddies are getting on the flight i'm not going like this is devastating right so you know i tried everything i could to get hastings to buy me a ticket to the point where i you know i finally got desperate enough that i called mike ternansky and i'm like hey i need a favor he already bought me a plane ticket once with no ex you know yeah no contingency you know so he's like i told him my scenario and he's like okay i'll help you get out there but you're going to end up riding patriot board in the contest okay and i'm like you know at that level of desperation i'm thinking is he really going to make me do this like yeah and maybe i can find a way to pay him back before all that happens so you know i just like okay whatever just booked me the flight and then next you know i'm on a plane to texas with him and tony mag wow and i show up there and sure enough like they literally pick me up from the airport we get picked up from the airport and taken to the hotel that was right near the skate park and right away like like literally right away they took me in the hotel room we're like all right call todd astings and quick you're like 15 and a half 16 no i was 14. okay i love that all of this is happening in the span of like a year and a half no it's but see at that age it seems like an eternity it does forever yeah yeah that age like a year is like you know ten years totally for sure and then fomo of missing out on a contest dude you're just like especially the that contest yeah for bird skating and amateur like you know the position i was in like i couldn't not show up at this contest it just wasn't an option so you know i went and i got put on the spot when i got there i had to call todd hayes things and then he's just like what you're in texas how did you get there and i told him the story and then i told him what the deal was and he was like what do you mean they're telling you you gotta quit and i'm like i kind of already agreed to it i'm here i had to go right and literally he made me you know say it repetitively to him like you know i i had to say like i quit the bones brigade he made me say word for word like five times in a row and i'm like dude it was the hardest thing to say the first time but having to say it five times and it just you know it got to the point where i was just like man i just you know i mean i'm sorry but it's just it is what it is like i made it i made a deal with these guys and then he started saying well let me pay for the ticket and i'm like you know i can't i can't um go back on what i said so anyways that's that was the end of the pal deal that was it now you're you started this contest on h street started this contest on a hd board and uh it was my last amateur contest and i won the contest and then i turned pro like a month later wow dude listen if everything worked out with powell right and powell sent you out there do you think that would have happened if you won the contest you think powell would have turned you pro right away maybe yeah maybe but back then they weren't like you know i just think that they were i mean i i don't you know it's hard to say but based on like the tr the pattern of things that i saw prior to that mm-hmm i would think that they would have made they would have probably turned some other guy's pro first right i think they liked having like a young farm team that wasn't pro gotcha because i mean they had guy they had chat thomas they had like rudy johnson yeah but they had like a young team right but you know and ray barbie as well but i don't think that they were that advantageous to turn us pro except just keep you know have a young team that they could you know the brigade was still like the top too at the time so it was like those boards are still flying off the show yeah but didn't you feel relieved to ride with your friends though at the same time it would definitely it felt it was like because i i had so much fomo all the time yeah yeah yeah no like it was good and we see it all we see it happen today you know everybody people switch teams because their buddies are on a team you know yeah i mean because mike was so like he was so good he was so good with everybody like he was just like so fun to be around he was always in the mix you know like you know you know the pal stuff i was on an island of my own like you know and i had you know on it was unfortunate but i had some you know and it wasn't anything that i i want to point the finger at tony or say it was anything that i did but i think people kind of like wedged us against each other so i didn't feel like i was really getting like pulled under under tony's wing like i felt like might have happened if i jumped on powell you know i had a lot of you know i was a huge tony fan and and like just in awe of any time he was present like i was right you know it's just like and i think you know just the way that people framed me you know coming up like oh this young kid like he's the next tony hawk and like i think tony started to feel like a weird vibe you know okay so i felt uncomfortable on pal because of that you know i could see that you know i felt like it wasn't like you know i didn't have an alliance with anybody and tony lived really close to me so that was like something i thought you know i thought when i jumped on powell that that would sort of happen it didn't and you know it's unfortunate because i would have loved to have that alliance with tony right you know i've nothing but love and respect for tony and always have and at that age i wasn't so in awe of him that it would have been a dream to be like you know not rival rivaling sure not being a rival to him but right um you know being an alliance yeah yeah absolutely but i mean listen i mean cab told a relatable story that he was so he felt jealous of tony hawk when tony was getting all the accolades and stuff like that and he got emotional he's like i feel so bad for thinking that way about my friend you know yeah you know it is what it is but that you know i think that everything happened for a reason and the timing of like you know getting the opportunity to be in public domain and then a few months later being able to be in the first eight-year video shackled or not yes like getting that exposure too and then being able to turn pro and have like all those dominoes connect it like fall at once like amazing yeah you know it was a very risky thing to do right especially making those big decisions at such a young age like but when i'm looking back i'm like that like it was actually like all the right decisions were made because it set me up for you know being involved in a new brand yes you know and there was like a changing of guard at that point like world industries was born you know the rocco errors started to happen mike ternansky kind of revolutionized you know like took like all this you know the pal the pal approach was so glamorous and you know the videos were you know they were produced like motion picture films you know and like mike comes along and they're like you know making videos on on high eight cameras and like super vhs recorders with like you know lenses taped on with stickers so low budget but it was not about the quality of the of the videos it was about the skating and and like so there was like this this you know the changing of guard happened once hocus pocus or sorry once shackle me not came out it changed everything definitely and like people started to look at you know powell i think in a different light and these underground skater own you know kind of like company that that were you know doing it like more grassroots we're starting to become more appealing and popular with the community sure so i was blessed to transition to eighth street at the right time because you know if you look at the next few years after that and what was going on with powell you know i mean look the young farm team all jumped ship you know like guy and rudy and these guys jumped on paulo they jumped on blind yeah yeah and uh you know bucky hung out on powell but yeah you know it it things got a little bit rocky over there sure sure and then the world industries you know rocco's george powell war like so anyways i would i yeah i wouldn't have wanted to be caught on that side of the fence right right it's so funny to look back and like oh i made all the decisions i made all the great right decisions when i was 14. like you know what i mean like at 14 years old like i don't know if you're supposed to be making decisions like that you're supposed to be enjoying yourself playing outside having fun you know yeah it's a trip it seems like you were just kind of skating and letting it carve the way where you went right you weren't like i want to do this than that you just i i mean i lived you know at that age i was just wanting to skate every day and every day like you know i wasn't looking that far ahead yeah it was like a lot of it was in the moment and you know but i did know that you know i needed to progress and i needed certain things to do that and i knew that you know like you know the decisions i made to to quit one team to join join another like i knew that i needed to make those choices at that time or i was going to be you know stuck completely stagnant or something you know i didn't want to be the guy that was jumping ship all the time right i feel like you know i i mean i'm you know i've been very loyal to like i love being on the scene i like having the same sponsors my whole career that was my whole goal was aligning with the right thing so i could just ride that out right and unfortunately those decisions i made you know i had to jump ship a bit but it was ultimately to get the stage set for you know having those alliances with brands that i was going to be with for the rest of my career absolutely because i mean we're still like it's still going quickly right you did uh h street uh shock me not hocus pocus and then not too long after plan b blind turn it oh yeah yeah blind so there's a twist in the story from that too okay you know eight street starts to blow up and uh mike and tony are obviously like you know doing really well and they have you know they start to have some different perspectives on how things should be ran and and you know just things behind the scenes that were going on with the brand and uh you know i was starting to get overwhelmed with the amount of you know t guys that were all of a sudden on eighth street like i liked being on a small team it's a big team that was a big team yeah and it's like i didn't know when it was gonna stop when i jumped on h street it was just my friends and i and you know it was a very quaint thing and it felt really that's what i always wanted to be on like a tight little program like that so um you know as hg started to succeed then all of a sudden they started working out these deals with the shops so the shops were able to put on like one of their local team riders and i'm looking at this team list all the time at the 8 street office and it just keeps growing and i'm showing up at these demos in different towns and kids coming up going oh dude i skate for 8th street too and i skate and i don't even know who these guys are who are you yeah you know and no disrespect to anybody skating but i just felt like you know the reason why i jumped on hd was because i wanted to be more like intimate that way so i started having a little bit of issues with that making it known and it didn't seem to change anything so i started complaining a lot to mike and then he started to to feel the same way about it and you know him and he and tony started to not see eye to eye on some things and this is what i understand sure mike's telling me this stuff um and then next you know like you know i'm at a point where i'm like hey if this isn't going to like you know revert back to that mentality if we're not going to have you know a team like that like i would rather go skate for somebody where i feel it's more intimate and quaint right so you know mark gonzalez is one of my all-time biggest skate heroes of course like he's you know i put him up there with the soy too um mark's the best man so i if there was one other company that i could see myself wanting to skate for i loved what rocco was doing i loved the products that was a big part of it for me is also his products yeah rocco made the best stuff right h3 had great teams and great video rocco did too but he also had the best product you know and the boards were all like always had the best wood yeah you know just down to the accessories he just did such a great job on everything that that was really appealing to me being such a skate nerd at that age i just wanted the best boards i wanted the best all the products you know i wanted to have the best stuff so you know i started telling mike i might want to go do something else and then he's like well maybe we'll do something together soon like let's let's figure something out and i'm like well you know if if that's going to take a while like i don't know i'm going to go do something else until you figure this out right so he called rocco the ones like hey why don't you put danny on blind and then i'm gonna try and get in a position where we can maybe do something together in the future so that was like a bit of a strategic play mike was like stay close right bronco and i are starting to build this relationship and i think we're going to be able to do something down the path okay and if you don't go too far that would be probably the best idea you know or best strategy right so you know jumping on blind was like one of the you know and jason was a big hero as well especially at that time oh yeah blind was just so dope what year are we talking now what is this 1991 91 blind video days came out 91 yeah right so one okay they did that video fairly fast they did yeah okay and that video i'm bummed i wasn't in too you know because it imagined yeah i mean so here's the background yeah well you're think dude it's crazy how many little moves that were made to set the stage for plan b okay so i jump on blind and then you know so this is starting to come together behind the scenes and by no means like i was honored so honored to be on blind and i love mark and jason so much like i didn't at that point i didn't even want to quit or like i didn't want to do anything new i was very content sure ryan for blind but there was a you know a strategy you know that that was part of a strategy that we'd all plan you know created yeah yeah to be able to potentially do something down the path yeah so mike and rocco are still like working on this idea like this new brand together and then i become kind of like the you know the the recruiter for team riders oh for blind no for playing b o for playing so i leave blind to jump back on h street for like a summer tour wait a minute this is planned this is a you go back on eighth street gonna go recruit some guys for this new company yeah okay i like it i like it what is that 15 years old or 16 years old ready with the tasks i love it yeah so i mean like covert operation here yeah which i feel really bad about because you know mag was there you know mag was such a good friend to me he took good care of me and like i was so young and didn't realize you know like mag was getting the short end of the stick on this and like you know looking back now and i've had this combo with mag many times like dude i'm so sorry like i was kind of a pawn in the situation and you know i was just like so wooed by you know the idea of potentially you know being a partner in this project and like you know you know having something to do with creating it like it's our like i was just like you know it was my dream to me to have my own brand essentially so i you know went on tour with the h3 guys in europe all summer and then i was like you know basically recruiting the guys we needed from h street and um and some other guys like rick howard was uh one of the guys that you know on that trip that we i started hanging out with quite a bit but it wasn't you know i guess it wasn't like that vindictive it was it's just like it kind of you know it all started unfold like i was mike said you know if you skate for hd for a little while like it'll give me the ability to get everything together like an office and everything at that time like it would be good because i want you to get close to some of the guys on the team because we're going to need you know a few of these guys to do this okay okay and i was already kind of close to these guys but he wanted me to like be on tour with them in their ears like hey yeah okay now were you actually like recruiting them or were you going back to you know mike and being like okay there's this guy and this guy we should go after him or how is that working you know we had a couple of guys that were already like go-to's like mike carol yeah oh yeah chef he was on that list um you know hensley was an automatic go-to and then um you know then there was rick howard and sal was on that list yes costume was on that list good so what happened is like we formulated the original team of plan b there's like five of us okay rick chef mike hensley and myself i think there's original guys okay and then once we got that crew together because i i literally came off that trip from europe dave andre like he worked for h street and dave andrick you know was also helping mike set up plan b essentially while i was in europe and dave picked me up from the airport to take me straight to the new office from the 8th street tour okay so that we can meet and figure out okay well who's gonna be on the team and then yeah it's just crazy how it all and wow and then you know we got the group together and on that trip i had been planting the seeds with the right you know with certain guys and they were all about it oh yeah so we got everyone together and then it was like okay we got us and here's the list of other guys we could get like what do you guys think and it's funny because it's like costume was on that list and like you know rick and mike didn't know him very well yet oh so they were kind of like ah costing like you know yeah yeah wow yeah i mean it's funny you know it's just you know obviously causing is amazing yeah i was all for constant and so but you know sal was like mike also wanted to be conscious of not like destroying hatred in the process so i was like okay well let's get these guys and then we'll bring sal on in a little like let's let a little time go by and then we'll bring sal in yeah it's crazy that costume was on that first list yeah and i wonder if costa knew you never asked him right i never got to personally ask him or even tell him about well no it's like we put the you know hey we got five of us there's like a spot we have a couple more spots open and like you know we had costume right there and you know rick and mike just didn't know him yet he got you so they i think what they you know seeing him at the contest and costume was always you know funny like doing his dork runs yeah yeah yeah yeah so i think that they thought you know they didn't know him but i think they were a little bit like questions a little weary who's this guy yeah yeah okay who's this guy you know right yeah yeah so they were a little they're a little weird leery of his uh behavior i think but but then that quickly changed after obviously when they're a form and girl yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we got pasta we want cost yeah yeah so i mean that would have been amazing if costume would be off the job did you ever tell him this down the line i don't know if i've ever had this uh conversation really no i'm sure he might have heard something about it yeah maybe even from rick and mike yeah you know things at that time really did the secrets weren't they didn't they weren't kept secrets small eventually got out small industry yeah yeah i mean carson was like you could tell at that time he was he was the guy you know he was the best special modern street skater in the game at that moment but you know there was it was real clicky in that and that absolutely well maybe he's hearing it right now you know sorry constant but i know i could have been hungry i think it worked out fine yeah i think something's all good and as far as amateurs go jim greco was originally on the list too what yeah who else was on this list this is fashion shanita and janito was you know friends with um was it jeremy jeremy but that that that isn't i mean that isn't essentially what got schneider on in the beginning okay but shinito and greco were the two m's for whatever reason i don't know what happened is mike passed away yeah sorry let me go back i got screwed up on that the am team wasn't formed on the in the beginning like it wasn't formed overnight we had our eyes set on duffy okay so that was another one like rick and mike and these guys were like who's this duffy guy and like they heard stories about him and mike t was like dude you guys duffy's gonna be on plan b they're like well we don't know him and you know we gotta meet this guy and like they were they were editing out everybody pretty hard okay so mike's like all right i'm gonna fly him down and i'm gonna you know take basically take him to the skate spot you guys can watch him skate so he brings uh we're at uh san pasqual high school in escondido where those you know where that in the in the uh questionable video like the one where duffy grinds the big one out in front of the uh he grinds the one off the bank you know yes it's like got a hip oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and then he does the one in the front where he does the front side slappy after he grinds it oh yeah that was with rick you know myself and and all of us just sitting on their boards like watching them skate like he pulls up and duffy's a pretty shy guy back in that era and mike pulls you know picks him up the airport brings them to the session and we're all like just hanging out like all right let's see it let's see this guy let's see what you got buddy wow filmed all those tricks in front of us like right in there he's skating by himself did he know this was like like his like absolutely did you guys really talk to him at that point or you just like all the schools he was pretty quiet but yeah i mean i of course said what's up yeah of course but those guys were definitely like you know it was that's it it took duffy having to do what he did to like get those guys to be you know mike was just like you guys can't say no to this guy there's no way like how do you deny that because i mean he grinded those rails like first try like he just i mean it might have been two tries or something but i mean the plan b video to me was the i mean that was my bible you know it was i straight up like crazy how did you guys even hear about pat duffy at that point he skated for h street already okay yeah he was an am on eight street so he was another one of the guys but he wasn't pro yet so it wasn't like we were gonna steal him for the pro team yet like he had a little bit more proving to do i guess you know which was good because he dropped the questionable video part and he turned pro immediately yeah he became one of the biggest skateboarders in the world overnight but mike was just like dude there's this guy pat duffy you guys like you guys don't know who he is but you're gonna know soon and he was very confident and i remember like everyone was a little bit like oh yeah whatever um but he proved himself yeah absolutely they got out with that i would so you know i would hear stories about mike ternaskey and i thought it was really rad that it seemed like he got a lot of these skaters just to do a lot of like stuff you didn't think you could do almost he was yeah he was able to get inside your head yeah and you know if he had like a gift for doing that like you know making you discover something inside yourself you didn't know existed you know so he could he could like you know get people to like overcome their mental you know yeah roadblocks like he had a gift to do that and uh so that was his strength with us like he could get he could you know not many people you know could overcome certain you know some of our personalities that way but like mike had an ability to like get under your skin and get into your soul and like wow pull it out of you yeah for everybody for everybody i think that was one of those things that he was just he had something special do you have any like specific story maybe about that that he did like do you remember a certain time like maybe a trick that you did but you're like i don't think i can do this all the i mean all of the like mega ram stuff you know just you know i'm gonna you know this wasn't something that happened while he was alive but all of those seeds were planted from him right oh wow like a lot of that was like you know you were gonna build and his whole thing was like as soon as we have money you know like we're going to obviously build this company and we're going to make money and it's going to happen but like doing the high air thing like tony mag at one point was the guy that had the world record for the highest air yeah and uh you know that was a thing back then so i remember mike you know telling me like you got what it takes to be the guy that can go the biggest or whatever and like you know um he started playing those seeds and me at a young age like we're gonna build this crazy ramp and we're gonna do this and you know he planted those seeds and and essentially got me fired up on trying to figure that out with uh early on like before you know before any of it happened right that's amazing there's many moments man where i was like skating and just would be like oh i can't do it and uh i'm i'm i'm done like or you know at a contest and how to run and like fell and just being like i'm gonna leave i don't even care because i hate a contest and i still do i look for any reason to get out of one you know yeah and uh i was just nudging my thing you know i i i got you know i had good results when i cared and you know there was just a point where i just didn't care anymore i was just like it doesn't serve me and i didn't ever skateboard to be better than other people yeah like it was my own thing like i had like it became like the venue where i settled my internal conflicts you know myself you know so competing against other people never felt healthy it always made me so i you know he would always be there to like you know refocus me in in those situations where i would start to doubt myself and i love that yeah but there's many contests that i've been been at where i was just like i'm out of here oh really i'm over it you know and my my confidence was just shot yeah okay so you know that that was something that he was good at and he found the ability to do that and so many people that's amazing and i think that's what pushed all of us you know and it almost pushed like you know mike and rick got i think it like like rubbed them the wrong way at a certain point oh really he was always trying to push so hard you know and those guys were just wanting to like do their own thing and and mike would call them out on it like you know like hey if you guys want to be pro skateboarders and make money you gotta skate contests that's just part of it you know yeah you think you don't you shouldn't take the money if you're not doing the work you know okay and uh so you know those guys did skate contests and did well yeah mike would rip and contest some you know some at times and but i know he was unhappy doing it and he was doing it for you know reasons that didn't serve himself right so i think they started to resent mike for pushing him in that direction but it's funny because the second girl started up they were at all the contests yeah yeah yeah yeah because mike is telling him he planted those he planted the seeds because mike was telling this is how you run a business too oh yeah we got you know if you want to be a pro skateboarder you want to make the money we have to make money as a company and these are the things you need to do and you know those guys be like yeah whatever right later on they show up with all the girl shirts at the contest back to the city yeah man this guy was wearing one of them too and i had to do the same thing you did it right before the contest call up rodney mullen and be like rodney wasn't there a whole room of you there was three or four of us like quitting at the same time it's so crazy like how that came about like why did it have to be at the contest right before right i mean like to make a present it's the same you know but like i guess we didn't well kind of the same thing like we launched plan b back to the city contest like we all showed up there wearing the plan b logos like two years prior yeah in 91 probably yeah and then they started in 93. 91 so it was like the same thing same yeah [Music] and you know i was supposed to you know be a part of a girl as well yeah like those guys were trying to solicit me and i got to a point where i'm like dude i went through so much to be to do this with mike and i'm like i don't think i can bounce like i just didn't have it in me i was too i was like dude i just like we went through a lot to get to this point and i was so bummed that these guys wanted to quit but they were telling me everything as it was unfolding i knew it was happening yeah okay yeah it wasn't like behind my back yeah but you know it got kind of crazy though like where they started to be you know like you know there was a like a disrespect that started to happen you know towards mike and rocco and i started you know that rubbed me the wrong way just because i was like man mike had your guys's backs like whatever you guys think that he's ripping you guys off and making all this money that he wasn't making you know as they learned later on that these guys weren't making billions of dollars behind their backs yeah yeah yeah you know it just wasn't like that you know rocco might have had a porsche but it wasn't like he was caking as hard as they thought he was got you so you know that was a misunderstanding or a misperception but you know i just yeah um the those guys definitely always played that role not to cut you off he always played that role he was that dude yeah and he would be at the like the the premieres and he'd have 100 in his back hand and be like which hand is it you know what i mean i mean that stood out because i mean i wanted to partake and i'd have dl behind him and be like deal tell me which one it is it was just like 100 percent right dude i love that i loved his flossing with the money though though it was it was like no other maybe he's just handing you 100 bills like dude are you kidding me like but i think that rubbed them the wrong way because they were just like wait hold up how's they were so young at the time like they just they they thought they were getting ripped off but that probably wasn't the case they read it wrong but steve rocco could make you think that by how he was just being himself yeah you know what i'm saying i mean the reality is is knowing raku and knowing the truth behind it all he just was such a generous dude he was just sharing money with everybody always like yeah he was like he was like just that day like he always when you hear stories about like oh just take my credit card and go take my card yeah whatever he was you know he you know powell wasn't paying anybody he was like you know paying guy and pay you know he would start paying everybody immediately like yeah you know guy wanted him you know i think he bought guy a motorcycle when he got on blind wow there was a lot of shopping sprees but like i was like tripping they'd be like go to like gap it's just yeah just go get what you want like what like at that time i was like what the is going on it's amazing it was amazing so that was part of morocco's like marketing too though you know that was like he loved being that guy and looking back it was fun it was it was good and i mean these stories you know that's just once oh it's legendary legendary at the x games of the helicopter throwing money out of it come on so good one of a kind brother so good he's the master of marketing man like he literally he's such a genius like he's ridiculous it was really working at that time so but so you didn't accept you didn't go with the girl i didn't go with the girl yeah well you had something already going on you know you had it brewing there's a lot that went into it like you said and yeah i mean i it's you know it broke my heart that we were separated because plan b was really special when we launched it like it was you know it had like a it was a game changer for skateboarding you know and i felt like it was very blessed to be a part of that because i really felt like questionable was like the first like you know even to this day like the video format has been emulated and it's still relevant like that you know that was mike you know had a learning curve through the h3 videos of learning how to make videos yeah and like by the time you got to questionable like not only was like the progression in skateboarding at a certain point where we grabbed all the guys at that time that were kind of moving the needle for the progression and put them on one program you know the questionable video was like the first video that really tied all the fundamentals of modern skateboarding together in one video right like you know like it poured the slab like you know the tricks that were in that video are still relevant today oh my god 100 that's like you know and verts you know like from that point on like from that era from that video like even the way you know i i had been street skating you know quite a bit in that era that it like that movement at that time kind of re wrote like how i you know looked at everything i skated from there like gnarly at that time yeah but like it rewired how i looked at skating bert for even to this day i don't look at her like i used to before that like that first video kind of set the stage of how skateboarding was going to be for me for the rest of my life and a lot of people out there too so i mean that was a very special movement you know and uh so it was a heartbreaking moment when i knew those guys were leaving right and uh but i did you know whatever it could or we could to salvage plan b at that time and that same day that everyone quit you know that same day we were able to recruit jeremy ray and ronnie bertino in oh wow literally at the same contest we lost three guys and we were able to get two back in the same day so like that was like you know plan b had like you know was blessed you know had a second chance essentially at that moment but it wasn't the og original formula that we launched and to this day like i will always be kind of bummed that you know there's a reason to be bummed but there's also a reason to be super proud because that team and that video like it's shaped to why my skating you know like a lot of people questions you know really shaped them because i mean if you look at all the trick like all the different you know errors of trick progression like you know from like milk implies ham plants boneless is like everything you know to the point of you know pressure flips it got to a point like that first questionable video i think was a refinement of everything and it kind of filtered out to stuff that wasn't gonna be cool or wasn't gonna like withstand the test of time and right from that point on like even to this day if you're watching on those videos you know the tricks might have progressed in scale and and maybe doing down bigger things and over things and maybe guys are way more consistent at some things but for the most part it's all stuff that's still relevant when did the uh questionable video come out what year 1991 is it 91 yeah i mean blind video days came out in 91 and then yeah it's quite questionable i mean the thing was like holiday 91 it was like dude right before 92 started but the least 91 the leap in the skill level from i mean you came out they came out in the same year that's crazy to me totally i think it's 92 to be honest okay so just a year yeah just in 292. but the leap in in the ability and skateboarding that that those two videos is like night and day absolutely it's it's bananas too then wait virtual reality came out like now you sure yeah yeah yeah it was 93. yeah well yeah what's up uh questionable came out 92 so okay so 92 early 92 right right like like spring early spring and then vr came out at 90 into 93 virtual reality that seems like such a short time period time to come out with another finale banger mike was just like he was on it which i love because it's like you know it's like it's it's nice to have that you know but you know having that like motivator that's always around but making it easy for you to achieve it too you would always lay it all out so it was like you know team van pull up like you know whatever whatever we needed whatever we needed like whatever tools you know whatever we needed to achieve what we needed to achieve he always made sure that was all covered virtual reality came out in june of uh 93 june of 93. what was it like filming for it did you see or hear about what the other guys were doing at that time or was it all kind of kept a secret or no we all skated together like that's that's another thing that was very special about plan b when it first launched is like we were a real tight crew you know like we did everything together and mike mike was like the ringleader of that you know he had his house and he had all the guys always staying there and it was like you know and he had the video editing facility in his house so everybody knew what was going on with everybody like we all and and it kind of perpetuated everyone to skate harder because you know you would see somebody get a clip and you're like oh i better get myself yeah yeah yeah yeah you know like drove each other now you're seeing everybody's been a footage and you're always right dude i need to get some yeah yeah yeah that would motivate you so i remember see going in the bit in the in the video like editing room i think is that uh the world park and i would just get so sorry like suck let me see let me see totally please dude and then sure enough you know you that's that's what was motivating i think for all of us absolutely yeah that was you know a big part of mike's way of getting everybody inspired but you know my i remember mike carroll and jake rosenberg had a couple of fights in there and you know like because rosenberg started working on you know virtual reality or whatever and um with mike and uh those guys got into it a few times but carol would like grab his transfer tapes no he would leave like i'm quitting and i'm taking all my shoes yeah like he'd walk around the block with his tape just come back and come back and be like all right you guys super funny dude it's amazing yeah damn dude that was the days man wow yeah jake put up with a lot of because he was you know he was our like he was mike's like right-hand man and you know he was filming a lot and filming with us but like yeah he got birthday he got people's bad days taking out him that's it jake's the best man but this is all going on and and you you win saudi that year right 91 91 yeah right so this is before questionable it's in the it's in the growth of plan b yeah yeah which is interesting to me because you already had video parts come out but you would think that the defining moment for sodi would be this huge video part right like it is nowadays kind of yeah because back then though like the video part everything wasn't based off video parts like it is today right like you know it was an accumulation of things you know and you didn't have to necessarily have that banging video part to like get on the sony you know train yeah or like five video parts yeah yeah it was like time it out all year yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they just called you up they just said hey you come up to san francisco we gotta and that you were the second one who win who won yeah tony was first right behind you huh chris the oh there they are thank you for these bro i've always wanted i've tried to make a run several times but it never worked out but that's dude that's amazing though second one and you were saying before you didn't even know what it was almost you were like what is this i didn't really understand the magnitude of it or i didn't know what it was going to become like right you know when when i get a call from from jake and fosto and they're like hey you need to come up you know and we're doing this event and the mini ramp you know when you skate the mini ramp and we're gonna have a party and you know essentially you won this this ward i'm like what does this all this mean right and then i show up i remember they had a you know and as a kid this was such a big deal like they had a limo pick me up at the airport and i was like [Music] yeah that was crazy you got a broken arm down too right yeah yeah oh you broke your arm yeah i broke my arm snowboarding so i had it in a cat in a sling so like that didn't stop him because he still sets that ramp you know yeah there was foot there there's footage of you skating and then you're right question questionable okay yeah yeah yeah that's it oh interesting i loved your part and questionable dude i did i mean from the moment where you you took the hat and rolled the window up and then put it right like that's virtual reality was that virtual reality i'm getting mixed up no it's all good but bro both of them wow they're only a year and a half i know that's what it might as well have been the same video for real i'm still i'm still in disbelief that that was almost a year later that's that's that's nuts to me into the caliber of skateboarding yeah like it's crazy the caliber went up yeah i mean it went up a lot like in that year and a half like changes even getting more refined like you know just the boards did change too force changed like crazy in that one year yeah they did it's full from like i mean i have someone on the wall yeah yeah we have a whole tunnel tiny like that star wars like a year apart yeah wait a minute when did the barnyard come out oh we don't have that when the barnyard come out 89. oh 89 huh so wait wait i'm sorry where did they where were they a year before that i'm not sure exactly when the star wars one came out but if you look at the danny the menace board right there that's my first plan b board so that can give you an idea of the wow from that to that yeah pretty quickly pretty quick and that's something that did you kind of work like you're like hey i want this or something like they just gave you like cool i'll skate this no i mean i was really into my shapes always like you know i wasn't just like jumping on anything that was handed to me but um i remember rodney was pretty vested in the shape thing so like he started doing all the shapes that prime he did yeah did he highly invested in that and i don't know if that had anything to do with the boards you know getting real narrow and and uh you know more free stylish yeah yeah but it could have been dan rodney straight changed the landscape yeah that's so crazy well because mike v came out with the barnyard right and that kind of changed a lot right right yeah because it was almost like a twin it wasn't a twin tail but yeah i mean it was close yeah people started putting noises on the board i had it right um a board on uh h street and i don't have that one up here but the one that had the vw logo on the nose of it it had you know it was almost like straight rails i think that the one with the choo choo train is is a not like similar shape or almost the same shape but that was like a a kind of a i guess progressive shape for me at the time because a lot of boards right before that were like fishtail still right right but that was like my first board that you know was kind of more straight change that yeah yeah interesting i remember i showed up the summer i was skating that board in europe um on that same trip where i came back and started skating for plan b so that board would be almost identical to that shape oh the danny the menace okay yeah but like solomon was skating that board and like jeremy kline was skating my board wow like i know that that board was kind of a it had a little bit of influence on where shapes were headed out that show but shortly after they just started getting narrower and narrower and there i think sounds more symmetrical salomon against rocket queen board unreal might have been similar to that yeah i'm not mistaken because i think it was around the same time yeah because it's you know and i was very honored that those guys were skating my board that stuff was gonna say that's you know like back then you could do that though and nobody would like get too upset these guys are like skating my board writing for other companies i remember the same contest he's skating my board i'm wearing an alien workshop shirt and skating you know skating my own board but i was wearing a workshop shirt in the contest crazy so like there was a bunch of like i love that that was yeah back then it was like it was cool it wasn't supportive right it's cool exactly you're supporting the most part right or you like that particular shirt you know just the logo or you're supporting yeah it wasn't as yeah people weren't as uptight about it so we're kind of you know the the plan b's going on right now and uh we're moving into like you know the dc era when dc came around 94. i mean it's also uh mike chernowski passed away 94 also a lot of things were happening in 94 you know so what how did that all transpire i mean even the dc coming into the picture and you know even ternaski's death you know that had a huge impact on not only plan b but skateboarding you know it was it was a big thing you know and really like devastating yeah devastating and you broke your neck that year it was a pretty rough yeah chain of events for sure i could imagine but the ternancy thing was you know like i was uh with him the night before that happened we had all gone up to slam cd jam um and i remember mike you know had been reaching out to rick to chef and to carol about like meeting up and talking about talking through and trying to get resolution you know mike was in a like place with all his spiritual work all the way like you know he was doing the religious stuff work and you know became a christian and stuff like that so he made it a point that weekend to get with each one of those guys to like resolve his conflict and and find peace with all that which he you know singled them out one by one and went and met up with them and did exactly that wow to the point where you know i remember we uh you know on the flight home um from uh you know from vancouver mike was telling me on the flight he was just like man this is like you know this is one of the most peaceful times in my life that i you know where i'm at right now he's like this is a very special moment like i've not felt this you know light or you know i haven't had all this you know this kind of weight lifted off my back crazy my whole life like this is the moment like you know because i guess he'd done a you know a lot of stuff and you know with his you know spiritual work that he was coming to terms with a lot of different things that he had baggage with and you know and and resolving his conflicts with uh those guys was a big part of it so he was like really really hyped on that flight home wow you know like dude this is like such an amazing moment for me right now you know and then it's crazy that yeah the next morning you know we were all supposed to meet up like i flew in with mike i got a ride home um he went home and uh jeremy ray was you know on that flight with us and he went you know and patchina i think stayed the night at mike's house we were all supposed to meet up at the plan b office that morning and go over like board graphics oh okay and uh you know mike got up and those guys were just waking up and mike took off to go to the office and uh you know right literally like right not even a block away from his house like right pulling out of the you know his condo complex he came to the light right there and um went to make a left and some lady like ran the red light like you know 60 miles an hour and just killed him on impact no so that was uh that was a heavy moment that morning getting a phone call you know and uh you know jeremy you know and these guys were at his house and it was just really gnarly darling thing to uh wake up to and uh so you know that was you know that that was um the beginning of a new you know uh i guess era for not just plan b but just for all of us because so much of us relied on mike's existence you know he was the guy that laid out you know the agendas for us and kind of you know took care of all this heavy lifting all the stuff on the back end of the business stuff you know like we didn't we weren't acquainted with any of that stuff we were just focused on skating and that's what he had set it up for us to do yeah so that that was crazy and uh his wife was left in a position where she basically had to take over plan b and it wasn't necessarily what she wanted to do but she had no other choice and uh you know i give give her so much props for uh trying her best to do that right like she she wasn't like you know acquainted with the business really she you know she wasn't you know i think passionate about running a skateboard company but she knew that it was important to mike and you know how much of us needed that you know sort of uh you know anchor and the brand was was essentially that for all of us it kept us all grounded and focused and gave us all something to be proud of and work towards or for yeah absolutely so you know mary took over plan b for a little while and you know it just wasn't the same without mike at the helm right and you know around that time rocco's you know trying to um essentially make a deal with mary to take over plan b and these things are happening behind our you know colin and my back you know since mike and rick and chef were gone you know colin was colin was one of the m's that was brought on plan b shortly after we started it he wasn't on the original team we tried to get him on the original team but oh he was still on pal as well so i mean we were just you know mike was working on that and working on that it eventually happened and uh we were the guys i think you know that were in line to essentially relieve mary of of you know managing the brand got you and you know at that age i think we thought you know maybe somewhere at that point like kind of like to like what mike and rick were thinking you know because steve was working a deal out with mary behind our back we didn't know about it we were hearing things and we were kind of like wait a second plan b you know like especially me i was feeling like wait plan b was something i helped create sure why am i not being included in this conversation and uh you know um we started getting a little bit like you know i guess protective of the brand and you know decided to like try and take over plan b by ourselves and do it alone wow and do it outside of world industries and how old were you at this point um i think i was uh 17 or 18. oh wow heavyweight wow yeah so what happened what unfolded there i mean rocco's trying to get it and then you guys want to step in what was a what happened was a resolution you know looking back now i think we were just you know i think we were just young uneducated unexperienced kids and definitely you know i know steve well enough now to know that he would have done the right i can give him the benefit of the doubt to say he would have took care of us at some point but in our minds we were like wait why aren't we getting considered in this and you know why is he going to own plan b when plan b is us right like how can he buy plan b we are plan b yeah yeah and so i think we got like protective and and started leveraging the fact that we knew we had the power because without us plan we didn't have anything it didn't exist yeah yeah so we told mary like hey you know you can't really do a deal with steve because we'll all leave right right wow and you got nothing yeah so colin and i you know we at that time had been making a little money off um or you know i had been making money off dc and oh we both worked around that time calling she was out so there was the first couple checks that we got from dc were pretty substantial royalties so we had you know a bit of money that that had just come in and we decided to make you know which looking back again the same thing with rocco like we were plan b but it was mike's wife and mike's wife just had a baby and we felt you know out of respect to mike that we definitely just take plan b and do it on our own especially knowing that there was no formal trademarks registered and all this stuff like right but we just didn't have the you know the i think we had enough integrity to like do something you know to to give back to mike's family and so colin and i did a deal with mary and said we'll both give you 50 grand each if you just let us wow wow yeah and we we gave her money and did and took over plan b which again there was nothing to take over because there was nothing that treadmill trademarks weren't registered correctly you know we didn't have to do it got you but i know that that money went into trust for michaela his daughter and that's essentially paid for her school and she went to college and so i feel good that we did the right thing although looking back that was a lot of money for us to give up and that's yeah sure right especially like you said like 17 you know it's like he that's so much money back oh my god listen in 1994 and not having any business sense or not knowing how exactly to run a company even you know you're skaters right absolutely so you know here we are now we have plan b on our shoulders and then we're not with world so we're like what do we do so colin and i did you know our best and tried to try to run plan b on our own and uh you know we ended up started paying you know we had to pay payroll you know we had to pay all the team riders and right so you know we didn't have you know the production stuff dialed in we didn't you know not being with world we didn't have all the accounts that we had so essentially colin and i were losing money each month and basically the money we were making from dc we were just giving out to the guys on the team okay right so at some point you know it took us you know about it what this is 92 years to realize like dude we're not skating as much as we should be we're stressed out we're losing all the money we're making from dc and uh why are we doing this right you know plan b is very important to us and it represents you know a big part of our skate heritage at that point and it and it it's it's a big part of mike's dna which i felt like keeping plan b alive was kind of like keeping him alive yeah yeah and it was and it still is and that's a big reason why we do it today but you know at that moment we decided that it might make more sense for us to just go skate and just do something else and you know maybe one day we'll revisit plan b but at that time it wasn't you know it wasn't the best decision that for us yeah i mean you're you're funding your funding plan b with your dc checks with your own money yeah they're still like you're still skating you want to skate you have so you're 17 18 years old yeah you're killing it yeah boys yeah we're kids and yeah you know we're making good money off our shoe royalties and should have been saving that money and you know for this legacy of mike ternanski we were yeah willing to to give that up to keep his to keep the vision going and and the brand alive and and essentially you know it kept mike alive and i think that was important to us at the time until you know then until the you know we started really you know taking a financial hit and they were like you know what if mike was around he would tell us to stop doing this so that was kind of what gave us the you know the the ability to be okay with letting it go letting plan b go right right and this was four years after right this is around 98 that it kind of dismantled yeah i think yeah maybe it was four years there yeah yeah 98 98 ish yeah yeah so maybe four years later four years still a long time to try to keep it alive skateboarding is a hard industry you know it's very hard yeah that was a it was a very um you know big learning lesson as far as business goes sure and then at the same time you know we had a video the revolution video that we made and since we left world rock rodney quit and then they started the a-team yeah okay and that was like a retaliation at us um and uh you know next they know rocco's you know trying to throw a lawsuit at us oh i didn't even put that together the team the a team oh my god why didn't i not even think of that yeah so so next you know we're in like a lawsuit with rocco and he's just tinkering with us because he knows we don't have money you know and essentially you know i you know rocco and i've joked about this and we're good friends obviously today and you know but it was it was like a hard lesson for us he was teaching us you know like it actually was it you know it it made us learn a lot in a short amount of time about business yeah yeah looking back know that rocco would have had good intention for us you know with with what he was going to do with plan b but you know we we were just kind of like i think like you know young and just not believing you know it was just i don't think we had the faith and based on everything we else we saw happening in skateboarding how many like you know deals you know guys are just jumping burning each other left and right skateboarding was like the wild west in that time period for sure so you couldn't really trust anybody right so we didn't want to bank on the idea of like well maybe rocco will take care of some that we were like we want to make sure that we're cut into this now or we're going to do our own thing what kind of lawsuit is he throwing at you at that time like that yeah like that later yeah i guess it could be anything because anything you're gonna have to have a rebuttal and have a lawyer you have a lawyer yeah so it's messing with your money a little bit it was really benign we just had to you know we just had to spend money and that was like his main thing it was like right you know whatever it was it was really over nothing but um him you know trying to intimidate us to make sure that we didn't do anything to sabotage anything that he had going on or yeah just to know that like unless you guys want to spend a lot of money don't with me oh wow okay so yeah you know i think you know our our distribution company that we had come up with at that time was called armageddon you know and like that means the end of the world yeah there's like these little you know undertones in there that were like kind of jabbing and i think this was like rocco was already fed up with the whole thing with girl and he was just like nobody's gonna with me anymore dude i'm going in on these guys just making sure they know better yeah i almost make an example yeah or something which you know it was just more or less we got into a meeting room and and basically you know he just wanted us to you know walk away without you know doing anything verbally or you know anything to sabotage you know his his brands wow man yeah and at this whole time too it's like dc starting you uh did dc start at the same time that you you broke your neck surfing was this all in the this was all in the same year right yeah yeah the the surfing accident yeah that happened yeah 94 something like that summer 94. summer 94. i was in hawaii right uh no it's in california it's in california and what what exactly happened did you you you hit your your head on the sand or it was just a small day and i forgot that it was so shallow and i dove in and like just dove right into the sands wow yeah so i ended up in like um you know i had a bruised brain stem and you know a hematoma on my spinal cord i had like problems with my i had some paralysis of my movement my upper body i had a lot of neurological problems for a while i'm sure vertigo and i'd get up i couldn't stand up for very long and um you know i was a mess and nobody could seem to understand how to help me get on a path of resolution or healing okay because it was you know broken neck is a term you know it's easy to understand it that way but i didn't physically break any bones got you what i did is i tore the ligaments that hold that your skull onto your atlas vertebrae your top vertebrae your c1 okay so you know the the vertebrae you know that's where all the nerves your whole body go through that one um you know through the first vertebrae of that tunnel yeah and they start branching out as as you go you know each stage down got you so all of the nerves that fed the rest of my body were all affected because i bruised the area that feeds you know that before any nerves that branched out like i had a hematoma on my spinal cord in the occiput area which is like you know that's the area like if you break your neck or if you have an injury there you know that's the one that would kill you real quick so that hematoma is basically blocking everything yeah so that and a lot of western doctors couldn't understand that you know they were like oh there's no broken bones so we don't really know what to tell you as far as like what to do about it i mean that's devastating so you know i basically you know went into a dark really dark place man i was like you know bedridden for almost a year um i was just like in the darkness in my bedroom just like couldn't stand up so i had to lay on the floor like oh my gosh you know i whittled away into like just a frame of bones you know i could barely move my upper body i could barely you know i could i could move my legs and wiggle my toes and all that stuff but yeah i had numbness everywhere enough stuff going on that i was so scared to stand up because i thought that any little slight movement was going to kill me or paralyzed okay wow so you know to to go from that you know and to get to a point where i'm actually skating and was like unbelievable like you couldn't even believe that it's still to this day like i can't believe i got you know and it never resolved completely like i have a lot of problems still to this day from that okay and the journey i had to go through to get the right guidance to understand the injury to help me get out of that was pretty you know extensive and you know very um you know depressing and and to the point of like you know giving up hope on everything um so yeah i met a guy named paul czech after you know probably met like 20 people different orthopedic surgeons neurosurgeons you know tons of chiropractors tons of healers like anybody and everybody i could yeah oh so and so he's great you know he could figure he he's helped my buddy out you know whatever everybody has their absolutely their guy that did some something amazing for somebody they know so in desperation i was trying i was going to anybody and everybody and not getting anywhere so it got really got pretty dark and then i found out about this guy paul check and you know i i was uh yeah at my wit's end and pretty much over everything you know ready to just call it a day wow and i just was like well what do i have to lose at this point and i met this guy and right away he was like i know exactly what's wrong with you like i understand this injury completely i've had a patient that had a similar injury so i know wow i know what to do to help you you know it's almost music yeah because you said the doctors don't know anything they can't help you and here you are just like finally somebody's there that says that they yeah yeah they know but that road you all you're almost thinking like are you really going to be able to help me that's true too absolutely because i lost face faith in like any of these other people right you know supposedly had you know the ability to help me or you know the referrals to to these other healers doctors chiropractors like neuroscience therapists whatever it was i just lost faith in at all i was like dude i don't know i just think that i did something to myself that sudden it's not gonna you can't heal this right so um yeah that that path was pretty dark and and then i started to um work with this guy paul check and paul right the first day i saw him gave me hope which i didn't want to believe in but i started to you know listen to the things he was telling me and you know i could sense his energy he was so confident and just understand like the you know the way he talked to me and you know the the competence he had in in helping me i could feel it you know i mean it was not like any of the other people that i met i could tell everyone else wanted to tell you something good right but they they were scratching their head this is an going situation some people didn't want to put their get you know get involved in it you know they're like oh wow this is like a little bit outside my league i can't even take this on do you imagine i hate telling the story because i hate you know talk talking about like all these things that like you know it's like you know i don't you know like it's so like a pity party or like oh my god like everyone feels sorry for me but it's not like you know it the irony of this like what i learned out of this was so massive moving forward my with my athletic career and just the way i looked at you know my lifestyle from that point on changed because i learned so much from this guy that even you know though i have residual problems with this neck injury you know to this day like i have you know which i treated in colombia i had these discs and jet injected with you know stem cells into the discs but i have three crushed sticks in my neck completely crushed from that injury so i have you know vertebrae sitting on vertebrae with no bushings in there oh my gosh so the nerves are very pinched and i get all kinds of neurological problems from it and uh and it's constant it's like 24 7. it never goes away damn so that's been you know and as i'm getting older it's progressively getting worse um so you know at some point you know that would have you know that that without the right maintenance you know i would if my career would have been over you know it's one thing to get out of the woods with that but another thing to understand how to maintain a lifestyle that's going to be able to give me longevity that i've had yeah on top of it so to continue skateboarding continue skateboarding but then also all the other injuries that i've acquired along the path too like i really believe if i didn't go through what i went through with my neck injury the accumulation of other injuries that would have happened without the education that i got through this sort of you know process would have ended me a long time ago so like despite all of the you know the baggage i have from this neck injury the um you know the wisdom i've gained and the experience i've gotten and the education i've gotten through this you know understanding how to deal with this neck injury and the resources i obtained have been able to get me through everything else so like it's been you know i always think about i'm like well if the neck injury didn't happen how far would i have made it you know like would it be nice not to have these problems within my shirt for sure but would i have been with you know what would i be in the shape i am today would i understand that health and wellness you know the things that i understand today that keep me going and you know the lifestyle that i live today is would it be possible like if without all of these things that i had to go to and it's also the uh you know overcoming that you know and being being going from that dark place to a place where you can get on the board again and like that's huge knowing that like well if i went through that i can get through that easy absolutely so i went from that you know i think it was like a year and three or four months after the injury i met paul okay he said bring your skateboard to the next appointment and i was like why do i need a skateboard and he was like i haven't seen a board in a long time i just like to see how skateboards are okay so i was like all right i'll bring you board so you can check it out yeah you know and he's like yeah my skun skates a little bit or whatever and i just you know didn't have any clue that he was like trying to lure me into getting on the skateboard but that was his main reason is like he wanted literally the mental like the sort of mental block i had you know on top of the injury the injury is one thing but like i was so fearful of something else happening that like i you know he said if i didn't overcome that by you know tricking my mind into believing that these you know that the the the sort of fear that i was holding on to doesn't exist right that i would never be able to heal this injury so and like you said you're thinking about if you move a certain way you could die yeah absolutely and that's and to be honest there was a little bit of truth in it it was a yeah so how were you getting around that point were you like in a wheelchair um i wasn't in a wheelchair i could walk you walk okay but it was very slow and fragile and uh you know and and that's not like time period where i was living with ken block at the time and like he was my roommate and you know he would go to work at drawers you know or dc and you know he would come home and he would just you know be like hey you cool and he would look in the room and see me on the floor at the same position and spot i was in before he left for work in the morning yeah like do you need anything and i didn't really have anyone to take care of me right my mom was like living in mammoth and like i was on like literally on an island of my own through that whole process please dude yeah that is mentally so i was seeing going to the you know i was driving like that like like i had nobody else to drive me to doctor's appointments oh my god to the store to get food like i just had no support whatsoever and i also didn't have insurance oh so you know all of a sudden i have like you know all these medical bills that i'm facing and you know it was just like i went broke i didn't have any support so it was a real heavy time period for me and that's when ternaski passed away and you're trying to do plan b yeah yeah all that's happening all that all that's happening and uh super heavy yeah the neck injury humbled me so much and uh you know it definitely made me take a step back and look at my life and look at the things you know that was you know just how the perspective i was able to achieve in that moment was priceless and and i just really believe it changed my life and a lot of really good positives sure healthy ways you know like let me let me ask you this what was the defining moment when paul check is his name paul check what was a defining moment or something where you started believing that this would help you're seeing results you're feeling the results because i feel like the way to the recovery is like as soon as you start feeling there it's working yeah it's actually like brings you up to the next level and and and spearheads you're mentally like mental you know yeah was there was there a certain moment or exercise or something like what the programs he got me on and the treatment i was getting because he's also really good friends with this you know this uh atlas alignment or atlas specialist that has an alignment uh technique that's not manipulative so like it's not like a cracking sort of technique that aligns he's basically moving it back into place yeah so here's an analogy of what happened like if you broke you know broke your arm if you don't set your arm and put it in a cast it's going to heal like your arm could heal crooked crooked yeah so the soft tissue is similar and like the atlas vertebrae you know your your head's like you know like an egg that sits in the atlas is like a cradle so the atlas has these ligaments like they cross on each side of your spinal cord okay i tore those ligaments and the atlas slid out of place it was sitting on my spinal cord so my head was tilted caught like cockeyed like this and you have balance receptors in your occiput to keep your eyes level so what happened is my neck you know my my spine started shifting all these things out below to get my head square so that i was able to see straight so my whole frame and everything like i was like my back was like shaped like an s like oh um but what happened is those ligaments were torn the atlas was sitting on the spinal cord for over a year and three months all those ligaments healed with my atlas sitting on my spinal cord so they had to get those ligaments back into alignment right yeah well they had to break up all the scar tissue in those ligaments and then move the atlas vertebrae into place several times a day like i was bouncing from paul check's office to the to his name's kenny shepard's office okay twice a day i'd go to paul checks he would work on me he'd go in there and dig you know very painful process for you know um to get the the vertebrae mobile right you'd go in there and dig in there and basically loosen everything up i'd go to kenny shepherds and he would set the atlas vertebrae in place then by the time i get back to paul checks it was already slid back into the same place it was at so we were doing that for like a few months twice a day every day and then in between then i was doing the you know like all of the training exercises that he was you know i started very very you know elementary right and then progressed as as my vertebrae started to hold in the right place you know it would start to hold for a day and then two days and then eventually it started holding in place again which is a miracle wow based on how long it sat out of place right they basically were like training it to go back and then building those tissues and muscles up building strength around it exactly so that process took you know a few months okay and it was so you know i mean i literally like was this was like all day every day dedicated every you know my whole day was built around this process could you feel it move out when you were just walking or something yeah because my head would tilt and like twist and like my shoulder you know was like sitting back like this like my whole frame was all twisted up wow like it's it's everything your body does to compensate so that your eyes sit level yeah you know whatever it has to do below to get your you know to get your head square it'll shift and do whatever it has to so the theory in chiropractic is if you line the atlas it'll self-align the rest of your spine so and that's that's true um so there's a lot of theory that you know people have that say like you know as long as they align your atlas correctly then you shouldn't need to have any other chiropractic interesting you know there might be adhesions in some of your joints so it's good to sometimes break up those adhesions so you get you know the mobility and those joints right but that isn't necessarily aligning your spine or your vertebrae your body will self-align your spine wow you know if the atlas is aligned correctly then all those followers it's funny i was telling you before the show i went to a person who studied the czech philosophy and whatever and that was one of the first things he made me go do was get my atlas aligned there you go right away that was the first one where did you go um to tell you the truth is this was so long ago i don't remember but he referred me to somebody and then they boop they popped it back in or it was a little out of alignment you know there you go yeah that's the theory especially with paul czech's work like yeah a lot of it's based on like you know it's it's uh you know strength and and and alignment you know um posture correction and building strength with having a square balanced frame is is the whole the whole mentality yeah i i loved it because well i went there for my achilles tendon when i had the achilles tendon thing i found this guy and he was a check check institute uh whatever but uh he it was very like non-traditional yeah ways of working out like he would have rulers going down and like doing like lifts and on a ball and like very calculated and i mean the first meeting he just measured my whole body for like a two hours was just yeah he did there's an evaluation an evaluation so he can see where all the imperfections are misalignments and then imbalances and all the compensations going on we nailed it so yeah i just stopped going to him because i couldn't afford it anymore yeah i mean but you know yeah but but i learned what i learned and it was great definitely and like my whole process like you know i i did so much work with paul over the years that i you know i i sometimes work with somebody because it just you know kind of shines light on some of the things that i maybe forgot or bringing and that work is always evolving so right the guys that do it you know there's new exercises i learned here and there and for the most part you know i've got to a point where i could train myself yeah and uh you know i would only really seek uh you know um can or consult when i when i had an injury that was you know something that that i thought maybe it might be a good idea to get some advice on how i should go about resolving it absolutely absolutely these injuries sometimes you know can be complex and but for the most part just standard you know maintaining and in doing the maintenance work maybe i don't really need you know to pay somebody to do that at this point sure sure and i could probably you know if you guys wanted to come to my place i could train you guys hell yeah that would be awesome i'm just saying like i'm at a level where i know i from my experience yeah you know i don't want to i'm not i'm not trying to be a trainer but i've definitely you know got to a place where i think you know yeah i could help somebody get into shape totally and i feel you on that because when i was going through my achilles tendon it was like a year's worth of physical therapy and this and by the end i had like you know uh muscle stims you know big old machines i had balls i had all the toys i had everything i mean i was basically like you know a certified uncertified physical therapist at that point i knew everything if you spend your whole life doing this you know it's like you know it's like i just had those three surgeries and like at this at the you know my orthopedic surgeon the one that i've worked with for the last 25 years just retired so i'm working with another one that's you know he's also really renow you know he's a highly respected and world renowned so doctor pre-bite prevents my my guy yeah i got surgery from him too actually but there's another doctor named tal david and he's like you know he works on a lot of the nfl players oh wow you know pro ball players i mean stuff but tell i just had surgery with him and he's good friends with pre-light and private just he just operated on prevent as well so it's a little ecosystem of guys that are all friends and stuff but tal you know with after i you know got the procedure he's like hey you need help getting set up for therapy or physical therapy whatever and i'm like you know what i don't think i need to get signed up for therapy i think i can do this myself yeah there's some things i probably could have had some help with like deep you know just it's hard to massage your own knees and stuff but like digging into the scar tissues a pain in the ass it'd be nice to have somebody help me do that some massage work on muscles but for the most part i've done you know a good job on my own and you know i think i i basically got enough education these days where you know what to do yeah i mean but not you know i wouldn't recommend it for everybody if you've not you know if you haven't gone through it i mean definitely get advice and get the guidance and that's the thing is i i preach it's like if after any injury physical therapy is like the key to getting back to where you want to be yeah you know so it's definitely a an education you know you it's nice to have but it's something you know i guess you don't want to like have to learn hopefully you don't yeah yeah i'm grateful i've i've got the like you know sort of uh experience i have but definitely don't wish it upon anybody or go through the class or school that i've had to go exactly yeah yeah it's insane man so at all this time now when you're i mean you this happened when you were like on dc right did anything transpire with dc were they because sometimes when you get injured you know as a skater there's like there's the what-ifs are gonna happen like what are my sponsors gonna say or this or that was there anything there that was kind of like oh maybe or you know i don't know yeah right i think it got to the point where people were really thinking it was a wrap you were down you were down wow seriously like that's you know the general consensus was i kind of went like people didn't see me for a year right the rumors were flying around like you know this guy's done his neck yeah so and that and i was getting that feedback you know and but if you look at the first dc ad ever i'm standing you know against the wall with the poster of the the you know banner or whatever of the new shoe the white one black one um and that's the first dc ad ever yeah you can see when i'm standing there that i'm like totally jacked oh no way really yeah so this happened at that time yeah like right when we launched dc these ones right here yeah that exact one holy damn dude dude it's so epic were they behind you the whole way you know because sometimes you'd hope that the the sponsors would be behind you you know for injuries like that you know and this is different than just normal sponsors this is friends and family so like yeah i don't know if you know they anyone knew what to do like i don't know how you know looking back like i didn't have many people checking in on me i don't know what anyone thought but right i think everyone was like confused on what was going on didn't know really what the extent of it was yeah so i i think you know and i kind of reclused on my like i just didn't you know i wanted to be on the deal like i didn't really you know want to make it a big old you know public thing i just wanted to like go through the process or go through what i was going through and you know i was just at a certain point i just wasn't really even concerned about skating anymore i was just like man i just want to get back to where i can actually just live yeah like get go to the grocery store and yeah you know and and be able to do like the simple things all the stuff we take for granted every day yeah so it was a it was a very heavy time period man i couldn't even imagine going through something like that this isn't the only reason why i love paul check and respect and and just worship him so much there's so many things that i've learned from from paul and many you know things he's taught me and experiences we have had together on so many other things but um so you know the tampa contest in 96 is coming up you know this is like i meet paul check and then tampa is like four months later okay and uh so i showed up at tampa and then i you know came out this is two years later yeah after this accident so i was dark like on on the dl like nobody had seen me or heard anything and then i came to tampa and i you know that was my first contest back and i won this divert condos bro that's amazing dude and then i got street the second in the street contest but that was like you know that's paul check bro like without that guy you wouldn't have been there wow you know he'll sit there and get you know we've had this conversation many times in front of other people and just whatever and he's always like man it was you and i'm like dude let's be real here i was like ready to jump off a cliff dude like it wasn't me i needed there's so much of my ability to overcome that was paul jack yeah you were he was your light yeah dude that's not just but a friend a friend but just you know just his his confidence in dealing with me and and him you know he reinstalled like that hope in me and gave me that ability to you know he lit the fire the fire was out dude i was i was like i was like he lit one back up he definitely got you know he got the lights back on god bless him dude this sounds random but i watched batman the other day and every time i watch batman i think of you because the dude bane breaks this dude's back and the dude's stuck in this dungeon i mean he comes back and he comes back and then he's up and i was like i mean i just it kind of reminds me like you broke your you pretty much broke your back in a weird way yeah and you come back and you just take over bro you you won the verge two years later this is like phenomenal well it was were people like i would have been more hyped to win the streak on us but yeah david believed in my career i've had like three or four different first and second places okay i've never won both of them so that was always like very close that was my always the one thing you know and i don't really like contests at all dude just like i was saying earlier but if there's one thing i always wanted to do is just have like pull off one where i actually got first totally has anyone done that the at tampa i don't think so the vert and the street i can't really i think tony might have had maybe i know there was one you know tony always killed the street contest you know like yeah he'd get out there yeah but i had it was a contest in like south padre island one of those uh like um espn b3s or whatever they call them okay and uh he won the vert and i got second in the vert and um and then it was the flip-flop on the street like i won the street and he got sick no way wow dude it got close two times wow listen man there's still there's opportunities bro listen we're gonna run street league and then we're gonna do something else man yeah well i don't yeah i think my street contest is okay okay buddy but like i said dude god bless paul check you know it sounds like that guy just put you you know lit the fire you know um i mean literally what was it like like you go into tampa like were people like shocked to see you like what was the vibe absolutely like i couldn't even imagine we thought you were done yeah like you're like what what are you doing here like people are definitely trying to watch like because i like you know it was you know there was no social media there was no like back then it's like if you you know out of sight out of mind and when you know i wasn't showing up anywhere for over a year a year and a half or whatever and uh you know i think people just assumed it was it was a done deal right and there's no way to check in on anybody it's like you know i can't post an instagram like i'm working out and i'm coming back and it's like everyone had cell phones back then and it's just a lack of communication ability was you know like totally different than it is nowadays but yeah yeah what a dramatic change right like i guess the way you would hear home phone to like numerous ways to get a hold of somebody it's like the new section in transworld or like thrasher yeah the grapevine 401 yeah i mean skateboarding travels fast man you know it'll go from tampa out here to the west coast pretty quick asr trade show yes stuff like that yeah sorry yeah so you win the two oh my god man that place was yeah that was crazy that was a pretty crazy chain of it like from one side of the spectrum to the other what a story yeah paul check man i don't know like how yeah where's he i will never take any of the credit for you know my ability to make it out of the woods on that like call check that's all i can say looking in sd um yeah he is yeah he is damn he's the man just in case you want to reach out to him i know right you know real man you know i was lucky to build my relationship when i did with him because like these days he's you know he's on such a different level like he has a podcast and he doesn't you know like his time is so valuable right and he makes money doing other things like seeing patients for him these days it's like you know unless you have a ton of money and like you know you have a real good reason for it you know or need for him like he's not yeah he's not even considering working with patients i got to subscribe to his podcast you should yeah really dope man that's incredible yeah he's that's awesome you do all that you win tampa and then like you're jumping out of helicopters but wait wait wait wait last year it's the start of dc oh yeah we gotta talk about the start of dc because this is one of the first one of the first skate shoe or skate skater owned brands coming up there was a clothing company called eight ball clothing that's what started off the whole thing okay oh eight ball clothing was ken ken block on his l on his own my brother was you know um trying to figure out you know do you guys know the history like any bit about my brother's past like why my brother used to skate just like i did you know you would have been he was on the path to being a pro skateboarder someday like we were you know very competitive and you know he was we rivaled pretty hard and uh so growing up you know it was like you know that was my weapon back to my brother because it was not easy growing up with him you know with him as an older brother yeah and the friends that he had and you know there was just no boundaries on on torturing me so how many years older three and a half three and a half okay so the skateboarding became my thing and uh my brother when he was 16 um you know he had a brain injury that left him um half paralyzed oh wow and uh he got a hematome on his brain that uh and from that point on he he was in a coma for several months and then when he came out of the coma he had paralysis and and you know my brother's just in high school he's 16. and you know we were both you know kind of getting better and better at skateboarding at that time and learning quickly right my brother you know has got this injury he's half paralyzed he's lost his ability to control his left side of his body and that's not coming back it's slowly getting better but it's not coming back to the point where he can continue to skate like he was true you know and i'm progressing quite quickly you know i'm getting sponsored and i'm on this team and i'm going from a soy division to pow like these are all things that are happening right around this time okay all right before that's right before everything started to come together so you know after the injury i started um you know kind of feeling like sympathetic to his position knowing that well this has got to be kind of hard on his ego now his little brother is starting to you know skate careers starting to take off right and he's stuck in this trench essentially with this injury and uh you know i started to look at ways to like align with my brother because i you know i wanted nothing more for you know i love my brother to death yeah despite his heart you know how hard he was on me i still loved him to death and one nothing more about his validation yeah that's all i wanted was my brother to see me and respect me and know that i wanted nothing more but him for him to succeed you know and instead i was always just like the burden you know right so even though i had a lot of resentment towards him um i started to do whatever i could to make him feel like he was a part of my skateboarding your journey you know because we were on the same path and i knew how how much that his dream was shattered so i did you know at that point i started to even though i had resentment started to look at the bigger picture and was like you know and instinctually i couldn't control that i wanted you know my brother to to feel some of the glory of success or like you know some of the you know like he was a part of you know what was going on so you know he started to realize that you know this wasn't going to change for him that his skateboarding career is not going to happen so he looked in you know he started designing clothes and doing stuff like that little just small projects okay and then we heard through a friend of ours that there was another guy named ken block that was trying to start a clothing company called eight ball clothing and uh one of our mutual friends introduced my brother to ken and then introduced ken to myself and to me as well and then next thing you know you know my brother and ken are discussing potentially working together and then i'm becoming the guy that's gonna rep this stuff wow you know i tried to do everything i could to include my brother and my skate career and i wanted him to be a part of it yeah so that was like you know at first like the whole 8-ball thing with ken i was like you know just do something with ken and i'll be the guy that reps this stuff and like i wasn't thinking like how crucial my involvement would be and putting these guys on the map in skate culture because you know i my blood sweat and tears is what got people's interested in these projects sure you know ken wasn't going to be able to pull off a clothing company and skateboarding without having somebody credibility yeah no totally so you know i didn't think about it at that age but i'm like you know maybe uh you know my brother is going to include me in this on a business level at some point okay even down to when ken initially like you know was like yeah okay i'll do this with your brother but he wanted to own the majority of it and i told ken unless you guys are equal partners unless my brother's equal because i knew my i was like my brother will cut me in or take care of me i got you then i'm not doing this right so i endorsed you know i i got my brother in the position with ken yeah you know and ken had the eight ball thing already going and then you know we realized that that fad of 40s in the emb and was going to wear off and like that era was going to end right so then it was like okay well let's come up with a new company you know identity sure and i was involved in the process of creating drawers the name and stuff too so i guess that eight ball turned into drawers yeah so i started repping eight ball and then i started bringing in my buddies you know i introducing these guys to other friends of mine that i thought that could help sure i brought in you know like jordan richter and sal barbier sheffy you know wow these guys were all stoked to wrap it because they knew it was my brother and made sure that my brother was equal owners with ken that was like something that i was very adamant about um happening because i wanted to make sure my brother was in in a position that he could look after me as well in the long run and you were the face of it so you had a little bit of a pull you know yeah so those guys you know worked out a deal or they became you know 50 50 partners in it and uh and drawers was born and and from that point on like you know um you know it started to do well because there was no real skate clothing brands at that time there was like skate rags and stuff was a getaway was that that's getting wear okay ghetto where was around yeah where's bags tea oh my bags yeah yeah yeah and my brother had a knack for you know design and he's still really good at that and he said you know that's one quality my brother has you know or a gift that you know he's he's good at he's he's highly into fashion and design so it was a perfect thing for him you know to take that role and canon's just an amazing marketing guy you know brand builder and his skill set to be able to market things was like i still look at you know the work that he's done in the past and what he's still doing and just he's he's literally like one of the best guys i've ever seen at what he does yeah yeah wow so ken and my brother was you know those two together were a perfect fit to be able to drive a clothing brand and then my role was to you know to to be the face of it and then also not to cut you off was there ever a moment where you could have had percentage in in that you know it seems like a lot of they were banking on you you know what i'm saying and when you're bringing it to the table you know there there became some you know issues with that to the point you know where i eventually you know walked away from drawers because i just felt like you know there was maybe you know it sucks because it's like i hate putting value on myself in these situations but i know what i was i knew what i was worth and what i was bringing to the table and you know and i did it all on it you know on on just like loyalty and you know integrity and and wanted you know those guys to recognize what what i was bringing the table sure and you know the hardest thing is going in and stating value about yourself you know i just hope that they would have recognized it and made it easy for me so you know got to the point where i was like you know what i'm just going to go do my own thing on the clothing stuff so we had to like skate shop xyz and yeah i kind of went my own way on the clothing thing for a little bit kind of feeling like okay well if you know these guys aren't gonna include me and i'm just gonna try and do my own thing right but at that point those guys had got you know far enough into it that um they really you know they had other friends of mine that was that were were and now a part of the drawers program right they didn't 100 need me anymore so it didn't really hurt them too bad that i was gonna go do my own thing got you um but you know again if i would have known what i knew now i definitely would have positioned myself different in these you know in these deals right yeah and uh and and not and you know made sure that i was taking care of it that way yeah it sucks because it yeah i just wish you know some of these things were ironed out in the beginning but you know what i learned yeah yeah i mean that's the number one thing of business sorry kelly you know i'll get it on paper and this you always hear about you know you're also just kids that's true and you're with it's a part it's family that's involved so that must be a really hard conversation with that i put my blood sweat and tears into my you know i was so loyal to these guys and and and wanting nothing more but to my brother to you know succeed and be a part of you know the skateboarding industry with me in some way that you know i i just had faith that that part of it would be worked out and that i wouldn't have to say anything i just felt like it was the obvious you know so that didn't happen and you know that that was the first little thing where i was kind of bummed out and and started to do my own and wanted to do my own thing based on knowing that i had the ability to pull certain things together to be able to um succeed absolutely doing it myself which you know at that point probably wasn't the best idea because i you know ultimately liked being with my brother and ken and i like doing i like being a part of drawers yeah but you know i started to get a little bit more wise about business and you know i felt like i needed to do things for myself because i wasn't being considered in that aspect absolutely xyz was born yeah xyz was born which you know it never really took off too to any big level but we did well with it at the skate shop like the apparel that we made at our shop and you know at that level it was great yeah and i think those shirts do you have a tattoo on your wrist um no i did at one point but i covered it up with an independent tattoo so yeah i mean you know i hate looking back and you know these are past tense things and i and i wish that the story could be different and but you know it is what it is but going moving forward you know joris becomes pretty successful and they started you know wanting to make shoes my brother designed a couple shoes that were you know dedicated you know more like chill shoes fashion shoes okay one that looked like a converse and you know one that kind of looked similar to like a you know had like a rubber toe like a shell toe but it was like more like a converse platform with a well converse had the rubber toe too yeah i would just say they look a lot like taylor look a lot like a chuck taylor got you did it say drawers on it still at that point or did it say dc on those it said drawers oh okay but that was a more of a different direction it was more fashion based and not skate performance space right so you know they were showing those shoes around and i don't think they were getting much you know good feedback on it okay we bought them at our shop and they sat on the shelf for a long time yeah okay roger had a shop in uh boston yeah uh what was it called it was positive but before that it was i worked in a shop called something else and oh nice yeah it's something else shop they didn't sell there you go so so we circled back and you know colin and i were skating for airwalk and airwalk was realizing that they should do pro model shoes like sal barbie's shoe came out yeah you know aetna's he was doing well with sal shoe and cab shoe obviously was doing well and airwalk started to realize they couldn't just pay guys 300 bucks a month anymore i mean that's that's what i was making was 300 bucks a month and yeah you know and and those companies were making so much damn money knowing where knowing the shoe business like knowing what really was going on and how much they got away with and how much money they were able to keep and not pay anybody wow it's insane yeah sure yeah they were very popular at one point bro yeah a lot dude tons of skaters were wearing those oh my god they were just the public the air walk the airwalk ones was like the moment where they were just killing it i mean they had many moments where they were doing well but that that was like the pinnacle where like in the early 90s everybody was wearing those ones and then they were like okay well we're gonna give some guys some pro model shoes ah so yeah we decided that you know maybe doing the shoe project was a good idea okay considering you know that air walk was kind of in a place where they were getting away with you know not paying anybody and um vans was i think kind of doing the same thing except for you know maybe cab was getting paid some money for issues but for the most part these shoe companies you know when i skated for vans i made 150 bucks a month arawak was 300 a month and then when we started the i or we brought you know the idea of doing dc to the table it was like let's reinvent how this whole shoe game is is done like let's take care of the skaters yeah so we based on like a board royalty mentality which was like you know i said i think it was like five percent royalty which is similar like like a couple bucks this year sure sure the idea of doing the shoe company became pretty attractive to us and you know i think colin and i were pretty sure that we were partners in this and uh being young and not really you know knowing how to negotiate business and stuff i think we just both had faith that you know we were we all sat on the coffee table together you know we decided to call it dc shoes um which was an abbreviation for drawers clothing essentially okay i thought it was danny yeah that's what i thought everybody yeah i think everybody thought yeah yeah we we realized you know pretty quickly that that was a narrative that was sticking right so i think you know and the fact that we you know left arawak to take this risk to to be a part of dc and start this thing with my brother and ken i just i think we were under their perception that we were partners in it right right and you know some and dc took off and you know and we basically went from like making three 100 a month to you know the first couple of shoe royalty checks for like 30 or 40 grand oh my gosh so big difference yeah massive so you know wait did you invest money into it going into it we didn't take royalties for the first you know several runs i don't know oh okay like we allowed those guys to reinvest the money back in production so essentially yeah we were contestants because we were okay with them reinvesting the royalty money got you did you have a shoe on air walk or no no no you were about to have yeah i left to do this okay we kind of touched on a little before the show but i know what etnies had started around that same time you had talked to pierre at one point to help to just start the wii u not soltech but you want to do on your own but you found a factories through soltec or yeah like we didn't you know essentially have the resources to build shoes at the very moment so we banked you know we went and talked to pierre and pierre was willing to help us get you know the production figured out and to produce the first run and i think pierre probably thought we were going to continue to produce shoes with them and in the meantime we were sourcing production and figured out another factory that could produce them for less and so you know that was short-lived that arrangement but it was very awesome that pierrot stepped up and tried to help us get dc off the ground he essentially did super rad yeah yeah which is amazing you know yeah so yeah i mean that news was a part of the um the inception of dc getting into the market skater's helping out or supporting skates so what happened though shortly you know after is like it set a standard now all the other shoe companies were under fire to be able to treat their riders that way 100 so now there was a baseline this is how you guys do shoe deals so dc essentially got all these other guys paid correctly yeah because everyone's like what these guys are making this and you know that became the standard yeah yeah so it seems like companies are born from like being slighted from something else right it's like yeah you're not really getting what you deserve over here we're gonna start our own yeah you know get skaters what they deserve you know but it happens a lot well with that happening i'm sure everyone's trying to knock on your door like yo i want in on this oh i would have been calling you too yeah i would have been like how did you choose your team from there like you had you could choose whoever you wanted pretty much probably huh yeah you know we had i mean at one point we had you know even costume was in their designing issue oh wow so you know we got you know rick and mike in there and uh and dear dick got a shoe you know so i mean obviously you were a big part of choosing the team that was coming along with that yeah i had involvement in that that must have been cool to go back with rick and mike though after you know i never really had any animosity towards those guys if anything i was a little let down on how they treated mike because i knew how much mike loved those guys and i knew how much he had their back and you know it was kind of sad to see how much it hurt mike because he felt like you know his he wasn't you know looked at with you know that respect and you know that into you know he just expected those guys to to appreciate him a lot more so but i didn't you know i didn't hold a grudge very much you know i was a little bit like that sucks you guys you know and those guys showed up at mike's funeral which was rad i called them all and was like hey guys this is like no you know you guys yeah you can't like carry this around like we gotta like show respect sounds like he made he made closure though before he passed as well with with those guys too yeah yeah absolutely absolutely which is incredible no it wasn't amazing so you guys are there you you uh colin your brother ken block everybody's there forming this company right yeah and then like i said we we all thought it was danny and collin right dc turns out drawers clothing right but you're there from the inception so i i would assume that you guys would have like ownership in the company i mean we already dealt with drawers clothing right and now you're coming back to them to start this dc right yeah a little more wiser this time or whatever i again it's my brother yeah i lived with ken i just felt like i gave these guys the benefit of the doubt and i you know i like to believe that you know at this point i've done so much to prove that you know what i bring to the table is a value and i know that it's a big you know the the catalyst regardless it was drawers clothing or not the narrative that people believed was it was danny and colin and i know those guys don't like hearing that okay you know but you know and if you interview ask my brother he'll say no it meant george clooney yeah but the reality is is the world didn't think that yeah it doesn't matter what they thought it was it's what people perceived it was 100 and i know a big part of you know dc's um you know ability to scale into the market was based on that and so i just assumed that i was going to be taken care of and you know i guess it didn't um you know in their minds they didn't perceive it that way it was ken and damon and then they ended up giving their accountant a third of the company so those those three guys were all partners in it colin and i um you know i guess were um you know left to have to figure out how so crazy though because like without you two they wouldn't have no shoe company and that's just that's just the reality of it because going back to like how skaters look at people that are kind of trying to come into a industry that is not you're not skate related really or you don't have ties to somebody meanwhile that is your brother but if they tried to do that on their own without you or colin involved i don't think dc would be dc today that's just that's just my way you guys brought to the table dude yeah i mean i i know how much goes into the back end of orchestrating a business like that and there's a lot of key people that you know that we're on behind the scenes that are also very you know crucial and at succeeding sure those people essentially their roles wouldn't even be able to be realized without having the opportunity based on what people perceive dc was and represent you know our involvement and i know where i was at in my you know skateboarding career at that time you were on top man we launched the company with one shoe and that was my shoe i was the first dad and you know i did some you know shortly after i did some big things that kind of separated dc from the rest of the shoe you jumped out of a helicopter yeah so i mean nobody else yeah you're winning contests and stuff that's true that's true it's it's a bittersweet conversation obviously you know my brother and ken yeah i love you know both those guys and i eventually ended up with some equity you know based on um based on um you know a pretty what's the word it wasn't it was a challenging process to achieve and i and i was you know made to feel less than in the process several times crazy this these type of things happen in this industry i mean it happened in the world definitely it happened to my tim gavin yeah thing he brought everybody to the table you know and then when everything was really like the the final countdown on how this is working he wasn't involved in the beginning they didn't have no percentage for him and without tim gavin there wouldn't be a dvs that's gotta work that out and he worked it out but he's like he had to fight for that i guess what we worked out you know it was a fight for me to achieve yeah and bit you know knowing what the accountant got you know like it was right it was kind of a slap in the face considering so i it took me it's taken me a long time to you know look at it and you know look at it i almost have to accept fault on my behalf you know or be mad for the rest of my life right yes but you don't want to be that no i don't want to be mad at my brother and i don't want to be mad at ken but i definitely want to um you know i mean i i you know i've had many confrontations i guess with these guys trying to explain to them how i feel yeah and them not acknowledging it you know or just saying you know sorry but that's you know we don't see it the same way right and it's just hard for me to hear that just you know knowing how like we just said like there's no point of entry into this game at that era especially without doubt without us being at the helm of that thing right and knowing that it wouldn't have been possible to do dc without us yeah yeah yeah so i mean you know i i'm very grateful what up for what dc has done for me and by no means like i said it's it's about was it about money more than it was about just respect and integrity and all that and uh and you know i just felt like my brother and i like i did everything i could to make him feel you know loved and appreciated and a part of my career and i felt like there wasn't you know reciprocated in in that way sure and you know to have to go get to go to a place of being at odds with these guys over something that shouldn't even have been an issue right sucks because i really you know never wanted to have separation with my brother or ken but it it you know how do you hide the fact that you're not you know that that you're hurt yeah a hundred percent dude hundred percent i i hope you've all resolved everything everything is cool now and you know yeah i mean i mean you're still on dc like you know they sold dc and you know i i you know i turned i had to turn a page because it you know the guys quicksilver bought dc and you know bob mcknight was at the helm of quicksilver and you know bob obviously knew that there was you know problems going on with me and when dc sold the quicksilver i wasn't i wasn't under contract and that was never disclosed to bob so like i had the ability once they made the deal yeah to walk and bob was like dude you can't leave because if you leave hey i'm gonna you know those i'm not gonna like let this slide with these guys like they should have disclosed that but let me have a shot at making a deal for you that's so sweet that you won't want to leave right wow that's correct that's it that's that's great wow bob dude he took care of me so well that i mean all i can say is dc's been very amazing to my meme has done so much for my family and and so like you know it's like i said on a monetary level you know i'm not you know i'm not all about money and greed and all that so i'm very grateful for everything i've been giving from skateboarding it sounds like you you're you're content you're you're fine with everything you know nowadays of what happened you come to terms with it you know so to speak yeah i mean in so many ways right there's a lot of these situations that i've you know i've had several situations in my in my life that i just have no control over and that you know like it is what it is and it's like i'm not gonna allow certain things that i have no control over to affect me and to mess with my happiness you know yeah with whatever it is you know and i've come across several situations in my life that you know i can be mad and and carry that and be resentful and you know there's there's you know this isn't the only situation i've had in my life where i can carry some things around that i'm pretty resentful at some people about i mean life's short you know there's no point in caring uh you know on that stuff you know in my early 20s when i you know i had a kid and like i i really you know like my first kid and you know starting a family and like you know it it really you know and after this neck injury situation and stuff like that really changed you know who i am what i'm about my wiring like i have a whole different attitude about life and like you know i i literally just want more than anything you know i want internal peace yeah and i want the people you know i want everyone to feel that way i want you know to not have to carry baggage around and you know to be trying to you know be resentful and sabotaging to other people like you know it's it's it's a it's a practice and it takes a lot of digging deep to come to terms with something totally you know and i still have that people are you know that throw at me that that that are unsettling and but there's no you know at this point i just don't you know i know i know where i'm at internally yeah yeah and i'm comfortable with with who i am and where i'm at exactly and i know that i have good intention and i you know i have nothing but love to share with the planet yep you know i'm you know i just yeah i'm living a a content peaceful happy life because you know i can't do anything but control myself exactly i mean you got a good outlook on it you know i mean you got a good outlook on life you know i love it man you've been through a lot dude i mean just the neck injury alone would have broken any man that i've that it's crazy you know to overcome that i mean you're lying on your bedroom floor from morning till i mean i just couldn't imagine living through that you know but you're a strong dude bro you got through it man i mean yeah i mean it's not like you look for these situations to to you know it's not like a training exercise to get strong but what are you gonna do you know yeah you can allow it to you know it can you can allow these situations to destroy you or you can you know build use them as as a as a platform to you know get stronger and overcome whatever yeah man my upbringing was pretty volatile you know i had a lot of like so i've had you know my real dad died when i was like eight months old you know my mom got remarried i had a stepdad [Music] he was amazing he's the guy that got us into skateboarding oh you know and then my mom and him got divorced when i was at a really young age but he stayed in my life and it was you know such a blessing to have him and then you know on on new year's day 2000 he died of like a heart attack when he was coming in from surfing oh man so i've had like you know the the the the only father figures i've had in my life have all been taken from me at a young age so it's like kind of a trip you know to you know i don't really have that like one role model that i can like look up to essentially so you know it's been a little bit of a challenge and yeah yeah but it's made you who you are the man the man today yeah you know having kids is definitely um you know giving me the chance to like you know be that person for somebody else yeah so it's it's amazing how many kids do you have three three kids oh awesome okay amazing wow how old's oldest 23 23 wow how what's the youngest 13 middle 19 days okay okay they skate at all or anything yeah yeah yeah my oldest rips oh he could skate the mega apple what unbelievable yeah my oldest son he skates really well yeah he doesn't care to be a pro skateboarder but he rips that's cool because there's some bonding you know some good father-son bonding right there yeah man and then my 19 year old's in college and he's he's you know him and uh tony's son are like best friends keegan oh sick and they they're like they have a house together in colorado for college amazing oh wow daddy where's tony hawk i know that's pretty dope i just hit up tony because my kid they got a backyard that has enough room for like a mini wrap okay so tony and i were just talking the other day about flying out there and building a ramp that's so sick imagine that like roommates are like what the is this yeah that's amazing if we can get the landlord to uh allow it that's yeah we we're all about it that was good and i thought that was rad just considering you know like i said with the history that you know some of the stuff that happened with tony and i when i was a kid i just you know the fact that our kids are really good friends and my daughter is really good friends with his daughter as well they're the same age so our kids are all like you know my kids are always hanging out at his house and vice versa and it's just a trip how how this out the universe works yeah so i'm in the same predicament with guy dude i bugged the out because like i looked up to guy as a little kid and now like our wives are best friends our kids their best friends is psycho and my daughter's at woodward right now with ken block's kids wow yeah she's she's at skate camp this week up in uh pennsylvania what is skating or no yeah she's skating yeah so yeah filming a video part she's she's more she's you know she's not trying to be a person what's her name roomie are you m.i are you ami she's the oldest one she's the youngest youngest amazing bro that's so cool she she went with the blocks kids he's got three kids oh sick i just made good setups for his kids and set them all with new pads and new boards and nice so that was kind of weird enjoy themselves hell yeah yeah awesome dude what's so fun is going to be out there this he's out there right now actually so i talked to my daughter and she's like everyone's so excited ryan's coming amazing yeah pretty rad so but let's jump back into like the plan b era i mean dc's going on as well at this point in time too but so plan b folded you guys kind of you know put an end to it and then uh pretty much like a year later you uh skated for alien you got on alien and colin went to girl yeah which is incredible i almost forget about that little arrow that little that was a sick arrow i went on one trip with him we went to brazil oh wow oh really that was like that was it yeah so this was the point where you guys wanted to do your own thing right now were you trying were you trying to do something together or did it just happen that you guys kind of went your own way well i mean we're still real close friends 100 yeah i mean so it was like you know i had a and this is another funny twist in the story okay so like i was looking at my options you know like okay well if i should we shut plan b down like what are you gonna do and he's like well i could probably ride for girl and i was like you know should i potentially explore that or should i do something different so you know i didn't really put too much effort into that but like dear dick was like yo carter was like heard that you're going to potentially leave plan b and was super hyped to want to like make you on um alien and always loved alien so like i was saying before i was wearing the alien shirt in the contest in europe that summer i was also staying with dear dick like we were also uh traveling together that summer and so that's when i you know became friends with dear dick and he and i were like you know we're the same age so we're like the youngest kids on that tour of pros wow so that was uh so i i felt like uh it was kind of you know full circle to maybe explore the alien thing but i also got a call from tony hawk had to jump now why not go that route you know what's going on there i think about it all the time and wonder like what that would have been like yeah you know i kind of feel like you know i mean don't get me wrong i loved i love alien and i'm very stoked and and appreciate the time i had there i love chris carter i love everything about alien they're boards or graphics i just love the whole thing but like i always wondered like how would that have been you know aligned with tony like what how would that relationship look like and what where would we have went together yeah so there's always that like little idea of mystery that i've you know so curious to wish i would have wanted to know how that chapter would have been written if i would have done that so kind of you know i don't know if i'm yeah it's it's kind of like a it bums me out a little bit thinking you know what would have happened if we would have done that together well but what about like you know i mean you you look at it both ways too like if you want birdhouse very stable tony you guys hanging out would you have it then you might still be on birdhouse today you know you may not have gotten plan b no doubt but like would it have made sense to get plan b going again i don't know i don't know i'm you know you know how like the board thing is like it's a lot of work man and like i i liked you on alien personally i thought alien was one of the alien and girl were the best companies in my eyes back here yeah they were see you on alien i was like that's dope you see colin go to girls like totally dope and i'll for a street skater like i wasn't looking at all the the vert skaters the transition skaters like dude like that guy would be sick on alien i was like oh danny and colin were like to me you guys were the sickest dudes yeah so like that made sense and yeah like i don't think a lot of people could get on alien and girl you guys totally fit both you could have gone either one of those to be honest i i definitely thought about you know approaching the girl you know hitting up rick and yeah and mike but it just yeah i don't know like the alien thing popped up and i was kind of like you know i always had like a an attraction to the alien campaign and so i just i don't know it felt right at that time and i know there was like a pretty good alliance with dc and alien as well yeah yeah totally so it just seemed like the right move no and uh and i didn't know if play me was gonna happen again but was it always in your back your mind i've always i mean it was a fantasy yeah yeah and like there was no way colin and i were gonna do it unless like i mean it's so crazy how it happened because it wasn't something that we were you know we didn't put any effort in like it was like the universe made it happen really we started hearing rumors that plan b was going to be started back up like we were you heard rumors we were hearing rumors okay that like p rod or pj like there was rumors floating around about these like plan b starting back up and we were hearing that certain guys were going to be on the team and colin are like is this really happening and we were just turning our heads to like ah whatever it's just awesome can i ask you a question really quick you had mentioned before there was no trademarks there was no anything when you guys were trying to take it over had there been trademarks then bought and all that stuff was there anything so it was kind of an open playing field right with that name totally interesting so we didn't ever formalize any of that when we took it over and like what happened is i think so we owed mary still a little bit of money okay but um wasn't much but we did owe her some money and uh when we put it to rest we just let it be and uh what we didn't realize is like you know when we were when we were supposed to give finalize the payments to her that she was gonna sign the trademarks over we didn't know because we never looked into it that she didn't have any trademarks okay so it's mike's wife so of course we're gonna be you know showed the love and integrity and like not gonna um you know take you know go back on our word we agreed on the amount of money and you know and we just just whatever we just we were going to honor that right right right so when we when these rumors started flying around we were like oh this is just no way we're going to do this we don't want to get back into this game like board market is so challenging and you know it's so much babysitting going on and you know it's a lot of work it's a lot of work so we just you know like let nature take its course and got to the point where we started getting phone calls from people like i'm getting phone calls you know like hey like p rod wants to talk and like you know pj wants to talk and i'm just like really is this really happening so i reached out to these guys and they were like yeah like i heard you were starting plan b you know and like they said that to you or you said that to them they said it to me that they heard the rumors that we were starting plan b and they wanted to talk okay and this is the time when he rod was still on girl right yeah yeah he was still on girl okay so it's kind of like yeah like these rumors are working both ways okay weird they're hearing that we're starting it so they're interested we're hearing that they're interested so we might want to reach out and just see what's up you know okay so colin was just like nah dude this is not happening like i don't don't waste let's not waste our time like we're too you know let's not get back into this again but i was like man there's something to this like you know it's just too magical that this is happening on its own i mean p rod and pj you dude when you look at the opportunity i was like this we can't ignore this we have to look into it right and we started to and you know what the response from these guys was like yeah we we would definitely be stoked to talk more and be down and i'm like dude we have to really explore this so anyways then i reach out to mary and i'm like hey you know we're in a situation where you know we might be able to get this company back off the ground like what's up with the trademarks okay and she's like well we have them and you know let me talk to her husband's like an attorney uh her new husband and you know we're gonna we'll talk to him and and see what's up and basically we did our own trademark search in the meantime and realized there's no that's crazy so so you know she's start you know we get into like somewhat of a negotiation with her but it's not really hurt so i think her husband is like posturing for well just just coaching her on how to deal with this but we're like hey we had a deal we don't even need to go do we shouldn't even we really didn't even call her and say anything we could have just done it right right right but oh and got the trademark on your own yeah just started the company yeah we didn't need her involvement right wow so and then she's like uh we'll sign the trademarks over to you once you get the rest of the money to us and i'm like you don't even have the trademarks wow so in the meantime i just started getting all the trademarks okay yeah smart but you know you're trying to pull a fast one like the money but i get it no no you know i don't think she's trying to pull a fast one i think there was somebody else that didn't understand what the what the real deal was here like plan b again is us right plan b the brand didn't have any value in that position to anybody but us yeah like it's not like she could have done anything with plan b and anyone would have paid a dime right right right you know without us totally i didn't really want to say anything that would be you know i just know that we wanted to honor a deal that we had sure we love mary to death and we love mike's daughter and nothing but you know respect to his and to his family and would do nothing but honor the deal that we had so we just you know let them think what they wanted well in the meantime we just got all the trademarks sorted out okay center the rest of the money and wow that was it damn so there was no real negotiation because it was like there was nothing to negotiate give you the rest of the money right right we already did a deal that blows my mind man like you know it's like the first thing of business like go get the trademark do everything paperwork like yeah it's amazing to me that plan b never had that in its existence before it's crazy but this isn't an era where like not even rocco got it rocco wasn't even like uh you know like i don't think any he didn't he just went for it yeah like crazy it wasn't you know i don't know the extent of rocco's trademarks but i don't think he had many there was a lot under that roof oh man so many companies coming and going and everything wow yeah so plan b um you know the first time it was ever really formally you know incorporated and and set up like a proper company was when we relaunched it 2005. yeah wow and we spent a lot of money doing that work i could imagine and trademarks you have to maintain and like yeah you got to start making stuff so mary was you know i think i don't know if she just didn't understand how that all that works but she was under the impression that she owned the trademark so they existed and we're like but i never wanted to like challenge her on that i just sure for sure the deal is what it was here's the rest of the money where'd you go okay launched the company and she eventually was like yeah that's cool whatever but but yeah it took a second because right her uh you know her whatever her advisor was kind of like oh maybe you can get more yeah yeah yeah he might be worth more like there's always more you know beneficial to you and me yeah so it worked out good you know i'm you know we're all everybody's you know happy happy i love that mike's legacy i love it bro i love it so you know when you guys launched that that was a big deal oh dude i was like that's when magazines were a thing too and you see the spread you're like oh the list you're like okay bro it's like p rod pj what ryan gallant yeah um who else am i i mean i caught was duffy was duffy on he wasn't on first right but that was like my goal man like and i i remember going on a like tour um with uh the trans world guys i think it was like a road trip and duffy was on that trip and like he was skating for world and uh i was like man like i mean just hold tight but my goal is to get you back off and he was just like all right yeah i'm down and like it meant like i wasn't you know i wanted nothing more but to like assem get the band back together and some like some degree you know sure having duffy and then you know chef he was another strategic player you know like eventually i you know i chef he's obviously doing great yeah and like seeing him kind of floating and i was like man i gotta give cheffy back on plan b too and make it you know at least have like some ogs yeah like yeah plan b has you know from the original team the only people we don't have is you know i guess sal but he's not wasn't the original team so you know other than mike and rick right you know duffy colin cheffy and myself it's a pretty solid 30 years later that many guys from the original cast incredible dude but you know so so i was helping us in the beginning though amazing we relaunched he was helping he's a great guy yeah very smart talented dude i love south he's so nice when we relaunch i you know did a reissue with him and we you know we we're gonna do an uh we have a couple more we're we're working on right now actually so yeah some jeremy ray stuff in the works as well awesome wow yeah so i'm trying to do whatever i can to like yeah you know bring bring some of the nostalgic you know heritage and inheritance yeah it's definitely there's a time yeah people love that stuff and jeremy had so many you know he did all his own board graphics and he has some really rad graphics and some stuff that was just another multi-talented dude man hell yeah wow so that's awesome so i i i think it's so funny how they thought you guys were relaunching and you thought they were you know it's like what is going on that's the funniest thing yeah i know whatever whoever did it man like jason maxwell maybe it was maxwell but like whatever happened the universe i felt like it was like it couldn't deny what was going on like it was the point where like we were just like man this is like something's going on here that is bigger than that usual yeah we have to take advantage of this moment totally so i was also telling chris carter would you be down to do this with us were you still writing for them at the time he's still right okay so i was telling him hey this is going on and i don't want to bounce on you like i love being a part of alien but like i told you when i got on like if there's one thing like you know if something ever happens with plan b like that could be the only way i'd leave like got you and but it's unlikely but if it does happen you know i want you to realize it like chris it's happening i told him and then he didn't want to get involved oh no i remember talking to him later down the path and he was just like dude i can't believe i didn't get involved in that damn so you know i'm sure it wasn't that big of a loss for him but it would have been rad to like totally do it with alien hell yeah you guys had another good video with that too or a couple of videos to be honest but the super future one was awesome that was a big one super sick and then obviously the plan b video yeah uh does it be true yeah we gotta jocelyn johnson i think yeah and his story is just amazing too like you know and he's been on plan b since he was am and like it's rad to have like guys that you like bring up and turn pro and felipe too gustavo he was telling the story how he would he just why he wanted that was his goal yeah i'm playing b he that he really did want that when he came out he was like i want to get on plan b dude yeah so loyal like we have such a an amazing loyal team man it's like i can't you know it's just it's you know it's the real deal it's like our team is like you know it's not a facade that these guys are all good friends you know and there's just some sort of like loyalty about like knit like chemistry the chemistry amongst the team is real man it's like these guys really have a lot of love for each other and you can't fake that no i love you see you guys skating like out in the weekend sometimes dude yeah gotta do more of that bro we have a video dropping soon okay you got footage in there street park what's going on i don't know i've been hurt yeah that's true you gotta get it but people don't realize it is like i'm dying to skate street like i love dude if i could if my body would permit it yeah it would be it would be all the time i just don't think people realize how destroyed i am okay like it's just that it's nothing more than that like dude i'm dying to that's why i'm in colombia getting experimental treatments and like i'm doing whatever it can i can possibly do to get in a position to like you know and i'm never gonna be felipe gustavo i'm never going to be chris joslin like right i'm i'm just like but you know i would enjoy just having you know skating some low impact stuff but like comes get the curbs yeah yeah curbs bro dude flat ground even is abusive like street skating is just it's not it's like fighting gravity in a way that is just so un like it's just not forgiving in any way as we get older bro yeah dude it's just like it wants to keep you late yeah yeah that's why i started slapping because i'm like dude i'm not sore the next day i don't have to ollie i have to battle a trick on a ledge going off stairs for six hours you know it's like i'm gonna go have a good time with my brother 100 but you know like even a day of like skating like flat ground you know or a ledge this high or whatever dude i can barely walk for like days after a while yeah you know and it's like so i don't you know i don't know if it's just like if i'm to a point of no return on that but i'm that's why i'm doing everything i can to like if i can get in a position where i can get a few days in a row skating without like being you know having to take time out mm-hmm i think i can get a little rhythm going where i won't have the most like you know mind-blowing stuff but i might be able to get a little trickier there we just want to see you out there hey yeah we just want to see you see that dude if you saw the stuff that just came out of my joints like the little bit of clips that you've seen over the last six or eight months or whatever that's what's in came out of your choice that's what i'm operating on like i don't think people realize it's like it's not like i'm like i get so many people like dude where's the street part and i'm like i'm dying to give you something dude i'm dying to get one out like i would love more than anything to like have a little you know little segment on street but like i'm doing whatever i can and i hope that this pays off because i'm shooting for that like and it's not that i it's you know i'm not so worried about the aftermath like i can deal with feeling sore later sure but there's some things that like i just it hurts to do like like you know with some of the i mean if you look at my post of like the surgeries i hadn't see some of the things that came out of my joints like it just hurts to flaccid ollie like it hurts it's so painful that it kind of takes away from my you know from the strength i have in my pop what part of your body hurts like if you're going to do a ollie on flat what's the part that i have like no well now you know i have no acl on my left knee which is i can operate without that okay but there's some bone on bone you know going on in there so like what i just do with the stem cells is supposedly going to help change that a little bit and then my right ankle is blown on bone too so i don't really have one strong side now i see so like so like like you know it's the more of the impact than the liftoff if i would have just stayed on the ramp only you know i would be you know i'd be like getting as much skate time in his bucky you know there you go like i i would love to have you know i don't take any of it back sure but i do envy those guys for not taking the path that i took because between some of the big mistakes i've made on the mega amp and just all of the ankle rolls and all of the like impact that my joints have taken taken street skating like i've done a pretty good job to myself like to the point where i'm like god my mind is there like i can still like i have it all all my wiring's there like my energy my motivation yeah i'm like foaming out the mouth to skate but it literally is i just have like these restrictions and i'm yeah so hopefully what i'm doing will you know i can overcome so yeah dude it's like i'm you know it's not my motivation right right right right so it's like yeah so it eats at me when i see everyone you know i know where's your street party well because the post that you posted at the uh what'd you call it the wednesdays or the thing like everybody were like oh that's dope you know and like it just makes us want more hey i want more too man so i you know even even that like took a little out of me where i was sore but i i mean i'll go in all in it's just i just got to be ready to be sore for example for the consequences and my neck is kind of jacked too so it's not kind of really just oh um so like a lot of the like you know the the street impacts they're like the impact yeah it's just there's it's a lot of jarring i was gonna say so the me even a mega ramp right like all that stuff is it's it's less jarring on your body unless you make a major mistake yeah sure like street skating is more like continuous like ruckus on your joints abuse i just know if i was just staying on the ramp yeah i could probably get some like i could keep skating gotcha we got you we heard a story from blayback actually off air remember he was talking about he's like yeah uh we were filming for the dc video and danny was doing his mega ramp stuff and they were all going to spain and dear they and someone was like oh let's get danny go to spain and dyrdek said why would we why would we want danny to go he's not going to do anything and he's like oh i'm going to tell danny that and he's like don't tell danny that he told you and then you went out there and you killed it you killed it back the big four yeah i mean it's all you know somewhat elementary stuff you know but yeah yeah you know back three in the big four is not only yeah i mean yeah i mean you know there's some go-to tricks that you know that's just one of those tricks that uh kind of we'll take this yeah yeah still relevant i have a fantasy of throwing that off some other things but like i gotta like just get to the point where i can skate a few days in a row so i can just get there you get on my board and that's the part that i'm having to struggle with like i was learning my flat ground tricks recently and dude i was even from skating flat ground i was my but that was prior to these surgeries and then when i saw what was growing inside my joint i was like dude i can't believe i was even skating at all it's tough man it's your mind's there you want to do it but there is a risk worth the reward i mean it's fulfilling to me i know it's just feeling to me i don't like wearing pads i like skating and having the breeze blowing on me for sure i like the just the casualness of like skating and standing there and you know whatever just enjoying you know not being in a bunch of sweaty ass i mean you get sweaty she's getting it sweaty ass pads and baking in a helmet and like so street skating is so fun like it's just so much more casual like that that i really like that um and you know i guess yeah i mean i guess you know maybe because if i just keep streets if i try and keep street skating and destroy myself where i can't skate ramps and everyone's gonna be like well dude if you could only skate rams that'd be rad and i'll be like i just i could have only skated rams but i decided to street skate and now i can't do anything oh my god well do whatever makes you happy right it all makes me happy yeah yeah we like watching both dude because and i want to get into some mega ramp right now if you don't mind bro because how i mean how do you even start the initial build of the first mega ramp it's crazy like the whole thing is nuts you know i mean yeah it it's like it was an evolution because the the first one i built was just like a oversized half pipe you know the one in san diego that i did where i jumped out of the helicopter yep that was you know that ramp was 16 and a half feet tall and the one that i built in china the quarter pipe was 32 that was almost twice as big oh my gosh and the one i built in like in like 2017 um in san diego the last big air thing i did that was 40 feet tall which i i kind of screwed up on that you know because each time i do these like i learn you know i learn something every time i do it sure and i don't want to just do the same thing over again if i have an opportunity to experiment right because all these are just big experiments yeah yeah you know and it's not like i don't get many opportunities to to experiment so i always try to make the best out of each one and can i do something to improve it is there something i don't know yet if i add you know a little bit more of this or do it do it a little bit more that way or whatever it is like maybe the result will be that much greater right you know i've learned some hard lessons doing this too um you know the last one i built uh where i did you know the higher record like i i don't know if you guys know what the term elliptical means elliptical like the elliptical machine no it's like it's a term for like an evolving transition ah okay so like it starts out bigger at the bottom and gets tighter towards the top it's not one continuous the venice bowl is like elliptical yeah oh take a scenario where i have we'll just say 40 miles an hour yeah that speed's gonna be the same regardless if the lip is at 30 feet high or at 40 feet high okay so if i can figure out how to get in the air sooner sooner i can start calculating altitudes quicker okay like so if there's 10 foot more a ramp right then that's 10 foot less of air time with the same amount of speed you want to keep the same speed but get in the air quicker yes right so by having you know an elliptical transition which was kind of big in the in the like 80s like paul schmidt built a couple ramps i remember when i was like you know skating amateur contests that were elliptical um you could essentially get you know a bigger ramp with a smaller that's smaller in height okay but it's it's definitely a different feeling you know it takes some getting used to so i i thought maybe building this next ramp because i could essentially carry the same amount of speed into the quarter pipe but start calculating altitude sooner right because i could have built it a traditional transition was one smooth radius sure but then i would have had to ride up way further before i got to the coping when i could already be calculating yeah so this last one you know i i did that and it it it was a bad decision because of the amount of g-force that i was carrying under my feet like the g-force is is is getting you know there's no release of g-force when you hit the before you hit the coping on a normal transition when you get to the vert there's like a split second where you actually get like a weightless feeling right and in that little time period you can kind of you know adjust certain things to be able to um you know get your trajectory correct so the last one i did there was so much g-force under my feet you know i was like riding a bowl off to the coping it's like that thing just wanted you know like to jump out from underneath me so i was like carrying so much pressure under my feet all the way to the coping it was just so dangerous feeling because i it was like i didn't have that little bit of release before i hit the lip to kind of set my trajectory line wow that you know i was having not like control that energy all the way to the coping instead of getting a release of that energy before i hit the coping which is you know what typically i like to feel because it gives me a little bit of time to just negotiate you know am i leaning too far back am i leaning too far forward you know do i is everything correct to be able to bruise this air so that was something that i i took a risk on and it was a hard lesson because it was so hard to harness that energy under my feet and it was so damn scary man just because i was just like oh like all the way to the coping just pinned with g-force just so much energy pushing under my feet that wanted to go somewhere so i kept having these like um you know premonitions of of of losing control of the energy at the lip and just getting ejected over the deck or ejected out to the flat and you know there was a couple errors i had that day you know my goal was to do a 30-foot air and i had one you know i bailed it which i'm so mad that i jumped off because i probably would have made it it felt like i was going to hang up but you know i have a photo with my board at the 30-foot mark oh what's the highest you've gone that day i went 25 and a half because the highest but like it was so hard to get you know and i got tired like it was it was a window of time where i had the ability to like get that done it was out in the desert it was hot i was just depleted after a while like i had muscle i was getting muscle cramps and just like i was getting foggy mentally and i just knew that i was getting into a danger zone you know like i there was a point where i i literally had so much muscle cramping going that i was like cramping up on the way towards the quarter pipe getting muscles oh my god so i was like dude at this speed and altitude like if i if i land on the coping i'm going to die yeah yeah you know 30 feet out over a 40-foot quarter pipe yeah it's like it's it's just it's so scary at that point so you know i i just 70 feet in the air you try stuff and it doesn't work you know you can't account for the g-force thing you know what i mean like yeah i mean it would have worked if you know here my plan was like you know after that day because i was like there's no reason to like practice at that altitude like it's too risky like you know i'm gonna save it for when the time's right like if everyone's coming out and like you know i'm gonna try and break a record for the highest error whatever i'm not going to like just do 30-foot airs all afternoon and be like okay well let's get everyone out here now it's just way too risky yeah so you know i'm only going to practice really when the time is right sure so like that day i just you know i waited and you know i was cruising you know practicing errors going you know 20 20 a little over 20 feet until it was the time was right and then i'm like okay now i'm gonna turn the volume blast it so i did and i had a couple that were up in the range i needed to get but just like for whatever reason i just didn't get that right one you know and i i still am like lose sleep over this yes i you know i got so depleted that day that i was like well damn i get i can't get it done today like i broke my record it wasn't you know the one i broke it by two feet which isn't that much considering that i want you know the original one i had from the mega ramp that was in the dc video was like 23 and a half feet okay so i broke it by two feet which to me i wasn't trying to break it by two feet i wasn't going through all that just to break it by two feet you wanted to get i wanted to get up over 30 feet and that was my goal and i don't know how much more i have of these in me you know it's so freaking scary to do i mean dude like you brought some of your boards here and i'm looking at these boards like oh my god bro like the wheel i mean the wheelbase the the the truck size how tight the trucks are i mean a couple of them you got double uh double little uh you know yeah washers so because they bend and then you know your trucks the washers start bending then they get looser sure it keeps the trucks from you know having to keep adjusting them right so when the trucks are that tight it'll bend your washers so you have to double them up so they don't bend wow unbelievable bro dude yeah that's at least something you would know yeah yeah yeah yeah washers bend oh yeah yeah you can see these are all doubled up but like so that that was you know something that you know i i i guess i could have got lucky that day and made a 30-foot error and i almost did like i was so close and it was such a tease because i'm like i know i got this and then i started getting cramps and i'm like dude i'm gonna have to come back out here on another day and start this process all over again which is so lame because to go from like warming up and doing 20 foot errors which is huge in the context of you know like a 20 years but when you're trying to go 30 20 foot's like a warm-up bear so so to get into the zone where you're going yeah you know 30 feet is like a major step up from 20 and like you know so to go through the process of getting back out there and getting everyone out there and getting back in your zone where you're like okay i'm in that zone now where i'm actually calc uh you know blasting in that region like it's it's like it's like a whole nother it's so much work to go from from scratch to being in the zone where you're actually not afraid and you're warmed up and sweaty and focused enough that you're actually capable of getting there crazy it's a very small window of time you have in that zone it is so you know before it gets super dangerous got you um it's dangerous the whole time but there's there's a point where you're like dude i i'm i'm risking my life my body's not going to accept what i'm trying to do right now and it could put my me in jeopardy well the consequences dude yeah at that caliber are so massive right i mean 30 feet bro dude i mean that's three stories it's crazy to land on the lip like if you came down on the car oh my god so what happened is i i had you know i waited like about a month because i was pretty beat up after that day okay then i tried to get that record and it's not like you could just come back tomorrow come back tomorrow i was so beat up from that um and then so i waited about a month and then i went back out there and i got you know started getting warmed up and my goal was to take a few days to start building back up to that you know to that to the space where i felt 20 foot was comfortable sure because at that point i'm like okay i'm just gonna you know come out here one day and if i'm comfortable at 20 then i'm just going to come out here one day and just turn it up to 30 and get it done and be done right so i got you know to a place where i was starting to get you know 20 foot errors kind of consistent and then there's like the different heights on the roland that i'd built on that ramp and so it was getting kind of dark and uh my eyesight was getting kind of shoddy and i was like in my mind which i never want to say oh my last run because i always get you know that's like a you know it's just it's just one of those things it's like taboo do not say last try or last run it's not going to be you're going to get hurt if you say that um so in this situation yeah yeah well it's just any i i just i've said that and i've thought that and i've gotten hurt so many times on the last try that when i even think it's the last try i usually just stop right and don't take the last run yeah because i'm not broke off yet and i'll be so mad if i go one more time right yeah so this last one i was like okay i'm going to go up to the top of that rolling and at least you know and that's the big one where i could go 30 off of that one okay so i just wanted to come off that one and get like one error that day off that 30 or off the highest roll and that way if i came out the next day i would have already got that off my chest because you know it's pretty it's quite a step up to you know it's one thing going 30 feet in the air but dropping in the highest one and knowing okay once i drop in this i don't have brakes no turning back i can't turn back no so i i got greedy that day and was just like okay i'm gonna i want to take the risk and just i'd just rather come back and know i've already got this one knocked out it's been a month since i've been out here if i can come back tomorrow check that one off the list right now then it'll be easier to start tomorrow because i already know what this one's gonna like already be comfortable so that last try i took off and i did like you know 20 something put air and drifted over the deck and like i'm up there dude i'm looking down i'm just like oh my god and the wind was blowing so bad that it blew i had those mats up there those foam like those you know the hype oh wow i jumped oh yeah yeah yeah so those mats had slid back because the winds blows really bad like crazy out there where amp was built okay nobody went up there and adjusted them you know and i kind of could tell that they were off but i just just was like in my zone i didn't want to waste any time it was getting dark and i'm just like i'm gonna go it and drift it over the deck and then i'm up there looking down i'm like i'm and i can see that i'm just a foot off the mat you know and i'm like oh man so i come down and land literally standing up like all my arches on the coping and like right when i landed like i i for a split second i was like i got this you know my biggest fear was landing and exploding and doing like a cartwheel off the coping but i landed and i and i was able to keep my weight on the deck but the energy goes somewhere like there was so much energy this is like a two-story building to your feet sure and i'm standing on the edge of the cliff two-story building to the edge of the cliff yeah so like i'm you know i i stopped my feet and i looked down and i looked down at my right ankle and right when i looked down and it's the one that i blew up in china the same way it's been on so many things at this point like it's pretty weak and the last thing it needs is another ankle injury like that so i land and my ankle just implodes and folds in and i you know i tore the tendon off the bone and you know i had a massive injury to that ankle again so they were going to tear the ramp down shortly after that and i was so hurt that there's no way i was coming back in a couple months like but then it would at least took me six months to get back out there physically whose ramp is it it's the one i i built ubc a monster okay built it for that higher record thing the last one i did and yeah they invested a lot of money in it man it's just those things like it sucks because experimenting at that level it's like dude of course i want to go do the biggest errors that i can possibly do and just you know but like so much pressure knowing how much it costs and like the the risk that i that they're taking you know i guess you know my physical livelihood is and well-being is priority but in the back of my mind i'm still thinking like dude if i don't come through like how embarrassing is that like i don't care you know i mean obviously i don't want to get hurt but like but like i all i just carry a lot of internal practice it's a lot of the pressure inside myself knowing that that's on the line if i fail i just got these guys to spend so much money and they didn't and we didn't get the results like everything was for naught you know it's like damn so sure enough that ankle gets implodes and then they tear the ramp down like shortly after and i never got to go back out there dude it eats at me so much because i know if i had another shot at this i'd perfect the design i know i could get a 30-footer sure like i know i can do it you know you're going to do it you're going to do it dude yeah the clock is ticking dude hey you take time to heal yeah man so you're in the healing process yeah me yeah 47. i'm 44 bro right there with you doing doing a 40 or doing a 30 foot air at 47 and just the consequences like if i get broke off at that caliber at this age you know i mean there's amazing things that i've learned and there's definitely resources i have to heal and but for the most part like i'm you know these are life these will be life-changing consequences like i don't know if i'm gonna be able to heal myself from this and having the neck problems that i have and it's just it's a lot you know so i'm down to do it you know if if i could get you know somebody was willing to fund it i wouldn't i would definitely step up and do it right but it's like you know who's gonna spend three hundred thousand dollars on a ramp for me a lot of money nine club will do it well listen bro well we could can we borrow some money yes dude hey but listen to you i mean i know what you're saying that you get older it's harder to heal he loves that one man that was he just set me up but i i i that's what i do that's what i do but um yeah but the human being the older you get the uh the you know it's hard it's more healing time or this we're not you know spring chickens anymore so it's tough and you're on a different level dude like i'm i'm tripping when i'm trying to go out and skate and i'm sore you know i mean like you're go we're talking about like a 30 foot air like it's these the consequences you know i'm not like in a full face helmet i'm not wearing like you know i'm not you know wearing motocross gear right i'm in you know i'm pretty vulnerable and pretty exposed and like if you know knowing what happened that last time landing on the coping like i it's it's just like you're just a you know what i'm millimeters you're just a hair off from what like literally potentially either dying right or getting paralyzed or you know having something happen where your life is over right is it really worth it right right you know it's like so that's the that's where i'm at i'm down to do these things but i'm definitely like you know i things got to be you know tuned right and more calculated more everything's pretty calculated okay okay i'm down to do it but i'm not down to chase the money like i was yeah yeah if somebody broke out a chat checkbook and was like let's do this there you go bud yeah and was you know and i didn't have to wear that that sort of you know responsibility mm-hmm so i could just concentrate on what i need to do but that's running through my mind the whole time i'm sure i gotta deliver dude it's so much you know i've asked for so much right that i can't come up short right it's it's such a it's it's really hard to wear that responsibility you know i mean as as street skaters and stuff like we we're worried about the you know i mean when you know photograph photographers you know when they have a whole thing of film next to them and you're just like oh my god you i can't even imagine like driving out to the middle of nowhere to escape this ramp that was built for you yeah so much money and then all these like uh you and the nearest and the nearest hospitals like in our drive yeah like if something catastrophic happened out there right you know if we didn't have a helicopter sitting there like it's a wrap dude right like so that's also on my mind and i've done it and that's i've done things in that situation you know i've done you know a handful of these sort of you know big air things like with that risk factor on the table looming and it's dude i've gotten away with a lot you know like it's just yeah i mean the fact that you know the whole uh the china thing yeah that quarter pipe and when i was doing that on on the broken ankle at any second a life-changing like situation was going to happen right yeah and like dude i don't think you know people will ever realize like unless you're you do it and obviously there's a handful of other guys that have experimented with it enough to know yeah you know jake will tell you um the gnarliest photo ever wow yeah like it it's it you know these sort of you know situations are scary dude i mean we as skaters we know but we don't know you know what i mean like we haven't done it like there's only a handful of people that have done this yeah man and like we know it's gnarly we know the consequences but you know you explaining it right now to us it's like puts a whole other like you know you can't just come back the next day you know it's like there's certain like in the risk factor it it's dude it's gnarly dude it's such another level of like feet like the you know the amount of fear and and then how humbling it is like just dude i'm you know when i when i've gotten myself into those situations like most of the time i've done those things like i put myself in the situation to have to do it because i know once i'm in it i can't turn back yeah but when i'm setting myself up for it i'm like you know kind of hoping like you know i guess not hoping it doesn't happen but in some in some ways i'm like well if i can get myself into this mess you know i'll get it done yeah yeah if it was i think you know how many times i've said that to myself like what the did you get yourself into again are you seriously in this it's happening yeah yeah yeah but dude i i there's nothing else on my skateboard that i've ever experienced not even close dude to you know hitting the quarter pipe at full throttle you know trying to go 25 feet plus it's definitely a whole nother level of of you know gnarliness like it's it's the most scary thing i've ever done on a skateboard i couldn't even imagine and you know like i said you can look at jake slamming no from that i had that one at x games where i bounced off the coping and front flipped in oh my god if you hit the coping you know there's a chance you're gonna get two slams right yeah it's like a package deal like you hit the coping then you hit the ground oh so yeah and the coping's up there i mean we're talking you know what'd you say 20 something feet 27 22 normal mega ram and then that one in china was thirty thirty two and the one is the one in uh at jeremy mcgrath ranch that i did in alpine san diego east county was uh 40 a quarter pipe but what i did is i built the the take off quarter pipe i built the flat bottoms like offset oh why'd you do that because like i said i i wanted to get into the air quicker so i raised the flat bottom and then made the quarter pipe shorter on the takeoff so i had a bigger wall to land into which is a great concept but like i i made it just a little too tight like this one like i i should have made it maybe a little bit more vert on it so that there was like a more of a release zone where i can get that energy to like calm down before i hit the coping but like dude it was you know like i said it was like while riding a wild bowl all the way to the lip of the of the ramp and it's so much g-force under your feet crazy you know and just like stabilizing that with that much you know uh with that much energy vulnerability to mistake and like the consequences running through your mind like okay if i just let it get out from underneath me just a little bit where i wobble off and like it only takes one little you know at 20 feet's one thing i was able to like land on the coping on my feet and somehow like yeah i blew my ankle to pieces right but dude if i would have been pushing the 30-foot ones and then like deck checked that oh my god my god bro or even just eject it out like jake all the way to the flat that would've been seven stories to the ground that's insane yeah that's seven stories yeah so a whole nother level of of of gnar factor yeah i mean that's stunt man it's it's like evil evil type you know for real is he some sort of inspiration to you in any way i mean i i of course love evil knievel um and big fan of evil's like all of the stuff that he's done absolute lily but you know the one thing that i you know the things that i'm doing are pretty well calculated like you know i think he might have tried to calculate his things you know to make him precise but a lot of the time he did it was kind of a hail mary yeah you know like it wasn't necessarily you know as as precise as it should be or maybe you know i don't know if they looked that precise but for the most part you know his were pretty much like it i'm going yeah yeah yeah like i don't know what's gonna happen like but i'm going into these with a lot of you know experience from prior situations and i'm trying to like you know take all of the information that i've that i've you know acquired over the years and all the experience that i've had through those situations and and i'm trying to you know make a pretty you know precise calculation and so the results are successful yeah yeah it seems like you have a good team around you too like the ramp builders and everything like i was going to ask you how if you build this thing right how and and something's wrong with it i mean it seems like a big undertaking to then change that if there's like a wall that's off or a dimension i mean that's like a whole dude a whole thing yeah to take apart one of these ramps yeah massive project right you're not once it's established you know it's like once it's to a point once you build it to a certain point mm-hmm it's nearly impossible it's kind of impossible right that's what i figured there's a point of no return on the build right and so i gotta get it right the first time pretty much and then like you know i mean we're talking about a whole different thing but then going into like the rail stuff you know because you wanted to do a rail and uh i think what was it the um it was a another part of the dc deluxe the dc uh deluxe edition yeah right i mean that blue minds dude like here you are like now and how do you like you you put the rail up there right how do you just 50 50 it you board slide it like what the hell do you do yeah i mean that's like the start yeah do you ollie over it first it's like how do you yeah how do you how do you first set your board on there how do you like do it start testing it out i mean i'm not going to like make it seem more gnarly than it is but it you know obviously it's it's anything of that caliber you know distance height speed sure dangerous and it's gnarly but you know the the what i tried to do is essentially build the rail in the trajectory arc so that like it could be very weightless so like you can get on it and literally it's just like so weightless that you're literally just using it as like a guide through the air to lock onto so you know i i just looked at like video of the trajectory line i was jumping and tried to calculate you know i had some guys stand on there and just kind of see where how high it was getting got you and then um literally drew that out like on the deck of the ramp like you know like measured it and like drew it like you know with the sharpie on the deck like what it would look like yeah and like it looks like it could probably work and you know that was pretty much an eyeball situation built on the fly did you do a first try i think did i build the thing the rail first try um i built the box first oh okay oh that's right so what i learned though is the box is flat on the top yeah yeah so you have to slow down you know to get on the box you have to go a lot slower so and if you don't essentially do what you're doing if you make a mistake then you're landing on the box and you don't have enough speed to get all the way over the thing so it's kind of like a little bit of a disaster for a second if you make a mistake right so i realized like maybe building the rail you know with the trajectory arcing it would i would be able to flow through you know i'd be able to get on it and if i had to jump off i could jump and clear it did you have the initial thought to have it be a rainbow rail or to be a flat rail at first no i think rainbows always was always the yeah the thought okay and what was it that when your board stuck in it was that that was like a couple tries in to the whole thing or yeah that well i don't know how many tries in but it was early on yeah it was pretty early on wasn't that kind of scary i was gonna say like i mean yeah i mean if you look at like that was like shish you know like a shish kebab yeah yeah yeah yeah so you can you know i obviously have the idea like what happens if you know something goes wrong and my my wheel stops spinning or like i hit a rock and like dive into it so yeah yeah yeah a lot of variables there you know getting impaled on that thing definitely crosses your mind or your leg or arm hitting the thing oh yeah yeah what was like the hardest trick for you to do on that rainbow rail is there anything that took you it took you a minute you know there are some that are easier than others but yeah i would say like yeah i don't know which one you know like maybe scariest maybe like to try two i mean you know maybe like 270 lip was kind of like a little bit you know just to get the the trajectory on that you like line up with the rail correctly and then um yeah i can see that too because you're going back you're going blind side towards it i'm trying to think of what i did on there um you knows bloodslided nosebleed yeah frontside that was that wasn't anything because it seems like you got to go up and then down to it yeah like you're not gliding anymore you're actually locked in yeah i don't um what did i like switch what did i do on there switch crooks so you did so much on that yeah you did a lot yeah i don't remember all the tricks but i i think you know that i did that heelflip lip slide that was kind of yeah but wait a minute i mean a heel flip at that why a heel flip is because you have more it's more stable i don't know that like flipping my board front side like heel flips like it's just one flick that i feel comfortable i've done it in many circumstances you know like he's a guy too flick i was at the olympics and i saw sean white doing some big frontside heelflips and i was like is that a trick that kind of comes natural to transitions with and i was like is that is that like common just to kind of flick it like that for transition skaters i mean it's a common trick he'll flip indies he'll flip frontside errors but like you know grabbing is one thing um you know there's a different flick when you're not grabbing yeah okay you can always flick your board out into the in in a no man's land and grab it and throw it back on yourself sorry if i if i step because i've never had that feeling before in any way i think front heel on flat ground yeah but yeah i mean any of those flips where you're just grabbing you know you can essentially just kick it out into the middle of nowhere and grab it and throw it down yeah if it's high enough you have enough time to get it back under you but yeah you know it's a whole different ballgame when you're flicking it and catching with your feet yeah totally and that's a different flick you know for sure oh but yeah i've you know from skating burt you know it's funny because like some of those tricks like you know heelflip lip or you know i've heel flip on the very rambo you know i've done heel flip lip he'll flip front side tail side front side tail slightly he'll flip disasters stuff whatever but the um heelflip revert i don't know i but that's like a a go-to trick for me but like some of those tricks i've never even done on street like some of those flip tricks so that's what going into like remember i was talking about like trick progression and the first plan b video kind of setting a new you know sort of you know direction for the way that i view things like yeah i've learned a lot of street tricks on the ramp first before i even did it like i've never even done a heelflip tailslide on the street yeah that's a weird awkward trick but you know like it's it i've learned flip tricks on the vert rant that i've never done on street first and not grab ones but like sure sure lip tricks that's crazy you know i've done it on this done and albert but i haven't done it on a ledge right it feels like it would be totally different you know maybe different but the same in a weird way i don't know because you find it because it's like you're weightless in a weird way yeah it's like a pr it's like a pressure like the technique is different and but i you know for me flipping my board on vert is a lot easier than street like i could do a ledge trick you know style lip trick on the ramp okay much easier than i could do it off the flat ground on a ledge right like just having the ability like having the speed to get up into it yeah yeah you know it not taking much energy to flat ground ollie and then you have like a split second to flatter on ollie then flick your board that gets a lot quicker right yeah and it's like you don't have to concentrate on getting you know obviously getting up to the lipsticks you know but that that like that sort of like you know uh technique is embedded in you know years of ram skating i'm not really thinking about riding up to the coping being anything other than just like having like you know for me it's like you know kind of like cheating getting able to just put something onto the ledge without having to oh it's so interesting man you know it's it's definitely like you know it's it's uh for the most part you know it's i guess you have to have a background to be able to even try that stuff but for me it's much easier than some street tricks on ledges to do them on bert god damn it man yeah it's so crazy dude i mean the mega alone is just it's insane you know it's insane the that you did on that is just incredible man and the the latest uh what was it what was it a dc thing uh the the latest uh the quarter point oh yeah yeah yeah oh it just came out that long ago yeah not that long ago that was it was that that's at your house is that it in hawaii yeah okay now is that's just a quarter pipe right this is a roll in with a quarter pipe yeah okay interesting a massive one with this yeah like lots that one has a 38 like the middle part where it goes like i think it goes like 85 degrees and then it goes up another 10 feet that that goes all the way up to almost four i think it's 38 feet tall but it's not completely vert and i did that on purpose you know like i wanted it like to be able to skate almost like a flatbed yeah cause you know i built that ramp with without the intention of skating it like a big air ramp okay like you know i like skating bur like i like detect i like trying to essentially bring the street mentality of the ramp right and like the mega ramp you know like we're always so fixated on going big that quarter pipe you know they're always they've always been flat walls without any like the dimensions that i would put if i built the vert ramp i wouldn't you know never want to build just for a ramp with two flat walls sure i always build in some obstacles and things and skate it like more like a street yeah street style vert ramp you know but that had not been done on the mega yet like that hawaii thing was like the you know where i had the ability to build something fresh and i wanted to make it more street-minded where i could do like more flip tricks and not be so fixated on blasting high errors yeah yeah but just doing stuff that would be more relatable to the streets oh it's so relatable i mean it's still massive huge you know but um i it's it's great you had like levels of coping in the middle of it uh yeah yeah like almost like a love seat or something like yeah yeah there is something like that yeah yeah just it's almost like building different spots you know like yeah there's different spots all over the ramp like you know you can skate it you know like you know i mean it's yeah you don't have to skate one thing or another but like you can session one obstacle or one spot right even though it's not like you know you know the ramp's only so wide but there's so much to be done on that ramp like there's so many options in such a little small space so it's not small space but it's you know when you look at like just from one side to the other on the coping just like the possibilities are infinite you know and it's and it's just you skating it too pretty much just because it's you know it's out in hawaii so it's like jake brown's come out before and collins obviously skated with me but like for the most part yeah it's you know and i it's i'm not supposed to having people come skate with me yeah but who's going to do it though you know i mean god all the guys at skate burton mega ramp well that's true that's true bob would love to come scared that nowadays like craig uh clay criner elliot sloan elliott yeah a bunch of guys would yeah yeah so i would i would love to have all those guys out there just my ramp every time i leave i come back and it needs like you know thirty thousand dollars of maintenance work geez so the amount of money that i've been sinking into that thing to keep it skateable is just it's overwhelming yeah it's it's it's breaking me so i'm trying to figure out a long-term solution and i think i'm going to concrete the rest of it you're going to you're going to cut the whole thing concrete yeah crazy just because you said the roland's concrete right the rolling all the way up to the quarter pipe is constant all the way up to the quarter pipe right absolutely how do you think that will change will it change any way that you skate it pop anything um like speed i mean it's always going to be fast skate lights fast but concrete can always be fast but i don't think it'll change anything other than it'll just have a different pop like snap when you take off your stuff yeah cement it'll be it'll i don't know i just i don't think it's going to change anything other than it's going to look cool or landing like you know you slide down it yeah it might grip like the wheels differently yeah it's going to have like it you know concrete and wheels change everything skate light can be sometimes slippery and sometimes grippy but it's gonna have a different sound effect right yeah you know and i almost think it might be you know cooler to have that i like the sound of concrete yeah yeah i mean never been done and smooth smooth concrete yeah yeah it's not like pebble tech no yeah definitely not no it should be i mean if i can get this done it's going to be right you know it'll look like a big diy mega spot and i i guess it's a stupid question but i mean you'd be satisfied having that permanently there to skate because like i guess you just said there's infinite possibilities there so you could always challenge yourself absolutely yeah yeah and i and i barely scratched the surface like right what people don't realize is like not only is it you know and it's so hard to keep that thing skateable when i go over there um you know some of the times i've been over to go film it like takes me a couple weeks to even get it skateable and then it doesn't last for very long because it's just constantly raining yeah and uh and the foliage constantly is growing over it but getting filmers out there and to like dude each trick i don't think people realize when they see how much went into getting one trick right you know just because of the fact i have to get guys out there they'll come over for a week like it's not like i can skate that thing every day for months on end like guys will come out for a week or two weeks and like you know we might skate it a few days in a week before you know it you get burned out and sore or it's raining or you have like weather issues but like the amount of like you know time invested in one clip is substantial it brag yeah with the bees the bees right yeah yeah took care of a beehive while he was out there yeah definitely i mean i mean hawaii yeah definitely rain condensation definitely weather change weather weather ridden so a lot of elements a lot of elements man a lot of elements to keep that thing going and like i said like to have a crew over there ready to film me and you need more than you need multiple angles dude it's just the elements like the mosquitoes the you know it seems frustrating it's it's a it's a tease because it's like there's so much potential with that thing and you know i didn't know all this when i i knew what i kind of was getting myself into but i didn't really know the extent of like how much you know uh how much of that would burden the ability to get footage right you know but like the thing is so fun to skate man it's like you know but at the same time you're like you know you wanna if you're gonna go out there and put the time in you're like well i may as well get some footage on this thing and yeah but like then you know it's just like it's just a process dude totally has there ever been times where you just go and skate it for fun without filming or do you actually yeah yeah you do okay i was gonna say because maybe you make a point every time to have a camera there to document something you know i mean if i'm going to take the time to get it skateable yeah i'm trying to get trying to get clips yeah yeah yeah why why go through the process of doing that you know it's right it's yeah i mean i would you know i've skated it without filming but like it's it is more like it's not like a burr ramp where you're taking runs it's like it's one hit you know so it's like you know if you're gonna skate it you mean you're filming one thing at a time anyways same as i'll just get one clip at a time or film a clip i guess you're used to it but doesn't it get annoying just trying one trick and then having to go all the way back you know i had to feel like a you saw the rope toe that i roped yeah yeah yeah so i mean that mentality that like concept works great right because you gotta have somebody there if not that's gonna drive you up and down the hill or drive you up yeah and dude like you know that's another dilemma having someone to drive you so i built that rope toe and that rope toes super dope it works dope yeah yeah so it was like a game changer but you know i just again i have been gone for a while and now that um i've been gone it's trashed again yeah it seems very um frustrating to have you know it's it needs to be concrete dude it needs to be straight up straight up i'm done playing this game okay yeah how much do you think i mean how much do you think that costs to build i'm getting quoted like 200 grand to do it wait a minute wait a minute but half of that majority of it's already concrete so we're talking how many dump trucks need to pull up their cement trucks like two minutes yeah so many and i'm sure you'd want like a specific kind of concrete too so there's that you know whatever the guys that do it say i need yeah i don't know the terminology sure sure but you want smooth then you know all that stuff shot crete or whatever they call it okay make it last crazy man so how fast do you go on that do you know um i haven't radar gun does on that ramp okay but i'm assuming in the like like the 35 to 40 ish so you're still going mega ramp speed for sure yeah got you i mean that the smallest part of that ramp is 27 feet tall that's the smallest like part of the like the lip the coping right the smallest is so you know yeah to get i mean you know it's definitely you know slower than you would be going on the mega ramp if you know if you were doing like you know i guess you know 10 foot error you know out of the mega ramp isn't like full throttle okay so i don't know i i guess you could probably say you're going between 30 and 40. if i'm ever in hawaii dude i'd love to just come there and just look at it absolutely because that's just crazy that's just my joke you come over and help me design the curb garden oh [Music] the curb garden's like doable right now dude that's ain't gonna yeah i don't need much for that no no no lower quote for that lower quarter much the guy that like stays on my property to look after it like he's a concrete guy too oh there you go so we could do a curb garden pretty quick i love the name a curb garden yeah yeah it's a great i love that nice little ring especially in hawaii too it makes sense oh my god chris's curb garden listen if you want to name it after me that's fine but uh i just yeah curbs more my style more my speed yeah it's make a whole like garden full of different like double-sided curved curves slappy curves with curves angles and corners that would be amazing now we're talking my language dude make it at a slight incline so you don't have to push or you can just like surf it because i've skated down some like i've sessioned uh like a spot that had like uh curbs on each side of the street yeah it was at a slight angle so you and they were good and you could literally slappy one and then slap it together and it's like serving like you got like right after it yeah and you don't have to push oh it's so rough yeah that's sick i love it i love it chris's curb garden at danny way's house so look at that the cement mega ramp and then the little curbs yeah down there yeah wow it's insane danny i mean listen you've you've done a lot bro and i feel like you're not even done yet like there's so much you want to do and i feel like you like you said if you had the means to do these things like you'd be you'd be on it in a second you know but yeah take your time it costs a lot of money to do this bro yeah i'm saying no job here dude it's like you know i'm trying to make it make something more things happen before i'm too old to do it but it's like again you know it's just like you know this the resources are everything and uh i'm trying to like i said figure out my way to fund my visions like your passion bro i've come up you know dc was a great vehicle for that yeah it's not in a position at this point where i guess i could get that kind of support like it's just not like it has new owners and i just have they're you know they just probably don't see maybe maybe maybe i'm underestimating their their you know potential interest in doing something creative but i think that they would probably want to invest it in some other things maybe but not sure but regardless i'm trying to build my own projects right now that i can have you know i guess it's everyone's dream to have something that's making enough money you can do whatever you want with you this is true you know whatever you want you know i've but i've uh i got you know i got a few things going on right now that i'm really confident at some point are going to pay off where i can justify spending money on crazy skateboarding i love it bro i the golf course we were talking about the golf course earlier little spots in each hole you know not necessarily a hole but you know yeah that'd be incredible mini golf but it's like yeah it would be um stop off chris's curb garden we'll go to dubs's dubs quick bump quick bump quick bump oh he loves a quick bump over trash can plenty of bumps yeah we'll go to kelly's flat ground area i love that i'll be there the whole time i love flat ground damn man danny way bro listen you you've done it all right you've done it all man you're not stopping now you've pushed the limits dude you're pushing the limits still yeah skateboarding thanks you dude absolutely i appreciate that trying you know i like it you know i dedicated myself to skateboarding and i hit the point of i guess no return and you know i'm gonna continue to keep trying to get back to skateboarding and i don't know you know how much more i can squeeze out of myself right it's not here it's it's just the body so you know i'll do what i can and you know and like it's all it's you know my passion is real and it's always been and i'm not here just you know skateboarding for me isn't just about fame and money it's definitely it's like you know it is it's a part of you man it's a part of me and it's it's just how i deal with you know it's like the one thing that makes me feel you know alive i i 100 i mean we're we're all in this room because of skateboarding yeah yeah it's like i know dubs because of skateboarding kelly you know all of it i drew about one thing yeah i watch your old video parts to see you skating curves to stair sets to ramps and i'm like to see what you've started from and you're kind of the only skateboarder on this planet that's gotten to that level i feel like dude and i just want to say congratulations thank you yeah for pushing the limits to people to see that people like that's possible you don't know if it's possible until you go out there and do it well i appreciate that man it was it's definitely been a journey and a lot of it's just been you know it was never planned it was just living in the moment and you know things you know the some of these you know things that have evolved and the consequences that i've endured for some of the you know i guess uh mistakes i've made along the way have led me into a place where i've you know had to dig deep and you know it's gotten to a point where i guess um you know i'm still trying to no i know what you're saying because you're like the only i mean you you're you're a special individual you know there's not many people out there that would push themselves to that limit bro for real i appreciate that man and i feel like it's been like i i do really feel blessed to be in in a position where i've had you know like it's not what i planned it to be yeah there's a lot of things that happen by default but i am very grateful that i've been able to kind of you know be you know play a role of of being something that is can you know inspire somebody else to not give up you know oh my god you inspired me bro real yeah me too appreciation of writing board and you know ever since the first time i've seen you in like uh whether it be you know a pal video or a shock i mean i mean it's like dude this is like it's amazing bro you've had a tremendous yeah it's not over i wish i could get a street part done and maybe i'll you know i'm going to try and do what i can to make something you're going to do it man listen as you you just we talked about the medellin thing the stem cell stuff where are you at right now and where when do you hopefully think you could be back on a board um you know maybe not like pushing the limits but it's something that that you feel comfortable and you enjoy you know what i mean like when do you think you have a time frame where you're trying to aim for you just want to get better you just want to heal get your body in shape i'm in no hurry to do anything right skateboarding is not going anywhere no and i'm and i'm very you know i'm very grateful and content for all i've achieved and i'm definitely you know i'm trying to enjoy skateboarding you know at this stage and you know like if if opportunities arise i'm willing to take some risk and i'm willing to do some stuff i'm not going to ever like lose that side of my drive but you know maybe someday but right now it's like you want to keep going i want to have fun with it though like my goal with skateboarding was to like you know i want to i want to get to a place in my career where i don't need like i'm getting there like i don't make a lot of money skateboarding these days it's not my intention you know i'm trying to do other things with my life and you know i i really would be so happy to be in a position you know and making other things happen in my life that i don't need to depend on skateboarding for an income that i just purely do it for the love of it and and i would like to you know live the later years of my skateboarding life in that sort of way like i don't you know the the stress and all of like the hustle that i had you know that all those things that have to go and be in place to like make a living skateboarding like i'm burned out on that man yeah you know i feel you know there's a time there's a it just feels like you know to be honest like i feel like you know i've it's been skateboarding has been very good to me on that level and i just you know i have other things i want to do with my life than depend on skateboarding sure for monetary sort of uh you know upsets absolutely so i mean dude you've been doing it for quite some time and there's not a lot of people that can save them for as long as you have that's true that's true enjoying it for what you know the same reason why i got into it i would like to not end it that way but you know at some point there's got to be an end but it wouldn't be nice to be in the position to go enjoy skateboarding like i did when i was a kid when i got into it yeah and that's been my goal like i really want to and it's almost there like i said i'm not chasing money and skateboarding right like i have other things going on in my life that that i you know business ventures and stuff that aren't having anything to do with skateboarding right right so yeah you know there's you know most of my intention has always been to um you know to to to think about everybody else's you know um uh you know position in it and and most of the things i do i've tried to share with everybody it's like mega ramp wasn't about just me it was like trying to you know think about how i can contribute back to skateboarding and create a platform for other people to make money and build their careers 100 you know it's like it's you know you know i like the idea of you know doing this with the intention you know that there's no selfish gain in it for my you know right like i like the idea of you know doing things that you know other people can also benefit from and you are already i mean listen to plan b you're giving a lot of these kids opportunities you know to you know come up in the skateboarding world you know so you're you're already giving opportunities to a lot of people you know which is appreciate yeah that's that's you know that's what that's what really drives me at this point knowing that you know there's something in it for other people like it's not you know like i said it's not about me i've done i've been you know skateboarding has been very well to me but what what inspires me yeah is the opportunity to share things with other people that they can benefit from too amazing there's no you know like reason you know to be self-indulgent to go around a hundred percent i like that you like to pay it forward bro that's amazing especially within the skateboard community yeah yeah because we're such a close-knit community too not even given opportunity but that actually help them along as well yeah you've been advised yeah everything everything comes with that you know so yeah that's it man i'm not you know i'm i'm inspired by things like that at this point yeah so if it's if it doesn't if it's just self-serving it doesn't you know it's not like intriguing for me i get you listen danny thank you so much for coming yeah bro you guys really appreciate that i've been a big fan of the nightclub for a long time brother and i'm i'm still you guys success your success is awesome i know everybody loves this show and you know i'm a fan of it myself i appreciate that we're huge fans yes we are danny we're honored to have you here oh my gosh i know i know you brought a lot of stuff with you but can we can we give you a couple nine club things to take home with you uh we we don't have too much in inventory but kelly we please get a couple mugs and stuff we'd appreciate that man hey couple parting gifts dude but um man yeah this has been great dude i mean these stories i mean i'm sitting here listening these stories being brought back to when i first started skating and the thing that i love about this show too is if the guests fill in all the holes that i've always wondered about what happened with this what's that and you know i'm sure a lot of people who watch the show feel the same way from the same era so you know it's like i've always wondered that holy that's amazing you know so i love it man yeah i love it i appreciate the the kind words dude no i'm stuck bro to be a part of it and thanks for having me dude we're stoked that you wanted to do because you like you said but you're not a big interview guy you know and so again like i said like you know it's like i'm at a stage of my career where i'm just like you know like it's not about me anymore there's right you know there's so many young guys that need to you know it's like i have my turn like you know bro you're still you have you're a legend dude you're a legend straight up so people want to hear that story yeah that i appreciate that you're a legend man you know legend and you need to you need to do more interviews you know you need to tell talk and tell your story document it all man because we we we got a really in-depth interview here but listen man there there's so much more time oh yeah yeah you know and i hope we have us our stop and chat show where we kick it and it's more loose not we don't have to go over a whole career but we play clips you could talk about clips you filmed so i hope you'd want to come back and hang out with us in the future yeah talk about some clips and oh yeah yeah because there's a there's a story behind every clip you know absolutely that's what's best for these clips there's some stories behind those clips dude there's some battles there dude some you know man yeah there's definitely there's some you'd be like man how long did that take to happen but i've had a couple like freebies where you just like one try and it goes down and then i've had ones that i've spent weeks on but you know it's funny you know you don't get too many of those freebies but dude come along they're the best it makes you so dude it's like the biggest gift it's like winning the lottery right you're like i just won i just won or like an accidental where you're trying one trick and then another chick happens to come out of it on accident you're like i didn't even mean to try that wow yeah you got a couple of those one last question right because the mega ramp so in street i'm sure you've had it happen to you many times but you know you do a trick uh maybe you're trying a trick for hours you black out and you end up you you you you like literally open your eyes and you're rolling away does that happen on the mega ramp as well do you black out at any moment and like just right are you rolling away you don't know what happened any time you're like so so exerted yeah that you're like in that state where you're so focused and exhausted yeah i get into a zone where it's like i can't i feel like i'm just like awake like you know somebody's you know driving yeah but i'm there but i'm not in it's like i'm just along for the ride and dude there's so many times i've been in that zone just so depleted exhausted and just seeing color spots and like and then all of a sudden i'm rolling away like whoa what the is happening like black out i feel like that's i trip out on that it's a trick it's autopilot i would love because we were talking about anthony i'm sorry andrew huberman you know and i i almost feel like he would have an explanation for that sure he would but you know yeah it's the most trippy thing like jamie foy frank crook down el toro yeah he said he blacked out he didn't remember like he just clicked his tail and he was riding away you're like how the hell do you get it yeah it's crazy it's like skating almost becomes like it's like forgetting to fall like you know in some things like you're getting such a you're trying something for so long and then yeah then you forget to fall on the one try you know you get that pattern locked in but then there's that moment where your like brain forgets to step off and you roll away and you're like whoa yeah yeah yeah it's great skateboarding isn't it it's the craziest thing man it's a beautiful thing you know dude the reward of making tricks you know like especially when you've been battling something that hard like the gratification sometimes is like it's so priceless nobody will ever get it nobody guys that do it exactly exactly it's a trip how much you'll put yourself through for that one little millisecond of gratification bro yeah and it's so worth it it is always good it's so nice when you haven't had that ride home bro yeah yeah bro that was the best way are you gonna put your little stories thank you so much for stopping by you are the man dude and listen we want to give you a couple things uh we have a nine club water bottle here we ran out we we did another one you know scott kane scott kane uh skateboarder bro amazing dick guy bootleg uh here's a highland peak this is one of our our first ones that we made with them we we ran out of our uh new one that we did with them a little co-lab you know we like to do collabs with skaters and stuff she's amazing but oh that's still it's getting keep hydrated up there on the on the mega put that on your little belt loop have your water your electrolytes in there uh i don't know if you're a big candle guy but uh we do make candles here at the nightclub very interesting yeah but this is uh this is my pro this is my pro candle it's called the uh pamplemoose yeah it's a grapefruits grapefruit scent and last but not least of course our logo mug you know here you go thank you so much bro of course you're whipping some coffee up on the wall yeah dude we were yeah we were talking about the coffee thing man blayback he didn't know what was going on here he brought his own coffee machine oh like we love our coffee right it's like the best he wanted to make sure he was comfortable yeah he was comfortable he was comfortable he was comfortable one thing uh jake uh rosenberg i talked to him earlier and he just wanted me to to say that you know that uh the waiting for lightning movie that we made together is uh it's on amazon and it's free so if anyone hasn't seen it oh sick bro okay that's a good one what year was that that was 2014 2014. okay yeah seven years here man shout out jake rosenberg he just texted me okay hope it went well dude he was all right that was coming up he texted me he texted me too he's like what did he say he's like he's like feels like a big day today and i texted her back i'm like mega ramp big and he's like oh yeah yeah jake's the best he's the best so the uh uh waiting for lightning yeah it's amazon it's on amazon prime amazon prime nice awesome okay that's freezing bro go check it out great movie definitely and i wanted to say one thing just as growing up being a big fan i always thought it was really cool that you and colin mckay were so close and we talked about a few times but i just thought you two were the coolest duo oh no way yeah yeah yeah that was it's huge like my generation that's that's rad man colin and i you know hit it off when we were like young teenagers like i met him at mcgill skate park and he was probably like 13 i was 14 and um you know we we didn't get to know each other that good until probably we were more like he was 15 and i was 16 i'm like a year older than him yeah um and uh you know we it's like the second you know it's the only one you know especially back then maybe bucky a little bit but one other guy that like i literally feel like our brains you know looked at skateboarding on debt like we bonded so quickly through our skateboarding but then you know our personalities are different but like yeah you know it's kind of brotherly like you know you know we're we're so close on so many levels but definitely um you know we get into it sometimes and have like little spouts and you know we go through stuff like brothers but it's crazy how long we've been you know friends and like skating together and pushing each other yeah to this day like you know we're still like running plan b together and he's doing really well and you know i just feel like you know it's a it's it's amazing that how long we've been on this journey and pretty close together you know yeah so i always thought that was really rare it was like it's like there's even dill there's yeah colin like there's like chris and dubs mike and rick yes yeah there's always there's some skaters you always associate with there's a couple there's only a couple out there that are legendary in my eyes you know what i mean so yeah big fan thank you bro yeah collins yeah he's my brother man so we're stoked to you know to be still able to to be not just skateboarding but just you know in the mix on some level at this stage of our careers you know it's like yeah friendship for 33 years bro that's funny yeah amazing yeah we look at it yeah we we sometimes can't believe that we still exist in this whole thing but it's pretty fun dude pretty good man you know we're going to keep on existing bro that's great it's been fun man i don't want it to end bro i'm gonna keep going to that part you don't want it i don't want it to end dude i'm trying to think of more before we wrap it up but what else do we got well maybe we should save it for a stop in chat bro there's gonna be because i i think that you would have really you would have fun at the stop and chat because that we you know the clips and everything and like i said it's interesting never really thought before about the trick being like a story behind a trick you know yeah we started doing that and literally man everybody's got a story there's always something and it jars their memory it brings them back to that point in time like it's really it's kind of magical sometimes when they're like wow this is i haven't even seen this dude that day was cra and they start going it's it's i love it i love the behind the scenes of skating it's like it's like but when i watch behind the scenes of movie yeah you know and i was like that's how they did that so sick should we uh call out the um olympic thing uh is that we're talking about a little bit oh let's bring that up real quick before we leave yeah because we were talking oh before the show the olympics was great it was good but you had a couple ideas which you would like to see in the olympics and i think they are phenomenal ideas let's talk about it yeah well i mean you know olympics are obviously great on many levels for skateboarding we all know that you know the graduation to the olympics means a lot that skateboarding's got you know come that that far but you know what's the evolution of that look like i don't know other than just having my own you know opinions yeah and uh i you know i was just thinking because of the like disciplines in the olympics you know the there's always been controversy over judging and you know i know that even in the in the gymnastics there's always been controversy olympics but the one thing that you can't have controversy over is things that are metered you know height distance speed stuff like that so you know just going back to the roots of skateboarding and the fundamentals and like the simplicity of doing highest ollie yeah would be so rad oh my god like a you know spin-off to the street event and then also doing building like a quarter pipe for highest air yeah and i'm not saying this because i think i could do well in the highway i think that it would be cool if there were some olympic-minded disciplines right had some like you know of the nostalgic olympic mentality in them well there are fun events to watch the high ollie the highest air how big would the ramp be by the way what are we thinking 40 feet no 60 feet oh okay yeah like like the standard mega size quarter would be a fair what's that 25 27 27 feet okay or maybe a little bigger but like you said they're metered right so that you there's no judging you know there's no nothing it's just straightforward you hit it or you don't absolutely and i love that i just think that it would you know a lot of people could relate to how the simplicity of it a 100 you know things that are you know technically beyond somebody's ability to understand you know it's like watching street skating's like if you don't know how to speak spanish how can you listen to a television show in spanish exactly right but like it's easy to understand somebody getting over you know a barrier yeah that's 44 inches or 48 inches or whatever it is i mean or totally altitude you know you also do like on streetwise like long while you could do long ways too you could do how many you could do biggest stair drop yeah yeah yeah yeah it's infinite you go for the 30 feet plus if they built the right setup i would definitely try and achieve that goal but you know it would you know whatever it is it is but the the the f that would be so funny i think it would be a really fun event i mean listen the hi what we're going to bring uh danny wayne right back we're going to bring you know we're going to bring danny way over there dude we're going to have some hi all the danny's we're going to be all the dancers no but i we're talking about it before and i was like dude i love that idea i think it's so fun you know i was at the first high ollie contest and i had a blast it was so fun it wouldn't cost that much to do it you get a little bar yeah i guess you could amortize the build out for the quarter pipe you know and together the combination of both yeah you know if you amortize it between the two you know it would well worth it well listen man like i i watched like rock climbing in the olympics you know and they had their little different uh things it was like you you have to get to a certain point like around the rock or it was fastest up to the the point now listen in rock climbing you know if you're out there climbing half dome or something you know you're not trying to climb the fastest but they had that in rock climbing yeah it's like who could get up there you could speed climbing right i don't know much about climbing but i randomly sat or i talked to the girl that ran the whole or i think she documented the whole rock climbing thing and they're different types of but a lot of people were they were the same people going but they didn't it wasn't their specialty yeah it's there was like two there was a certain types of people were skating the two and the the fast one was a way different one like there was different they were but they might have been different but they were the same people still like that that i watched it was like a couple of the same people maybe not all of them i can't i honestly i was like just impressed that it was i drove by the place the olympic venue and i was like that place is huge it's crazy it was a big event for the rock climbing yeah so we could have the same big event for the high ollie and the big air and like you said it wouldn't take that much to build something like that whatever it would it would be pretty rad for people to watch just because it's so simple anyone could understand straightforward yeah and it would be uh i think it'd be exciting i think people would be really really interested in watching i loved it i would be i would be yeah hopefully the guys hear us and hey listen yes we can say we created that yeah it all transpired on the nine club you documented it on the nine club bro that came from us man man anyway dude i love it bro thank you so much again for coming on the show dude and come back any time you want we'd love to have you back again and again and again and again this is gonna go this one's gonna go yeah we going we going [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: The Nine Club

Views: 140,197

Keywords: chris roberts, roger bagley, kelly hart, crob, the nine club, nine club, the 9 club, 9 club, skateboarding, skate, skating, podcast, history, interview, news, motivation, entertainment, funny, comedy, thrasher, berrics, transworld, nike sb, street skating, switch tre flip, boardslide, skateboarding 2020, firing line

Id: 4yJpeSyjKdk

Length: 276min 20sec (16580 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 23 2021