The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1477

00:00:02.000 And we're rolling.

00:00:03.000 How are you, Tony?

00:00:04.000 Awesome, thank you.

00:00:05.000 My pleasure.

00:00:06.000 Thanks for coming here, man.

00:00:08.000 Yeah, thanks for inviting me.

00:00:09.000 It's an honor.

00:00:10.000 It's interesting to see you even just fuck around with your skateboard, just the way you maneuver it.

00:00:16.000 You're so adept.

00:00:17.000 It's really weird, like the way you move your feet and just pick it up and...

00:00:22.000 Oh, it's very impressive.

00:00:23.000 I mean, it really is just at this point kind of an extension of my body.

00:00:26.000 It seems like.

00:00:27.000 And I guess it's weird.

00:00:29.000 I don't think about how comfortable I am.

00:00:31.000 And a lot of times we'll be in a city or something or just like now.

00:00:35.000 I didn't know where to park, right?

00:00:36.000 So I just parked somewhere kind of close and just I go skate.

00:00:39.000 And I feel way better about doing that than like parking and then walking somewhere.

00:00:44.000 And just, you know, I know I can get around people and sort of be...

00:00:48.000 Indiscreet and stealthy.

00:00:50.000 Wait, indiscreet?

00:00:51.000 Tony Hawk on a skateboard is indiscreet?

00:00:55.000 That's ridiculous.

00:00:56.000 That might be the most ridiculous thing.

00:00:56.000 I do get weird looks for sure.

00:00:58.000 For sure?

00:00:59.000 Yeah.

00:00:59.000 I get a lot of Dua kickflips out from car windows.

00:01:02.000 Oh, really?

00:01:02.000 Yeah.

00:01:03.000 Oh, that's funny.

00:01:04.000 That's my curse.

00:01:07.000 That's my burden I carry.

00:01:08.000 I'm seeing these new skateboards that look like convertibles, where as these guys flip the board, the wheels flip up and go to the other side.

00:01:17.000 Oh yeah, that's sort of a phenomenon, sort of a social media thing going on.

00:01:22.000 Ah, so you can see it in slow-mo?

00:01:24.000 Is that what it is?

00:01:25.000 No, the board is actually a contraption, right?

00:01:28.000 I don't really understand what that is.

00:01:30.000 There's a select few people doing that, and I've seen a couple where they actually have figured out how to make their board grind and then do a flip around a rail as they jump back on it.

00:01:40.000 Oh boy.

00:01:41.000 Yeah, it's very specialized, though.

00:01:43.000 I can't say that's a movement.

00:01:44.000 It's just a few key people that are doing it.

00:01:46.000 How many bones do you have to break to perfect that?

00:01:49.000 When I see this dude sliding down rails, I'm like, how many times do you fuck that up and snap a forearm?

00:01:57.000 Well, skating went through different waves of disciplines, basically.

00:02:02.000 And in the early 90s, it was all street, right?

00:02:04.000 And so what I did was vert skating.

00:02:06.000 That was kind of dying out.

00:02:08.000 So I was skating street a lot, too.

00:02:11.000 And I realized I was not fit to be a street skater.

00:02:13.000 The third time I rolled my ankle, like both ankles twice.

00:02:17.000 Then the third time, the other one, I was like, I don't want to do handrails anymore.

00:02:20.000 This is not working for me.

00:02:22.000 This impact is...

00:02:24.000 I'm not going to be able to skate anymore if I keep doing this.

00:02:26.000 I see these kids like when you whenever you go like near like a large office building that has a lot of outdoor space and you see them using the rails and stuff like how many Breaks can you have before like I there I think that It's a little deceiving because people do you know how to fall relatively safely from from stuff like that,

00:02:46.000 but they get addicted right they're doing that probably every day I Yeah, for sure.

00:02:50.000 And there's all kinds of different styles.

00:02:53.000 So there's tech styles where it's more people are skating ledges and benches and they're flipping their board, grinding, flipping out, stuff like that, where it's low impact, but super technical.

00:03:02.000 And then there's just the stuntmen who are doing the big rails, the big gaps, jumping fences.

00:03:09.000 How did this happen?

00:03:12.000 How did it go from just riding a skateboard?

00:03:14.000 When I was a kid, you and I are the same age, but when I was, I guess I was probably 11 or 12, I had a skateboard.

00:03:22.000 I was just riding it on the street.

00:03:23.000 All my friends would just ride a skateboard on the street.

00:03:26.000 What happened?

00:03:27.000 How did it get to be grinding across benches and railings?

00:03:32.000 I think there's a pretty deep history there of how it got there, but skating was just more like a transportation toy.

00:03:41.000 And then it was really the Dogtown crew that took it to a new level where it was like, oh, you can use this to do aerials and skate swimming pools.

00:03:50.000 And they were just trying to emulate their surfing.

00:03:52.000 And so then skate parks started cropping up.

00:03:55.000 Skating got popular in the late 70s, early 80s.

00:03:58.000 And then it was all swimming pools.

00:04:01.000 And then maybe like four years later, the skateboarding kind of started falling in popularity.

00:04:09.000 The skate parks couldn't get their insurance anymore because the liability was crazy.

00:04:14.000 And so then the streets became the skate park because there was nowhere else to go.

00:04:19.000 And there were a few key skaters that figured out how to use the urban landscape as a skate park.

00:04:26.000 And then that was it.

00:04:28.000 All bets were off.

00:04:30.000 Skating kind of took off in the underground as the street culture, street sport.

00:04:34.000 And then people started doing handrails, ledges, benches, stairs.

00:04:39.000 Because they just didn't have parks.

00:04:40.000 How much of an impact did the internet have on it?

00:04:42.000 Because it seems like once kids could see all these YouTube videos of people doing all this crazy shit, it must have really accelerated it.

00:04:49.000 I think what it did, I mean, especially in the last 10 years, is it evened the playing field.

00:04:54.000 You didn't have to live in Southern California.

00:04:56.000 You didn't have to live in New York or be near where the industry is.

00:05:00.000 You could just be in your little town.

00:05:01.000 As long as you're putting out content and it's progressive, you're going to get noticed.

00:05:06.000 And I think that's awesome.

00:05:07.000 Oh, yeah, that is awesome.

00:05:08.000 Yeah.

00:05:08.000 Yeah, that's one of the cool things about it.

00:05:10.000 Like you said, evened out the playing field.

00:05:12.000 Yeah, and, you know, people are making careers as skaters now in the most unlikely places.

00:05:18.000 Well, you are the Lance Armstrong of skating.

00:05:21.000 And this is what I mean.

00:05:22.000 I don't mean that you got caught doing drugs.

00:05:23.000 What I mean is that you're the guy, like when people talk about professional skaters...

00:05:29.000 Tony Hawk.

00:05:30.000 Like, I don't know a single fucking bike rider other than Lance Armstrong.

00:05:34.000 I mean, Greg, um, there was that other guy?

00:05:36.000 Greg Lamont.

00:05:37.000 Greg Lamont, yeah.

00:05:37.000 See?

00:05:38.000 But I can't remember him real quick.

00:05:39.000 But for you, that's gotta be strange, because, like, you were the first, and you're, for sure, the most prominent.

00:05:46.000 Like, how did you pull that off?

00:05:49.000 Well, mostly longevity by surviving the first wave of skating in the 80s.

00:05:56.000 Well, it was actually kind of the second wave of skating in the 80s where I had a pretty good career.

00:06:01.000 I was doing really well in competition, especially in the mid to late 80s.

00:06:05.000 And then as skating kind of went underground, I never quit.

00:06:08.000 And started my own skate company in 1992. And then when the X Games came into play, I was still kind of on top of my game.

00:06:17.000 I did really well there.

00:06:18.000 And I think a lot of people carried over my name from that first round where they were skaters in the 80s and now maybe their kids skate.

00:06:25.000 And they're like, oh, I remember that guy!

00:06:27.000 And their kids are watching me on the X Games.

00:06:29.000 And then when our video game came out in 1999, that's when everything changed, for sure.

00:06:34.000 Well, you were famous for skating when you were like 17 or something, right?

00:06:39.000 I turned pro when I was 14. But I mean, when I say that, it seems...

00:06:46.000 It might seem magical, but at the time, skating was this little tiny scene.

00:06:50.000 So when I first, when I literally went pro, I was filling out an entry form to a competition, and I had already reached the top of the amateur ranks, and there was a little box that said pro, and a little box that said am.

00:07:03.000 So I clicked, I checked the pro box, and that was it.

00:07:06.000 I was pro.

00:07:07.000 No one was offering me a contract.

00:07:10.000 No one had champagne.

00:07:11.000 You know what I mean?

00:07:12.000 And like my coach was, I'll never forget, Stacy Perlta was looking over my shoulder and I checked it and he's like, okay.

00:07:19.000 That's it.

00:07:20.000 That was it.

00:07:20.000 Yeah.

00:07:21.000 Wow.

00:07:21.000 But you had a coach.

00:07:23.000 We had a team manager.

00:07:26.000 He's the one who put me on what is now considered the Bones Brigade, but the company was Pal Peralta.

00:07:31.000 And that was sort of the elite crew of skaters in the early 80s.

00:07:36.000 And I was the super young newbie on the team.

00:07:41.000 Like super skinny, dorky kid.

00:07:43.000 And a lot of the guys that were established were like, this guy?

00:07:47.000 Really?

00:07:47.000 Yeah.

00:07:49.000 What is that, Jimmy?

00:07:50.000 Oh, is that you?

00:07:51.000 That's me at age 17. Wow.

00:07:56.000 Time flies.

00:07:58.000 Does it freak you out looking at that?

00:08:01.000 I see that photo making the rounds, so it's cool.

00:08:07.000 By the time I turned 17, I was kind of doing well in competition and making money, so I'm literally sitting outside of my house that I bought while I was a senior in high school in that photo.

00:08:21.000 Which was a challenge trying to stay focused on schoolwork when you have the party house.

00:08:28.000 That's crazy.

00:08:29.000 You own a fucking house?

00:08:31.000 Yeah.

00:08:32.000 Wow.

00:08:32.000 A duplex, but yeah, it was my own place.

00:08:34.000 But you know, like when you're a senior, oh, so-and-so's parents are out of town.

00:08:40.000 Party's at his house.

00:08:40.000 Like, my parents were never home.

00:08:43.000 So everyone's going to my house.

00:08:45.000 But what did your parents think about you buying a house?

00:08:47.000 It was my dad's idea.

00:08:49.000 Really?

00:08:49.000 Yeah, because he saw me...

00:08:52.000 Really not understanding finances or how lucky I was.

00:08:56.000 And I was just throwing money away, you know, on cars and trips and Sharper Image and just the most ridiculous things.

00:09:03.000 And then he's like, I really think you should invest your money.

00:09:06.000 Did you get a massage chair?

00:09:07.000 Sharper Image massage chair?

00:09:08.000 Did you get one of those?

00:09:09.000 No, but I bought between...

00:09:11.000 Okay, this is a long story, but my sister and I went in on a tanning bed together.

00:09:18.000 I used it once.

00:09:21.000 She used it because it was helpful to her skin.

00:09:23.000 I'm not going to say why, but she had a legitimate reason for it, but I was like, yeah, tanning bed.

00:09:28.000 I'm never going to go tan, but you've got to have it.

00:09:32.000 Where did you live at the time?

00:09:33.000 In North County, San Diego, Carlsbad.

00:09:35.000 You don't need a tanning bed in San Diego.

00:09:38.000 Exactly, yeah.

00:09:38.000 That was it.

00:09:39.000 The first time I went, I was like, why am I laying in there?

00:09:40.000 I could just go outside.

00:09:42.000 It's sunny 350 days a year.

00:09:44.000 Yeah, that's hilarious.

00:09:46.000 But it almost, you know, when you're that age and you're You're doing well.

00:09:51.000 You think that somehow that's like a status symbol.

00:09:53.000 Did you sleep in that house by yourself when you were 17?

00:09:56.000 No, I had three roommates.

00:09:58.000 Oh God, that's so crazy.

00:10:00.000 All of the same age.

00:10:00.000 One was a little bit older.

00:10:02.000 He was a good friend of mine, pro skater, and he was the only guy that actually had a job.

00:10:07.000 And he was tortured for like two years.

00:10:11.000 Because we were up super late all the time making noise and he'd have to get up at 7am and go to work.

00:10:17.000 He was doing line stripping back when you'd have to color separate for magazines and stuff like that.

00:10:27.000 What a bummer for him.

00:10:28.000 Such a bummer.

00:10:30.000 Yeah.

00:10:30.000 And he's still trying to make it as a pro skater, but clearly he had to get a job.

00:10:35.000 And must be exhausted, too.

00:10:37.000 Yeah, he would leave these kind of nasty notes for us in the morning.

00:10:41.000 So in high school, so you were a senior year in high school, you had your own place.

00:10:46.000 Did you do any schoolwork at all?

00:10:48.000 I did, yeah.

00:10:49.000 But you must have been like, well, fuck this.

00:10:51.000 I can already buy a house.

00:10:53.000 I don't know.

00:10:54.000 I think it was more because my parents valued education.

00:10:57.000 My mom was an educator.

00:11:00.000 She was actually taught in a college.

00:11:03.000 Oh, wow.

00:11:04.000 So I felt that I was going to be a disappointment if I didn't at least graduate high school.

00:11:11.000 And I was always pretty advanced.

00:11:14.000 I was in the gifted program, and I was a grade ahead in a lot of the subjects.

00:11:18.000 So by the time I was a senior, I only needed four classes to graduate.

00:11:23.000 So I went to school until lunchtime every day and then I was out.

00:11:27.000 Oh wow.

00:11:28.000 And then I got my diploma and my dad Not strongly suggested I go look at colleges.

00:11:35.000 And so just to humor him, I went looking at like a, you know, a city college in our area and looked around the campus like, oh, that's cool, I guess, sure.

00:11:45.000 And I just knew that it was my opportunity to really chase this and to embrace all these opportunities I was getting.

00:11:52.000 I mean, I was literally out of high school onto a Hollywood movie set, Gleaming the Cube.

00:11:58.000 Oh, that's right!

00:12:00.000 So I graduated high school and then moved to North Hollywood for two months to shoot the movie.

00:12:08.000 That was like, what, 86?

00:12:09.000 It was shot in 88, I think, 87. Wow.

00:12:15.000 God, I'm remembering that now.

00:12:18.000 Wow.

00:12:19.000 What a crazy way to go from being a young kid to right into your manhood.

00:12:27.000 It's deceiving though.

00:12:28.000 I mean, especially when you have that much success at a young age, you think it's never going to end.

00:12:32.000 You think you're invincible.

00:12:34.000 And I definitely sometimes treated it as such where I was just like, woo!

00:12:39.000 You know, just throwing money away.

00:12:41.000 And like I said, my dad was encouraging me to save it.

00:12:43.000 And then it all came crashing down in about 1991, 92, where my paycheck was all based on royalties of skate products.

00:12:54.000 And it started getting cut in half every month.

00:12:58.000 Whoa.

00:12:59.000 Just from lack of interest, lack of sales.

00:13:01.000 Why did it drop?

00:13:02.000 Was it just a liability thing?

00:13:04.000 It was that, and just skating was considered a fad.

00:13:07.000 And also, my style of skating, I skated the ramps, right?

00:13:11.000 So I'm a vert skater.

00:13:13.000 Vert skating was just instantly not cool, because street skating had taken over.

00:13:17.000 So I was considered this dinosaur, and it was just like, you're out.

00:13:21.000 Skating's not cool, and you're not cool in skating.

00:13:23.000 Wow.

00:13:25.000 So it was rough.

00:13:28.000 I would say sort of 92 to 95-ish were very lean.

00:13:34.000 So you were trying to figure out like, hey, what am I doing?

00:13:37.000 I got really good at this.

00:13:38.000 Were you thinking, I got to find something else to do?

00:13:40.000 Yes and no.

00:13:41.000 I knew I wouldn't quit skating because I just loved it.

00:13:44.000 I never did it for the money.

00:13:46.000 When I started, no one could be rich or famous from skating.

00:13:49.000 So that was never the objective.

00:13:51.000 It was just because I loved what it brought to me.

00:13:53.000 I loved the self-confidence it brought to me.

00:13:54.000 I loved the creativity.

00:13:55.000 I loved the...

00:13:57.000 The misfit crew, the community of it.

00:14:00.000 And so when things started to go south financially, I know it wouldn't quit.

00:14:06.000 I just had to figure out how to make ends meet.

00:14:08.000 And I actually had a video editing system, and I learned how to do that very early, like right when nonlinear video started happening.

00:14:15.000 I had a system, so I started doing freelance work for companies, doing video editing.

00:14:20.000 Super random.

00:14:21.000 Some skate companies.

00:14:22.000 And then...

00:14:25.000 I did exhibitions like we were doing exhibitions in amusement park parking lots.

00:14:33.000 We weren't even in the amusement park.

00:14:34.000 We're like in the parking lot as people walk in as entertainment, you know, and doing that for like 100 bucks a day.

00:14:42.000 Um, but it, but it allowed me to skate and allowed me to pay the rent.

00:14:46.000 And it was like, that was good enough for me.

00:14:48.000 But were you thinking that this is going to stop totally?

00:14:52.000 Well, it was definitely felt like it was heading that way.

00:14:54.000 Um, but I, like I said, I was trying to, I was just trying to do whatever I could.

00:14:59.000 So I was trying to learn different skills.

00:15:02.000 Um, and you know, maybe skating wasn't going to pay the bills, but I couldn't let it go for my life.

00:15:08.000 Wow.

00:15:10.000 That's a great story.

00:15:11.000 You hung in there, and you brought it back.

00:15:14.000 Yeah, I guess.

00:15:15.000 I mean, a lot of ways, right?

00:15:18.000 It started to slowly come back really when the X Games came into play, where suddenly we were...

00:15:27.000 We were on TV and kids could see how much skating had evolved.

00:15:33.000 Well, the whole public could see how much skating had evolved from the time that they last saw it in the late 80s.

00:15:38.000 And then they were seeing it and it was just like, whoa, these guys are...

00:15:41.000 This is for real.

00:15:43.000 For lack of a better word, this is a sport.

00:15:46.000 These guys are doing acrobatic things, and it takes discipline, and it takes determination, and kids recognize that.

00:15:54.000 And I think that's really when skating started to spark again.

00:15:58.000 And this is like 95-ish?

00:15:59.000 Probably closer than 96, 97. The first X Games was a little strange, a little scattered, because it was like skateboarding and bungee jumping.

00:16:08.000 And rock climbing and sky surfing.

00:16:11.000 They were trying to figure it out.

00:16:13.000 They were just throwing everything.

00:16:14.000 And then it really rubbed us the wrong way because suddenly we were labeled as extreme.

00:16:19.000 And it was like, what do you do?

00:16:21.000 I skateboard.

00:16:21.000 Oh, you're into extreme sports.

00:16:23.000 No, I skateboard.

00:16:24.000 I don't know what...

00:16:26.000 Yeah, that's a weird category, right?

00:16:28.000 That extreme sports category.

00:16:29.000 It was just anything...

00:16:30.000 Yeah, and that was...

00:16:31.000 I mean, really, it was coined by ESPN. So that's why they changed it to X Games.

00:16:35.000 So the first one was Extreme Games in 95. They changed it to X Games in 96. I think they really found their...

00:16:42.000 Their niche, a few years later, when they really started to weed out all the random stuff, and it was more about skateboarding, BMX, motocross, those became really the highlights and the reason people were tuning in,

00:16:58.000 and then that's when things really exploded.

00:17:00.000 And what were the early skateboarding events in the X Games?

00:17:03.000 It was Street and Vert.

00:17:06.000 So Vert came back?

00:17:09.000 Yeah.

00:17:10.000 Well, a lot of it for us...

00:17:11.000 I think it was really because ESPN recognized that a vert is a spectator sport.

00:17:16.000 Yeah, I was going to say, for us, on the outside, we would watch it to see someone fall spectacularly.

00:17:21.000 Yeah, sure.

00:17:22.000 Because you guys would go, you would hit those ramps, and you would watch people just fuck up, and you're like, oh my god, look how far he's falling!

00:17:31.000 Right.

00:17:33.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:17:34.000 And then once they evolved that into what they call the big air ramps, the mega ramps, then it was just like the aerials and the risk factor was tenfold.

00:17:44.000 Yeah, the risk factor, I mean, I've seen some wipeouts that are just, they're baffling.

00:17:52.000 I think when things started to really explode with that, with the big air thing, and then Jake Brown had his big accident, the one that kind of everyone saw went viral.

00:18:01.000 You've probably seen him where he's just falling from like 30 feet up.

00:18:04.000 That's when they started to...

00:18:07.000 I don't want to say tone it down, but really they started to figure out how to do it in a way that is still progressive, but not just throwing caution to the wind and not just trying to break all the height and spin records.

00:18:21.000 How bad did he hear?

00:18:22.000 They really refined it.

00:18:23.000 I mean, surprisingly, I think he broke his hand, maybe his heel...

00:18:32.000 And had internal bruising, but it was really unbelievably lucky.

00:18:37.000 Yeah, I watched that and I was like, there's no way this guy's going to live.

00:18:41.000 And then they didn't have the proper protocol in place.

00:18:44.000 They just let him walk off the ramp.

00:18:46.000 It was nuts.

00:18:49.000 But it was definitely a shock to the system and like I said, they started to refine that event where it's just like, alright you guys, we're comfortable at this certain height, let's just stick with that.

00:19:01.000 Even all the skaters said it themselves.

00:19:03.000 They're like, well we can really work on new tricks at this height instead of trying to go to the moon.

00:19:10.000 Is there an issue with CTE with skaters?

00:19:17.000 Well, it's definitely a concern.

00:19:20.000 Yeah.

00:19:21.000 I can't say that I know many examples of it, but I'm not following people past their careers necessarily, you know, except for close friends.

00:19:32.000 You know Jason Ellis?

00:19:33.000 Of course.

00:19:34.000 Yeah, Ellis, I think he told me he's been knocked out like seven or eight times, like out cold.

00:19:39.000 Yeah, definitely at least that for me.

00:19:43.000 At least that, huh?

00:19:44.000 Yeah.

00:19:44.000 Wow.

00:19:45.000 I mean, I've had...

00:19:47.000 Probably by all accounts, over the years, at least like 30, you know, either semi-concussions or heavy concussions.

00:19:55.000 I'd say like three or four heavy concussions.

00:19:58.000 Like out cold?

00:19:59.000 Yeah.

00:20:00.000 Out cold just three or four times?

00:20:01.000 Woke up in the ambulance, yeah.

00:20:04.000 And I don't take that lightly.

00:20:06.000 And especially with all the information that we have now and with all the research, I went and proactively tried to figure out if I'm susceptible because...

00:20:16.000 Did you get that gene checked?

00:20:18.000 I did, yeah.

00:20:18.000 What is it, APOE4? Is that what it is?

00:20:21.000 Yes, I believe so.

00:20:23.000 I do not have the gene that makes me susceptible.

00:20:26.000 And I was even more concerned, I mean, because my mom, she passed away recently, but she had Alzheimer's dementia.

00:20:33.000 Hmm.

00:20:33.000 And it makes you more susceptible to Alzheimer's, dementia, and not just CTE. I mean, I'm acting like I'm a medical expert.

00:20:41.000 I just, you know, I researched it enough to know that, okay, I'm not more at risk for that, but I don't, you know, I'm not putting myself out there to have concussions anymore, I'll tell you that.

00:20:55.000 I mean, I'm not doing those kind of moves that I was getting knocked out on.

00:20:58.000 Have you done anything proactively to try to...

00:21:01.000 I take supplements, stuff like that, yeah.

00:21:04.000 Do you ever heard of Neuro Force?

00:21:06.000 No.

00:21:07.000 No, Neuro One, right?

00:21:09.000 Neuro One.

00:21:10.000 Bill Romanowski, a football player, created it, specifically because he was dealing with a lot of issues, memory issues and the like, because of head trauma.

00:21:20.000 It's like the first nootropic I ever tried.

00:21:23.000 It's really good.

00:21:24.000 It's a bunch of nootropics combined into delicious But you do feel like your mental capacity...

00:21:31.000 Yeah, it cranks me up.

00:21:31.000 There's a bunch of stuff that I take that cranks me up.

00:21:33.000 Alpha Brain, which is one that my company makes, Onnit makes.

00:21:37.000 There's another one, Neuro Gum, I really like.

00:21:39.000 It's just a gum that has Neutrophics in it.

00:21:42.000 I'm willing to try.

00:21:43.000 Yeah.

00:21:44.000 I mean, I would imagine any sort of supplement that would aid...

00:21:48.000 The function of your brain.

00:21:49.000 Do you feel foggy or anything?

00:21:51.000 No, I only had a couple of concussions that affected me for a longer period of time, like for a week, where I couldn't focus or I had other physical issues and I don't feel any of those effects like that,

00:22:09.000 no.

00:22:09.000 You're down in San Diego.

00:22:10.000 There's an area outside of San Diego that Kat Zingano went to.

00:22:15.000 She's a UFC fighter.

00:22:16.000 And she fought Amanda Nunez, who's the Panamweight champion now, currently.

00:22:20.000 And she got a really bad concussion in that fight.

00:22:23.000 It was really fucking her up to the point where...

00:22:26.000 Her hormones were out of whack.

00:22:27.000 Her cortisol levels were so fucked up.

00:22:30.000 She couldn't keep weight off.

00:22:32.000 Her whole body was just a mess.

00:22:33.000 She was having a hard time with her coordination.

00:22:35.000 And she went to the center that they do some sort of magnetic therapy for people with brain injuries.

00:22:42.000 And it re-stimulates growth in those areas of the brain that have been damaged and brought her back to normal.

00:22:50.000 How long did that take?

00:22:52.000 It took a few months, and she was going on a regular basis, and it was quite a trek for her.

00:22:56.000 I think it was more than an hour drive back and forth, and she was doing it, I think, every day.

00:23:01.000 And I believe the center was developed, because, you know, San Diego has so much military down there.

00:23:09.000 That's why I lived there.

00:23:10.000 My dad was in the Navy.

00:23:12.000 I love San Diego.

00:23:13.000 Oh, me too.

00:23:14.000 I'm not leaving.

00:23:15.000 And the mayor actually just asked to go into stage three.

00:23:20.000 They made a request in San Diego to go into stage three of the recovery from coronavirus.

00:23:26.000 They're like, everything's great down here.

00:23:27.000 I know the rest of the city or the rest of the state is having issues in some spots, particularly Los Angeles, but he feels ready to rock and roll and push it to the next level.

00:23:37.000 I keep getting different views, different news, different guidelines, so I'm just kind of like...

00:23:44.000 I go out, wearing a mask, trying to follow the guidelines as much as possible while still leading a relatively normal life.

00:23:55.000 Yeah, it's a weird time, right?

00:23:57.000 Yeah, and the strange part to me is...

00:24:02.000 The great divide in terms of, for instance, my daughter loves to get bagels in the morning before school.

00:24:09.000 So I still try to do that with her sometimes so she can feel like we're doing a normal school day even before she goes online.

00:24:15.000 And the bagel shop says, like, face mask required.

00:24:20.000 And people just walk in without them and give you dirty looks for wearing the mask.

00:24:24.000 And it's just like, I'm just following the rules of the place.

00:24:27.000 Yeah, I'm just like, this isn't some war of politics here.

00:24:30.000 I'm just following what they're asking me to do.

00:24:33.000 That's so weird.

00:24:34.000 Yeah, it's like they're making a stand.

00:24:38.000 Why not?

00:24:38.000 I'm like, okay, well, you know, it's the same theory as no shirt, no shoes, no shirt, no service.

00:24:43.000 Except your stinky feet doesn't get someone sick.

00:24:46.000 You know what I mean?

00:24:47.000 It's a little different.

00:24:49.000 It's a fucking weird time, and it's a weird time politically.

00:24:52.000 It seems like the coronavirus is a line in the sand politically.

00:24:57.000 Absolutely, yeah.

00:24:58.000 It's a strange time.

00:25:00.000 Like I said, I'm just doing my best to follow the guidelines, the experts, and still try to maintain a semblance of normalcy for my family so that we feel like we...

00:25:16.000 There's light at the end of the tunnel.

00:25:17.000 Yeah, we all feel that way.

00:25:19.000 Yeah, just California in particular is a very restrictive state when it comes to the recovery.

00:25:24.000 And maybe that's a good thing, maybe that's a bad thing.

00:25:26.000 We really won't know for months, you know?

00:25:29.000 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:25:31.000 Until all the dust settles.

00:25:32.000 I'm still...

00:25:33.000 There are certain appearances and events and things that have been so-called postponed.

00:25:40.000 Some are still very optimistic where they think, okay, we're going to do it in July.

00:25:45.000 You think so?

00:25:46.000 I don't know.

00:25:47.000 Or August.

00:25:48.000 We're going to push it back.

00:25:50.000 I just don't know what to believe.

00:25:52.000 I got a schedule for doing some promotional stuff for our video game coming out in September.

00:25:59.000 It's like, okay, August.

00:26:01.000 Go on to...

00:26:02.000 You're up like, are you sure?

00:26:06.000 Are we going to be let in?

00:26:08.000 Am I going to have to wait in quarantine for two weeks when I land?

00:26:10.000 Like, I don't know.

00:26:11.000 Yeah.

00:26:12.000 I have a bunch of dates.

00:26:14.000 I've got one in July in Vegas, and then I've got a bunch in New Orleans.

00:26:20.000 I've got one in New Orleans and one in Nashville with Chappelle.

00:26:23.000 And we're just like, hopefully it happens.

00:26:27.000 Yeah.

00:26:27.000 But it's like September 4th and 5th.

00:26:29.000 Like, really?

00:26:30.000 I mean, maybe.

00:26:32.000 Maybe.

00:26:34.000 I never thought this was going to happen.

00:26:35.000 I never thought we'd be sitting around in May going, there's no way we're going to be open in August.

00:26:41.000 I thought it was just going to be, we close down for a month, we take this financial hit, but the virus settles down, everybody can get back to where we get testing or whatever takes place, some sort of therapeutic relief, something where it comes along,

00:26:57.000 some sort of a treatment.

00:26:59.000 No.

00:26:59.000 No, not yet.

00:27:00.000 Yeah.

00:27:03.000 It's weird.

00:27:04.000 Yeah, I remember when a couple of my events got canceled and I was in shock then.

00:27:08.000 Right.

00:27:09.000 And now I'm more in shock that they're trying to reschedule.

00:27:11.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:27:14.000 Yeah, it's interesting how quickly you get used to this new normal, too.

00:27:19.000 Right.

00:27:19.000 Like now when I watch movies, people are hugging and handshaking.

00:27:21.000 I'm like, ah!

00:27:22.000 Oh, yeah.

00:27:24.000 Yeah, I was going to be in this commercial.

00:27:29.000 I mean, I don't know if they want me to say what it is or whatever, but they had to delay it because they were just like, yeah, it's not the right time to put that one out.

00:27:37.000 But we know we didn't shoot it.

00:27:39.000 Right, right, right, yeah.

00:27:42.000 It doesn't matter.

00:27:43.000 We didn't shoot it yesterday.

00:27:44.000 That's so weird.

00:27:45.000 Like, perception.

00:27:47.000 Like, just the appearance of releasing it now.

00:27:51.000 Yeah, I mean, I understand.

00:27:52.000 Everyone's got to be careful and whatever.

00:27:54.000 I was just super excited to be in it.

00:27:56.000 So I was like, no!

00:27:57.000 Oh, but they're going to put it out there.

00:27:59.000 Statistically, at least, San Diego seems to have taken it much better than Los Angeles did in terms of, like, fatalities.

00:28:05.000 And one of the superintendents was a supervisor, a superintendent, said that there's only six deaths that can be directly attributed to nothing but coronavirus.

00:28:15.000 And everything else had people with underlying causes, which is pretty extraordinary.

00:28:19.000 Oh, wow.

00:28:20.000 Yeah.

00:28:20.000 I don't know if he's right, though.

00:28:22.000 Yeah, I mean, it's so hard to know what to believe, too.

00:28:27.000 That's the problem, right?

00:28:28.000 Yeah.

00:28:29.000 That's the problem.

00:28:31.000 San Diego is a really healthy place.

00:28:33.000 Every time I'm down at Pacific Beachway, people are always running and biking.

00:28:38.000 Yeah, especially in North County.

00:28:40.000 It's very outdoorsy.

00:28:40.000 I would imagine just that alone would lend itself to people having stronger immune systems.

00:28:45.000 I would hope so.

00:28:47.000 But...

00:28:48.000 Like I said, it still feels like a great divide, even there.

00:28:52.000 Really?

00:28:52.000 Yeah.

00:28:53.000 Where people, you know, when they opened the beaches, and then there was only one beach in our area open, and it was like spring break.

00:29:03.000 Just nuts.

00:29:05.000 Yeah.

00:29:05.000 And then, you know, people are frustrated with each other.

00:29:08.000 What are you doing?

00:29:09.000 You're putting everyone at risk, and it just was a mess.

00:29:12.000 And then they're like, all right, now it's closed down for good.

00:29:14.000 And then everyone just goes up to...

00:29:16.000 Newport or wherever they can and then got more crowded there and it was a mess.

00:29:21.000 Well, the beaches are pretty open now, right?

00:29:24.000 Isn't that the new thing?

00:29:25.000 You can go surfing, but you can't park on the beach.

00:29:28.000 That's so stupid.

00:29:30.000 Which is very challenging, but at least we're surfing.

00:29:34.000 But that's so dumb.

00:29:35.000 Why can't you park there if you're allowed to surf?

00:29:37.000 What's happening to people when they park?

00:29:39.000 It's like some of these rules are so arbitrary.

00:29:43.000 Yeah, and you never know what...

00:29:46.000 What is the rule now?

00:29:48.000 It changes day by day.

00:29:49.000 But it does feel like there's definitely a slow opening happening.

00:29:55.000 So when we're talking about San Diego being like a very fit place, do you do any sort of strength and conditioning or anything for skateboarding?

00:30:02.000 Is that something that people do?

00:30:04.000 Some people do it.

00:30:06.000 I never found it to help my skating and I always felt like skating kept me fit so I never really did it.

00:30:13.000 I mean outside of swimming and surfing which is more upper body than skating obviously but But I do feel like that would have benefited me later in life.

00:30:25.000 I just got stuck in my mode.

00:30:27.000 And then just skating was it.

00:30:29.000 And you stay there.

00:30:29.000 You're in your mode now.

00:30:30.000 You don't do anything?

00:30:31.000 I don't do anything else.

00:30:33.000 I do make an effort to swim some laps.

00:30:36.000 Because my mom lived until her 90s and she swore by swimming.

00:30:41.000 Swimming is amazing.

00:30:42.000 Yeah.

00:30:43.000 She would go through...

00:30:45.000 I mean, I remember all as a kid, she had to get her 20 laps in every day.

00:30:52.000 And where I live, the residential area had a community swimming pool that was like Olympic size.

00:31:01.000 We were talking before about surfing and I was saying that I think that surfing, at least partially, would kind of mimic some of the muscles that you use in skateboarding.

00:31:12.000 And then you're telling me about getting towed in by Laird Hamilton.

00:31:18.000 While you drink his coffee.

00:31:20.000 Wow.

00:31:21.000 Yeah, so, well, my brother, my older brother was a surfer and he got me into skating because he skated in the 70s when that was the thing was they were trying to emulate surfing with the skateboards.

00:31:33.000 And so he actually gave me one of his old boards.

00:31:35.000 That was my first skateboard.

00:31:37.000 And then he would drive me to the skate park once a week, like come home from college and take me to the park.

00:31:41.000 And then I just got hooked.

00:31:43.000 Like that was my home way from home from that point on.

00:31:46.000 And so I surf pretty regularly.

00:31:51.000 I would say less now, but it was hard not to with my brother's influence.

00:31:57.000 And we were in Hawaii.

00:31:58.000 My brother actually used to be the editor of Surfer Magazine.

00:32:02.000 So he knows all the surfers.

00:32:04.000 Because he's a journalist.

00:32:06.000 Really good writer.

00:32:07.000 Teaches at Stanford now, actually.

00:32:10.000 And so we went to Maui and he said, Hey, Laird said he'd take us out toe-in surfing if you want to go.

00:32:18.000 We're going to go toe-in surfing with Laird Hamilton.

00:32:23.000 I don't think his level of what is mellow is something that is what we would consider.

00:32:28.000 And I go, but we gotta go.

00:32:30.000 It's a once in a lifetime.

00:32:32.000 Right.

00:32:32.000 So they took us out to Spreckles, which is near Jaws, which is their big spot.

00:32:37.000 This is like early 2000s.

00:32:39.000 So Toewen serving was just starting to come into play.

00:32:43.000 I'll never forget Dave Kalama, who's one of the surfers, one of his homies.

00:32:47.000 He was trying out the first foil board there.

00:32:49.000 Oh, wow.

00:32:50.000 And he was wearing ski boots attached to the foil board.

00:32:56.000 That's how he was riding it.

00:32:58.000 I was like, these guys are out of their minds.

00:33:02.000 Does it detach like a ski boot if you fall?

00:33:06.000 I never saw it detach.

00:33:07.000 Mm-hmm.

00:33:08.000 Oh my god.

00:33:10.000 So you have to recover and swim to the surface while you're permanently connected?

00:33:15.000 I was too focused on trying to survive myself to worry about what he was doing.

00:33:20.000 But yeah, so Rush Randall, who's another windsurfer there, he was towing me and Laird is towing my brother.

00:33:28.000 And I'll never forget them being outside.

00:33:31.000 And then, you know, they're saying it's a small day and they're like, oh, I think there might be like some 10 or 12 foot sets.

00:33:36.000 And I know what 10 or 12 foot in Hawaiian measurement means.

00:33:41.000 And I was like, just don't tow me into one of those, okay?

00:33:45.000 And then I'll never forget looking out and Rush said, here comes one.

00:33:49.000 I'm like, where?

00:33:50.000 Because you're so far out.

00:33:52.000 And he's like, get ready.

00:33:54.000 Okay.

00:33:54.000 And so then I got ready and I'm getting towed and all of a sudden this thing, this mountain just swells up underneath me.

00:34:00.000 And before I know it, I'm just in the pit of this wave that was like double overhead.

00:34:05.000 Biggest wave I've ever ridden for sure.

00:34:08.000 And for me, it's backside.

00:34:10.000 So when you're going backside, you're just sort of looking down the line.

00:34:13.000 You're not looking back at the barrel.

00:34:15.000 What does that mean by backside?

00:34:17.000 So the wave is breaking this way and my back is to the face of the wave.

00:34:23.000 Oh, okay.

00:34:25.000 And backside's a little more challenging, just because of the turning and the way you're facing.

00:34:31.000 So when you're going frontside, you're facing the wave.

00:34:33.000 You can really see down the line.

00:34:34.000 You can go back easily.

00:34:36.000 So I'm going backside, and I remember looking at the wall thinking, like, I've ridden 20-foot skate ramps.

00:34:43.000 And I'm like, that looks like about a 20-foot skate ramp.

00:34:45.000 So I was going, and I was cruising, and then I did a little cutback.

00:34:49.000 So I started going back towards the barrel.

00:34:52.000 And I looked at the barrel and it was like the most frightening thing I've ever seen in my life.

00:34:57.000 Because it was, you know, it was like a massive hollow wave that you see in movies that you see Laird just dancing around in.

00:35:05.000 And I'm like, I can't, I'm not getting near that thing.

00:35:08.000 And I immediately just turned back and went down the line even further to just get ahead of it.

00:35:13.000 And then I did find myself...

00:35:15.000 After a few waves getting cocky and I tried to pull into the barrel and it just clobbered me in the head.

00:35:21.000 And then I, you know, you're wearing a life vest.

00:35:24.000 And then I went down, I'll never forget, like I felt myself going down one shelf and, you know, trying to swim up to the top.

00:35:30.000 And then I felt it go down another shelf and I was like, oh, this is bad.

00:35:34.000 And then finally made it up to the surface, and Rush is like three feet from me.

00:35:39.000 Oh, wow.

00:35:40.000 Because he's just been chasing me.

00:35:41.000 Those guys are, they're the masters.

00:35:43.000 Experts in recovering people that get clobbered.

00:35:45.000 Yeah.

00:35:46.000 Fuck.

00:35:47.000 And I was just like...

00:35:48.000 How long were you down for?

00:35:50.000 It wasn't like a crazy hold down, but in my inexperience and not conditioned body, it felt like a long time.

00:35:59.000 And I told Rush, I was like, oh, that was so scary.

00:36:02.000 I've never been held down that much.

00:36:04.000 He's like, yeah, I've had my worst hold downs out here.

00:36:08.000 Cool.

00:36:08.000 Thanks.

00:36:09.000 I was telling you, you know, I get in the sauna every day, and I said something to Laird, and he sent me a picture of his sauna.

00:36:16.000 Let me pull it up here.

00:36:18.000 He's at 250 fucking degrees in his sauna.

00:36:24.000 I mean, I don't even understand why he would do that, but he's like, I'm pissed that this thing doesn't go any hotter.

00:36:33.000 Yeah, he lives on a different plane.

00:36:35.000 He gets in there with oven mitts at 250 degrees.

00:36:39.000 Oh, here it is.

00:36:40.000 Look at this crazy motherfucker.

00:36:43.000 Look at that.

00:36:43.000 So does he wear oven mitts so his skin won't melt off?

00:36:46.000 Yeah, because he rides his fucking Airdyne bike.

00:36:49.000 So the metal of the Airdyne bike would literally cook him.

00:36:53.000 I mean, I cook a steak at 250 degrees in the smoker.

00:36:58.000 This is crazy.

00:36:59.000 And it's actually like, it's pinned at 250, because that's as hot as this thermostat gets.

00:37:05.000 Oh yeah, right.

00:37:06.000 Like it's probably hotter than 250. He's out of his fucking mind.

00:37:11.000 Yeah, he's nuts.

00:37:11.000 He's fascinating.

00:37:12.000 More is always better, is his quote to me.

00:37:16.000 I just, there's got to be a point.

00:37:19.000 I did it once here.

00:37:20.000 I was trying to, after he came on the podcast, I was trying to copy him.

00:37:22.000 So I was doing it at like 2.10 and I did once at 2.20.

00:37:26.000 I was burning like the inside of my throat from breathing in the air.

00:37:30.000 I felt like I'm cooking myself because I was in there for like 20 minutes.

00:37:33.000 I was like, and then I'd get out and it was as tired as I've ever been in my life.

00:37:37.000 I would just collapse on the mats after I got out of the sauna.

00:37:40.000 I was like, I got to stop doing this.

00:37:42.000 And then I'd come in and do podcasts and I was having a hard time talking.

00:37:45.000 I was like...

00:37:47.000 My throat was cooked.

00:37:49.000 It was basically getting cooked.

00:37:50.000 Yeah, I never did well with that stuff.

00:37:53.000 We got one, actually.

00:37:55.000 We got one of the infrared ones.

00:37:57.000 Those are different.

00:37:59.000 He doesn't like the infrared ones.

00:38:01.000 Laird said that they gave him a real bad skin condition and that there's something about particularly the temperatures that he's putting them at.

00:38:08.000 Yeah.

00:38:08.000 Well, I gotta start somewhere.

00:38:09.000 I'm not gonna...

00:38:10.000 Well, I think the dry heat, it's like, that's where the studies have been done on them, and I'm sure there's some benefits to the infrared one, but according to him, he's not into it.

00:38:19.000 Yeah.

00:38:20.000 Well, I don't...

00:38:20.000 Like I said, I don't really do it anyway.

00:38:23.000 My wife and my kids, they like going in there, but I usually go in for a little bit and, like, we'll watch one episode of something, and I'm like, okay, I'm done.

00:38:31.000 Have you done his crazy water workouts?

00:38:34.000 No!

00:38:34.000 No way!

00:38:35.000 No, I would never survive that.

00:38:37.000 No.

00:38:39.000 I have a bunch of friends that have gone up there and trained with him, and then they just text me afterwards, what the fuck?

00:38:45.000 Yeah, because he's just not, no one can go easy.

00:38:51.000 No, there's no easy with Larry Hamilton.

00:38:53.000 Yeah, there's only two speeds.

00:38:54.000 I was telling you about his ankle.

00:38:56.000 He came in here and showed me his ankle.

00:38:57.000 He has an ankle that broke that he never did anything to.

00:39:01.000 He never bothered getting a cast.

00:39:02.000 He never bothered getting surgery.

00:39:04.000 And it's like the root of a tree.

00:39:07.000 It's this fucked up, thick ass knee of an ankle.

00:39:11.000 It's so weird.

00:39:12.000 And like, wow, that's next level.

00:39:14.000 He's just a next level human.

00:39:16.000 Yeah.

00:39:17.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:39:18.000 I mean, I respect him and admire him, but I don't want him to train me.

00:39:22.000 But his workouts are so crazy.

00:39:23.000 Like they take a 75 pound dumbbell and they swim with it.

00:39:27.000 Like they hold a 75 pound dumbbell and then you're swimming across the pool with one arm while holding the 75 pound dumbbell while trying to pop your head up and breathe.

00:39:35.000 I'm like, oh, okay.

00:39:37.000 Yeah, whatever.

00:39:39.000 Yeah, so not my conditioning.

00:39:43.000 But I like that there's a guy like that out there.

00:39:45.000 For sure.

00:39:46.000 I think it's important.

00:39:47.000 Leading the charge.

00:39:48.000 Yeah, just some fucking maniac at the front of the line.

00:39:50.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:39:50.000 Who's just so...

00:39:52.000 He's so psycho about everything.

00:39:54.000 The guy sends you a 250 degree sauna that he's mad that doesn't get any higher.

00:39:59.000 It just...

00:40:00.000 So interesting.

00:40:02.000 But I think, like, in terms of a guy like that, who's like a world-famous big-wave surfer guy, you almost have to have that kind of mentality.

00:40:12.000 And I would imagine the same thing, at least in some way, has to transfer over to skating and kind of to everything, right?

00:40:20.000 I think so.

00:40:20.000 I think that there's an adventurous spirit, but also there's a sense of self-confidence that you gain and that you explore.

00:40:31.000 You want to see how much further you can take it.

00:40:34.000 You want to test the limits.

00:40:36.000 And I identify with that for sure.

00:40:40.000 That's always been my drive, just to come up with new tricks.

00:40:43.000 The first time I ever did A new trick and one that hadn't been done before, the buzz that I got from it was what I've been chasing my whole life.

00:40:55.000 The idea that I created something new, just on my own, with my own thoughts and creativity, and that I did it my own way.

00:41:06.000 And, you know, skateboarding was like that.

00:41:08.000 It was like this art form to me where there's this blank canvas and it's just like, go, make it your own.

00:41:13.000 Oh, that's an interesting way to look at it.

00:41:16.000 I never thought of it that way.

00:41:18.000 Yeah, I mean, it really is cool to look at.

00:41:20.000 So it is an art form.

00:41:24.000 Sure.

00:41:24.000 You could show me a picture of two people doing the same trick, silhouette it, and I could tell you who it is.

00:41:30.000 Oh, okay.

00:41:31.000 You know what I mean?

00:41:31.000 Because everyone has their own style and they put their own flavor on it.

00:41:35.000 And that's what I love.

00:41:36.000 I love that it's subjective like that.

00:41:39.000 People think of it like they don't like...

00:41:41.000 Skaters themselves, especially the more hardcore purists, don't like to call it a sport.

00:41:46.000 They're like, we're not a sport.

00:41:47.000 I'm like, well, there's legitimate competition, so...

00:41:51.000 Yeah, and there's athletic.

00:41:52.000 There is a sporting element to it, but I agree, it is more of an art form and a lifestyle because you're comparing apples to oranges, always.

00:41:59.000 That's real similar in a lot of ways to martial arts in that if I saw a silhouette of certain people, I'd say, oh, that's John Jones or that's John Mayne Parr.

00:42:09.000 You could tell by the way someone moves right away.

00:42:12.000 Yeah, because you put your stamp on it.

00:42:14.000 That's what I love about it because it's so diverse.

00:42:17.000 Yeah.

00:42:17.000 When you come up with a move, what's your process?

00:42:20.000 You just skate, fuck around, have some fun, and then go, no, I'll just try this.

00:42:24.000 It's always different.

00:42:26.000 A lot of times it's like, how do we combine, how can I combine these two things that I know I have dialed in?

00:42:32.000 Can I make them work together?

00:42:34.000 Sometimes it's a happy accident.

00:42:37.000 You go try something, your board spins the other way, and it's like, well, wait, if I caught it there, that would have worked out.

00:42:44.000 I literally created a new trick yesterday.

00:42:48.000 Yesterday?

00:42:48.000 Yeah, because we are doing this...

00:42:51.000 When will this air?

00:42:52.000 Tomorrow.

00:42:53.000 Tomorrow.

00:42:54.000 Well, we're doing sort of a...

00:42:56.000 We call it an NBD Best Trick event at my ramp.

00:43:00.000 NBD means never been done.

00:43:02.000 And so my idea was that, and this will all come out, but my idea was that while we're all stuck, you know, doing this social distancing and whatnot, let's do a best trick event where everyone gets one hour on my ramp, all the best vert skaters.

00:43:17.000 So you get one hour to get a trick on video.

00:43:20.000 So it's literally just one dude and one skater and one filmer at the ramp at a time.

00:43:26.000 And I was the guinea pig.

00:43:28.000 So yesterday morning was like, alright, you're the first hour.

00:43:31.000 Go.

00:43:32.000 And I had to come up with this trick and I started trying one that I had been working on and it just kept slipping away, like getting worse every attempt.

00:43:40.000 And so I went and sort of switched gears into a trick that I had tried a couple months ago and was like, if you're ever going to make this happen, this is it.

00:43:49.000 And finally one just clicked and I made it.

00:43:53.000 And it was the combination of two tricks that I have pretty dialed, but putting them together added this element of...

00:44:03.000 Just so much to miss.

00:44:06.000 Everything had to come together at the exact moment and land on my feet, on the coping, in the right position.

00:44:13.000 And I knew if I got it once, I'd make it, but I'm never going to do that trick again.

00:44:17.000 That's how technical it is now, where I just know that, okay, I got that one, done it, got it on video.

00:44:23.000 I don't want to go through that again.

00:44:27.000 I don't know shit about skating.

00:44:30.000 Forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but how much improvement has there been in the wheels, in the boards, in the components and all the different things?

00:44:40.000 Are there things you can do now today that just really weren't possible when you first started skating?

00:44:45.000 Only in the, well, when I first started skating, skateboards were all over the place.

00:44:50.000 So they were made of different materials.

00:44:52.000 They were different with like all different shapes.

00:44:55.000 They, you know, the urethane had just come into play.

00:44:58.000 But I would say for the last 30 years, it's pretty much the same construction.

00:45:02.000 Hmm.

00:45:03.000 Seven-ply wood, maple, skateboards, trucks have not changed.

00:45:09.000 Wheels have changed in size and hardness, but it's still the same urethane for the most part.

00:45:16.000 So there hasn't been a lot of huge advancements.

00:45:18.000 The big changes are the shapes of the boards.

00:45:21.000 Now, why have they stuck with plywood?

00:45:24.000 What about carbon fiber, anything synthetic?

00:45:27.000 That's the big question and something that I would like to pursue, but we really need a sea change in skateboarding with materials.

00:45:36.000 I believe that.

00:45:37.000 And we haven't found anything that...

00:45:43.000 Responds the same.

00:45:46.000 Or, you know, the other thing is, skaters, as much as they are very progressive, and, you know, they like to do different things and think outside the box and whatnot, if you try to sell them, A deck that's,

00:46:02.000 you know, $200, that's going to be hard.

00:46:06.000 Even if you can convince them that it's going to last three times long, four times long.

00:46:10.000 So is it just a money thing, or are they married?

00:46:13.000 We just haven't really found...

00:46:14.000 Some people have done different construction where they add a different ply in, and that has worked a little bit.

00:46:22.000 But...

00:46:25.000 Like I said, there just hasn't been that one seed planted where it's like, alright, this is it.

00:46:31.000 I would imagine carbon fiber.

00:46:34.000 I tried something along those lines and it just, like I said, didn't have that reflex.

00:46:41.000 Does it have to have a certain amount of weight to it too?

00:46:44.000 Well, that's the other thing.

00:46:45.000 We're kind of stuck where this is how a skateboard should weigh.

00:46:50.000 Right.

00:46:50.000 And so if you bring in something that's way lighter, maybe that's not the answer.

00:46:55.000 But we don't know.

00:46:56.000 It just takes R&D for sure.

00:46:58.000 And you would have to get someone really good to fuck with it, too, right?

00:47:03.000 Yeah, and to believe in it.

00:47:04.000 And get behind it?

00:47:05.000 Yeah.

00:47:06.000 When I was a kid, there was no 50-year-old rock stars.

00:47:10.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:47:12.000 We thought of rock stars as they were in their 20s and 30s, and then they just kind of like, we thought they faded away, like the Beach Boys.

00:47:20.000 Everybody felt sad about the Beach Boys when I was a kid.

00:47:24.000 But not anymore.

00:47:25.000 You know, now Mick Jagger's like fucking almost 80 years old and he's rocking after heart surgery and shit.

00:47:31.000 And the same is kind of true with skaters, right?

00:47:34.000 Because when we were kids, when you became famous, you were like the first wave, right?

00:47:41.000 Or one of the first waves and certainly the most famous.

00:47:46.000 You're 52, and you're still...

00:47:49.000 Like, is that a weird thing that you're...

00:47:51.000 It is weird.

00:47:53.000 It's...

00:47:53.000 Well, it's fun.

00:47:55.000 It's great that you can still do it, and then you're still...

00:47:58.000 You know, I mean, you're also...

00:48:00.000 It's not like...

00:48:01.000 You're a dinosaur.

00:48:02.000 You're accepted.

00:48:03.000 Like, you're a skater.

00:48:05.000 It's like you just happen to be 52. You know what I mean?

00:48:08.000 Yeah, well, it went through the years.

00:48:10.000 So when I first started skating, the sort of unspoken rule was once you're at an age of responsibility, you're 18, you got to get a job.

00:48:20.000 You can't skate for a living.

00:48:21.000 No one can.

00:48:22.000 So, you know, your skating career is over by then.

00:48:25.000 And then as I turned 18, things started to sort of ramp up with skating.

00:48:31.000 Forgive the pun.

00:48:33.000 And things started to kind of explode.

00:48:35.000 And I remember around that time, there was a photo in Thrasher of this guy, Mark Lake, who was an older skater at the time.

00:48:41.000 And it was a picture of him doing one of those hand plant, like upside down on a ramp.

00:48:46.000 And it was like, Mark Lake...

00:48:47.000 30 and still going for it.

00:48:49.000 And I remember I was like in my early 20s thinking, that's crazy!

00:48:54.000 He's 30!

00:48:57.000 And then as things progress, we realize that if we're able to do this for a living and we can really pursue it and we have support, we are getting better into our 30s.

00:49:11.000 When I did the 900, the X Games, I was 31. Wow.

00:49:16.000 And so then it was just like, well, what is the limit?

00:49:19.000 I don't know.

00:49:20.000 I guess I'm sort of the guinea pig now or leading the charge of how far you can take it.

00:49:27.000 I've refined my style.

00:49:29.000 So I'm not doing big impact stuff.

00:49:31.000 I'm not doing the big spins, the big errors and stuff.

00:49:35.000 I've learned to get more technical with my skating and that has allowed me to stay creative but maintain my health.

00:49:43.000 Yeah, that's why I was asking you about strength and conditioning because if you're an older athlete, it's a mandatory thing in almost every sport.

00:49:50.000 Yeah, it's just, I skate for a couple hours a day, I'd say four times a week, and that's pretty much my exercise, but definitely I could use some help with endurance these days.

00:50:04.000 Well, have you thought about doing something?

00:50:06.000 Like, what would you do?

00:50:08.000 I don't know.

00:50:09.000 I guess I would listen to the experts.

00:50:12.000 I would tap you.

00:50:13.000 But you haven't done anything yet, which is amazing.

00:50:16.000 I haven't yet, but like I said, it's just because that's worked for me pretty much my whole life.

00:50:20.000 My only really ailment is my neck.

00:50:27.000 What's wrong with your neck?

00:50:27.000 I've had so many whiplashes.

00:50:30.000 We call them chicken necks because you shoot out and I've had so many different ways that whenever I'm sitting here and someone were to call me over there, when I go to turn to look at them, they'll definitely say, what's wrong with your neck?

00:50:45.000 That happens to me every day.

00:50:46.000 And I'm like, what's wrong with my neck?

00:50:48.000 I don't know, 40 years of whiplash.

00:50:50.000 Have you got an MRI? Yeah, and I do.

00:50:53.000 That's the only thing that I get worked on.

00:50:55.000 So there's a guy near where I live who does chiropractic, but also does a lot of body work, and he just works on my neck once a week.

00:51:03.000 Just massages it?

00:51:04.000 Yeah.

00:51:05.000 Just tries to get it loose.

00:51:06.000 Have you ever heard of a thing called an iron neck?

00:51:08.000 Yes.

00:51:09.000 Have you ever used that?

00:51:10.000 I did try, but it was just awkward.

00:51:14.000 It's awkward, but it's really good.

00:51:16.000 It's a must-have thing for grapplers.

00:51:19.000 You should really try it.

00:51:20.000 I did this racing training with Cadillac a couple years ago, and their racers do that.

00:51:29.000 Okay, that makes sense.

00:51:30.000 For turning their head, checking their mirrors.

00:51:33.000 Yeah.

00:51:33.000 Well, it's great for fighters, too.

00:51:35.000 A strong neck will keep your head from snapping around.

00:51:37.000 I would imagine the same thing would happen with skaters.

00:51:40.000 I've got one out here.

00:51:41.000 You should try it after we're done here.

00:51:43.000 I swear by the thing.

00:51:45.000 It's also, it doesn't fuck with your neck in a way that's un...

00:51:50.000 Unnatural in terms of putting weight on your head and flexing your discs.

00:51:55.000 It actually keeps your neck stiff as well as, you know, when you're turning it, it doesn't bend at unnatural angles and it still strengthens it.

00:52:03.000 I'm a giant fan of it.

00:52:05.000 Okay.

00:52:05.000 Well, I'm open to ideas.

00:52:07.000 Yeah.

00:52:07.000 Because I would think that, like, the whiplash thing, that's got to be real similar to what happens with fighters.

00:52:15.000 Oh, yeah, for sure.

00:52:18.000 It's weird, though.

00:52:19.000 A lot of my peers, they have more knee problems than ankle problems, and I've just realized that mine's all on my neck.

00:52:26.000 You never had any knee problems or ankle problems at all?

00:52:29.000 I had surgery.

00:52:31.000 I tore my meniscus in both knees, actually got it cut out, tore my PCL, but always came back from it.

00:52:40.000 That's amazing.

00:52:42.000 Yeah, I mean, I feel pretty lucky.

00:52:43.000 I was always very flexible as a kid, so I know that that was to my advantage, for sure.

00:52:48.000 Oh, for sure.

00:52:49.000 And, like I said, when I went through the sort of street era of the early 90s, I was rolling my ankles left and right, so I never actually broke an ankle, but they're loose.

00:53:02.000 They've got some play.

00:53:03.000 Yeah.

00:53:04.000 Yeah.

00:53:04.000 I was really bummed out, man, because I was seeing that they were trying to keep these kids out of the skate park.

00:53:10.000 Yeah.

00:53:10.000 So they filled it with sand.

00:53:12.000 I know.

00:53:12.000 Did you see that shit?

00:53:13.000 Yeah.

00:53:13.000 What the fuck, man?

00:53:15.000 I mean, how much of an effort did it take to do that and why?

00:53:18.000 That was very strange.

00:53:21.000 How are you going to get that sand out of there now?

00:53:23.000 Yeah, good question.

00:53:25.000 No, well, you know what?

00:53:26.000 If they say skate parks are open, the skaters will do it.

00:53:30.000 They're all very DIY resourceful.

00:53:34.000 I did see some helicopter footage on a news feed where there were some guys that actually dug sort of a path so that they could skate through the park.

00:53:47.000 So they cleared out one area, and this guy was trying to get a trick on video, so he kept trying the same trick, and the helicopters just shoot him.

00:53:54.000 I was like, what world are we living in?

00:53:56.000 So strange.

00:53:57.000 But imagine being in an office somewhere, whatever, government office, and they're like, well, how do we stop these skateboarders?

00:54:07.000 We're going to have to truck in some sand.

00:54:08.000 So they use our money.

00:54:10.000 They use tax money.

00:54:11.000 Probably a lot of it, too.

00:54:12.000 If you think about how much sand that must have got.

00:54:15.000 It did seem like a very big effort, yeah.

00:54:17.000 Fucking giant effort.

00:54:18.000 The irony is that they're trying to keep skaters out of public areas and schoolyards and stuff and give them a place to go.

00:54:25.000 And now you're just forcing them back to those days.

00:54:28.000 Yeah, it's not like they're going to stop going to staircases and railings.

00:54:32.000 No, they're going to do it more now.

00:54:33.000 Yeah, it's so dumb.

00:54:35.000 But all of this, it sort of exposes some of the flaws and governance, you know?

00:54:41.000 It's very scattered.

00:54:42.000 Well, skateboarding too, it's almost like some people would think of it as a frivolous activity.

00:54:49.000 Sure, yeah.

00:54:51.000 Glorious results of a misspent youth, if you know how to slip around a skateboard.

00:54:56.000 Yeah, it's funny.

00:54:58.000 When I first started, I have a foundation for public skate parks.

00:55:02.000 We've been going 20 years, actually.

00:55:03.000 How does that work?

00:55:05.000 We basically give communities the resources to get a park going.

00:55:09.000 If someone in their community has started a petition or fundraising or just raising awareness that they need a park, we sort of give them the roadmap to do that and funding to do it.

00:55:20.000 Oh, that's amazing.

00:55:21.000 And, you know, designed help and things like that.

00:55:24.000 So it's been great.

00:55:25.000 We've helped to fund over 900 skate parks now, all 50 states.

00:55:30.000 We've given away almost $10 million.

00:55:32.000 That's incredible.

00:55:33.000 Yeah, I mean, it's definitely my proudest work.

00:55:35.000 That's so cool.

00:55:38.000 There was a point where we were trying to get funding and trying to raise awareness and I'm doing visits to children's cancer wards and stuff like that and at some point I was like...

00:55:53.000 I'm trying to build skate parks.

00:55:54.000 And I remember this conversation I had very vividly, actually, with Lance Armstrong.

00:56:00.000 And this is when he was the face of cancer research.

00:56:04.000 You know what I mean?

00:56:04.000 Say what you will about his competitive career, but he did so much for cancer awareness and research.

00:56:10.000 And I'm visiting Children's Hospital with Lance Armstrong.

00:56:14.000 And when Lance Armstrong walks into a cancer ward back then, like the C's part...

00:56:20.000 You know what I mean?

00:56:20.000 It was just like, oh, he's here!

00:56:23.000 And I remember having lunch with him that day, and I was like, it's so weird to be with you.

00:56:27.000 You're doing so much for cancer and cancer victims, and I'm just trying to build playgrounds.

00:56:35.000 Yeah, like, you know, concrete waves.

00:56:37.000 And he said, look, the number one cause of cancer or number two cause of cancer in the U.S. is obesity.

00:56:50.000 And by building those skate parks, you are preventing cancer.

00:56:53.000 You're preventing obesity.

00:56:55.000 Wow.

00:56:55.000 And that was heavy for me.

00:56:57.000 That is heavy.

00:56:58.000 And it really gave me a lot of inspiration and a lot more motivation.

00:57:03.000 Well, you're creating a potential place for joy.

00:57:06.000 Right.

00:57:07.000 And for people to...

00:57:10.000 Like-minded people to hang out, to develop a community.

00:57:13.000 I mean, when I was a kid, I felt like an outcast.

00:57:16.000 I felt like...

00:57:18.000 I didn't belong in sports.

00:57:20.000 I didn't belong in my school.

00:57:23.000 And when I went to the skate park and there was this band of misfits listening to punk music and weird hairdos from all walks of life, I was like, this is it.

00:57:33.000 This is my crew.

00:57:35.000 And I want the same sense of community.

00:57:38.000 We're not trying to build training grounds for Olympians.

00:57:42.000 We're just trying to build a place for them to feel like they belong and feel like their community actually cares about them.

00:57:47.000 Yeah, and it is a loved pursuit.

00:57:51.000 I mean, even though it's had these weird views, or people have had weird views about it, if you think about how many people love it, and how it requires this sort of a place, like what you're creating, to really do it right.

00:58:07.000 And nowadays, it's way different now, the sort of perspective on skating, or the attitude towards skating, is that Parents are doing it with their kids, and little girls are encouraged to try it, and that just wasn't the case when I was a kid.

00:58:23.000 Well, I think it's because of you in a lot of ways.

00:58:26.000 Oh, well, thank you.

00:58:27.000 I was always happy to at least advocate for skating and try to explain to people, like, this has a real positive impact on kids.

00:58:37.000 You're too focused on the hairdos and the music and stuff.

00:58:40.000 You've got to really look at what it provides someone's mentality.

00:58:43.000 Yeah.

00:58:44.000 But that's always been the case with things that kids do that their parents didn't do.

00:58:49.000 Sure.

00:58:49.000 Like, how many parents told their kids to stop playing video games, and now kids are literally making millions of dollars playing video games.

00:58:58.000 And parents have to kind of make this adjustment, like, okay.

00:59:01.000 Okay, I didn't know.

00:59:02.000 So I think the generation of parents now grew up at a time when skating was starting to be cool.

00:59:08.000 Yeah, okay, right.

00:59:10.000 And so either they're encouraging of their kids skating or they're actually skating with them.

00:59:14.000 Oh, that's awesome.

00:59:15.000 That's got to make you feel good.

00:59:17.000 It is very cool.

00:59:18.000 Real impact on the thing that you love.

00:59:21.000 Yeah, I mean the coolest part for me is that I still get to participate and I get to bear witness to all this.

00:59:28.000 Who's the oldest skater?

00:59:30.000 Is there a really old dude out there shredding?

00:59:33.000 Sure.

00:59:34.000 I mean, even some of the Z-Boy guys, like Tony Alva still skates.

00:59:38.000 I just saw a photo of him grinding a pool.

00:59:41.000 He's 60-something.

00:59:43.000 Holy shit.

00:59:44.000 But when you fall at 60-something, that's rugged.

00:59:49.000 That's real.

00:59:50.000 Like I said, I've kind of narrowed down my discipline to the ramp because I know how to fall on a ramp and I wear the pads, and that's what's kept me going.

01:00:00.000 But even that, that's why I'm encouraging strength and conditioning.

01:00:03.000 When I see people in their 50s that are doing things, I'm like, ooh, okay.

01:00:06.000 But do you lift weights?

01:00:08.000 Because you should.

01:00:09.000 Really, just get a fucking trainer, man.

01:00:11.000 Just keep your bone density.

01:00:13.000 That's what's really a real problem when people get older.

01:00:16.000 Their shit breaks so easy.

01:00:18.000 Right.

01:00:19.000 Things that normally you just bounce off of and be fine, and then all of a sudden you're like, hey, there's some clicking in my arm.

01:00:24.000 Like, oh shit, I gotta go to a hospital.

01:00:26.000 And then, you know, a normal fall causes you to have a cast.

01:00:31.000 Yeah, I learned that well.

01:00:32.000 I broke my pelvis.

01:00:34.000 Oh!

01:00:35.000 I was almost 40. I was doing a loop ramp which is something that I had done many times before that and the loop that we were skating was kind of weathered and kind of slow and I tried to adjust for that and I just overshot it like I shot out at the top And then just fell straight to the bottom.

01:01:02.000 That's got to affect you.

01:01:03.000 Jamie broke his butt bone out here with a hoverboard, and he was fucked up.

01:01:07.000 You were fucked up for like a year, right?

01:01:09.000 Yeah, it came and went.

01:01:10.000 I thought I got fixed.

01:01:11.000 Couldn't get fixed.

01:01:12.000 No one I went to knew what was going on.

01:01:15.000 He had to self-identify what the injury was.

01:01:19.000 And then who was it that had a similar injury?

01:01:21.000 Zach Bitter came and said he had the same thing.

01:01:23.000 He went and got MRIs.

01:01:24.000 The doctor told him he was okay.

01:01:25.000 And then he re-looked at it and was like, hey, by the way, you have a small fracture and like...

01:01:30.000 Yeah, and your whole body freezes up.

01:01:33.000 Yeah, I couldn't walk for like 25 yards.

01:01:35.000 I had to stop and sit and let it loosen up.

01:01:38.000 I had the same thing.

01:01:38.000 You know those hoverboard things?

01:01:40.000 Well, my kids have them out here, and they go bananas out here in the warehouse, and Jamie was fucking around on it while not totally paying attention.

01:01:48.000 I was trying to practice and see if I could film and stuff.

01:01:52.000 Yeah, and we didn't really figure out what it was until Zach Bitter explained it, and then we thought about the, I mean, you're a 200-pound man or whatever, you weigh somewhere around there, and you fall, like, on polished concrete on your asshole.

01:02:07.000 Like, that's a lot of weight, like, butt first.

01:02:11.000 Do you know who Zach Bitter is?

01:02:12.000 I don't.

01:02:12.000 He's the world record holder for a 100 mile race.

01:02:16.000 He ran 100 miles in 11 hours in like 40 minutes.

01:02:21.000 He's a savage.

01:02:22.000 I mean, just bananas.

01:02:24.000 And then he kept running afterwards.

01:02:26.000 He just did a new one too.

01:02:27.000 He ran like 100 miles, or the fastest to run 100 miles on a treadmill because he was doing it while he was in quarantine, I think.

01:02:32.000 Oh my god.

01:02:33.000 Wow.

01:02:34.000 And he eats mostly meat.

01:02:37.000 Really?

01:02:37.000 Yeah.

01:02:38.000 His diet is almost all ribeye steaks.

01:02:40.000 Wow.

01:02:41.000 He supplements it with some glucose supplements and things like that while he's doing it.

01:02:48.000 He did it again.

01:02:49.000 Zach Bitter shatters 100 mile treadmill world record.

01:02:53.000 Oh my god.

01:02:54.000 He averages 7 minute mile.

01:02:56.000 7 minute 18 mile for fucking 100 miles.

01:03:00.000 That's so insane.

01:03:02.000 That's so insane.

01:03:03.000 He's an animal.

01:03:04.000 How old is he?

01:03:06.000 He's in his 30s, right, Jamie?

01:03:08.000 Yeah, 34. Yeah.

01:03:10.000 But he was still running while he had the problem, too.

01:03:13.000 That's kind of crazy.

01:03:14.000 So when I went through that, the thing that I had to adjust mostly was that I didn't realize...

01:03:21.000 I was favoring my back foot when I would skate because the fracture of my pelvis was on my front leg, front leg side.

01:03:31.000 And I ended up...

01:03:34.000 Injuring something else.

01:03:35.000 I actually got KO'd once.

01:03:38.000 Because I was leaning back more than I should have been, and I thought I was balanced.

01:03:42.000 And then found myself just on my back, like, KO'd.

01:03:46.000 Oh, shit.

01:03:47.000 And then another time, I was putting so much weight, like, because when you skate, you put one foot on the tail of the board.

01:03:55.000 And I was trying to get speed for something, going on the big ramp, and I had so much force on my tail that I broke it off.

01:04:04.000 Going through the flat bottom of the ramp, my tail just was left behind me with my foot doing the splits.

01:04:10.000 That's so crazy.

01:04:11.000 And I realized that...

01:04:12.000 That's when I realized that I needed to readjust my weight distribution because of my pelvis and try to figure out how to skate properly again.

01:04:22.000 Wow.

01:04:22.000 Now, how do you recover from that?

01:04:23.000 Did you have to go through rehabilitation?

01:04:25.000 I basically laid around, sat around for...

01:04:31.000 Almost two months and then slowly started to walk and then was skating about like six weeks after not walking.

01:04:41.000 So you didn't do any rehab?

01:04:45.000 I did some stuff in the pool.

01:04:48.000 I did have a trainer that was helping me.

01:04:51.000 A guy that I knew that used to work on skate stuff.

01:04:54.000 So he did help me for a few weeks.

01:04:56.000 And then I started skating.

01:04:58.000 It was actually, I was working towards a goal.

01:05:00.000 We had a big exhibition in Orlando that was already booked.

01:05:02.000 And I was like, alright, that's the timeline.

01:05:04.000 How many weeks out was that?

01:05:07.000 I want to say it was about 12 weeks from when I got hurt.

01:05:10.000 Oh wow, that's not a lot of time.

01:05:12.000 To recover from a bone break, almost 40. It wasn't my best performance, not my best work, but I got through it and then really had to figure out how to rebuild my confidence.

01:05:24.000 That's the thing I lost the most.

01:05:26.000 Because I started to question everything.

01:05:29.000 I can only imagine.

01:05:30.000 So mostly just laid around, let it heal up, and then you had to do something to build your muscle mass.

01:05:36.000 I was doing a lot of stuff in the pool with resistance in my leg and stuff like that.

01:05:43.000 That was pretty much it.

01:05:44.000 It was just more I just felt stiff.

01:05:46.000 And like he said, when you have an injury like that, You can't cough.

01:05:53.000 Like, you know what I mean?

01:05:54.000 You can't, like, sneezing.

01:05:55.000 If you feel a sneeze coming on, it's traumatic.

01:05:57.000 Right.

01:05:58.000 Because everything hurts.

01:05:59.000 Yeah, it's about to get shot.

01:06:00.000 Yeah, and then, like, just going to the bathroom is a trauma.

01:06:04.000 Oh, God, right?

01:06:05.000 Just sitting, right?

01:06:06.000 Yeah.

01:06:07.000 On the bowl.

01:06:08.000 Oh, my Christ.

01:06:09.000 Oh, damn, dude.

01:06:12.000 Wow.

01:06:13.000 Wow.

01:06:13.000 That's amazing, though, that you got through that with pool work.

01:06:16.000 But you could do some great shit in the pool.

01:06:19.000 George St. Pierre is one of the best UFC fighters of all time.

01:06:22.000 He does the majority of his workouts in the pool now.

01:06:24.000 He has these things that he wears on his hands, these resistance things, and he does all these crazy workouts in the pool.

01:06:33.000 He does them on his legs, and he does these jumps inside the pool.

01:06:37.000 And he does it all just to preserve his joints while still building up muscle.

01:06:43.000 So he's mostly focused on the pool?

01:06:45.000 Yeah, see if you can find them.

01:06:46.000 They're pretty cool, George St. Pierre pool workouts.

01:06:50.000 Yeah, he has, I mean, he's a fascinating guy, really intelligent guy, and he's gone through a bunch of different kinds of strength and conditioning routines and attitudes about it over his career.

01:07:01.000 At one point in time, he really embraced gymnastics, and he got really into gymnastics.

01:07:05.000 But now, most of what he does, he goes to the pool and see these things he's wearing?

01:07:10.000 Oh, wow, yeah.

01:07:11.000 He's got these barbell-looking things and a bunch of different apparatus that he uses.

01:07:20.000 See these things he puts on his legs?

01:07:22.000 And he develops his kicking power and his jumping power and all these different things with those.

01:07:26.000 Oh yeah, that's up my alley right there.

01:07:28.000 It's really interesting because you're really not concerned about getting injured this way, but he gets this ferocious muscle workout, and he doesn't have to worry about tearing things or, you know, hurting himself because of weight.

01:07:42.000 Yeah.

01:07:43.000 All right, well, I'm going to leave here with a whole new attitude.

01:07:49.000 Yeah, well, it seems like a good thing to try, especially for someone.

01:07:53.000 It was funny.

01:07:54.000 That was one of the things that when I told my kids I was coming here, they're like, he's going to talk to you about working out, you know?

01:08:02.000 I was like, I'm sure.

01:08:03.000 And they go, but you don't work out.

01:08:05.000 I go, I know!

01:08:08.000 Fucking kids, man.

01:08:09.000 They never let you take a break.

01:08:11.000 They ride you.

01:08:12.000 If they find this one thing.

01:08:14.000 Oh yeah, of course.

01:08:16.000 What about your diet?

01:08:17.000 Are you healthy?

01:08:17.000 Do you eat healthy?

01:08:18.000 I think so, yeah.

01:08:21.000 That's iffy.

01:08:22.000 What's that?

01:08:23.000 I said that's iffy.

01:08:25.000 Well, let's put it this way.

01:08:26.000 I don't eat to excess like I used to.

01:08:29.000 I think that's really what I've learned getting older is just like, don't go crazy with everything.

01:08:35.000 You know, drinking, eating, like, just eat till you're not overly full.

01:08:42.000 Just eat enough and watch what I eat.

01:08:45.000 Like for sure, when I was a kid, it was just all junk food.

01:08:49.000 Everything.

01:08:50.000 It was sugar cereals, McDonald's, Jack in the Box.

01:08:54.000 I mean, our big going out night with my dad was Bob's Big Boy.

01:08:58.000 That was like, we were living large.

01:09:00.000 In Burbank?

01:09:01.000 No, in San Diego.

01:09:02.000 Oh, okay.

01:09:03.000 Yeah.

01:09:03.000 That was it.

01:09:04.000 I mean, I never went to nice places.

01:09:07.000 The extent of his nice place was like, hey, this place has prime rib for five bucks.

01:09:12.000 Okay.

01:09:13.000 Okay.

01:09:14.000 So I didn't really grow up with a health-conscious diet.

01:09:19.000 And then as I got older, I discovered, well, mostly just so much great food and then realizing that I've got to get more greens and really watch it.

01:09:29.000 And so I've managed to be able to do that, I'd say, over the last 20 years.

01:09:34.000 Do you take supplements at all?

01:09:35.000 I do, yeah.

01:09:35.000 What do you take?

01:09:36.000 I have a whole bavvy of stuff that this nutritionist gave me.

01:09:42.000 I wish I could name them all, but I just know which bottles they are.

01:09:46.000 But it's good and makes you feel better.

01:09:48.000 Definitely.

01:09:49.000 I can tell when I've missed a day or two on them.

01:09:52.000 I mean, just in terms of how I feel.

01:09:53.000 Well, people are so much more conscious of that now.

01:09:55.000 I mean, it's something that pretty much in every athletic pursuit, anything where people are doing things physically, so much more really conscious of supplements and diet.

01:10:08.000 But I do have to admit that I do love barbecue.

01:10:11.000 Of course.

01:10:12.000 Who doesn't?

01:10:15.000 My wife.

01:10:16.000 Not much of a fan.

01:10:17.000 Really?

01:10:17.000 Yeah.

01:10:18.000 What's wrong with her?

01:10:20.000 She eats much more healthy than I do.

01:10:22.000 She's more Mediterranean.

01:10:24.000 Oh, okay.

01:10:25.000 In terms of her diet.

01:10:26.000 Have you ever gone to Dr. Hoggly Woggly's in Van Nuys?

01:10:29.000 No.

01:10:30.000 There's a joint in Van Nuys that's been around fucking forever.

01:10:33.000 You go in there, it's like wood panel walls.

01:10:36.000 They've done zero for the decor.

01:10:38.000 And no one gives a fuck.

01:10:40.000 There's always a line.

01:10:41.000 It's Spectrum when it's open.

01:10:43.000 Can't even get there now.

01:10:44.000 But it's some of the best barbecue I've ever had anywhere.

01:10:46.000 And it's in Van Nuys.

01:10:47.000 In this semi-sketchy neighborhood.

01:10:50.000 Oh, perfect.

01:10:50.000 Yeah.

01:10:51.000 Yeah.

01:10:51.000 It's phenomenal.

01:10:53.000 It's phenomenal.

01:10:53.000 There's a place in San Diego that I've been going called Abby's that I think is pretty spectacular.

01:10:59.000 My daughter loves barbecue too, so that's our big lunch outing.

01:11:03.000 San Diego's got some great food, man.

01:11:05.000 I've been going to San Diego forever.

01:11:06.000 I started going to the La Jolla Comedy Store.

01:11:09.000 Yeah, of course.

01:11:10.000 Way back in the 90s.

01:11:11.000 Yeah.

01:11:12.000 It's a great spot, man.

01:11:13.000 I might have actually seen you there.

01:11:15.000 That's crazy.

01:11:17.000 San Diego's never gotten too big.

01:11:19.000 You know what I mean?

01:11:20.000 It's still a great size.

01:11:21.000 Yeah, I try to tell people it's one of the last small beach towns.

01:11:24.000 But it's a city.

01:11:26.000 Right.

01:11:26.000 You don't feel like you're missing stuff.

01:11:27.000 If you fan out, especially if you go north, it's more like no one can really build on the coastline anymore.

01:11:33.000 So the homes that are there are there and it's not going to get any more crowded.

01:11:38.000 Okay, that makes sense.

01:11:40.000 Yeah, well, that's smart because they've preserved a really nice spot.

01:11:44.000 Yeah.

01:11:45.000 It's like the right size.

01:11:46.000 It's like you get traffic there, but it's, ah, stop complaining.

01:11:50.000 It's not shit.

01:11:51.000 You know, come up here.

01:11:53.000 Yeah.

01:11:53.000 This is ridiculous.

01:11:55.000 And even now with the quarantine, it's still, you get on the road like, well, I thought everybody's supposed to be home.

01:12:00.000 Right.

01:12:00.000 Stay safe indoors.

01:12:02.000 It's fucking five o'clock traffic.

01:12:04.000 You get real traffic out.

01:12:05.000 I was telling you guys, actually, I was on a Zoom call just on audio on the way up here, and I was passing LAX on 405, and usually it's just dead.

01:12:16.000 Stop, right?

01:12:17.000 And finally, I was just like, oh, man.

01:12:19.000 So I turned the camera on and faced it out.

01:12:21.000 You guys got to see this.

01:12:22.000 I am driving.

01:12:22.000 Look at this.

01:12:23.000 There's the 105. There's LAX. I'm still moving!

01:12:27.000 Yeah.

01:12:29.000 Whenever I've done gigs in San Diego and I have like an 8 o'clock show, I'll leave here at 11 in the morning.

01:12:35.000 I'm like, there's no way.

01:12:37.000 Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:12:37.000 I'm not taking any chances.

01:12:38.000 It could easily take five hours.

01:12:40.000 Easily.

01:12:41.000 Oh my god, we sound like that SNL skit, Californians.

01:12:44.000 Wow.

01:12:45.000 I don't know that skit, but it's pretty easy to write.

01:12:47.000 All they do is talk about traffic.

01:12:49.000 Well, it's fucking ridiculous out here.

01:12:50.000 Have you ever thought about living anywhere else?

01:12:54.000 Not really.

01:12:55.000 My wife and I sometimes sort of muse about we'd love to live in New York once all of our kids are out, but probably for a brief time.

01:13:05.000 New York's going to be real weird now.

01:13:07.000 Yeah.

01:13:08.000 Apparently there's a mass exodus out of there right now.

01:13:10.000 I was there right before everything turned upside down.

01:13:13.000 Oh, wow.

01:13:14.000 And it was already feeling...

01:13:17.000 It's shaky.

01:13:18.000 I don't know.

01:13:18.000 We went out to dinner.

01:13:20.000 We saw our friend's band perform at this little club, and there was this sense of unease.

01:13:25.000 What month was this?

01:13:27.000 That was in early March.

01:13:30.000 Oh, yeah.

01:13:31.000 So it was just starting to get there.

01:13:32.000 No, no.

01:13:34.000 It was in February.

01:13:34.000 Sorry.

01:13:35.000 Oh.

01:13:35.000 Yeah.

01:13:36.000 But it was late February.

01:13:37.000 There was something in the air where you knew something was going to change.

01:13:40.000 The buddy of mine caught it there in New York.

01:13:42.000 Yeah, my buddy of mine, too.

01:13:43.000 Skater, my age.

01:13:45.000 And he went through hell.

01:13:46.000 Yeah.

01:13:48.000 Yeah, it seems like the New York strain, what they got on the East Coast, they were saying, is coming from Europe.

01:13:53.000 It's a stronger strain than the strain that they got here in California that's coming from China.

01:13:59.000 Yeah, my oldest son and I were extremely sick in February, both as sick as we've ever been.

01:14:06.000 We were convinced that we had gone through it once everything...

01:14:10.000 And so I managed to get a test.

01:14:14.000 I had to pay through the nose.

01:14:16.000 The tests are not available.

01:14:18.000 But I lucked into one and we both didn't have it.

01:14:23.000 Interesting.

01:14:24.000 Yeah, we've been testing pretty much everybody.

01:14:26.000 I didn't test you, but we've been testing everybody that comes here.

01:14:28.000 We just have a concierge service comes here, concierge MDLA or whatever.

01:14:33.000 Oh, wow.

01:14:33.000 Yeah, it's nice.

01:14:34.000 How did I luck out?

01:14:36.000 I don't know.

01:14:38.000 I just didn't test you.

01:14:39.000 Didn't ask.

01:14:40.000 I fucked up.

01:14:41.000 It's my mistake.

01:14:42.000 Well, I was negative as of a month ago.

01:14:44.000 That's good.

01:14:45.000 As long as we don't make out, I think we're okay.

01:14:47.000 Okay, cool.

01:14:47.000 I've been tested.

01:14:49.000 I got tested last weekend.

01:14:51.000 I took the swab because I flew to Florida for the UFC event.

01:14:55.000 So I had the swab before that.

01:14:58.000 I had the antibody test, and then I got it again when I came back.

01:15:03.000 All negative.

01:15:04.000 We did have one fighter test positive, though.

01:15:07.000 He was asymptomatic, and his two cornermen were asymptomatic too, which is one of the weirdest things about this disease.

01:15:12.000 And he discovered it here?

01:15:14.000 They found out in...

01:15:16.000 Oh, he's from Florida.

01:15:17.000 But they found out when he arrived that he knew that someone in his family had had it, and so he was cautious and wore gloves and masks and the whole deal and didn't make contact with anybody other than the people that he was with the entire time.

01:15:31.000 And then they found out before the fight that he was positive.

01:15:35.000 Wow.

01:15:35.000 Yeah, but all the other fighters, they did 1,100 tests, and only three people were positive, and they kind of knew that they had a potential for being positive, even though they were exhibiting no symptoms.

01:15:47.000 It's just wild right now.

01:15:49.000 It's weird.

01:15:49.000 And we called the event, that was what was really wild, calling the event with no audience at all.

01:15:54.000 I saw it.

01:15:55.000 Strange, man.

01:15:56.000 Yep.

01:15:57.000 Just fucking strange.

01:15:59.000 Well, I can tell you watching it at home with my kids, they had the same excitement level.

01:16:03.000 Oh, me too.

01:16:04.000 I mean, it was great.

01:16:05.000 The fights were amazing.

01:16:07.000 The judging was fucking terrible.

01:16:09.000 There were some really bad decisions, but the fights were incredible.

01:16:13.000 It was just great just to do something, to be...

01:16:17.000 I was curious about that, though.

01:16:18.000 Do you think the fighters had a different sense of...

01:16:22.000 Energy or motivation because they didn't have the crowd?

01:16:26.000 I don't think the motivation is any different.

01:16:28.000 It might be a little bit less stressful, slightly.

01:16:32.000 Obviously, it's a fucking cage fight.

01:16:34.000 It's going to be stressful.

01:16:35.000 But maybe a little less stressful because you don't get the roar of the crowd.

01:16:39.000 There's not the energy in the place.

01:16:41.000 Maybe you could focus a little bit better, but...

01:16:43.000 You know, they're in the UFC, so they're fighting the best fighters in the world, so it's no matter what.

01:16:49.000 It's a certain mindset you're getting into regardless.

01:16:51.000 Yeah, but it was just interesting because they could clearly hear their corner.

01:16:54.000 So when their corners were yelling out instructions and when the opposition corner was yelling out instructions, they could hear all that.

01:17:01.000 And we could hear that too, like crystal clear, not a sound in the room.

01:17:04.000 And you could hear the breathing and the impact of the shots way better.

01:17:09.000 It was a lot different.

01:17:10.000 That's a new element.

01:17:11.000 It was a lot different.

01:17:12.000 It was really strange.

01:17:14.000 Yeah.

01:17:15.000 Wow.

01:17:16.000 Are they gonna have skating competitions with no audience as well?

01:17:20.000 That remains to be seen.

01:17:22.000 I assume that's probably where it's going to go.

01:17:25.000 I'm not part of the whole Olympic qualifying thing going on, so I don't know what they're going to do or how they're going to continue to qualify people going into next year.

01:17:37.000 We had an event planned that was supposed to happen in June in Salt Lake City, Big Vert Skate Contest, and it has been pushed to August.

01:17:50.000 And I don't know if we can do it with the audience or not.

01:17:52.000 Well, Utah's opening up.

01:17:54.000 I mean, they're doing comedy shows there now.

01:17:56.000 Restaurants are opening up now.

01:17:58.000 They're opening up some things.

01:18:00.000 They're cautiously opening up some things.

01:18:02.000 Ultimately, I'm not the one that will decide if it happens or not, but I hope that we can get it done.

01:18:10.000 With the necessary guidelines and whatnot, because I do feel like our type of skating, which is the vert skating, is sort of a lost art.

01:18:18.000 That's not going to be in the Olympics, by the way.

01:18:20.000 So is this the first year that skating is going to be in the Olympics?

01:18:23.000 Yeah, well, next year.

01:18:25.000 Is it 2021?

01:18:27.000 2021, yeah.

01:18:28.000 Interesting.

01:18:29.000 So skateboarding, the disciplines are street, which is sort of the handrails and stairs, ledges and stuff like that you see, and then what they call park.

01:18:38.000 And park is sort of a mishmash of pool skating, but also some other skate park elements like banks and curves and things like that.

01:18:47.000 So it's more because that type of skating is more accessible, especially internationally, than what we call vert skating.

01:18:58.000 To me, it's a disservice to skating because vert skating, like you said, it's the thing you can understand if you're not a skater.

01:19:08.000 People are flying around.

01:19:09.000 They're doing gymnastics.

01:19:10.000 They're doing somersaults.

01:19:11.000 And that type of stuff, you see a very muted version of that in park skating.

01:19:18.000 Why do the Olympics choose those events?

01:19:21.000 I think that's it, because of the accessibility.

01:19:23.000 And I have to respect that.

01:19:25.000 It's just nice that it's in there.

01:19:26.000 For instance, there is a skate scene in places like Ethiopia.

01:19:33.000 And Ethiopia has parks.

01:19:35.000 They don't have vert ramps, obviously.

01:19:37.000 So I understand on that level you're going to have a much more well-rounded competitive field.

01:19:46.000 That's cool that Ethiopia has embraced skateboarding.

01:19:50.000 I would like to see that.

01:19:51.000 Yeah, I've been there.

01:19:52.000 You've been there.

01:19:53.000 See, here it is.

01:19:54.000 Jamie's already got it.

01:19:55.000 The best in the business.

01:19:56.000 Young Jamie.

01:19:57.000 Look at this.

01:19:58.000 Wow.

01:19:59.000 That's fucking cool.

01:20:01.000 Well, that's not what I picture when I think of Ethiopia.

01:20:04.000 Right.

01:20:04.000 I mean, that looks like that could be Atlanta.

01:20:06.000 That could be anywhere.

01:20:06.000 Yeah, absolutely.

01:20:07.000 Chicago.

01:20:08.000 It could be any city.

01:20:09.000 And I mean, that kind of thing is happening all over the world.

01:20:14.000 There's a...

01:20:15.000 I don't know if you've ever heard of Skatistan, but Skatistan is a skate, for lack of a better word, camp facility, an educational facility in Afghanistan.

01:20:27.000 Whoa!

01:20:27.000 In Kabul.

01:20:29.000 And they teach girls.

01:20:30.000 They teach girls, they give them educations, and they learn how to skate.

01:20:34.000 Whoa!

01:20:35.000 In fact, there was a documentary on them that won an Academy Award at the last Oscars.

01:20:43.000 Really?

01:20:44.000 Yeah.

01:20:44.000 Do you got anything on that?

01:20:46.000 That was my in.

01:20:47.000 It's called Learning to Skate.

01:20:50.000 That's Skatistan.

01:20:51.000 It's called Learning to Skate in a War Zone if you're a girl.

01:20:55.000 That's the name of the documentary.

01:20:57.000 That's got to be very dangerous for them though, right?

01:20:59.000 Because the fundamentalists don't want them doing anything.

01:21:01.000 Well, so that's the thing is that they see it.

01:21:04.000 The culture sees skateboards as a toy, not a sport, and allows girls to do it.

01:21:10.000 Oh, wow.

01:21:11.000 So they don't see it as this co-ed sport at all.

01:21:15.000 And so it's really interesting that the ratio of boys to girls are equal.

01:21:21.000 Skating in Afghanistan.

01:21:23.000 And same goes for, they have another program in Cambodia, and they have one in South Africa.

01:21:26.000 I've been to all of them.

01:21:27.000 Not Kabul, but...

01:21:28.000 Look at that picture.

01:21:29.000 That is so wild.

01:21:30.000 The mountains of Afghanistan, the background of these girls catching air.

01:21:34.000 Their program's insane.

01:21:36.000 They're one of the best.

01:21:39.000 Wow.

01:21:41.000 That's wild.

01:21:42.000 That's crazy.

01:21:44.000 That's crazy that during your lifetime, skating has just blossomed and gone from this sort of misfit thing to something that's in the Olympics in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, all over the world.

01:21:55.000 That's wild, man.

01:21:55.000 It is wild.

01:21:57.000 Every day is like a new surprise.

01:22:00.000 Now, when they do it in the Olympics, what is the scoring criteria?

01:22:04.000 How do they judge?

01:22:06.000 Well, I don't think they're going to reinvent the wheel in terms of how they judge.

01:22:12.000 I think that they have to be very concise with their criteria now in terms of writing it down.

01:22:18.000 Because before it was just sort of loose and that skater ripped and went higher and looked cooler and we gave him first.

01:22:26.000 And now it's got to be much more...

01:22:28.000 But it's more about...

01:22:32.000 Technical aspects, like the difficulty factor, how you flow, like how you link tricks together, how much speed you have, how high you go, I mean all those factors.

01:22:44.000 But at the end of the day, when you go to a skate contest, you can tell the top skaters.

01:22:51.000 It's just obvious that they were ripping, they used the course better, you know, they...

01:22:59.000 Went higher, they spun more, they flipped their board hard in more difficult ways, and they were the winners.

01:23:06.000 And now, do you have former pros or current pros, the judges?

01:23:10.000 I'm not really sure how they're picking judges.

01:23:15.000 For a standard competition?

01:23:17.000 A lot of them are ex-pros, yeah.

01:23:20.000 And so there's pretty, like, universal acceptance of, like, what's good and what's bad or what scores.

01:23:27.000 Yeah, I mean, it's always up for debate.

01:23:29.000 Yeah.

01:23:30.000 Who should have won that event or this or how did we score higher?

01:23:34.000 I would imagine, too, that at the level that these guys are at, there's probably quite a few guys that are comparable, right?

01:23:38.000 Sure, yeah.

01:23:39.000 So it's basically how good your run was.

01:23:41.000 How good your run was, yeah.

01:23:43.000 And who had a better day?

01:23:44.000 Similar to surfing in that regard?

01:23:46.000 Absolutely, yeah.

01:23:47.000 So that's what's interesting for someone like me watching.

01:23:50.000 I'm not exactly sure what I'm seeing.

01:23:52.000 I know what looks cool, but I don't know what won, you know?

01:23:58.000 Sure.

01:23:58.000 Yeah.

01:23:59.000 And I think that, well, I'm hoping that that will be my job to explain to the audience.

01:24:05.000 Oh, right.

01:24:06.000 I was supposed to be there in Tokyo doing some commentary.

01:24:11.000 Not the play-by-play, but more sort of coming in and out of there and doing whatever shows they need me to do.

01:24:19.000 So did they postpone the Olympics for a year?

01:24:21.000 For a year, yeah.

01:24:22.000 Mm-hmm.

01:24:23.000 So you would like to?

01:24:25.000 I would like to be there to try to bridge that gap of the non-skating viewer who is interested and explain to them why this nuance is going to score way higher even though they look the same to you.

01:24:43.000 Yeah.

01:24:44.000 And I've done it.

01:24:45.000 They had the Vans Park Series all last year where we went to all over the world.

01:24:51.000 We went to China, Brazil, Canada, France, and they built these parks that they left there, but I was doing all the commentary for the events.

01:25:02.000 And that's where my strengths are, is being able to explain those things to non-skaters.

01:25:10.000 Well, that's got to be fun for you, too, because it's an opportunity to sort of, you know, proselytize.

01:25:16.000 Let everybody know.

01:25:18.000 Like, show them how cool this is.

01:25:20.000 Yeah, for sure.

01:25:22.000 Like, put words to your passion, this thing.

01:25:24.000 I mean, that's got to really spark up the interests of new skaters.

01:25:29.000 I think that's the silver lining with the Olympics.

01:25:31.000 I mean, there is a lot of controversy in the hardcore skate scene where it's just like, we don't belong in the Olympics.

01:25:36.000 We've always done this to be anti that type of thing anyway.

01:25:39.000 And then it's just like, well, you guys...

01:25:42.000 All those things that you love about skating will still exist.

01:25:45.000 Right.

01:25:45.000 You can still go hop fences and skate.

01:25:48.000 That's not taken away from you.

01:25:49.000 If anything, it's going to bring it to a bigger audience that is going to be interested.

01:25:55.000 Yeah.

01:25:55.000 And I believe a more international audience.

01:25:58.000 I think that's the really cool part about it.

01:26:00.000 That's a thing, though, man.

01:26:01.000 When things start going mainstream, people always panic.

01:26:05.000 Right.

01:26:06.000 But the other thing is this, like...

01:26:09.000 If you think that the competition element is what is somehow sanitizing skating, I grew up skating competitions.

01:26:17.000 I literally entered my first contest at age 10. That is the only way you got recognized when I was a kid.

01:26:24.000 This is not something new to skateboarding.

01:26:26.000 It's just that now there are different opportunities in skating and there is a way to make a living even if you don't compete.

01:26:32.000 And so because that exists, people are just like, oh, Olympics are a, you know, that's a sport competition.

01:26:39.000 Like, yeah, but we already have Street League.

01:26:42.000 We already have the Dew Tour.

01:26:43.000 We already have X Games.

01:26:44.000 Those things all exist.

01:26:45.000 So we're going to have this other big event once every four years.

01:26:49.000 People always want to shit on something that's different than what they're doing, though.

01:26:53.000 Oh, sure.

01:26:54.000 It seems like...

01:26:55.000 I mean, hey, I've lived with so much ridicule my whole life that I just...

01:27:00.000 It's like, yeah, sure.

01:27:02.000 Whatever you say.

01:27:03.000 Well, for you, I mean, you've crossed over to the other side.

01:27:06.000 That's what's interesting.

01:27:07.000 I mean, you don't even need a thick skin anymore.

01:27:10.000 Yeah, I mean, there's obviously still haters, like, you're a sellout and whatnot, but it's like...

01:27:17.000 Do you read those comments?

01:27:19.000 You don't read Twitter or anything, do you?

01:27:22.000 If someone's making enough noise, I'll see it.

01:27:25.000 And every once in a while, I'd see what the general vibe is on something.

01:27:29.000 But when I grew up, I think my journey allowed me to really be prepared for that.

01:27:36.000 Because when I was a kid, I was doing this outcast activity, right?

01:27:39.000 So I was already not cool in school.

01:27:42.000 And then I started skating and I was like a scrawny little kid with a really sort of what they call robotic style because I was focusing on tricks.

01:27:51.000 So I was getting made fun of in the skate world.

01:27:54.000 So I was like an outcast in this outcast activity and it was really isolating.

01:27:59.000 And at some point I was just like, I love this too much to listen to these people and not do it.

01:28:04.000 Like explain to me what you were getting shit on for.

01:28:06.000 Like you had a robotic style.

01:28:08.000 So...

01:28:09.000 Basically, when I first started getting into skating, especially pool skating, to be a pool skater, you had to be super cool, look like you're surfing.

01:28:18.000 It was all about your style, right?

01:28:20.000 And it was all about how you flow.

01:28:22.000 And if you're doing aerials, it's got to look cool.

01:28:24.000 And I was super scrawny, super short kid.

01:28:28.000 And so all I really knew how to do was to maneuver my board.

01:28:31.000 And so I was doing these tricks where I'd spin my board under my feet.

01:28:35.000 And do these weird sort of hand plants and aerial tricks and things where it just wasn't, that wasn't the normal.

01:28:43.000 And it wasn't really considered the cool way to skate.

01:28:46.000 And so they just, they were like, they call me a circus skater.

01:28:51.000 Yeah.

01:28:52.000 We're like, oh, there's Tony with the circus tricks.

01:28:54.000 Oh, wow.

01:28:56.000 And then at some point I just like, I loved what I was doing and I didn't really listen to it.

01:28:59.000 And then I got, I got more confident and I got stronger.

01:29:02.000 And then I started doing this stuff like way up high in the air.

01:29:05.000 And then it was sort of undeniable that I was like, oh, well, that is something.

01:29:09.000 So was there pressure for you to change your style and sort of blend in?

01:29:14.000 Um, I just didn't have the bulk to be able to do it anyway.

01:29:21.000 The physical bulk.

01:29:22.000 Yeah, like I just didn't have that weight behind me.

01:29:24.000 And so what I did was when back then, in order to do aerials out of pools, you had to like reach down and grab your board and sort of muscle it into the air and above the coping.

01:29:35.000 And I learned how to launch into the air without grabbing my board and then grabbing it at the peak.

01:29:41.000 And that allowed me to get the height when I was still really scrawny and weak.

01:29:46.000 And they said that technique was cheating.

01:29:49.000 Like they literally wrote that in Thrasher magazine.

01:29:52.000 It's just like, well, Tony Hawk cheats because he ollies into his air and that way he can just grab it wherever.

01:29:56.000 And I was just like, yes, that's exactly it.

01:30:00.000 That's what I'm trying to do.

01:30:02.000 That's so weird.

01:30:03.000 So they would judge you on...

01:30:05.000 That's so crazy.

01:30:07.000 Here's this invented thing, right?

01:30:09.000 Right.

01:30:09.000 This art form.

01:30:10.000 And then you're doing it your way, and they're saying you're cheating.

01:30:15.000 Yeah.

01:30:16.000 Yeah.

01:30:16.000 I don't...

01:30:17.000 It was just like this old guard in skating, and they didn't like to see anything new or sort of...

01:30:25.000 Fringe.

01:30:26.000 And then I started doing that.

01:30:27.000 And then a lot of my peers who were my age, they all figured that same technique out.

01:30:31.000 And then we just kind of took over.

01:30:34.000 You know, that became the way to skate.

01:30:37.000 But then through the years...

01:30:41.000 Like, in those days, you know, skating was still very much a novelty.

01:30:44.000 And then in the 90s, like, X Games came into play.

01:30:48.000 And then all of a sudden, my name was being well known.

01:30:53.000 Not mainstream, but getting there.

01:30:55.000 And then our video game came out.

01:30:57.000 And then it was just like, oh, you're just a sellout.

01:31:00.000 Wow.

01:31:00.000 Because of the video game?

01:31:03.000 Because of the video game and the endorsements that followed from that.

01:31:06.000 You know, I was doing stuff for Jeep, for McDonald's, for Doritos, and they were just like, oh, you're just a sellout?

01:31:11.000 I was like, when I turned pro at age 14, if McDonald's had asked me to be in a commercial, I would have jumped on it.

01:31:18.000 Are you kidding me?

01:31:19.000 Like, I was eating McDonald's my whole life.

01:31:21.000 I still do.

01:31:23.000 So it was more like they thought somehow I changed my values and was just like, I haven't changed my value system.

01:31:29.000 It's just that I'm getting these opportunities, finally.

01:31:31.000 And I've been doing this for most of my life.

01:31:34.000 For the most part, it's you're getting opportunities that they're not.

01:31:36.000 So the best way to dismiss that or diminish it is to say that you're a sellout because you're on a video game?

01:31:42.000 That's so short-sighted.

01:31:44.000 Sure.

01:31:45.000 So what I'm saying is that just sort of...

01:31:48.000 That sort of steeled my resolve.

01:31:51.000 So once social media came into play and people were talking shit online, I was like, you're not getting to me through this media.

01:32:00.000 People used to say this to my face.

01:32:02.000 They used to write about me in magazines like...

01:32:06.000 You're hiding behind your Twitter username.

01:32:08.000 I don't care.

01:32:09.000 When you first saw someone say that you were cheating by using that technique, that must have sucked up.

01:32:15.000 Yeah, and it was from a skater that I really respected too.

01:32:19.000 He was quoted in the magazine and it was crushing.

01:32:23.000 Wow.

01:32:23.000 That's such a bitch-ass approach.

01:32:26.000 You know?

01:32:27.000 Cheating.

01:32:28.000 That's so weird to me because I never would have...

01:32:30.000 I guess it makes sense because there's always factions in any discipline or any art form or anything where some people respect some things and other people shit on it.

01:32:38.000 But the idea that you doing it your way would somehow or another be cheating, to me, it seems so strange.

01:32:46.000 That doesn't make any sense.

01:32:49.000 Like I said, it was just weird because skating was such a small community at the time.

01:32:53.000 And it was like, why are we fighting in our little tiny world?

01:32:59.000 It's always going to be that way.

01:33:00.000 That's just humans.

01:33:02.000 Especially when you're doing something different.

01:33:04.000 Especially if you're getting attention and doing something different.

01:33:06.000 They're going to find some way to diminish you.

01:33:08.000 It was harder for me because all I wanted to be was accepted as a skater.

01:33:14.000 I'd kind of given up on...

01:33:17.000 My peers and my schoolmates, I knew I wasn't going to fit in there.

01:33:20.000 And so I was like, I found this thing and I'm just like, you guys don't like me the way I do it?

01:33:25.000 Rough.

01:33:27.000 But look, you hung in there and came out on the other end.

01:33:30.000 Yeah, and I don't harbor any ill.

01:33:33.000 A lot of people are like, oh, you should go back to school, go to your reunion.

01:33:37.000 I don't...

01:33:39.000 It's not some revenge for me.

01:33:42.000 I'm just so thankful that I still get to do this for a living.

01:33:46.000 This is seriously living the dream.

01:33:48.000 I get to do this for a living.

01:33:49.000 I get to come on your show because I'm a skateboarder.

01:33:52.000 The stuff that I've gotten to do over my life is beyond any dream I could have ever written or imagined.

01:33:58.000 And it's all because I just kept skating.

01:34:00.000 That is the American dream to me.

01:34:03.000 For sure.

01:34:03.000 Or the worldwide dream.

01:34:04.000 The human dream.

01:34:05.000 Absolutely.

01:34:05.000 To be able to do what you want for a living and to continue doing it.

01:34:10.000 Yeah.

01:34:11.000 And to support your family and to, you know.

01:34:13.000 It's crazy.

01:34:14.000 It's amazing.

01:34:14.000 The kind of stuff that we've gotten to do, especially as a family, like the kind of trips we've taken and people we've met.

01:34:20.000 For skating.

01:34:21.000 Yeah, for skating.

01:34:22.000 It's crazy.

01:34:22.000 Crazy.

01:34:23.000 That's amazing.

01:34:24.000 Do you still talk to that guy who shit on you back then?

01:34:27.000 Do you know who that guy is?

01:34:28.000 I do.

01:34:29.000 I think he fell on some hard times.

01:34:32.000 That's how it usually goes with haters.

01:34:35.000 I'm sorry.

01:34:38.000 It's interesting, though, that there's been these waves of change inside of it during your lifetime.

01:34:43.000 You know, that it's such an evolving, sort of growing thing that from the time you were a kid to now, it's almost just a totally different thing.

01:34:52.000 But yet, still skating.

01:34:55.000 Yeah, I mean, at its core, the feeling I get when I'm on a skateboard is the same.

01:35:00.000 Like, when I just go out just practicing on my ramp or in our backyard or whatever, I can just feel that...

01:35:07.000 That happiness, that sort of peace.

01:35:10.000 And it's the one thing in my life that I'm fully in control of.

01:35:14.000 And that's my escape.

01:35:17.000 That's so cool that you still enjoy it like that.

01:35:21.000 Yeah, I never imagined.

01:35:24.000 I never imagined skating into my 30s.

01:35:28.000 Do you have friends that are your age that also still skate as well?

01:35:32.000 Yeah, I have a couple friends that are a couple years older than me and they're sort of my gauge.

01:35:37.000 So do you have a crazy set up in your backyard?

01:35:40.000 I have a small concrete setup that's not huge, but, you know, it's fun.

01:35:46.000 And then I have a proper size, big vert ramp at my office.

01:35:50.000 And, I mean, in the last two months, those are the only places I'm at.

01:35:53.000 Is it an indoor thing, the vert ramp?

01:35:55.000 It's indoor, yeah.

01:35:55.000 How high is it?

01:35:57.000 It is 13 and a half, 14 feet.

01:36:00.000 Wow.

01:36:02.000 So you just go there and fuck around and have fun and practice?

01:36:05.000 Yeah.

01:36:06.000 We've done a couple of live streams from there just to provide entertainment for people.

01:36:10.000 Oh, that's cool.

01:36:11.000 Yeah, and we did one with DJ Z Trip.

01:36:14.000 He was mixing up on the deck, and we were doing tricks up on his table.

01:36:19.000 That was pretty cool.

01:36:20.000 And then we are working on this Best Trick NBD thing.

01:36:24.000 I actually got some money from a sponsor, so just trying to...

01:36:30.000 Make content, make entertainment as best we can.

01:36:33.000 What other content do you make online?

01:36:34.000 Do you do a podcast or anything or a video?

01:36:36.000 I used to be on SiriusXM.

01:36:38.000 Actually, that was the first time I reached out to you because I had a SiriusXM show for 10 years.

01:36:43.000 And I stopped doing it just because it was...

01:36:47.000 I kind of went as far as I could with getting guests, and I just wasn't really moving up the ladder.

01:36:54.000 And it was really hard to maintain that schedule.

01:36:57.000 It was only once a week, but for me, it was like, I got to book studio time in LA, drive up here, beg someone.

01:37:03.000 I didn't have anyone running the show, so it was just more like, hey, does anyone know Seth Rogen?

01:37:11.000 Can you...

01:37:14.000 But I had a good run.

01:37:15.000 My last two guests were Pharrell and Seth Rogen.

01:37:17.000 Oh, that's great.

01:37:20.000 Pharrell the sports guy?

01:37:21.000 No, Pharrell.

01:37:22.000 Oh, the musician?

01:37:23.000 Pharrell Williams, yeah.

01:37:23.000 Oh, wow.

01:37:24.000 Yeah.

01:37:25.000 Oh, wow.

01:37:26.000 That's a big get.

01:37:27.000 It was, yeah.

01:37:28.000 So I felt like I can't really go further with this idea, and let's just end it here.

01:37:34.000 It was fun, though.

01:37:35.000 Do you do anything with it now?

01:37:37.000 Do you do anything like that now?

01:37:39.000 No, not really.

01:37:40.000 I mean, I'm happy to, but I just...

01:37:42.000 Because it's so easy to do some sort of a podcast now.

01:37:45.000 It is, yeah.

01:37:45.000 I just don't...

01:37:46.000 I guess I just don't want to be that guy that's like, hey, man, do my podcast.

01:37:51.000 Yeah.

01:37:51.000 Because that's how I felt when I sent you the first message on Twitter.

01:37:54.000 I was like, hey, you want to call my SiriusXM show?

01:37:56.000 And that was right when your show started blowing up.

01:37:58.000 And I saw you all, and I was like, oh, he doesn't have time for my show.

01:38:02.000 Yeah.

01:38:02.000 But I did.

01:38:03.000 I mean, I'm happy you came to do this.

01:38:06.000 I think what you've done in your life is it's like a great roadmap for young kids that are sitting out there trying to figure out if they can make a living doing something that they love.

01:38:19.000 That's the roadmap.

01:38:20.000 Oh, for sure.

01:38:21.000 I try to tell people, too, you don't have to...

01:38:25.000 You don't have to be the best in your field to enjoy and make a living at it.

01:38:30.000 You can maybe find some angle on it that maybe isn't even the thing, but it gets you in the door and you get to be part of the community or the industry.

01:38:40.000 And you can live like that, whether it's doing video or art or...

01:38:45.000 You know, behind the scenes, you're still part of that scene and it's still super cool.

01:38:50.000 And I feel like that's what's lost on kids.

01:38:53.000 They just want to be the best.

01:38:55.000 They want all the stardom.

01:38:56.000 And it's just like, no, think of something that you would enjoy Make that your job because that's for me.

01:39:04.000 That's what success is.

01:39:05.000 That's such an American mindset that the mindset of I need to be the best I need to be number one, right?

01:39:11.000 Yeah Yeah, and that that's just the thing that sucks about that mindset is that if you do reach any Sense of that a lot of times that's when it all falls apart How so I feel like a lot of people get a taste of it and they're no longer motivated Do you know what I mean?

01:39:27.000 I think in a lot of cases, I've seen in skateboarding especially, where they just want to be, they want to get in the magazine, they want to be, or win the contest, and then they finally do, and they're not motivated to keep it going.

01:39:39.000 That's interesting.

01:39:40.000 Or to progress their own skating.

01:39:44.000 So instead of just enjoying it...

01:39:47.000 In their end, the competition is the end goal.

01:39:51.000 Yeah.

01:39:52.000 And then once they hit that competition...

01:39:53.000 Yeah, it was just a means to an end, and then there's no more...

01:39:58.000 That's a funny thing, rather, for a lot of people in any art form or any sport.

01:40:05.000 Once they reach a pinnacle, it's very difficult to keep momentum up.

01:40:08.000 That's what happens with a lot of fighters.

01:40:10.000 They reach the top and then they don't have the same enthusiasm they had when they were younger.

01:40:15.000 And then, of course, the trappings of fame.

01:40:17.000 Oh, and that's another distraction.

01:40:20.000 And some people, that's what they revel in.

01:40:23.000 And you can lose sight of...

01:40:25.000 I mean, I think that's what I was lucky, that I was young enough and had success.

01:40:29.000 And I saw some of my peers kind of fall into that.

01:40:33.000 And I saw how it affected their skating.

01:40:35.000 And that was my signal.

01:40:37.000 It was like, if you follow that road, your skating is going to suffer.

01:40:41.000 And my focus was always getting better at skating.

01:40:44.000 That's interesting.

01:40:46.000 That happens with comedy.

01:40:48.000 A lot of times guys get really famous and then their specials just...

01:40:52.000 They start to fall apart.

01:40:54.000 When they're on the come up, their specials are edgy and they're really into it.

01:40:58.000 They're poor.

01:40:59.000 They're all into it.

01:41:00.000 And then they become famous.

01:41:02.000 That was the thing with Kinison.

01:41:03.000 He's partying with rock stars and hanging out.

01:41:07.000 I saw him during those days.

01:41:09.000 Did you really?

01:41:09.000 Yeah, in San Diego.

01:41:10.000 Oh, wow.

01:41:11.000 Yeah, it was awesome.

01:41:12.000 Yeah, I got to see him a couple of times.

01:41:14.000 But you could tell that he could just come out and scream and everyone's like...

01:41:18.000 Yeah.

01:41:19.000 Oh, so this must have been like 86, 87-ish?

01:41:22.000 Yeah, he did a thing where he called people from the audience to come up and then call...

01:41:28.000 Their ex-girlfriend?

01:41:29.000 Their ex-girlfriend, yeah.

01:41:30.000 Yeah, I saw that set.

01:41:31.000 Yeah, that was the thing he was doing.

01:41:33.000 Yeah, I saw him do that in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

01:41:36.000 Yeah.

01:41:38.000 But in his day, man, he was a genius.

01:41:40.000 Oh, he was the best.

01:41:42.000 For a couple years, he was probably the best ever.

01:41:44.000 But then the trappings of fame just got to him.

01:41:48.000 He stopped writing.

01:41:48.000 His brother wrote about it.

01:41:49.000 There's a book called Brother Sam.

01:41:52.000 His brother Bill wrote this whole book about this sort of meteoric rise.

01:41:56.000 And one of the things that he said was that once he became famous, he was just doing coke and partying all night.

01:42:02.000 And he really wasn't writing anymore and wasn't out there trying to put together sets.

01:42:06.000 And he definitely wasn't keeping it a secret.

01:42:08.000 No.

01:42:08.000 That he was doing it.

01:42:10.000 No, no, he was partying.

01:42:12.000 Well, listen, man, I appreciate you coming in here.

01:42:14.000 It was really cool to meet you.

01:42:15.000 Oh, it was my pleasure.

01:42:17.000 Thank you.

01:42:17.000 It was an honor to be here.

01:42:18.000 I think your story is fucking amazing.

01:42:20.000 It's really cool.

01:42:21.000 I love hearing stories like that, where someone finds something they love and they just follow their dream and they become famous and successful at it.

01:42:30.000 It's just, it's so cool.

01:42:31.000 Yeah, I'm still chasing that carrot.

01:42:33.000 Chase that carrot, baby.

01:42:35.000 Thank you.

01:42:35.000 Thanks, brother.

01:42:36.000 Appreciate you, man.

01:42:37.000 Tony Hawk, ladies and gentlemen, goodbye.

01:42:40.000 Thanks, Jeff.

The Joe Rogan Experience - May 20, 2020

Joe Rogan Experience #1477 - Tony Hawk

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