Beautiful day, sun beat down
I hit the radio wall, I was driving
Trees went by, me and Del were singing
A little runaway, I was blind
Yeah, running down a dream
That never would come to me
We're working on a mystery
Going wherever we need
Running down a dream
I felt so good
Like anything was possible
Hit cruise control
And rub my eyes
The last three days
The rain was unstoppable
It was always cold
No sunshine
Yeah, running down a dream
That never would come to me
We're working on a mystery
Going wherever we need
Running down a dream
I rolled up
The sky grew dark
I put the pedal down
To make some time
There's something good
Waiting down this road
I'm picking up
Whatever's mine
I'm running down a dream
That never would come to me
We're working on a mystery
Going wherever it leads
Running down a dream
Yeah, running down a dream
That never would come to me
We're working on a mystery
Going wherever it leads
Running down a dream
Yeah, running down a dream
That never would come to me
We're working on a mystery
Going wherever it leads
Running down a dream
That never would come to me
We're working on a mystery
Going wherever it leads
Running down a dream
That never would come to me
Running down a dream
That never would come to me
We're working on a mystery
Going wherever it leads
Yeah, Jamie!
My favorite trip of all time I've been on so far would be my first trip to Australia.
One of the first nights we were there we decided to go to the casino.
It was me, Moses Ikkonen and Josh Fieberg.
The end of the night I ended up walking away with $19,500 in Australian money so that roughly
equals out to about $13,500.
So that started the trip very, very nicely.
Since then I've been to Australia probably four more times and I lived actually over
there in Sydney for five months.
Everyone's super cool there, really nice, there's loads of free skateparks everywhere, up and
down the coast, just all around the country basically and street skating in all the major
cities is really good and even in some of the smaller cities it's my favorite place
so far.
Junkyard dogs start out with Ballard, just call me up on my phone and tell me he has
a project that he's got planned in a junkyard and I was like, okay.
You have a nightmare when you do something like this, it's a lot of work, you've got
to do a lot of stuff, a lot of heavy lifting and all that.
Yeah we did a lot of building.
I
remember walking around going, what's going on, what is this?
And if I went around the aquarium it was like, oh my gosh, day one was there, like Steve
was there already just going ballistic.
I didn't really know what to think, the roof to roof looked really dangerous, it didn't
look that fun, that's what I'm trying to say, it didn't look that fun when I got there.
It wasn't scary necessarily, the only thing that was kind of frustrating was the fact
that you couldn't get a pop off of that plywood because there was nothing under the plywood,
it was just like the plywood set across these girders or whatever you know, so a lot of
stuff was just like, we're talking crop dusting, like crop dusting kickflips over that thing
but you're like going like 10 feet you know, but they're only like two inches off.
A couple times day one's feet flew over the edge and the board flies off and gets smashing
to the ground so it was scary at first, actually it was scary the whole time when I talked
about it, it just got a little bit easier.
Day one Fakie flipped it without hitting his tail, he actually like did the run off thing
where you miss and he still made it across.
And somehow it got in the air over an eight foot wide flat gap, 25 feet off the ground
or whatever and onto the other side.
I thought it was a little bit dangerous, I was a little bit worried about that, a lot
dangerous, not a little a lot, I mean that's a long fall.
The tall one, that was amazing, that was amazing, I liked it that, no net or anything yet, I
liked it.
So Nathan McClinty and our driver, record, a little bit of everything, dismounting.
But Nathan was the sweetest like, because he was down to do anything, you could tell
he genuinely really liked what we were doing.
People gotta look at something like this and think like, why in the hell are these guys
in a wrecking yard jumping on cars?
No, they were some nice guys, all of them.
The final result was good because we got a bunch of stuff and it was actually ended up
being fun.
When we set up the handrail that was made out of a flatbed of a truck or a bumper of
a car, 69 Camaro fender.
That car with the two jumps in the middle, it wasn't too far across but it had a tranny
effect so whenever you did a trick over, you did float but you caught a tranny on the way
and it was more of a, it was like skating on a pillow man, it was so sick dude.
Sorry dude, I get in the way.
Don't know, just got in.
Oh
You
This giant production just hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars
permits shut off streets a bunch of
children
You got to pull the trigger?
The original idea of the commercial it came really from the Beatles a hard day's night
You know like just the idea that people are such a celebrity and so in demand that they're being chased by a bunch of people
especially screaming girls
We took that to
The director that we had chosen a guy named Kevin Kerslake. Who's a fairly famous director out of Hollywood for
Doing music videos and commercials stuff like that
I mean he actually went in and did all the more complete script with better sketches for each scene
Camera angles everything you know even the rail ed photos like drawn of the rail and Rob on it
We had a meeting like you know creative me as they say in the business
We actually met at the place where that rail was and we looked at and kind of laughed you know about how big it was
And stuff and Rob was like no I would do that
You know keep in mind once again full-scale claiming scene is like the biggest route
I've ever been on is like maybe a 12-star Rob just liked it so much. He said
What what can we do here to get these people to give us permits to do this we tell them hey?
There's going to be no property damage or whatsoever
We're going to completely protect the property and so the production company in Hollywood actually
Fabricated an entire rail that was bolted on to the existing rail
There's just you know all these kids and so I got to go walk and stand in front of them
You know you know I'm just like you know what's up. You're chasing me
I know nobody here knows who I am like I'm pro skater. You know whatever
The first one is ice rolling stand by I took one push, and they just all started screaming. You know that I
Just immediately burst into laughter like I had to just I couldn't believe it the grand scale of the absurdity
Is just so much more than I ever even imagined like it is like just high-pitched girl screams like non-stop over and over
on top of that whatever like you know you got your catering and there's just production and wardrobe and just
It was just like so hardcore like I had just no idea. There's like 15 cops. You know like streets are blocked off
So that you know there's like the really hot like chick like the older woman chick right that's I slide up on
I'm like I'm like what's up. You know like whatever just shut me down. I can't even concentrate
I don't even want to do any of this stuff like let me just get to this rail
I got to get through this you know it was just all pressure Rob had two tricks
He had to do the kickflip at the end and in the rail
And it was a lot a lot of pressure because it was the fact that he had 40 people chasing him and about
60 people sitting around this
The square area just watching a lot of money sitting on the line for him to go perform
It wasn't like I'm a little tired today. I'm gonna go home and rest it was boom you got to perform now
So it just gets way more serious, so now. It's just like a building stand-by action push push push
You know and of course I'm cursing up the storm
The guys kids around here. You know my dad. Yeah, you have tone-down language. I'm like can't help you
When I couldn't pull the trigger I was like you don't grind this thing you can't walk away from this
You know like there's just you can't I would keep hearing it. Hey Robin. No you can do it. You got it Rob
We know you can do it
Just girl in me. You know they can't even imagine like the mental torment
I'm going through like I was just so freaked out. She's so shook that I didn't commit it to it
All you got to do is do it just do it just do it so stand by
I
Was just like oh my god like I
It took all my heart and soul to commit and like I almost died, so I got to climb back up there and start over
When I started rolling and like realized that I had made it it was just like like almost cried
It was just ridiculous the pressure of all that and actually be able to pull it off second try. It's pretty amazing
Everyone there was kind of family-oriented, and you know and I was like this guy's all right guy
You know he's nice. He's family. You know it takes him a couple tries. Maybe you cursed a little bit on the big rail
But it was full-fledged just cursed fast
forward-throwing gist potty-mouthed chaos
That's what happens in the demons out. You just grinded a 20-star and you can't land a kickflip
That'll make you snap real quick
By the way the last scene where
Dyrdek does a kickflip off the trailer and we actually got Anthony to dress up like one of the construction workers
And if you really pay attention at the end of the handrail scene Colin McKay is in a big white shirt running across the screen
It was fun just to go out and make a commercial based on you know the popularity of how I think the skateboarder should be
And
Unfortunately rhythms not around anymore, but I felt really fortunate to work on that project a lot of great skateboarders were in that video I
Feel the video was really well-rounded it provided a lot of big skateboarding a lot of technical skateboarding shanty skating like triple kink rails
Richard switch he'll flip five on a bench. I skated some obscure stuff a rail with a knob on the end
You know we just wanted to portray the way we skated in the way. We felt a video should look like
I think it was really amazing to see such a strong part from shanty
You could always tell when there's a good part when you could pop it in at any time
And it's still a great part nowadays if that part would come out nowadays
Besides his shoes and his t-shirt you'd probably think it was him. You know lat filmed the last month or whatever
You can check it out if you get a chance somehow maybe one of your buddies got it or something. I don't know
Oh
I
Died
Died in the ditch
I
Died
Died. Died. In the ditch. He died. Died. Died. In the ditch.
Music.
His name is Stefan Attardo. He's the star of a new pro model for Santa Cruz skateboards.
He has been described as handsome, tough, talented, sexy, sensitive, dynamic and brilliant.
Amazing flair raves skateboarder magazine. He's been called a top contender for an Academy Award.
Stefan Attardo is the Italian Stallion.
Music.
The Cory O'Brien was popular back in 89. A lot of kids bought it. It's 1990 boys. Let's get rid of the skeletons.
Music.
In the early 80's skateboarding started off pretty slow. You guys got a giant?
Shut up.
But things picked up around 1984 as the skateboard craze boomed again.
Companies like Paul Peralta, Vision and Santa Cruz were the industry giants while backyard pools and punk rock ruled the day.
Music.
In the hyped up environment of the mid to late 80's a lot of experimentation went on in different areas of skateboarding.
As the industry grew some of the people within it began to question the direction it was taking.
You had to deal with a lot of non-skaters. That was weird. That was one thing. That was a big thing.
I think it was also just like the advertising and the style of marketing and the way all the pros were being used.
It just felt really, for me anyway as a pro I just felt like too much of a commodity.
Basically by the end of the 80's it kind of got old and there was a whole new breed of kids street skating and it was bringing some new life to it.
Music.
Me and my buddies we would just go street skate around and during that time it was just left to our imagination.
Oh man let's try this trick or we see guys from other towns and tripping out on the tricks that they were doing and we're like well I never thought of that.
Music.
As street skating progressed attention shifted away from the once dominant vert contest circuit.
That was a huge shift you know. Prior to that contests were the most important thing and if you didn't do well in a contest companies weren't going to sponsor you.
I just remember feeling, really feeling a big like change as far as the way people saw things in skateboarding because it was up to that point.
Aside from Don's and Nottis the street skaters were just style guys you know like Scott Oster was a serious guy.
Scott Oster was someone that people respected as a pro street skater and I would never say that he did anything that impressive you know but he had good style you know he was sick.
Those are the guys who won the contest and I just remember like there was kind of a buzz around the stuff we were doing because the stuff we were doing at that time was just so different than the established pros.
For instance the Mooster Contest I remember nose grinding the rail and that being like the most amazing thing to the crowd and to the other pros and stuff like wow.
Because up to then like the contest rails were like a 50-50 or a board slide was like the thing to do and Tom Knox was there tail sliding it and that was a big thing you know.
I think not only were the tricks and stuff in the 80s coming to a head like just you know the old school to the new school stuff.
I think that the industry itself needed to be revolutionized or sparked up too because it went kind of crazy for a while it kind of killed itself.
One of the newer companies to make a mark was H Street whose first two videos Shackle Me Nott and Hocus Pocus featured some of the most progressive skating at the time while shying away from the glossy style that had been standard up until that point.
The quality of the footage is so bad it's still a good video the skateboarding at the time was amazing so there was nothing you could say about it.
I think that had a lot to do just that it's just easily accessible you know you're just like look at that cheesy ass footage of some guy hucking some crap over a ladder and I have the same size ladder in my yard and people if they could just pull it out and try to hook it up immediately.
This new approach to video making led to H Street's next video a short promo which was released in 1990.
Music
All those guys just kind of brought it to a new level and all of a sudden there was a whole new genre of stuff to try and kind of go berserk on so obviously people being creative as skateboarders are whatever turns all kinds of crazy ways.
Burt was kind of at a stagnant point too so I felt like it was it was time to try and keep Burt in tune with the street set you know.
I remember I learned him off the hip on the street course at skate camp, kick the minis off the hip and I was like this has got to be possible on Burt and once I started trying to flip him and grab and I was like if I can catch it with my hand it's definitely possible.
That was when Burt I think took even a whole other turn starting to incorporate full on street tricks into the Burt.
You know skateboarding has to change everything has to change or else it dies and it's just a progression.
So during 1990 everything within skateboarding was beginning to change.
All of a sudden all these skateboarder owned skateboard companies come out.
Several new companies were formed around 1990 including Alien Workshop, Black Label, Foundation, New Deal, Planet Earth, Real, Blind and foremost among them was World Industries headed by a controversial former freestyle and street skater named Steve Rocco.
He was gutsy but he was also smart and did a lot of smart moves.
And I think he was pretty successful in that he made the big companies look like bad guys.
As the skaters continued to run the business function became more heavily emphasized putting an end to many 80's trends such as wildly varying board shapes.
You can tell everything all of a sudden became really cool all of a sudden right?
I mean everything like the wheels got small everything started looking cool like the way you wished it would have been for a long time you know.
With all the new changes came a whole new generation of inspired skaters also producing a number of influential videos.
Hey fellas how's it going?
This is my friend Al.
Hi how's it going?
He works at ITP Chastown and that's his game whenever he wants.
Music
The streets are quiet tonight but it's not alright
Gonna plan it something
Don't you know things have settled down
For better for worse in 1990 the new school took skating to the next level
We must, we must, we must
Keep our eyes open
Do I look nervous?
Alright
What are they gonna show this on?
Man it just wasn't working out for me that day and I finally did it
Like big stuff little stuff switch stuff not only regular babbling babbling babbling
You know and I'm just happy that we were able to do a commercial that has a legit you know TV conceptualness
At the same time it has amazing skateboarding in it cause I mean that's how we like to represent ourselves you know 100 percent
Staring down the barrel of a 20 and pulling down the trigger pulling up
Music