Sunday, March 8, 2009

Natas


Natas. Inspired by Max's recent blog.

Gonz. The Ashtray in Eugene Or.

Meeting your heroes can be a good or bad experience. I've been lucky enough to meet a lot of the pro skaters I looked up to when I was a kid. Some broke my heart to see them be total kooks, while others blew me away at how cool and down to earth they were. I still freak out when I see Lance Mountain's # on my phone- I'll always just be a fan when it comes to some people. After reading Max's recount of skate camp and meeting Natas, I remembered the first time I really met Mark Gonzales. One day at Pulaski Park in DC we saw the Gonz skate down the street by himself. We all freaked out and followed him, about a block behind him, and just watched. None of us had the balls to say anything, let alone go up and skate near him. This was '86? And that was it- until '91 when I was working in the darkroom at Thrasher. I walked out of the darkroom one day to find Mofo talking to Gonz. I just stood there and stared. Mofo turned towards me and told Mark that I worked there and rode for Dogtown. I think I just waved- I didn't know what to say. About an hour later Mark came back to the darkroom and handed me this piece of yellow paper. "Hey, if you ever go pro, this would be a cool graphic." That's all he said, turned and left. Speechless. To this day I still don't know Gonz all that well, but him handing me that yellow paper has to be one of the raddest things that's ever happen to me in skateboarding.

3 comments:

lee bender said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
lee bender said...

dlx/thrasher tradeshow however many years ago. scotty copalman and i scammed two chicks into driving us up there from phoenix. they were sorta lame and we immediately split as soon as we got to sf. me too golden gate park to meet up with some friends, scott took off on his own just as quick too. later that weekend, waiting for those same girls to pick me up on market st, i was waiting on a bench as i heard the click click click of skateboard wheels coming my way. being in sf, i didnt think much enough to turn my head and look, but as the skater rode past, i glanced, it was gonz and he was riding towards the curb where i muni bus was stopped picking up some riders. i figured he too was getting on, but the doors closed as he was about 20 feet away and the bus started to take off. a loud clack of the tail and board now in hand, he did a step off acid drop off the rear bumper of a now moving bus and off into traffic. i sat there in awe as he just kept pushing forward in to the mess of cars on market st. to this day, no one i tell believes me.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a normal gonz sf siting... fuck, he even punched me in the kidneys in the middle of sfmoma, yelling what up Ralph , hahaha! Love that guy!