Skateboarding: an Obsession, Addiction, a Way of Life

What is it about skateboarding that posses you to the point where a trip to the bank brings up visions of hitting a wall ride, thanks to a bit of transition, as Anthony “ADX” told me in a recent interview? Does skateboarding rewire our brains, like heroin or ecstasy? Would it be safe to say that one who skates is an addict? 

Psychology Today defines an addict as “A person with an addiction uses a substance, or engages in a behavior, for which the rewarding effects provide a compelling incentive to repeat the activity, despite detrimental consequences.” In the case of skateboarding, detrimental consequences would probably refer to cuts, broken bones, missing teeth, etc. But oh, the rewards - the rush of riding on concrete, of carving the perfect transition, of grinding the smoothest coping! Roxy Music may have found love to be the drug, but I would put skateboarding in the same Schedule 1 narcotics as LSD, Peyote and DMT.

My own addiction began in the mid-80s, thanks to movies such as Back to the Future and Gleaming the Cube. The way that skateboarding was portrayed looked epic, but even more so, it was something for the loners, the outcasts, the weirdos. As this was all portrayed in California, and living in a small town in East Texas, I had no idea that just over in the big city (Dallas) was a skate scene just as big as the West Coast’s. It would be years later before I learned about Zorlac, Craig Johnson, Jeff Phillips, Mike Crum, John Gibson and more of the legends who repped the Lone Star State.

Besides the movies, there was the look of skateboarding that pulled me in. From skateboard graphics to stickers, to t-shirts and headwear, I was a moth to a flame. T&C Surf/Skate Designs was my favorite. The Yin-Yang symbol, dressed in the dayglo neon colors of the 80s, adorning the high jinks of Da Boyz (Thrilla Gorilla, Joe Cool, the caveman, witch doctor, etc.) as drawn by Steve Nazar. I would draw the checkerboards from Vans, the iron cross from Independent, the Yin-Yang from T&C and others obsessively. These became my totems - I was intimately acquainted with all of their lines, contours and colors. 

And then there were the video games! How could you have grown up in the 80s and not played them, whether in the arcades or a home console such as Atari 2600, Nintendo or Sega Master System? Skate or Die (on Nintendo) was the first skate game I remember playing - we rented it from Flix on the Bricks, the only rental store in Wills Point. Even non-skaters were down with this game and it became so widely known that when I got my ass beat by a couple of shit-kickers in the mid-90s for skating, this is what they called out as they were driving by - “Skate or Die!” But that’s another story for another time. T&C put out a surf and skate game called “T&C Surf Designs Presents Wood and Water Rage” - not quite as memorable a phrase as Skate or Die. The game play was pretty horrid, but I still have a soft spot for this one, given its association with T&C and Da Boys. From there, skate video games increased in quality and popularity, culminating with what’s probably the biggest skate game ever (and is still producing new versions) - Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater! 

All of this is awesome, but it’s not enough to sustain an addiction, to feed the rush, the mainlining of adrenaline as you step on your board. And once I finally got on a board and fell down and got back on again, I was hooked. In the late 80s/early 90s, in our town, the people who skated during the peak of skateboarding’s popularity had stopped, leaving Josh, my brother Brian and me to figure it out for ourselves. Thankfully, a few did show us the basics - the ollie, boardslides, flip tricks, etc. And even better, they gave us their old set ups! This was huge, because there were no skate shops closer than Dallas (almost an hour west of us), so getting our parents to take us to one and then buy us boards was not happening. We had a cheap one that Josh got from First Monday Trade Days in Canton that helped us learn balance. Then an older kid moved into my neighborhood who gave me an H-Street Tony Magnussen set up. He also taught us how to ollie and skate like the kids in California. If it wasn’t for him, my addiction might have fizzled out. 

Once we got our drivers licenses, we were skating every day after school. The only decent concrete in ours and the surrounding towns was the school campuses, so they became our skateparks. The three schools in our town (Middle, Junior and High School) actually had great terrain for skating - a ditch, stair, benches, curbs, a loading dock, railroad ties and more. This was during the era when parents mainly wanted you home your curfew, so we would often pool together money to eat at Dairy Queen, which was near the schools, that way we could stay out and keep skating. From 1991 to 1995, this was our life - that and finding out we could somewhat play instruments and starting our own band, playing a weird form of punk. Being cut off from most of what was happening in skateboarding, we had no idea that being a musician and skater was about the most natural pairing this side of peanut butter and jelly! There are some really good skaters who play in really good bands out there - we were neither, but damn, we had fun! And isn’t that what all this is ultimately about - having fun? As our good friend, Al Coker, loves to say, “The best skateboarder is the one having the most fun.”

In the spring of ’95, I broke my left foot, going down a small stair set at one of the schools in Canton, a town about 15 minutes east of Wills Point. It was just me and my brother (who was 15 at the time) that day, I had driven us there, in our manual shift Toyota Tercel, so with a rapidly-swelling foot, I drove us home. Fearing I wouldn’t get to skate again, plus being really poor, I decided not to tell my parents how bad it was and just played like it was a bad sprain. It’s amazing how quickly you heal as a teenager! Within a month or so, I was back on the board. A couple years ago, when I was 43, I broke my right foot skating, in almost the same place that I broke my other foot when I was 18. This time, it took 6 months of healing and rehab to get back on the board!

There was a period of about 12 years or so, where I didn’t skate at all. I like to think of these as my lost years. There’s no real good reason I can think of for not skating then, probably life getting in the way, being a young newlywed, buying a house, starting a business, “this war in Vietnam and that lying sonofabitch Johnson!” And then just like that, I was back in. Here in the Dallas Photo Market, I was friends with a number of folks who skate (really well!) like Marty, Philip, John and others, and I was jealous hearing stories of skating the new parks springing up, so I went to the Rec Shop and bought my first set up since the 90s. Since then, I’ve been skating and progressing and hoarding boards and other skate equipment (don’t tell my wife how many decks I have - the ones she can see are just the tip of the iceberg!), in addition to pretty much only buying skate shirts and shoes (and Dickies pants and shorts). And I’ve had the incredible opportunity to meet, interview and become friends with heroes such as Craig Johnson and Mike Crum! All because of this crazy addiction called skateboarding! 

Sorry, this post must seem really rambling and off-point by now, but maybe that’s the way my skate-addicted brain works - maybe it only makes sense to those thusly afflicted, maybe it’s just me. This is all to say - I can barely remember a time when skateboarding wasn’t a part of me, part of the way I see the world, the clothes I choose, the music I listen to, etc. So while I’m not physically skating, it doesn’t mean I can’t skate in my mind - driving around and seeing all kinds of new skate spots, I imagine the feel of concrete under my wheels, I hear the clank of bearings and wheels rolling out of tune due to flat spots…Skate or Die!