Pauly On The Pod
Pauly On The Pod
Florida Vert History, Myths, & Legends: Rodney Mead & Gnarly Charlie
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A legendary Florida vert ramp didn’t just appear, it survived. We’re down in Holopaw, Florida with pro vert skateboarder Rodney Mead and Daytona OG Gnarly Charlie while we work on Rodney’s Vert Ramp Rehab project and swap the kind of stories you only get from decades in the trenches. If you grew up on 80s skateboarding, backyard halfpipes, and the loud, messy magic of local scenes, this one hits deep.
We get into Rodney’s early setups, the ramps that taught him everything, and the hilarious Christmas morning disaster where the “hidden” boards got found and the punishment lasted longer than the stoke. Then we jump straight into the real-world problem every ramp builder knows right now: lumber prices, material shortages, and how fast a rehab budget can explode. Rodney also breaks down the full saga of how the Orlando Vans Skate Park ramps shut down, got refurbished, and ended up being bought, sold, dismantled, hauled, and rebuilt into a new home base for Florida vert skateboarding.
From there, it opens up into the bigger picture: Florida vs California skate culture, why the West Coast got the spotlight, and how social media changed the rules for getting recognized. Rodney shares his competition path from Vans events to Tampa Pro points, X Games proximity, and the surreal Combi Pool “golden ticket” year that got derailed by a decades-old warrant, only to lead to a passport and international contests like Vert Attack. We close with Charlie’s Team Pain mega ramp build stories and what it’s like to watch history get built from raw wood and stubborn will.
If you’re into vert skateboarding, ramp building, skateboarding history, or Florida skate culture, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a five-star rating. What’s the most legendary ramp story you’ve ever heard or lived?
Cold Open And Welcome
SPEAKER_05Or least in the world. This should be played at high volume.
SPEAKER_03Hey everybody, thank you for tuning in. This is Pauly on the pod. I'm Pauly Walnuts. And if you don't mind, take this time to uh like, subscribe, and share the podcast, the channel, the Instagram, the Twitter account. You know, go ahead and give us a uh five-star rating. That's the the best way, the quickest way to show us that you're digging the content, you're liking in the uh the direction in which we are headed and all that kind of stuff. I'd be very appreciative. Um, but this is episode 25. Got a fucking awesome couple of guests for this episode. Uh, before we get into that, as always, big shout out and thanks to our sponsors and supporters. Starting with Maddox Dex, they're custom made in shape escape boards by a buddy of mine, Dalton Maddox. You can check them out on the gram. Uh Overcast Fishing Apparel. It's four anglers, bianglers, tattoo inspired design, freshwater, inshore saltwater, funeral tattooing and fishing. It's a brand for you. Check them out on the Gram Overcast Fishing Apparel, Pomeroy Woodwork and Design, traditional craftsmanship, custom design, cabinet making, crown molding, and trim furniture refurbishing and per repurposing. Check them out on the gram. You can also email them, Pomeroy Woodwork and Design at gmail.com. We got Coops Fuego Sauce, organically grown, skater owned. If you're feeling hot and got a hanker in to get saucy, Coops Fuego sauce is that organic hot sauce that'll get your your home heated up. And finally, coastal ramp design. If you're looking to get a backyard vert ramp build, uh if you're looking to get a skate park design and build, uh if you're looking to fucking build something that you can skate, shred, and destroy, coastal ramp design is the company you want to look at. Uh they do it all, and you can check them out on the world wide web www.coastal
Sponsors Then Meet The Guests
SPEAKER_03rampdesign.com. And now episode 25. Got Florida Legend and OG, professional vert skateboarder Rodney Mead, and the uh the Daytona OG Gnarly Charlie. And I sit down with them on my trip down to Holopah, Florida, working on Rodney's uh Vert Ramp Rehab project. And uh man, able to talk skateboarding, the years of of his competitive career, um, a whole bunch of other shit, you know, kind of the background of the Daytona skate scene with gnarly Charlie. Um, but yeah, man, if you're into skateboarding, this is one especially vert skateboarding and uh, you know, like 80s skating era.
SPEAKER_01You do not want to miss out on this. Without further ado, episode 25, Rodney Mead, gnarly fucking Charlie. Let's get it.
SPEAKER_03For professional skateboarder Rodney Mead. I'm here with another Florida legend, uh Daytona OG, Gnarly Charlie. And we're gonna uh we're gonna smoke a couple bowls, have a little bit of coffee, and uh talk about some fucking skateboarding.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Right on.
SPEAKER_06So uh Hey all my fans.
SPEAKER_03Those that do not know, yeah. Hey all my fans. Hey there, Twitterverts. But uh for those that do not know Rodney, I mean this man has got the legendary inverts. Best damn inverts you'll ever fucking see. He's uh competed professionally for how many years now?
SPEAKER_04Um I think it was right after 96, is when I got forced, sort of, to turn pro. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah right
First Boards And First Ramp
SPEAKER_03on. So what was your first setup? My first and how and how old were you?
SPEAKER_04Uh I want to say probably 12 or so when I actually got what I consider my first setup, and I was skateboard mind-oriented. I did have, and I have pictures in an old photo album that my mom made for me of me on my hand on my knees as a little kid, probably maybe eight or nine, on one of those plastic fiber flex boards from Kmart from back in the 70s. Yeah, I have a classic 70s shirt on, big fat stripes with the collars and shit. And uh I've got this like kind of Bob Beatles looking weird fucking haircut, and uh it's a see-through fat plastic Kmart bore with metal wheels and stuff, but that was a toy to us. We had green machines too, right? Big wheels. Yeah, so I didn't really we didn't know anything about skateboard. It was a toy. When I got my first setup, is when Tim and my brother, Tim Payne, and my brother Lonnie became friends because my brother Lonnie was dating his sister in high school. Right on. And so he met Tim and they became friends and met a bunch of other skaters, and we a little personal, but uh my mom had divorced and we had moved out into this house and decided we were gonna or they, my older brothers, Brent and Lonnie, were gonna try to build a ramp in the backyard. I was still pretty young and didn't really know what they were doing, but once it was done, it had like three-foot trannies with like four foot of earth. Shit. Yeah. And it was like one layer, a couple of ribs, it was barely skatable. And he brought Tim over to see it, to skate it. And Tim laughed and tore it down in like an hour. Like just beat it down because he had already he was already working on a construction crew and they're already built like two ramps, I believe. One with no flat, a Kmart ramp that my brother took me to to skate one time, and then another ramp, and then my ramp in my backyard with flat bottom in it. I think was one of Tim Payne's first ramps he ever built with flat bottom in it. Wow. Um, so he tore it down and we proceeded to cut new transitions, and we built 16 or it was eight foot wide at that point. The first ramp was eight foot wide, 16 foot of flat, nine foot transitions with a foot of eart. Fuck. And we had that in my backyard for a couple of months, and then Tim was like, hey, we need to make it wider. So we proceeded to get wood, steal wood, borrow his joke. And my buddy's uh, my buddy from the church we were going to, uh, we borrowed his station wagon, his dad's station wagon, load up a bunch of two by fours one time uh from construction sites and stuff, and then there'd just end up being a bunch of lumber in the backyard, and my mom would be like, Where'd that come from? And oh, Tim's construction site donated it and stuff. And then one day I remember my mom calling from work and was asking us what we were doing after school, and we're like, Well, we're adding to the ramp. And she's like, Don't you dare make that thing any bigger? By the time she got home, it was eight foot wider and done, it was basically done. And um, so we ended up in my backyard for like two years, and that's when I started skating. Um, 16 foot wide, 16 foot flat, nine foot tranny, foot overt, and extension on one side. And then that's when I was like, well, I want to do this, and went to Orange PsychoWorks and got my first setup, which was the question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Veriflex Vectra. Hell yeah. A Veriflex Vectra board. I can't remember the trucks or the wheels, but I distinctively remember the board, and that was my preference board. My brother's board that he rode was the Veriflex Humphrey Beauga, the Billy Beauregard model, which he was a you know, big skate pro in Florida back in the day, and it had the Humphrey Beaufort silhouette on the bottom, yeah. I had the Humphrey Beauga logo on the bottom and the Billy Beauregard model. And so I was like, I want to, you know, Veriflex was hot back then. So I bought a generic Veriflex Vectra. It was their generic board, no pro model name on it. Um, but I rode that. That was my first board for a while. My first awesome board that I actually got to pick out and wanted forever until I got it for Christmas was the Sims Hussoy. Oh, fuck yeah. The Sims Hussoy, Starburst, Sunburst freaking thing. And I have a funny story about that, actually.
The Mattress Christmas Board Heist
SPEAKER_04So, Christmas time. We have the ramp. Right. Right? We've got the ramp up. My backyard's a little hot spot in the neighborhood now. We've got a stack of waivers on top of the on top of the refrigerator for every kid in the neighborhood to come over. Because we're just renting the house. Right. And we just built the ramp in the backyard. Landlords didn't really think much of it until a couple years later. Um, so it's a hot spot and it's Christmas time. And my mom's like, all right, she's got three little skater kids for boys now, you know, single mom. I'm like 12, Brent's like 14, Lonnie's 16, and we all want skateboards for Christmas, and we all want specific models. Right. Orange PsychoWorks has everything. George Davis is our buddy, my brother Lonnie's buddy, and now my sponsor. Well, not at that time, but later on became my first shop sponsor. So we're like, we go up there and we pick out our bars. Lonnie wants the Sim Screamer. Screamer model, the black Sim Screamer. I want the Sim Sussoy, and my brother Brent wants the vision leopard skin. Okay. The leopard, remember the animal skins?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06And so telling about riding them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's what it, that's the story. That's what I'm telling them. So we we we've picked out our Christmas presents. We get the call from George. Mom was just in here, got your guys' boards. We know they're in the house somewhere. House isn't that big. So you got to go to the house. There's no attic. Yeah. So we go on the search. Sure enough, they're in my mom's mattress, um be in between my mom's mattresses. All three boards. Boards are pretty flat back then. Fat and flat. So they're not like super. My mom could probably sleep on them and not feel it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04But we fucking uh pulled up the mattress, sure enough, all three boards lined up with grip on them. Wow. In between the mattresses. So we get the crazy wild idea that mom is at work. We can somehow put these boards together, ride them, take them apart, put them back underneath my mom's mattress, and she won't know.
SPEAKER_03The logic of a 12, 14, 10.
SPEAKER_04By the time we get them together, they're already like scuffed on the grip tape and stuff. We skein them. There's scratch marks on the tail, there's scuff marks on the grip tape. There's like, we we we try to fucking clean them up the best we can. We get away with it. And check it out. We get away with it until Christmas. Because she's not looking at them, she doesn't think anything. She's like, are they still there? Right. Right? Yeah. And Christmas Eve. Until Christmas Eve, about two or three o'clock in the morning. You bastards!
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02That's hilarious.
SPEAKER_04We wake up for all fucking oh shit. Oh shit. Yeah. She knows. I've taken she she can't take them back. We wrote them. Right. But she doesn't give them to us for like, I think it was like a week or two weeks. We didn't get the boards. She's like, you're not getting these. I'm gonna take them back. You sons of bitches. That's hilarious. She went off on us so hard. We were so in trouble. We were so boned. We were like, oh Mom, we're so hard, we're sorry, we're sorry. We just we found them. We wanted to try. She was pissed, she was more pissed at George. Right. Because she knew how George. Yeah, she knew George had given us the head up and fucking that we knew they were in the house, and we found them. Well, shout out to George. Yeah, it was awesome. She should have kept them in her trunk.
SPEAKER_02For sure.
SPEAKER_04But I think I think she was still driving a Pinto hatchback at that time. And we would have seen them. There was like really nowhere to stash them in the car. She's got to take us to school and shit. Right, yeah. Like, so she I guess she thought the mattresses the best place to find them or the best place to hide
Surf Family Then Lumber Sticker Shock
SPEAKER_04them. Do your brothers still skate? So my older brother Lonnie still rides every once in a while. He's an avid surfer. Both my brothers are avid surfers. Right on. Lonnie owns property in Costa Rica and his his my sister-in-law, his new wife. Um, her name is Molly Miller. She was on MTV. I remember her um either Real World or Road Rules or something. Yes. I think it was Real World or something like that. She was the one of the surf little surfer girls.
SPEAKER_03Right on.
SPEAKER_04Uh it might have been a different show. I could be mistaken. I'd have to ask her. But she was on an MTV show as a young pro surfer girl.
SPEAKER_03That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_04And she went on to be a pro surfer. And she actually went to school to teach kids. Uh, she was a uh uh elementary school teacher for a little while. Actually, I think she's still doing that now, COVID style tutor. She's making more money doing the tutor style. And she does her own surf school now. It's called Molly Miller Surf School. Shout out for that. Look it up if you guys want surf lessons. She does surf lessons in uh Cocoa area, Molly Miller Surf School. Check it out. Um, that's my sister-in-law. Hell yeah, that's right. And uh, I think they just had their anniversary a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_03Um Yeah, well, speaking of COVID, real quick, man. I mean, dude, like because we were just bitching about this yesterday, the price of lumber. We're out here trying to get this rant back together, and then you know, we're needing to order some more plywood, and just looking at the cost is fucking crazy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I don't know when this podcast will go out, but if anybody wants to donate for plywood, yeah, we'll be out next. We're taking donations right now, and we're I'm figuring probably about another sixteen hundred bucks to get another 40 sheets that we need. Which is just fucking amazing. That's almost double.
SPEAKER_07And any volunteers that want to come help.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the 50 sheets that we bought and had delivered first were at like I think 27 to 28 bucks a sheet. Right. They're pricing now at Home Depot $42 a sheet.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Eric said he sent a lot of woods for $47. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So literally practically doubled the price. Uh it's hundreds of dollars more. Um, I'm a little sticker shocked on that myself. Yeah, but this uh you guys are in the industry though, so you're oh yeah, it's you're like it's it's it's rough. It's gonna put a little hurting on business, so to speak, depending on whether the people are willing to pay for the extra materials.
SPEAKER_03And honestly, it's been a struggle getting material. You know, like they're like pressure treated coming in. We don't know what it is or how much. That two, but we got it coming in.
SPEAKER_04But uh it was difficult to find a certain amount, large quantities. Yeah, you could get a sheet or two, a couple sheets, five sheet, ten sheet, but fifty? Oh well, we're gonna have to yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, so tell us a story about how you acquired the ramp. And the mini ramp as well, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Right? Yeah, we can get out of the room.
SPEAKER_03If you don't know, he's got uh a fucking vert ramp out here. He's got a badass like little little five-foot spine ramp with a little extension, it's got a pump pump on one side. Super fun. So excuse me.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, pause for the question.
Where The Vans Park Ramps Went
SPEAKER_04We the ramps that are here are the van skate park ramps from the Orlando Van Skate Park at the Festival Bay Mall over in Turrist Town on High Drive. You're gonna have to get some more. Um so what happened was is the that I believe my number uh because I've done some research on it actually just recently. I say research with a grain of salt, take that term. Uh I did some Googling and looked up some stuff, some information. Skate park was open for 12 years. Vans Skate Park. Um at some point, the ownership of the mall itself changed hands. Okay. And Vans could not uh according to Vans, Vans's side of the story is that the mall didn't want to renew their lease because they felt that the skate park was not allowing them to sell retail space in the mall. It was bringing a bad element, which if anybody that went to the mall knew that that was completely false, that the that was the only thing besides the theater and the Bass Pro shop that was bringing people to that mall. Right. Um, and the fact that they couldn't sell retail space because across the street is the prime outlets. Yeah, and you try to put a mall in it right across the street from the prime outlets. But there yeah, you couldn't compete for a small retail space to fill in the gaps of the mall. The big spots were sold, the Vans Park, the Ron Johns, the Vans Pro Shop, the theater was all like the staples to get the small retailers to fill in. It never happened. Yeah. I mean, it's was you know, they stayed open for 12 years. There was supposed to be a giant surf wave thing that was gonna go in there. Like wave pool thing. Yeah, it was gonna be outside. Uh um, and it was gonna be a complete wave machine pool for surfing.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04And that fell through because they had a big financial uh fall through.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Right. So, anyways, Vans couldn't come to terms with the mall, or the mall wanted them out. At this point, I believe Vans kind of put not to say anything bad about Vans necessarily, but at that time they were already closing all their other skate parks. They had one in uh Denver, they had one in Texas, they had one, they had like 10 of them.
SPEAKER_03Kind of started being a reasonable.
SPEAKER_04So after about 10 or 12 years, you started seeing all of them kind of go, and there was two left Orlando and Combi, Orange County. Right. And the mall changed hands, and like I said, the story goes that the mall didn't want them to renew the lease. But I think, you know what I mean? I think at some point, because here's what happened that Vans left, and the new ownership of the mall worked out a deal with a new skate park called Radbourne. What? And that guy was gonna come in, refurbish the whole park, and reopen it. So there goes Vans's story that they didn't want to renew Vans' lease, that the skate park was a bad element to the mall. Why, you know, why would this whole Radbourne? I don't want to get into that story because there's a bunch of stuff in that story that I don't know all the information about. Tim Tim would probably know more information about that because he got hired to refurbish these ramps.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_04So, well, Duncan, Dave Duncan and his crew. Yeah, and Tim the original, but Tim's crew got hired 12 years later to go in and refurbish the half pipes. The mid-size ramp, 48-foot-wide, mid-size ramp, 40-foot-wide vert ramp, and the 24-foot-wide spide ramp. Refurbished them all, put all new plywood on them, all new skate light on them, and the park never reopened. Oh fuck. Two years later, a guy they had an accident at the mall with this big three-story freaking grappling thing, toy thing that people could climb around on in the mall. Somebody fell off the third store fucking level and died. Oh, Jesus. Within months, the mall got announced it was closing. Of course, yeah, yeah. And it was called Artigon Marketplace at that time. And it went through a whole transformation. The skate park was supposed to reopen. They turned the inside into like a flea market feel. Okay. And and all this stuff, and never took off. Same thing. So the property owner ended up selling the Brass Pro Shop, his property, sold the theater, their property, and rented the van's skate park out to a furniture, a hotel furniture liquidator guy. And literally filled the fucking place 80,000 square foot from ceiling to wall to wall, top to bottom, with furniture of all kinds furniture that you would need for hotels, mass amounts of it.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_04So I'm sitting here one day watching the news, and I see the news announces that the Artagon Marketplace has given everybody in the mall two weeks to vacate. They're closing down, all the people that are renting in there. Now this is a controversial topic in the news because the vendors that are renting their spaces have contracts with the mall for multiple years.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04And so there's a whole court thing, lawsuits going on, but the mall shuts down. They shut down, everybody has to get out, they evict everybody. The mall is vacated right now, except for the Bass Pro shop, but it's closed off to the mall. You just can't get into the mall anymore.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04And same with the theater, you know, so and so. So I'm watching the news and I'm like, the fuck are they gonna do with those ramps? Because I know they're in there. I have a firefighter friend that works for Orlando Fire Department, Jeff Patterson, that he grew up skateboarding with. He goes in there and does inspections. The ramps are still there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Tim's like, yeah, the ramps are still there. So I'm like, what are they gonna do with these things? Are there furniture's in there? That guy's gonna have to get the furniture out, you know. They're gonna have to bull, they're gonna hire some company to come in here and bulldoze these things.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_04So I get the dude. I'm literally, and just just to back note on this, broke.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04I'm just moved to this property, and I was planning on building a ramp, you know, starting to go fund me, raise funds, build a ramp for scratch, kind of like Phil's doing right now. Phil Hajal. Right. Props to him. They just poured footers. I saw that this morning. So I'm like, man, this could be a little opportunity. So I get on the phone and I call the mall property managers, the people that run the mall. Yeah. I look on the, I get the number and I call, and some secretary lady answers at some, you know, management office somewhere. I don't even know if I even actually called them all. Who knows where this phone is actually ringing? But it could be a little sub-office somewhere.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04Um, so I'm like, hey, I am interested in the skateboard ramps that are in the van skate park still. What are you guys planning on doing with those? Are you selling them, bulldozing them? Because I'd like to come out there and bulldoze them, or I I would, I would take, I was basically trying to get them for free. Yeah. I was like, look, we'll come in there and dismantle and take them so you don't have to hire a demolition crew. But this, I'm talking to a secretary lady. She doesn't know her butt from a hole in the ground. Right. So she goes, let me put you on hold. And uh she comes back and she goes, It's it's literally this shit I just saw on the news. Yeah, shit's just going down. All lawsuits are being filed. And she's like, We don't know what's going on, but they're not selling them, blah, blah, blah. And I said, I said, asked her this question. I said, Listen, has anybody else called about the ramps? And she goes, No, absolutely, no, no, you're the first person to call and ask about the ramps in the van's park, you know. Um, and I said, Listen, can you do me a favor? Could you start a list of people that are possibly gonna call and be interested in Skate Park and put my name at the top as the first person that called, interested in the ramps? And she goes, you know what, yeah, no problem. I could do that. So she proceeds to do that. And I and I to this day I don't know if anybody else called. I don't know if Tim called, because there's some uh rumors going around about how I got this ramp.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04And I can clarify all that right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I don't know if Tim was involved at all in calling there, asking about the ramps, and he didn't even give a shit about them because he got paid to do the refurbishing, or if he didn't get paid, because the Radborn guy, like I said, I didn't want to get into that topic, but there was some money financial problems, and that's why the park never reopened.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_04So in between Tim and the Radborn guy, and I don't know if Tim ever got paid to do the refurbishing work. Maybe he did, maybe
Negotiating For The Vert Ramp
SPEAKER_04he didn't. So, like I said, I don't know any of that knowledge. Tim would have the answer to those questions. But I got the call like two months later. I get this random call. Hey, skate a lot. This is Rodney, can I help you? And he's like, Yeah, this is so-and-so from property of the Artigon marketplace, blah, blah, blah. And I'm I understand you're interested in the ramps. And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm broke, dude. I got zero dollars. Right. So I'm acting like I'm wearing a suit and I got money. I'm playing the role on the phone. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, sir. I'm totally interested. I do skateboard lessons. I'm starting to build ramps on my property to do my skateboard camps and stuff. You know, I'm talking full business legit. And uh, and he goes, Um, well, what do you want to offer? And at this point, I'm like, look, I'm not throwing out numbers. I'm not trying to throw out numbers at this point because I know what they're worth. Right. And uh I'm not trying to get in that deep, you know what I mean? Like, I'm like, look, I'm interested in the vert ramp. Not really interested in the other ramps, anyways. I just want the vert ramp. And um, and he goes, Well, throw a number out or something. And I said, Look, I'll five grand. I give you five grand for the vert ramp. And so that kind of started the ball rolling. He goes, All right, he this guy's a middleman. Yeah, he doesn't own them all. He calls these Arab people, I say Arab loosely, right? Some some people with money that own them all, the owners of them all, and they're they're, I believe, Arab. They have billions and millions of dollars. They bought them all. Yeah, they're they're money people. And then so he goes, Let me, you know, transfer the information, I'll shoot the bid over to the owners, and I'll get back to you. Like a week later, he calls back and goes, Yeah, I just got an email back from the guy. Um, and he said, uh, what did he say? Like 8,000. I think he said 8,000. And I was like, uh, you know, I'm like, I don't know about if I can raise $8,000. I'm not trying to vacate or to him, he, you know, this is in my head. Right. And I'm like, um, well, that's a little, you know, I tell him that's a little much. Um, but since we're shooting prices back and forth, I feel that it's necessary for me to do a site inspection. Right on. So I tell him, let's meet at the mall. I want to look at the ramps and check them out and everything. So I go over there, I meet the guy, we go in there, I see all the furniture's all over. I'm gonna have to move so much stuff out of the way to get to this ramp. Yeah, you know, like I said, at this point, it's just the vert ramp that we're talking about. We had to make trails. Yeah, we had to, yeah, we had to move so much crap. But uh, so we got there, and I'm look, and I like I said, at this point, I'm still focused on the vert ramp. I don't even care about the spine, I don't care about the mid-size ramp, I just want the vert ramp, and I'm working on bidding for that. And so I walk around and I see that they have been refurbished. And I'm like, holy crap, this is all new skate light on all three ramps 150 bucks a sheet. There's 60 sheets on my ramp alone. Yeah, that's like 15 grand just on the layer, right? Then the other two ramps, 48-foot-wide, mid-size ramp, 24-foot-wide spike ramp. There's like $50,000 worth of ramp armor, just grabbing a number out there, but it's locked. Yeah, no, no. There's a lot of ramp armor, it's all on the decks, it's on the ramp. I mean, there's a lot of money out there just in ramp armor. So I'm walking around with a straight face. This guy has no clue what the surface is. Yeah. Yeah. He just seeing the ramps and the structures, and I'm I'm gonna I've gotta physically come in here and rent a get a crew and break these ramps down and stuff. So I'm just pricing material basically at this point. I said, look, I'll give you six grand for the Vert ramp or ten for all three. I didn't even get home from the meeting. I had an email. We accept your offer, ten grand, all three ramps. When can you start taking them out? So I shit myself at that point because I don't have 10 grand. Yeah, I just made a deal to buy all these ramps and I don't have the fucking doll I'm getting.
SPEAKER_03That's fucking hilariously epic.
SPEAKER_04So I immediately I'm like, fuck. All right, I gotta sell the spine ramp, I gotta sell the mid-ramp and raise enough money for the vert ramp for me, and I'll split it. So I sold the spine ramp to Shane Mulligan, who grew up right down the street from Tim Payne and grew up with his son Riley skating, was like best friends, grew up skating the van spine ramp.
SPEAKER_03Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_04He's like, You're doing what? He's got money.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm like, dude, you want to buy the spine ramp? We live in the trailer park, or he lived in the trailer park. I had just moved out here, but we had known each other from there. He's like, Where can I put it? I said, dude, I'm buying the vert ramp. You buy the spine ramp, put it out of my property. I got a full acre. He's like, fuck yeah. Hands me 3,500 bucks.
SPEAKER_03Fuck yes.
SPEAKER_04Fuck a little that I kind of shortened that story, but he's prepared to go in when we go to close the deal. He he's got his money. So then I call around and I remember I was doing lessons. I was I was teaching Reef Orlando how to skate vert. Okay. I did lessons with Reef Orlando for his basically his two first years of skating vert. I taught Reef Orlando how to skate vert at Merritt Island.
SPEAKER_03Fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_04So now he is fucking like Andy McDonald's fucking double.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, which is awesome. Reef Orlando, keep killing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, fucking huge shout out to Reef.
SPEAKER_04Super stoked.
SPEAKER_03And Tom.
SPEAKER_04Um, so yeah, so I call Tom because we had we're doing lessons and stuff, and he's talking about buying a piece of property and building a ramp. And so ding ding ding, light bulb goes up. Tom, hey, you want to buy a 48-foot-wide mid-size ramp with a big vert wall extension on the back wall and escalator and extensions for three grand or 3,500 bucks with ramp armor and everything? He's like, hell yeah! Hell yeah. So we I dude, I call my brother, pitched in 500 bucks. Steven Pinero pitched in 300 bucks. I got a hundred bucks from Bob, I got a hundred bucks from Wade. I raised up like 1,500 and got enough for my three grand.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Because I needed three grand for the vert, and sold the mid for and the two other for 35. Yeah. And we saw we closed that deal, and I think it was in um April of uh four years from this year. Yeah, 2016.
SPEAKER_03This year would have been four years. Yeah, 2016-ish.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
Dismantling The Ramps And Rumors
SPEAKER_04We we started taking the ramps apart and dismantling them. And then now here's supposedly the rumor is that Tim Payne was involved and gave me these ramps.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04And was involved in the purchasing and all this stuff. No, no, no. Well, I'll I'll get to that part of the story. But Tim had nothing to do with me acquiring these ramps and selling the other ramps or anything of the such.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Tim was brought in because once we knew we were getting the ramps, and I had called Bob and called Wade, and everybody knew we were buying this vert ramp and moving the van's vert ramp here. I had already started building my foundation. Shit's going down. We're moving this ramp here. We've already done, or Bob had already done one year of the Florida Vert series and did it at Merritt Island. So now that we're gonna get the van's ramp here, he gets the light bulb idea. If we can get this ramp here and set up in time, we can have stop four or stop three of the next year's event at Rodney's. Oh yeah. Which we did and we got done. But all this came about, and how Tim got involved was Bob called Tim and asked him if he would help rent a forklift and because I got the trucks. I rented the trucks, I got friends with trucks and stuff, so I took care of all the trucking. Only thing Tim did was rent a forklift and drive it for a couple hours and give us Mike Cruz. Oh yeah, shout out Mike and gave Mike gave us Mike Cruz. And that at that point, I already we at me and my friends and people had already had the ramp completely dissembled except for the sections separated. Okay. So we have every all the braces, every the platforms are down. All you have to do now is take out the post and drop the top sections, separate the flat bottom from the bottom sections, and fucking load this thing on a truck. And that's D-Day. Right, right, right. Right. So Bob calls Tim and says, Look, I'll trade you title sponsorship of Rodney's stop of the then rent and change to renegadevert series for title sponsorship if you pay to help him with the forklift and get it on the truck, and then uh pay Mike Cruz half of labor costs to help us put it back together. And then I was gonna cover the other half, and we won't get into that part, but uh so we got the ramp here, we unloaded the ramp Amish style, built the ramp Amish style.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. No forklifts.
SPEAKER_04We've lifted it, raised it ten foot tall, eight foot wide top sections, and got it done and put it together and had the contest. And that's like I said, that's why Tim was involved was because of the sponsorship for the contest. And in turn, for the money that he spent, he got the title sponsor because Bob was charging like a thousand bucks or fifteen hundred bucks to be a title sponsor.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04So they did a little trade, yeah. That's how Tim kind of got involved with us getting the ramp
Daytona’s Early Ramp Scene History
SPEAKER_04back together and getting it put up here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and so you said you've known Tim since you're about 12. Like how long how long have you and Charlie known each other?
SPEAKER_04Probably just as I was 17. Well, yeah, I was gonna say a little later.
SPEAKER_03Pull that mic down a little bit in front of you.
SPEAKER_04Probably a little later. We met as a little bit later teenage. I was already a little skater at that point.
SPEAKER_06Right, right.
SPEAKER_04We were a little hardcore skaters, pump skaters. Yeah, I was driving my little Chevette my little Chevy Chevette with stickers all over it.
SPEAKER_07Uh summer of 85 is when I met you around my birthday or some shit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I was right before I kind of took off and got sponsored by a bunch of people. I already had a little the shop sponsor and life's a beach.
SPEAKER_07Daytona, because I met a guy in Orlando named Fabrice who knew all the Orlando skate. He was friends with my older brother Brave Bonnie. Well, Fabrice was from California. He knew Alvin shit. He skated in California. He's like some rich, his dad's a famous French chef. So this motherfucker was traveling around the country. Yeah, he was. Well, you've done some.
SPEAKER_06I met you, right? You worked, you worked for Team Pain. You're like one of the the Teamp Pain OGs, right? One of them. Well, not the OG. I came in late in the game, basically.
SPEAKER_04A little late, but still. But I could have worked. I could have worked for Tim at the beginning.
SPEAKER_07You know, but I could have helped Tim at the very start when he first started, but I had a job at a Radisson hotel and I was paying rent on my own apartment. Um I can't leave town and you know, take rolling the dice on some skateboard shit. St. Louis. Well, yeah. Uh it was like you could lose everything going for some skateboard shit, and if it don't pan out. That was 1986. So I was like, I'm fucking.
SPEAKER_04That was one of Tim's first big ramp building gigs, was the St. Louis thing.
SPEAKER_07Schmidt Schmidt was too busy to fucking build the ramps, even because his company started taking off. Right. Because when he picked up Grasso and uh and at that point, Tim was already well known for building fairy.
SPEAKER_04He had money already by that time.
SPEAKER_07His company started blowing up, so he didn't have time to build the shit.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_07So he called Tim in because Tim helped him with St. Pete ramp. Yeah. Way like early at a time.
SPEAKER_04But then ended up building my ramp, built Bud's ramp, built Wayne's ramp, built GJ's ramp, like a whole list of them up to that point. Then they had Bud's ramp jam off Colonial. That was in Thrasher. Picture of John Grigley doing a uh a straight leg um dive bomb invert with the the dog in the background, Bud, the pit bull in the background on the yeah, and that was in Thrasher, Bud's ramp jam. Bud's ramp jam. Article in Thrasher. Fuck uh, I don't even know what year, what article issue. Yeah, that was fucking awesome.
SPEAKER_03Gnarly, dude. I'll have to check that out.
SPEAKER_04So I remember that. I was like, no way, but I was bare, I still wasn't even that good yet. Yeah. That was when my brother Brent and TJ Kemp and Sheree Show Walter, and uh those guys were like that's why I moved over to Orlando, though.
SPEAKER_07Those were guys were the hot guys. I was the young buck. Well, we had half pipes in Daytona starting around the end of 1979 when they tore down the skate park. The first half pipes started showing up in Daytona around 1980 or 81. A lot of people who had them though were like rich kids who wouldn't let you fucking ride their shit, you know, because they're like rich parents, scumbag skate kids. They don't want you around their house. Who was that? Wasn't that Garrett? Uh no. This is way before Garrett. Way before Garrett. Yeah, this is like his parents were pretty cool. They would let us skate. But one of the first good half pipes in Daytona was built by David Tanner, who is actually one of the founding designers of Stone Edge. He's like one of the local kids who starts Stone Edge and designed. He designed the Nine Ball. Right, yeah, I don't remember any.
SPEAKER_04I came back and it was here. Well, yeah, and the guy's well, I'm going to move. That's where the skating scene was when I came in.
SPEAKER_07Garrett Wentz's dad, who was another owner of there's Tom, I forgot Tom's last name, but Garrett Wentz's dad. They both owned Stone Edge, and like they brought in Dave, the local skater dude. Because he's he worked at the skate shop before I did, but I got a job after him. But he ended up getting in trouble and all kinds of shit, and he kind of went straight edge and kind of fell away from he's still skating.
SPEAKER_04That scene went through some weird waves over the years. But Daytona and now it's coming back.
SPEAKER_03Now it's coming back, dude. The research.
SPEAKER_04You guys are getting ready to do some work out there. Yep, we're gonna do a little workout.
SPEAKER_07Well, Daytona had a good half pipe scene in the early 80s. Yeah, but the thing was there's a lot of surfer guys, and they were kind of picky about who the fuck they had let ride on their shit, you know, which can't be.
SPEAKER_04Stone Edge had just opened, and there was a really good scene down there. We are talking about it.
SPEAKER_07I'm talking about six years, seven years before Stone Edge. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I'm getting there though. Yeah but so I'm trying to do a real quick history on that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, no, I got you. Yeah, because that's anyway. I don't remember too many ramps.
SPEAKER_07Dave Tanner had his ramp, and it's like a 16-foot wide, like fucking nine feet tall. Fucking biggest half, it's the first half-pipe I ever rode. Right. It was huge, like, but it was just plain plywood with splinters that would shoot through your shoe.
SPEAKER_04It was the same as ours. Yeah, you'd have just plywood.
SPEAKER_07We'd have splinters six inches long, go shooting through the tongue of your shoe into your foot and shit. Yeah, you know, you fall down. I would days, man, 80 spears you'd have to pull out of your palms of your hands. We didn't know anything other product to use. These kids nowadays don't know how lucky are the shit that we went through, right? The experimental stages of figuring out how shit's gonna work.
SPEAKER_04I remember seeing Blaze at a contest in Georgia with a splinter go right through his foot and come out the bottom of his shoe. It's quite Daytona.
SPEAKER_07Daytona's true skate scene really took off though around end of 82, 83, when Lenny Byrd and uh his buddy Mike, the rancheros, came down. Lenny moved down in like late 85, and he started skating at a friend of mine's house named Teddy Goul, who had a 16 foot wide, is like uh eight and a half foot tall half pipe, but Lenny could actually skate. Yeah, he had skills like the only time. I remember skating. Yeah, but you'd see. Before that is like only skating hours shit in the magazine. I never seen it.
SPEAKER_04They claim their ramp was one of the first.
SPEAKER_07TK could skate.
SPEAKER_04TK built that ramp. And he he claims that that's I think that's how it goes, if I remember that Tim Play. No, but this Lenny documentary.
SPEAKER_07Lenny moved down right after the ramp.
SPEAKER_03He says he was the first person to build ramp with flat bottom in it. I've heard a couple people claim, but I think it was all around that.
SPEAKER_04When Tim built my ramp in 82, the first ramp before the ramps that he had built before were. Were all the U, right?
SPEAKER_07Listen, the ramp ranch in Atlanta is one of the first giant ramps out of the ramp.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. He claims with flat bottom. He claims that's the first ramp with flat bottom in it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07I don't know. Tim built mine in 82. Yeah, flat bottom in it. Well, before Lenny moved here, that ramp was in Thrasher. Yeah, it was. It showed a dude doing an invert on a fucking couch on top of the deck. There's a couch right on the room. It was Jimmy O'Brien or whatever. Lobe. Yeah. And fucking, I saw that.
SPEAKER_04If I remember right, if my brain serves right, that was Lobie.
SPEAKER_07Couch photo. Yeah, but that made me want to skate ramps.
SPEAKER_04So there was like four dudes that I remembered TK, Lenny, Jimmy O'Brien, and uh, but Lenny came down. Anyway, sorry, I forgot your name.
SPEAKER_07Lenny came down, localized the scene, and the scene started growing a little bit after he came down because other kids saw him skating and kind of influenced other dudes to ride. This guy, these two brothers, they were like twins, Doug and what's his name? Salerno, the Salerno brothers. They built one of the first fucking like it wasn't a spine ramp, it was a half pipe with a hump in the middle where the spine's supposed to go. Yeah, they built a fucking rollover hump in between the fucking walls. Fuck. Not a spine. Yeah, and one part had a pass-through. It's like a big fucking giant rollover hump with a pass-through on one side. And then there was another. There was this cat, this fucking rock and roll cat named Randy behind the local uh middle junior high school in Orman Jr. in Orman Beach. Right. He built one of the first fucking mini ramps ever. The motherfucking thing was 16 feet wide and was only four feet fucking tall. Right. I'm telling you, it's like the first mini ramp I ever skated. And that was in 1983.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Spring of 83. But I lived in Daytona for a couple years, but like it was weird. It's like that. No, the half like the half pipes. What's the do you know that?
SPEAKER_03I thought it was like around 85. I don't know. No, check this out. He would he would know better better than me because my way. Okay, 88.
SPEAKER_07Really? Yeah, dude. Oh wow. Anyway, so the skateboarding scene kind of took off and Lenny came down. More skaters in town starting to get into it. I turned a lot of people on because I was like one of the first punk rock kids and shit. So I was influencing kids on punk rock and skating. Oh yeah. And just, you know, started getting into it. You know, they'd trip out on my on the brother was getting into it too. I know, but they would listen to punk rock and be like, what the fuck? But then they would listen to it a few times, like, ah, shit.
SPEAKER_04We got into what our brothers were doing.
SPEAKER_03So that was kind of like my younger brother did the same thing with me for a long time. He skated and he surfed a little bit, but he he definitely wasn't, you know.
SPEAKER_07I got my first job. He wasn't hooked like I was. Well, I got my first job in the fall 82 at the local skate shop that we had. It's called California Street Skate. So old hippie dude used to rent out roller skates so people could roller skate up and down A1A like Venice Beach. Like kind of like California. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he called it California Street Skates. And he they'd go to the like people would get together on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and they'd go bar hopping on fucking skates, like 40 old hippies fucking tooling around town and they go fucking get wasted and skate around town. It was kind of cool. They used to take a lot of pictures of the shit. It was like a little happening. Those shit's probably still around something. So I'm working at the skate shop and start meeting all the local skaters. You know how many skaters we had? And in Daytona at one time, we only had like 20 skaters in the whole fucking area.
SPEAKER_04That's everybody's scene was pretty small back then. Yeah, there was like 80s skating and taking a dive, and it was basically went to the backyard ramps. Cona was still open, but it wasn't, yeah. You know, um I ended up it was fall, it was sinking a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Well, let me ask you this. You guys are both spending some time over in like California.
SPEAKER_04I know you know there's three, three or so years over there. I moved out there and like Stedham, when I got sponsored by in St. Louis, when I went with Tim to that that ramp building, the demo, pro demo in St. Louis, I got sponsored by Steve Stedham. I came back and he flew me out to California. I ended up staying out there the first time for like six months, and I came back, lived with my brother in North Carolina for a little while, and then we did a tour. Right. So I uh when we went on tour, I ended up going back to California with him after the tour, and then I stayed out there till like 89.
SPEAKER_07Anyway, just so I don't leave no one out real quick, so let me finish this up. Yeah, we had uh after Ted Eagles rant, we had Darrenborg on Third Street, and he worked at California Straits Street Skates. He took the job after I quit. I went to high school with that guy, and then uh Lenny had moved back to Atlanta, but then he moved back to Daytona in like around 85 or some shit. And he built a mini ramp on the beach side and got a whole fucking street scene going over there. That's the beginning of Team Glug. Yeah, oh yeah, right, right. No, Glug didn't the Glug Team Glug didn't start till Fuck, this is after the park was built. 85.
SPEAKER_04Didn't they have a mini ramp at the beach house? Isn't that the same the beach house that you're talking about? Team Glug Beach House?
SPEAKER_07No, that's where he had all the parties and no, that's that's still further down the line. Oh that's still down the line. Like Lenny moved, he built a uh mini ramp in the woods up uh in Armand and shit, and a bunch of people started skating on my buddy Chad, who I turned on to punk rock and skating, he he came over to Orlando to visit me and uh told me that Daytona was like a lot of people starting to skate and shit, scene starting to blow up. Right. And by this time I had moved to Orlando and met Rodney and shit, but like my friends in Daytona, I would still go home and influence them with the people I was meeting over here because Daytona was super underground. They didn't know no people in skating besides Lenny.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there as far as I like I said, that was when I was that was I was in the Orlando. Orlando actually had established DJs and buds and well, hey, like you know, big shout outs and props to everybody from the Daytona scene.
SPEAKER_03But I definitely there's a couple more things I want to, you know, ask you guys about before we gotta wrap it up from you know, time can restraints and all
Florida Versus California Skate Culture
SPEAKER_03that. Um so talking about you know spending time in California, like how do you guys feel, you know, Florida skateboarding, especially over the years, has stacked up against Cali skateboarding, being that they've they tend to get like a lot of the shine and the props and everything, and wet where I see a lot of Florida skaters end up moving out there and kind of bringing a lot of that shine to Cali.
SPEAKER_04Uh I was just gonna say, I would just literally you kind of took the words out of my mouth there. It's kind of funny. There are a lot of killer skaters in California.
SPEAKER_03Right, and I'm not trying to take anything away from that.
SPEAKER_04Not just from Florida, but all over the place.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You if you, you know, I hate to say it, but if you not nowadays with social media and everything, but back then or back, you know, even still now, they there's still people, if you really want to have a a solid career and you want to be recognized, if you're looking to be either in competition or you know, be um, you know, whatever genre of skateboard you're skateboarding, street, verbal, whatever. Um skateboarding in California is kind of where the comp most of the companies are located. Um so it's there's just kind of that you can you can I don't know, right? You can make it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you can make it.
SPEAKER_04It's just it's like it kind of the analogy I equate it to is uh very similar to a lot of things like uh you know, if you want to go out to Hollywood and be an actor or actress, right? Like that's where you go. If you want to be on Broadway, you you move to New York. New York, yeah, and you try to be Broadway. If you want to be a dancer, you move to New York and try to be in, you know, Broadway or whatever, dancer. That's like there's certain areas where that's if you want to be country music, you're going to Nashville. Yeah, exactly. There's just kind of some things in skateboarding in California is hand in hand. But you're totally right. There's been tons of Florida skaters, Mike McGill, Rodney Mullen, Rodney Mowen. I mean, the list can go on and on Clive Dixon.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but we talk current pros. Andrew Reynolds was from Florida originally. You got Jamie Foy, Zion Wright.
SPEAKER_04Like, we've been here and rattled names for like 30 minutes, probably, all of our badass.
SPEAKER_07My personal opinion on this factor is just they get fame faster.
SPEAKER_04But it's like I'm saying it kind of goes with the view.
SPEAKER_07If you're trying to get more recognition quicker, so the guys out here are trying harder for longer, I think, and a little more dedicated.
SPEAKER_03East Coast definitely has always had that little bit more kind of fucking writ to it, raw. Yeah, like I mean, it was you can I can always tell an East Coast skater versus a West Coast skater. Normally, you know what I mean? I don't know, it's just kind of a persona. They got more flair. Sometimes that's what I think. Sometimes Cali goes, but then but now with social media, a lot of times, you know, f uh.
SPEAKER_04I will say yes to that because there's certain personalities that I think like they come from Florida and then get out there, and they've been out there for a few years, and then again, they get sucked into that California mentality.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but on the East Coast history.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07No, no, I can, but it's just that it's kind of a different mentality. We're just not documented, and that's the problem. We have history here on the East Coast. Daytona Beach is like the Venice Dam of the East Coast. And that's, you know, they fail to realize that Port Orange in Daytona, south of Daytona, actually, that park was built before Carlsbad. They all claim Carlsbag is the first park in the country. No, skateboard city in Port Orange was built in 1974, right after they did the dude made the Eurethane wheel. That part came out. But like I said, we don't get those claims to history or any of that shit.
SPEAKER_04Other than watching other documentaries and like the Alva story.
SPEAKER_07I think it's a jealousy factor on some ends. Because I think some east if you're gonna go there. All the best guys are from the fucking East Coast. Yeah, but we can simplify. Robbie Mullen, he's the one who fucking developed streetscape. McGill, he's the one who fucking brought the spins in the world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but we can sum this up, this part of the conversation up pretty quick. Yeah, let's do that. It's classic East and West. Yeah, yeah. It's Calian, East Coast, and West Coast have always been there. There's always been this little East Coast, West Coast.
SPEAKER_07We got shitty waves, so what do we do? We spin.
SPEAKER_04I would agree with that partially, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_04But I think there's always been that classic East Coast, West Coast rivalry. Oh, definitely.
SPEAKER_03The word I'm looking for. Rivalry, for sure.
SPEAKER_04There's all and that's kind of what it is. If you I don't want to get like Charlie trying to get a little, you know, they're jealous. Oh, yeah. But it all comes down to that little West Coast, East Coast rivalry. Which I think is a cool jealousy. And we've and many people have had this conversation about what trick, who invented it, at what time, and even on Grosso's love letters and some of that stuff, they'll admit, you know, that this might have been the first picture of a backside air. Don't forget about that. But we don't know if it was actually the first person to do it because everybody was on skateboards and oh, we were all trying to create the latest thing. I love our it has been recorded fairly officially that Tony Alba was the first person to do a frontside air.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04But you know, even that, even though that's fairly that's fairly confirmed. It's between Martin and him, though. But who knows, really, right?
SPEAKER_07Right.
SPEAKER_04Who knows at the same day and time and place on the East Coast or somewhere in the world, somebody else might have just been cracking the edge of that coping and flying out like he was. Like I said, I'm not saying it was or wasn't, but I think it'd be pretty naive or you know, to say, oh yeah, that's definitive.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_04Because I think we've all admitted down the road now that we could say, you know what, there were people skating in uh quarter pipes. We had quarter pipes, we were trying to do quarter pipe kick tricks here.
SPEAKER_03Well, Mitch Kaufman and them were skating pools, you know, Rat Town, you know, at the same time, you know, so it's like the same.
SPEAKER_04It's like when there was skating going on more than just in that little, those weren't the only dogtown weren't the only thing.
SPEAKER_07I'd have to say. Fucking West Coast is polished and East Coast is kind of fucking dirty, scummy, fucking. Well, it's wrong, which I love, bro. I love it. I'm not the movie star, guys.
SPEAKER_04It's always been there, it always will be there, I think. It doesn't go away. Um, I think social media and stuff has helped smooth it out a little. Yeah, for sure. All kind of now, you don't necessarily have to be in Cali or go to Cali to make a name for yourself in skateboarding.
SPEAKER_03Not at all. That's the beautiful thing about social media.
SPEAKER_04If you want to, you can go a little further if you go out there. For sure. Even if it's just for a few months or like a year to get a bunch of coverage, get a bunch of video footage. You can go right back home and be a pro skater from Iowa, from Montana, from Michigan, and you can fly and go do your trips and everything. The sponsors don't get crap. As long as you're posting your videos and your clips and doing what the sponsors want you to do, they don't care where the fuck you live. Yeah, but discovering new spots.
SPEAKER_07Post, post, post, tag, tag, listen, that could be you could back in the day though, you could have been the baddest motherfucking best skater in the fucking world. Nobody would know who you are.
SPEAKER_03Nobody would know who you are, yeah. Nobody knows who you are. Yeah, now everybody's got everybody's got a computer in their pocket that can record in 4K HD and shit like that, and then they can edit it their video right on their phone.
SPEAKER_04And you'd be like, who the fuck is that dude?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then we'd be like, you know, and we I've brain farting some names, but gone on to be like, oh, that's fucking oh shit.
SPEAKER_05But not a couple of years later, you're like, oh, that's that fucking dude.
SPEAKER_03Well, let me ask you, uh, I got I want to ask you uh in a bit, uh Charlie, about you know, your career working with Team Pain and building
Vans Contests And The PLG Moment
SPEAKER_03all over the place. But first I want to ask you about your you know professional kind of competition, competing career, and you know, some of the events, you know, in contests you've competed in, and I know you've skated combi, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, just recently I got into that a few years ago. So I'll I'll try not to be too winded on it. Um I started, I won the Vans Amateur Contest at the first Vans Warp Tour. Right on. When it came through Florida. Is that 96? It was at the Cocoa Beach Fairgrounds. Okay. On 95 and the McDonald's 520. Right. And 95 right there where the McDonald's is. I don't know if you know that area or not. I'm talking to you like you know the area. Yeah, not super good, but I've been there. I think I knew it's a lot of things. It's very c like if you grew up going to the beach and stuff in Orlando, this area, you you know that kind of that intersection. Right. It's 95 and 520. Um, there's Cocoa Beach Fairgrounds. Right, right. Or Cocoa Fairgrounds, not Cocoa Beach, because you're not at the beach yet. Um and so the Vans Warp Tour came through there and had their Vans amateur contest. Okay. And uh not to again but that's when I I um I got first place.
SPEAKER_07Thank you, Mr.
SPEAKER_04Dorfman, and I beat uh Anthony Furlong for the top spot in that contest. And he uh we've never actually had a very good relationship since then, and I'm not sure why.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I've heard a couple of people say that.
SPEAKER_04Uh yeah, but not you know, Anthony's a a good guy. He, you know, I don't know him that well to say anything bad about him, but we've always had kind of a weird uh vibe, so to speak, when we come in contact with each other, skate on the same ramp with each other since that contest. I don't know if he felt like I didn't deserve the win or not, but I was actually a little older at that time, but I was still a sponsored am. Right. I come back from Cali, I'd been in Daytona, skated, and I was probably uh fucking 96, so I could do the math, I guess. Uh it's 2020, uh, 96. How old would I have been? 28. 28. So yeah, I was getting up there as far as an amateur skater. I should have been pro already. For sure. You know. Um, but I was am, so I skated the am contest and I won. Well, that was the first year they did it, and the first place prize was all expense paid trip to the Vans Amateur National Championships in Cali in 1996. Right on. So I have a really cool story about that. Um, so I won, I got the ticket, I went out there. Um, I think I was skating for Bad Boy Club at that time. I wasn't skating for STETM anymore. I was skating for Life's Bad Boy Club BBC. Okay. Um with Monty, Jeff Phillips. Oh no, that was That's fucking it. That was before that. So I don't know who I was skating for then. Which board. Yeah, no, I it's all right. I got I I'll get it back. Uh I can't remember who I was writing for at that time, as far as sponsors were. Oh, that was DBS. I was skating for DVS. DVS, okay. Uh Fresh Jive, yeah, uh Dank skateboards. Right on. Uh yeah, that's that's 80O shoes. Yep. Um, yeah, those are my sponsors back then. That was my second little surge, so to speak, as an amateur. Right. I was coming back doing my little second kind of wind of my career. Um, so I get out there and the contest, the actual pro contest, which was the Vans Triple Crown contest in 1996 at the Hard Rock Cafe Luke was the pro contest.
SPEAKER_07Pierre Luc and a couple other people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Pierre Luc actually ended up winning and going on to be Pierre Luke. Um jumped the gun on my story, Daniel. But anyways, because that's a little point that I like to make later on in the story. So when we got there, there was 30 of us, 30 winners from all over the United States. So they did a semi-final. They built us a completely separate ramp at the Velodrome where they do the 10-speed races. Oh shit. Yeah. Fucking weird as shit. No crowd, no spectators, just the contest. That's weird. It was so weird. It was a semi like a semi-final.
SPEAKER_03It was like being in a corona bubble before there was a corona pandemic bubble.
SPEAKER_04Very similar. It was the weirdest thing. So they had us go there and do a semifinal, and they took the top ten to hard rock to skate in a final before the pro final as a like a opening, like an opening act, if you will, back, you know, so to speak, right? Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So we were like, what? What are they doing? Crap. So whatever, you know, we're skating out in the open sun in the middle of the flat area of the velodrome, Olympic velodrome. That's right. Yeah. We were all stoked because the big giant banks, though. Yeah. We were all skating the so we do the contest, dude. And no lie, because I I I liked this is one of my bra, a little bit of a brag moment. Second place going into the finals.
SPEAKER_03Fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_04Behind Pierre Luc Gagnon, and he's 16. Oh shit. And skating like a robot. And his dad's there, like Tony Hawk's dad was back in the 80s at Del Mar. Like right at ringside coaching.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. The man in the corner. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And uh, dude, we got to the the hard rock ramp, completely different ramp. First time they had a big giant roll in. Five foot above the platform. Oh, sick. And I was like, oh my God, that's rad. I'd never done one. Like, I've rolled in channels, but there's never been a roll-in that went above the like four or five foot above the platform.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And there was an extension, a little uh like a four or eight foot wide extension on one side of the ramp. This big giant roll-in with a big channel. And dude, when I got to that ramp and they started letting us practice on the ramp, I literally fell in love with that roll-in like a roller coaster. I kept going up there like a kid at the theme park, getting back in line to go to the freaking roller coaster again. Yeah. I just and I could literally just blast first wall, eight-foot methods, seven, eight-foot methods. I was doing seven, eight-foot Madonnas with that roll-in.
unknownShh!
SPEAKER_04Bam! Hell yeah. I was like, dude. And like I said, no bragging, but I they were everybody was like, holy shit, Rodney's fucking kicked into fucking next gear. It's good, Rodney's the gonna be the man to beat, as far as I was feeling it, you know? Yeah, yeah. At least that's just what I was feeling. But dude, three runs. I fucking over-amped, rolled in, bailed, rolled in, bailed. I think I rolled in and made a the one of the Madonnas, about a six-foot Madonna, and actually bailed like halfway through the run. Then I got back up and finished the run and then did a little finger flip invert on the extension at like the very end of my run. So I got like a half decent pull and ended up in like I think it was sixth or seventh.
SPEAKER_07He did that. If I remember right. No, he over Amps.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, and then Pierre won, and the first place prize was a $30,000 pro contract with Vans. And that's when Pierre went on to be PLG. Go on and become PLG. And props to him. He was ripping. He was like a robot dude.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he's definitely sea guy. Yeah, that was it was take a quick pause real quick.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
Pause For The Five-Star Rating
SPEAKER_03This is your daily reminder to pause for the cause. Give your boy Paulie and Paulie on the pot a five-star rating. Go ahead, like, subscribe, and share the podcast, Instagram, the channel, the Twitter account, all that good shit. I'd be very appreciative. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.
Turned Pro By A Points Technicality
SPEAKER_03Sorry about that. We had a little bit of a technical difficulty. Not really. AC guy showed up, so that takes precedent for sure. When the AC is out in Florida, it is like fucking all hands-on-deck emergency. For the cars in your house, it should almost be required by law. I agree, dude. I totally agree. I don't know how people lived down here before. You know, William Carrier, I think, or whatever was his name. God bless you for inventing air conditioning. Oh, yeah. But anyway, we were talking, you know, we had just talked about you uh skating against PLG.
SPEAKER_04So that was that was um, I'll say I'll pick up right there. Kind of that was the beginning of my second surge, so to speak, or second level of my career. What is your second exam? But it automatically kind of trajected me into the pro status. Right. Because what happened was uh the next year um the van's warp tour came by again. Okay. And so I was like, shit, I'm gonna go win that shit again and try to fucking get out of here. You know, the van, I was gonna stay amateur. Well, during the time from the first one to the second one, Tampa Pro had started doing their contests, right? So Tampa had a big provert contest, and I was like, you know what? I was and it's open. Brian was like, it's an open pro contest. Yeah, there was like a hundred freaking vert dudes entered in that contest. Holy shit. If I remember right, there was, yeah, it was a I mean, there was like, I remember when they started doing that pro contest, dude. It took them four days to get just to the guys from the street thing, yeah. Yeah, like they four days of qualifying to get to the final dudes. They're like 200 entries in the in the street, and like 50 plus in the vert. Yeah. And so, and it was open, like you said, it wasn't an in invite or whatever event, it was an open pro contest. So I didn't think much of it. And I was like, you know what? Fuck, I'm gonna enter. I paid my entrance fee, it was like 150 bucks or whatever, and I skated on my own just to see how I would do. I don't even think I did, I can't even remember how I did, but it wasn't that great. I didn't make the finals or anything, but I didn't consider myself a pro. Right. I was still skating amateur status and just kind of entered the pro contest for shits and giggles. Well, unbeknownst to me, there were some other skaters that weren't so happy about that come warp tour time. So we get to the warp tour. Now they have the metal, this metal fabricated ramp that they're bringing around. Right. Salva's there, they're doing the pro demos. They got Caballero and a couple guys there doing demonstrations in between the amateur qualifying contests and stuff, the qualifying rounds. Yeah. He was on tour too. So I'm practicing for the contest. Sonia Catalino, Sonia Catalino for running castle, California Amateur Skateboard League, Florida Amateur Skateboard League. Right. Um, she comes, taps me on the shoulder, wants to talk to me. She goes, You can't skate in the contest. And I went, what are you talking about? And she goes, You're pro. You skated the Tampa Pro contest. And she goes, You have points on the World Cup standings now. Because the contest was a pro open pro contest, but unbeknownst to me, it was sanctioned. And I had officially got some points that put me on this World Cup pro ranking thing. And so she's like, Yeah. Also, some of some of the other skaters up on the ramp were like, hey, he skated the pro contest. Yeah, of course, yeah. And was like, You can't let him in. Yeah, you can't let him in. He does eight food, he does eight foot Madonna. But I bet yeah I know who it was. There was a couple of guys that we think we know who it was that were like, Yeah, they fucking got me out of there. But it was good and and it was a blessing in disguise for me.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_04Because as bad as I wanted to win that thing and do my amateur, it actually propelled me into the professional status, and I went ahead and just rolled with it. Yeah. And just went ahead and started skating pro contests and started just kind of stepping up my level and getting better new sponsors and you know, just kind of trying to hang out on that level.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, build build up from that.
SPEAKER_04Um, which did go on. So we'll go back to the original question. Like, as that kind of kicks into gear, yeah, I go on and to compete in more Tampa Pro contests
X Games Proximity And The 900
SPEAKER_04and do okay. Um, I went and I think it was the first year of the X Games or the second year of the X games. I got the invite to go to the X-Trials. Yeah. Oh, yeah. When they called them the X-Trials, X-Trials. And I went to the one in Kentucky. It was supposed to be in Atlanta, but you're going to be able to get the. I went to I went to one in an X-Trials in Kentucky, and I went to an X-Trials in uh Virginia. I think it was Virginia. On the river, Jamestown. Oh yeah. Uh it was like right on the Civil, there's like a famous Civil War spot right there. Pretty sure it was Virginia.
SPEAKER_07Obviously. Right on. There's a big famous bridge in the river, Jamestown River, I think. No, they I remember they had one in 2002. It was Tyler, Texas, Atlanta.
SPEAKER_04I did that one there. I did one. That was in where the the uh the race, the horse race. That's where the one in Texas, Grand Prairie.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, okay, Grand Prairie.
SPEAKER_04I did one, I did an ex-trials in Grand Prairie, Texas, uh, Kentucky, and then I think Virginia, and I got, I was ranked 21 on the World Cup standings and got invited as a um alternate to the X games in San Francisco where Tony made the 900. Oh shit. And so my sponsors, because I was an alternate, didn't want to pay for my that's the thing, you were getting invites, but you weren't going. But my yeah, my sponsors weren't helping me travel too much, just a lot of free shit.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_04So I was still cooking. I used to be a chef and work cooking in between traveling and stuff. So I I Tim got the fucking ramp building gig for the Amp X games in San Francisco. Fuck yeah. So I called Tim like, hey, can you put me on the crew to go out there and work? And so I'll go out there and work, and then I'll be there and I can show up for my alternate status and sign in. So I ended up going out there. It was an awesome time. I went, I dude, I worked for six weeks, got paid to work. Um, and then when the X game started, everybody else was off for a few days. I got to go sign up and be a part of the X games, got my little athlete package, I got my badge, I could go on all the athlete level lounges and stuff, and got to practice during all the practice sessions, and I think it was Tom Boyle that was possibly gonna drop because he was injured, working an injury, and I was like, I might get in, I might get in, but he skated, he skated anyways, and so I wasn't able to actually compete. But I do have some pictures somewhere. Uh I'd have to dig them up out of a shoebox somewhere of me doing like a judo air off the extension with Tony and Rune in the background. Fuck yeah, and then a little, a little history if people don't know it. When you guys see Tony Hawk make the 900 on the clip that they show, you see me. I'm on the sideline behind Tony. I'm the guy in the green, olive green sweatshirt hoodie sweatshirt, and I got the dank board I'm holding up and trying to get it in the camera.
SPEAKER_03Dude, I'm gonna have to go re-watch that.
SPEAKER_04Hey, we're carrying Tony off the ramp, and I'm like this, fucking hold my dank board up, and fucking you can see me, my olive green sweatshirt. Yeah. Jumped up from behind the the those little triangle fucking advertising signs. We're sitting on the other side of it like this on the flat. And when he made that shit, we fucking whoa jumped over and fucking tackled him and shit. What sucks is Colin should have won.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But Colin had already done. And I don't even know if I'll be able to say the trick right. I think it was a nose grind, kick flip. Big flip. It was big spin. Yeah. It was uh he did a rock, and this was the crazy, he was trying the trick forever, like for the whole best trick contest, and finally made a rock faky, did a 180, big spin, nose slide, revert. Right?
SPEAKER_02What the fuck?
SPEAKER_04And then fucking when he made it, he fucking rock faked on the other wall and came back and did the same fucking trick switch.
SPEAKER_02You're fucking kidding me.
SPEAKER_04He made it. No fucking and the fucking crowd just went fuck winner.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then Tony was still trying the nine, but everybody on the rant was like, fuck!
SPEAKER_06No, I remember it.
SPEAKER_04Fucking, oh my god, the contest was. He's literally in the same run, fucking, and fucking came back and fucking fool shh fucking did it switch.
SPEAKER_06That's fucking insane. No, Tony stole his thunder, dude. So yeah. I remember watching it.
SPEAKER_03I remember watching it live on ESPN as a kid. I remember it.
SPEAKER_04Goosebumps talking about that shit. Colin was like, we were all just going, no way. Because tricks like that were just beginning on Bert.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04I mean, kickflips had just not just come out, but you know, people were just starting to do flip, kick flip tricks. They started to do more kind of street style combinations on the coping or like mini ramp combinations. All of a sudden, streets kind of lip tricks started coming into play. Colin and Bucky and Rune. Oh, for sure. And uh all those guys were doing them. When you watch some of those old session videos from the Y, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, Mike Frazier, dude.
SPEAKER_04Like you watch videos from his part from early 90s, like 91, 92.
SPEAKER_03Oh, fucking.
SPEAKER_04He's doing all that shit that everybody's they're all trying to do now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. No, I know.
SPEAKER_04Or those guys were trying to do later on.
SPEAKER_07Skating was better than it is now.
SPEAKER_04Well, Tony, a lot of people know this, but Tony used to fly to Tampa just to skate with Mike and pre and have like skate sessions because nobody was skating anywhere.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Tony Hawk would fly to Tampa and stay there for like a week and just skate with Mike for a week.
SPEAKER_03Didn't know that. That's rad.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's like he was the it's where he uh Tony made the first kick flip 540. Tony was at the spot. Shit. That was his first uh I believe that's what he says. That's the history. Uh uh Tony Hawk made the first kick flip five, and that was at uh the spot.
SPEAKER_03Fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_04Skating with fucking Mike and those guys.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, big shout outs to uh to Spot and Mike Frazier. He's one of my favorite skaters to watch on Vert, dude. The power and the technical one of my heroes, dude. And his sweepers on Vert, the way he like launches them, almost like a boneless sweeper. Like Superman. Dude, it's fucking so hyped.
SPEAKER_04I used to do them the old-fashioned way, but after I saw that, I started doing the jump tail smackers.
SPEAKER_03That's just how I always learned them. Like I don't smack my tail on the way in, but when I like do them, I just always jump back to the city.
SPEAKER_04In the beginning, I do it old school style, but I try to do like the rock, uh, the rockettes, high kick, and try to get a real good smack on the tail instead of like the drag the tail over to the fucking key.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, no, for sure. Fraser is like Monty with more skill.
SPEAKER_06Uh power. You know, I'm sorry. Yeah, powerhouse.
How Rodney Built His Inverts
SPEAKER_04And yeah, I will say this, it's like as far as my skating, if people, you know, you didn't ask this question, but my hand plants, my inspiration for those are mainly 100% John Grigley. Yeah. Um, when I went to St. Pete and uh I think I didn't even skate, I was just watching. It was a contest. I might have been skating in the amateur or something. Maybe I skated the amateur or Gromit Division or something. But it was a big vert contest. Grigley was there, Nolar was there. It was the first time I had seen any of those guys and met those guys. And I was like, wow, and I saw John Grigley skate and do hand plants, and I was like, I'm gonna fucking do inverts like that, dude. Hell yeah. And I started learning inverts, and my friend TJ could do inverts. He taught me how to do regular inverts.
SPEAKER_07It's in the fucking thrashing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but then I got good at like decent little inverts, but street skating came around, and people started doing street plants.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I adapt me and my buddy John Thomas, JT from Alba, would go up to Win Dixie, and we still have my ramp in my backyard, but we would go skate the parking lot and skate the curbs and do wall rising. We'd Ollie off the wall into a street plant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I learned how to perfect all these crazy street plants, and I started just easily being able to adapt them on the vert ramp and stall out sad's one-footers, tuck-knees, Andrex, and I just I kind of found that sweet spot and I was able to adapt all those trickety freaking street plants into the vert. And that's when I started doing finger flips and gymnastarials. And me and Fed were like the East Coast, West Coast rivals for hand plants. Fuck yeah. When we'd show up at a contest for each other, you know, like uh Stone Mountain, Georgia, uh stuff like that, and we were competing against each other.
SPEAKER_07You're learning how to do burial hand plants and trying to do finger flip hand
Masters Contests And Learning Bowls
SPEAKER_07plants.
SPEAKER_03So recently in your career, you've been skating, what, the master's divisions? Yes.
SPEAKER_04So the pro kind of thing fizzled out, so to speak. Um I've always kept skating, never quit skating. I've pretty much always had sponsors um in one way, shape, or another. Right. Um, but as far as competition, skating professional competitions, that had kind of fallen by the wayside after I'd say 2004, 2005. When was the last Tampa Pro I skated? 2004, 2005, maybe somewhere in there. Okay. I skated the last my last Tampa Pro contest and didn't do that great or whatever. I was there's a lot of back history and why I've had my ups and downs. Right, yeah, yeah. Addictions, yeah, yeah, I hear you. All kinds of things. But I've even through that, the only longest times I've ever actually not skated is only when I've been incarcerated. Yeah. I've always gotten a skateboard immediately upon exiting and skating somewhere, somehow, doing something, you know. I never really gave it up ever. Right. Um, obviously, like you and we've talked about this, just there would be times where maybe didn't skate as much or not as motivated, but I wasn't not skating. Yeah. You know. Um, so a couple years went by.
SPEAKER_06I want to skateboard.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, a couple years went by, a few years went by, and then they started. Um, I mean, the combi's been going on for a few years. I just never got involved with it, never thought I could get involved with it. Um and then I think actually before that, 2016, maybe a few years ago. The Florida Bird series.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I got that bird contest. And then there's uh there's another contest somewhere or something. And then there's uh I find out, even though the Grind for Life series has been going on for like 10 years at that point or longer. Um, I find out about, you know, I kind of get wind of it, so to speak, and that they have different divisions and they have a master's division or whatever. So I was like, well, fuck it. I'll just go start showing up to those contests and skate and see what they're all about. Because at this point, like I said, I already started my skateboard lessons business. I kind of went back to cooking, then I got out of that, started my skateboard lessons business. Skate a lot with an ache. And uh, so I was like, well, screw it. I'll just go start skating these Grind for Life contests, which I did a couple of those.
SPEAKER_03Good exposure, good way to pick up students, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I got so I got uh started winning all the master's ones, and I'm like, well, this is fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, winning.
SPEAKER_04Not to say anything, I'm not trying to brag about myself, but it was, you know, it was fun. There was only a few of us. It's like, you know, getting first out of three or four guys. Right, right. But it was still kind of cool, and it allowed me to meet a lot of parents, a lot of kids, get a lot of students. I got a lot of business, I still do, yeah, get a lot of my business from those from that contest series. Um, so I ended up doing that for a couple of years, and at this point, I will say this is when I start skating bowls. Right on, so to speak. A couple years before this, I'm still a half-pipe guy, but I had skated Daytona in the late 80s or early 90s and learned how to carve, but never focused on bowl riding at all, skate parks at all. It was still I was still a vert guy, half-pipe guy, right? 100%. And but I knew, like I said, I knew kind of how to carve from Daytona and stuff. OSP gets built. Or skate park gets built. Then all of a sudden, all these cement parks start showing up, and now I'm going to these grind for life contests and skating these bowl contests. Yeah. And so I'm starting to learn how to carve and learn how to use the bowls. And and I picked it up pretty quick with my you know background skill level. I was able to adapt pretty easy to these bowls and start whipping out some hand plants and some airs and some bonuses, and everybody's like, whoa, next lab brought the master's level up a little bit when I started skating the grind for life contest. So I had a little bit of a couple of winnings, right? I had the winning, I had a first place, a couple of first places from the
Chasing The Combi Masters Invite
SPEAKER_04Florida Vert series, yeah, from the Vert, and then uh the first year, then I had a couple of first places from the Grind for Life bowl, right? Right. So I was like, I wonder if fucking Don boss it, because I'd met him a few times in the ex-trials contests and shit. So I know who knows. I follow him on social media, so I'm sending a message and I'm like, hey, what are the odds of me being able to get? What does it take? What do I have to do to be invited to the combi? Right. Because now I got my eyes on this combi thing, masters. Yeah. You know, they've switched to pros and now have a master's event and the legends, yep, and this stuff. So I'm like, well, maybe I got maybe I could fucking go out there and do something. My bowl skills are halfway decent. I'm winning some contests, and Don's like, absolutely at this point, and they're barely just enough guys for them to invite for the masters.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so they're like, hell yeah, come on.
SPEAKER_04So they were like, yeah, Rodney, fucking come on. And first year I went out there, dude. I made the finals, got fifth place, made the finals, and then the next year, and this is where it gets a little interesting, right? So that year I skate the combi. I get I get fifth place.
SPEAKER_06The darkness.
SPEAKER_04Well, well, I guess I could mention that when I lived in California, I should probably throw this out there.
The Old Warrant That Changed Everything
SPEAKER_04Between 1986 and 1989, I lived with Steve Stedham in California, got into some meth later on for skating reasons. Yeah. And eventually, like all drugs, the drug kind of took over, and I got in some trouble, and I did three months or four months in jail and got sentenced three years probation. And then I left California. Yeah. I I did the time, but then got my probation transferred to Florida. And then I went to meet my probation officer in Florida. She violated me for not having my money that I was supposed to have for the first time I met her. And goes, Well, you're violating. This is before computers and all that stuff. So she just puts my case back into an envelope and mails it back to California. It takes 13 years for them to issue the warrant for a felony violation of probation arrest in Orange County, California. So this is out there from 2013 to the story that I'm gonna tell you right now. 2017, I skate the combi, 2016, I skate the combi, I get fifth or sixth place, I make the finals. I go on to skate the Bull Riders Cup at Kona and get fourth or fifth place. Uh I get uh I skate the San Jose Tim Brock contest and make the finals. I get fourth place there.
SPEAKER_02Right on.
SPEAKER_04And then I skate, what was the other one? There was Combi, Tim Brock, Kona, Rocky Mountain Rampage, Colorado. Yeah. I get second place in the bowl and first or second place on Vert and third place in the bowl. Hell yeah. The bowl is being sanctioned by World Cup. You're stacking points. So at the end of 2016, verify it. Go look it up. Rodney Mead, number one ranked skater in Masters on the World Cup ranking in 2017. Hell yeah. I was number one ranked guy. So that earned me a golden ticket to the combi the next year. Yeah. To skate against Darren. Yeah, all the way to the golden ticket to the final to skate against Darren. Darren never won the year before, the year that I got I made the finals and got six or fifth or sixth, I think it was. Shout out to Darren. He's a super bad guy. Kill it. Super cool guy. So now me and Darren are golden ticket to the finals next year. So I booked my plane ticket to Orange County again, knowing that this warrant's out there, but not thinking, well, I'm not stealing cars anymore and I'm not doing meth anymore. So what are the odds a police officer is gonna ask me for an ID and run my name and find out I have a 26-year-old warrant?
SPEAKER_03Right. You're like, you know, yeah, I'm on the straight narrow.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, I'm going to the contest. I'm back at the hotel. Well, unbeknownst to me, I booked this Motel 6, and a lot of people will know this and probably laugh about that as they're listening to this from California. The Motel 6 around the corner from the Orange County nice uppity uptown mall. The Motel 6 is backed up to the Riverwash, which was at that time Shantytown.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Homelessville, as far as the eye could see, both ways in the Riverwash. Shit. And that's what so there was a cop in that parking lot every day, all day.
SPEAKER_03Damn it.
SPEAKER_04And so I'm not, but I'm still not doing anything. Right. I'm leaving the hotel, I'm skating. Stedham's got his big tour bus. We're in the hotel together, you know. I was skating for Stedham. Right, right. And uh I went out there a week and two weeks before the combi. I wanted to fucking show people I earned that damn golden ticket spot.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Right? Because the first year I did okay, but I had way more. I wasn't even doing airs and shit in the bowl, and somehow I made the finals.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So as soon as I started figuring that bowl out, I was doing backside airs, and actually I had something to fucking show, or at least in my mind. I went out there to get that bowl dialed for like a week and a half before the contest, right? I'm out there every day skating two, three hour sessions a day. Uh or more, like a couple times a day. Right, right.
SPEAKER_03Getting in there a couple hours, taking a break, getting in there a couple hours.
SPEAKER_04It's Thursday. It's qualifying day. And I don't have to qualify. I get to take the day off. The bowl's closed because they're doing the competition. It's not going to be open. And it's going to be scheduled practice for the pros after that. You know, the masters don't get another uh another practice session that day. We get the day off. So my got a buddy come down from North Cal, brings a bucket of weed. We're fucking smoke out in the hotel room. He stays the night. We fucking get up, we burn out, we go eat at the Denny's in the parking lot, go back to the hotel room, fucking burn out, get in his truck to go drive over to the combi to watch the fucking qualifiers. Right. A cop, the cop in the parking lot of the hotel follows us out and immediately pulls us over as soon as we exit the hotel parking lot.
SPEAKER_03Fucking kidding me.
SPEAKER_04And I pretend to like, well, this doesn't concern me. I'm not the driver. I try to my phone. I'm like, yeah, I'm from Florida, I'm a pro skater, I'm out of town. Um, you know, give them a ticket for whatever. I'm trying to play fucking you don't need my information. Yeah, I'm not important in this situation. I hate to say it. Yeah. Like to dig and ask questions. What's your name? You got any ID on you? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04And thank God I learned my lesson over the years of other crimes and interactions with the police. Mistakes. Mistakes. Not crazy ones, but um that lying was probably not in my best interest, especially all the way out in California on vacation. Yeah. Now with a house and a ramp being built back home. We were right in the middle of all this. Right. That, yeah, it was crazy time here. And um, so this cop asked me my name, asked me my social security number, because I told him I'd left my ID at the hotel, which I had thrown in the guy's glove compartment.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04Like, I don't have ID. I left it hotel. We're just going to the skate park or whatever, you know, just playing stupid. And um, so he asked me my social security number. Fuck. So I'm like, he's like, what? I was like, 595-305571. And at that point, I knew it was about to go down. I told my buddy Mark. I'd already, it's funny, it's because the night before I'd had dinner with this lady Mariah, Mark, my buddy Mark, and a couple of his buddies. Right. And we had had dinner at Outback or something. I told them the whole story, and that I had this warrant and stuff. And sure enough, me and Mark are driving out. This cop pulls down and be like, you know what's getting ready to happen. I told you what's gonna happen right now. He's gonna run my name, and I'm they're gonna take me into custody. Uh a felony warrant. No probation, no, no, uh, not probation, but no bail.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04No bail until I see a judge, which could take three days. It's Thursday afternoon. Oh, fuck. It will take me. They take me to Orange County. Yeah. I uh they they take me to the main, they book me in, I'm there till Friday, then they transfer me back to the same place that I served my time back in fucking '89. The James A. Music facility, a farming place.
SPEAKER_03Damn it.
SPEAKER_04Like a uh P farm, physical farm. It was crazy. I was like, why are they sending me back there? They must know they're gonna freaking hit me and they're gonna make me stay here for a couple years or something. You know, I'm thinking they're gonna hammer me. Yeah. I'm like, I'm shitting myself. I can't bail out. I missed the contest. I missed the golden ticket. Everybody in the combat is like, where the fuck is Rodney? He's been here practicing all week. He was killing it, and he's MIA. Rodney's M I A. Only per people that know are Mark, who tells Mariah and Sutham, and then they proceed to tell Don and everybody, and then they don't announce it or anything. But there's a few people in the circle that know where I am. And so, dude, weekend doesn't count. Thank God I booked my going home ticket Tuesday because we were supposed to do a Venice Beach photo shoot and shit. Yeah. Uh the day after with juice and everything. Yeah. And so I miss the contest Sunday. Monday, I go to court. I'm the last motherfucker in the cage at like five o'clock in the afternoon, Monday, and the prosecutors scrambling, the fucking public defender scrambling, they're up at the judge talking to that. They don't even know why the fuck I'm there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I have a 26-year-old warrant.
SPEAKER_03That they're like, what the fuck?
SPEAKER_04That they're like, they don't even know what it's for. Yeah. It's just an active warrant. They're having they're researching the case file. I'm shitting myself at this point because the lady comes up and asks me, not to get into too much detail, but how much time did you serve for your drug possession in Florida? Yeah. I said, Well, I got eight months. I did eight months for drug possession uh in Florida. And she goes, Okay, I'll be right back. And I'm like, but you know, I'm ready to tell these people the whole story, why I'm there, how long it's been. This should be thrown out. Right. It's this should be, you know what I mean? This is so old. This should be done. Now they're looking at my previous arrest history in Florida.
SPEAKER_02Fuck, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And so I'm thinking, oh, they're they're gonna see a pattern. They're gonna be like, oh, now he's back here. Yeah. Fuck this guy. Yeah, lock him up. You know, so and blessing in disguise, dude. The lady comes back and goes, Look, we're gonna give you credit for the eight months. We're gonna double it, give you 16 months credit, time served. You get out tonight. Later. And I went, okay. But what's the catch? Make sure I heard that, right? And there was no other lawyer words put in there that I didn't understand.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's done. No core costs, no fine, no warrant. Squashed, we're done. I get out tonight. This is over. Yes. I'll take that deal. Yes, I'll take that. Sold. I got out at like two o'clock in the morning. Of course. And fucking hits to ride with somebody. I have nothing, dude. Yeah. My luggage is in Vegas with Stedham. All my stuff takes from the hotel. Yeah, yeah. And he puts it on the bus and takes it back with him, all my skate stuff, all my luggage. Thank God I had a layover in Vegas.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Coincidence.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Had a layover in Vegas. Got to pick up all my luggage in Vegas. But I got out, got a ride from some people that just got out of jail to the airport, uh, John Wayne Airport, and got dropped off there at like four in the morning, had to wait for the doors to open, sit around all day until like one o'clock, two o'clock in the afternoon until my plane took off. Got on the plane, got my luggage in Vegas, and flew home with no record and no more warrant on my
Passport Freedom And Career Revival
SPEAKER_04thing. So it immediately if people don't know this, you cannot get a passport if you have a warrant, or if you're on probation or anything like that. It has to be all cleared up until they issue you your passport and you're allowed to travel. So for many, many years, Rodney never got to go to VerteTag, never got to go to Bondi Bowl, never got to go to any of these places because I couldn't, Rodney couldn't go international.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So Rodney go international.
SPEAKER_04And now I'm thinking I'm at this contest and I'm missing my mountain peak top golden ticket moment at the combi to only find out that my mountain just got higher. Right. And I come out of missing the combi contest to only get my passport and go to Vert Attack. Fuck yeah. Win a uh best trick helmet along with Bucky, McCaeg, and a couple other guys, but I won a best trick helmet for Invert Champion. And I won second place in the Masters behind Nikki Guerrero. Hell yeah. And there was about 30 masters to qualify and skate against and just killed it in Sweden. Verditch. Propped out to Verditac. Can't wait for that shit next year.
SPEAKER_03Fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_04Fucking it's the most awesome skate contest. The people there are killer. And to be able to passport and skate international now, I can always go back to the combi. Right. I can go masters. I can go legends. However, they're gonna do it when they re redo because they're gonna read redo it next year. At least that's what Christy says. They're gonna re-reformat it a little bit. And it's probably gonna be at the outdoor one. Hell yeah. Um, so that's gonna change things up a little bit. So maybe I get into Legends now that I'm kind of getting into that age group, or maybe she lets me skate in the Masters. I don't know. The Masters are getting ready to kick off because Bucky and Rune and all those guys are going to the Masters now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_04So that level is just like I missed my little window opportunity of winning the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or getting my name on a banner with that golden ticket. But I still, you know, I I think it did a lot of good for me. Not necessarily missing that contest, but I skated in the one after that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you were able to put all that shit behind you, bro.
SPEAKER_04But the sponsors really jumped on board. It really kind of revitalized my career now, where it's at, with a pro model with embassy skateboards, vibronic wheels, tracker trucks, duct tape ears, uh skate a lot, the keeping vert dead, um, you know, uh Kung Fu Grip. Hell yeah. Like all my sponsors, man. I've they're so behind me now, so stoked. My my skate lessons business. I have students all over Florida. I have students in Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, um Tampa, right? Jupiter, Tampa, St. Pete. Um I mean, the list goes on and on. I have clients all over Reef Orlando, uh Gabby LaVille, Nash Barfield, uh, the Lillards, Cole and Gavin Lillard have been on my little Vert program. Um uh there's just so many. There's so many. I could do Stone, uh Clay, skates all Creighton, Creighton Cummings. Um God, man, there's so many. We'll do names. I hate if I missed any of you guys. Shiloh. Yeah, Shiloh Katori, Blaze. I worked with Blaze when he was a little younger, but he was more street-oriented. Yeah, yeah. So we only did like one or two lessons, I think. But uh that was in Zephyr, or no, we went to Bradington, did some lessons with Blaze, her older brother Blaze, who kill Street.
SPEAKER_03Fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um God, there's so many. And I love them all, dude. I love my job. There's nothing more gratifying than watching these kids' faces light up when they learn new tricks.
SPEAKER_03Passing the torch.
SPEAKER_04And oh my god, it fit. I tell people the analogy is like the Grinch. Yeah. When the Grinch's heart is really small, and the scene where it's he realizes and his heart grows and grows and grows, and he becomes the good Grinch. It's that feeling that just there's nothing, you can't beat it, dude. There's just nothing like it. The grat the parents are so stoked, the kids are stoked.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, you know, not like I said, not to, I'm not usually a person that brags about myself too much, you know what I mean, in that sense, right? The word. But by having a little bit of recognition and having this past career and having these pictures in the magazines and posters and you know, these sponsors, and having this kind of up and down skating career and turn into I hate to use the word legend because I'm not dead yet. Living legends, yeah, if you will, but I don't consider myself, you know what I mean? Like I don't look at my I'm a little bit modest when it comes to that sort of thought process. But the kids are just it's so it was almost like the first time I got asked uh somebody even when I was young and got sponsored skating in St. Louis. I keep pointing back at that picture. Yeah. Uh we're on the radio. Um when I got somebody asked me for my autograph for the first time. Yeah. It's that feeling he's just like, what the dude I'm worthy, this kid wants my autograph.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And now I'm teaching kids that you know are looking up to me with that same starry-eyed kind of persona, and they're like, dude, Rodney Mead teaching me how I was getting bored. You know what Rodney Mead is? Freaking Invert Master, dude. Check out Rodney Mead's pay, dude. He owns the band's birds. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's the one of my motivation stuff too. But like I said, there's something about that that these little kids really appreciate.
SPEAKER_02For sure, dude.
SPEAKER_04And it makes feet feel good. There's nothing, you know, not to boost my ego, but it boosts my positivity, you know, where I'm an older guy. I go through ups and downs and food swings. Yeah, we all do. Shit going on, like my AC going out and my ramp needing to be refurbished and rotten out from underneath me. No, but it's the natural endorphin hop.
SPEAKER_03Well, hey, well, hey, before we close this out, dude, I definitely want to talk to
Team Pain Mega Ramp Build Stories
SPEAKER_03uh Charlie. Give us give us a good uh give us a good working for uh for Tim and Team Payne, a cool road story, cool, cool build you were on. I mean, I know you've done X games, haven't you done the Jackass when they did the loop? Like, yeah, come on.
SPEAKER_04Jackass stuff or Jack.
SPEAKER_03You know you got some rad fucking stories, bro.
SPEAKER_06The Mega Ramp thing. The Mega Ramp thing was cool.
SPEAKER_04The first Mega Ramp contest.
SPEAKER_07Oh, yeah, you did the earthboards.com. The Mega Ramp. The first well, see, it wasn't really a Mega Ramp yet, because No, it was like Made or Mini. No, yeah. No. It was a mega ramp, dude, but it see mega ramp actually. What were the specs? No, would you shut up for a second? Give me a chance to talk. God damn. Anyway, the mega ramp really isn't a mega ramp unless it has a quarter pipe on the fucking one end. Okay. Otherwise, it's just a giant fucking launch ramp over a gap. And that's what the first one was. Andy was shooting for the fucking world's Guinness Book distance record on a skateboard jumping. And so fucking when we built it, I was kind of upset that he didn't invite any other pros because I was like, where the fuck? How come anyone else isn't here trying to do this with you? But I guess he was kind of. You built the Swatch one? Yeah, the very first one. Oh, I didn't. I thought somebody else built that one. No, it was me, Jeff, Jay, and Tim. That's something. That was the the extent of team paying. Well, there was only four team paying, four team. There's Tim. Yeah, that was a hush-hush thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Underlocking TV. There was only a few workers and Andy, and it was a private thing that you can do. It was a private, it was a private setup. Yeah. To have Andy try to, it was Andy's conception.
SPEAKER_07His conceived. But the next one that you talk about, Lake Havasu. That was the concept. It was an open contest. Nobody else could do it. But that wasn't nobody else. Listen, that wasn't considered a mega ramp either. Because it had no quarter piping.
SPEAKER_04You're talking semantics right now. Well, Danny. Let's go on with the story. Well, anyway. Whether it's a mega ramp or not, it's the first time people look jumped over a big jump. So we we it took us about semantics. Shut up. Is that the right word? It took us about three days to do it. Maybe stuff or pronouncing that. Rowed, row ads.
SPEAKER_07But the first stop it. The first mega ramp, the first mega ramp had uh three roll-ins on it. It had uh what was it? A 25-foot roll-in, a 30-foot roll-in, and like a 35-foot roll-in. Right on. In the first gap that Andy had set, like the distance between the end of the launch ramp and the landing ramp was shit. It was already at like 24 feet or 30 feet in between the gaps.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And uh when we first when we first got it plywooded, Andy wanted to give it a test run. And like, I wanted to hit the shit too. So while he was padding up, I already padded up and I'm I'm just like, I'm going down this thing, dude. So but Jay on the crew. Jay uh Hammond. Jay Hammond, he was actually the first dude to go down one of those.
SPEAKER_03Really?
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Fucking gnarly.
SPEAKER_07He went down it and uh just kind of like launched off the end and just ran through the air. Yeah, you know, and bailed bailed right out. He didn't even try to do it. And so I'm like, shit. But he went off the 30-foot rolling, and I'm like, it's just plywood, and you know, it's pretty scary at 25.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07So I hit it at 25, and the first time I did it, I launched off and like it was just so fast I couldn't even like grab reach for the board because the timing's different, you know what I'm saying? Because you're going so fast. That's what Danny Wade talks about. You gotta slow everything down, like your motions and shit.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_07So I did it the second time, just got my hand on the board, like grabbed it, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And bailed when I got to the other side. The third time I actually grabbed it. I did uh backside math, it grabbed it, landed it, but the landing was so the G forces were so hard, I went right to my knees. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? I just buckled.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And I hit my fucking left knee so hard I can't even barely walk for the next couple days, was like jumping around and I didn't get to do it anymore. So I was kind of bummed about that shit. But I got to watch Andy learn how to do it. And it took him like took him like three or four days, you know what I'm saying, to get it really.
SPEAKER_03To get the rhythm and like the feel, yeah, the technique down.
SPEAKER_07He was trying different shit over it. He was doing like Ollie kick flips and burials. Yeah, yeah. He was doing all kinds of Andy McDonald trick shit, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, right out the gate.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, 360 burials and stuff. It's just like this guy's fucking nuts. But he ended up doing the very first distance record was 52 feet 10 inches.
SPEAKER_06Oh, it was?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, and it was set by Andy. The next one was at Havasu, where he won again.
SPEAKER_03Because he had already had practice, though.
SPEAKER_07The third one, well, there was another one built in New York that I didn't get to go on. Because uh some rollerblade company that was working for Panasonic or some shit, one of those corporations took it over.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And uh Tim ended up doing a couple builds for them to put it back up for them. And we did it in Huntington, and we happened to have a piece of quarter pipe, like a piece of avert ramp left over.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_07Tim was like, he wasn't there for the build. We built uh we built a mini ramp that was about a hundred and ten feet or ninety feet wide, like a super fucking mini. And uh it was had all the shit, like extra quarter pipes on the decks, and you know, just the new style, like experimental kick-ass mini ramp with everything on it. Right, all the features, yeah, yeah. Yeah, all the trimmings, escalators, quarter pipes, extensions, channels, all that shit. Yeah, it was fat. And uh we built that and that took us like a week, and then we set up the uh the megathane. But when we set it up, because it was on the beach, and it was they had is it the back of those things is all built with scaffolding just for support to hold it up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Well, because it was on the beach, the sand started sinking in one. So the thing was leaning, like literally leaning severely, and they didn't get it right because I remember we had to leave, and they tried to supposedly fix it, and some guy got hurt trying to fix the shit. You know what I'm saying? Like the tower. It's just crazy. But Tim showed up on like the last day or two of the build, and we ended up putting the quarter pipe on the end of it. The corner pipe, and this roll-in was uh, I think it's like 55 feet. Damn. Yeah, it's like the top of it was 50, it had like a 55 and a 40 or something. Yeah. Yeah, it's like 50 or 40. And it might have had another roll-in, too. It might have had three.
SPEAKER_03What is the pitch on these roll-ins on these bit? Like, how steep are these fucking things? Because I mean they're long as shit.
SPEAKER_07Well, the angle of the actual, like, because some of them look steep as fuck. It is about, I'd say 30. Well, no, it's steeper than that. 45. It's about a 55 degree angle or something. Fuck. It's about 55 degrees. What were you saying, Rodney?
SPEAKER_04I think Elliot's doesn't look too bad.
SPEAKER_03No, Elliot slums. Well, they changed.
SPEAKER_04That live webcast. Right. The other one with a big ROM. Doesn't look as bad as it. But he's got that whole little mega park now, which is fucking just but his drop-in's like a just a little pad with a piece of coping on it, and the guys just put their boards out and drop in. Right, right. And it looks like it's maybe 40 or 50 feet, maybe to the bottom.
SPEAKER_07The first ones are seriously like a 50 degree angle, like that shit. Yeah, the first one.
SPEAKER_04The ones at the X games look way bigger.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they look crazy. When you see that on top of the rolling, that guy gets up there with a big camera and looks down. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04It doesn't look like Elliot's.
SPEAKER_03It's like looking down the peak of the bowl at Kona, but for like three times as long. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Four times as long.
SPEAKER_04I've heard Elliot's isn't quite a mega. It's like a mid.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like they have the mini at Woodward, the mini mega. Yep, now we're. And then X Games is like a real proper mega, and Elliot's is like a like in the middle somewhere. But it, dude, that quarter pipe is gotta be 25, 6 feet tall.
SPEAKER_07The one that we did in Huntington in 2000.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, back to your starting.
SPEAKER_07The quarter pipe was only like fucking 11 feet tall. No fucking way.
SPEAKER_04Are you serious? No, the first quarter on the Mega?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, listen. We're we're up in San Francisco, we're up in San Francisco at the X Games doing the X-Game shit. Right. Uh, and we're hearing about like, because we we built it and left. We didn't even tear it down. Right. We just set it up and fucking split because we had to go do the X Games build.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And uh we are hearing stories about guys on rollerblades hitting that motherfucker and flying like fucking 25 feet in the air above the quarter pipe and just eating shit, you know? Like because there's no possible way to land it. Because it was just like the quarter pipe was way too small. And I kind of knew that was gonna happen when we put up the quarter pipe. I was like, Tim, those guys are gonna die, dude. Yeah, they're gonna fly so fucking high, they're not gonna be able to land the shit. But yeah, we're hearing stories about people like people getting fucked up doing it. Yeah, I think there was a BMX or dude. Because they it was like a demo thing. They had a skater, yeah.
SPEAKER_03You got the skateboarders, the rolling lines, yeah, the BMX, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Because at the time in the X games, they still had rollerblading and shit, so they're throwing that shit in with it. But yeah, they had their own little Panasonic demo team. We heard they were getting fucked up.
SPEAKER_02That's fucking wild.
SPEAKER_07But alright, this is 2000. The next year or actually a couple months later, we went to go do do the DC ramp for Danny in the warehouse, the big DC ramp. Used to have the hidden drop-in with the phone pit and shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Above the ramp. Well, I helped on that build cleaned up most of that. And uh when we went out there to hang out with Danny and Colin and shit, when I was building it, fucking Danny was talking my ear off, wanting to know everything about the fucking details about that shit. Because he planned it. So he was gonna do it too. So when he was all getting planned up to do it and shit, he's asking me what errors or what tricks he should try to do over it for distance and shit. I'm like, and like I said to Andy, I'm like, do 360s, dude. Yeah, that's gonna take you the furthest, you know, out of anything, because you got more hang time. Right. So yeah, I kind of feel like I had a little input on it. Yeah, yeah, man. You know, but yeah, when we were hanging out with Danny fucking, he was he he wanted to get down on that shit big time. You know what I'm saying? Like he had a hair up his ass, like I'm fucking doing this shit.
SPEAKER_03I hear I'd already did it at Havasu, but yeah, yeah, and then he's all jumping the Great Wall of China and shit and all that crazy shit.
SPEAKER_04Who does who still has the record? Does Annie still have the record for 75 feet or something now? Who has the record now?
SPEAKER_07Danny does. Danny holds it all the highest and the distance. I know he has the I think he does have the highest. Only the Great Wall in China probably beat the distance, Joe.
SPEAKER_03Well shit, guys.
Backyard Vert Dreams And Farewell
SPEAKER_03We've been talking for a hot minute, man. I definitely wanted to talk to you, Rodney, about how you know the whole Vert series and that debacle, but that's the conversation. That's a whole episode in its own. So we'll save that for another time.
SPEAKER_07But that was one of the coolest things I ever did.
SPEAKER_04It's all good. We're all vert skaters, we all want the same thing. We just want to have killer backyard vert events again.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And as soon as this ramps back together, we're doing it.
SPEAKER_03Fuck yeah, man. Well, I look forward to it. Thank you again, guys, for uh sitting down with me.
SPEAKER_04Props to you guys for this a good little fun time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, dude. Thanks for everything y'all have done. Skateboarding in Florida, bro. Yeah, dude, it's fucking been awesome. You've paved the way for like my generation and now the generation under me and everything. So fucking stoked to be in your presence. Thanks, and I appreciate everybody for listening. Thank you. Later, you're