Yes, in the 1980s I Made One of "Those" Tapes

Skating was a Way of Life in the 1980s

In the mid-1980s I went through three very different but also very intense phases: my breakdancing phase, my ninja phase, and finally my skateboarding phase. I’m sure there was a bit of overlap and of course I had other interests during this time, but each of these interests were very important to me. At the time, each one was a defining part of my identity.

In the 1980s, skateboarding exploded. In the 70s skateboards were these skinny little plastic boards that kids pushed themselves around on. In the mid-80s, skateboarding became a cultural phenomenon. Skateboards transformed from thin brandless toys to wide decks featuring graphics and famous skaters’ names. Kids began building halfpipes and launch ramps. The mall started selling skating clothes and skating shoes. There was skateboarding music and skateboarding magazines. People had skater haircuts. Skateboarding wasn’t just some activity, it was a lifestyle — and while the epicenter of this lifestyle was the California coast, that didn’t stop kids like me living in the suburbs of Oklahoma from participating.

One of the first skateboarding videos I remember was the Huntington Beach OP Championship. I don’t remember if it was by accident or intentional that I recorded the half hour skateboarding competition off ESPN. I watched and rewatched that competition so many times that not only did I know every trick performed in order, I memorized every word the announcers said.

There were many other videos after this one — more skateboarding competitions from ESPN, the 1986 film Thrashin’, and tapes like The Search for Animal Chin that we bought at the mall and copied for all our friends. I even recorded the skateboarding scene from Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol and watched it a thousand times trying to figure out just how these wizards performed their magic.

It was only a matter of time before I made my own skateboarding tape.

Most of the street skateboarding videos I had seen at that point were shot by either people following them in cars or riding skateboards themselves. In those videos slaters performed trick after trick and, perhaps with a bit of editing magic, landed them all. Sometimes they even debuted new tricks to the world in these videos.

And then there was my video. Allow me to set the scene for you. First, I was a one-man skateboarding video crew. Not only was our camera always mounted to a tripod but also tethered to the VCR by a 20’ long video cable. This allowed me to set the camera in our front yard, just outside the front door of our house — quite a distance from the street. The audio soundtrack accompanying my sweet skateboarding moves was multiple songs from INXS’s album Kick, provided by my boombox which is sadly just off camera.

Unlike the videos I owned that took place in and around California beaches, mine took place in front of my house in the street with the neighbor’s Lincoln Town Car serving as a backdrop.

Also unlike those other videos in which skateboarders showed off tricks they had practiced hundreds of times, I decided this was a good time to try and invent some new ones. The truth is, there weren’t that many tricks I could pull off. Multiple times throughout the video I try random things I made up on the fly. Perhaps I thought the recording camera would give me some magical skateboarding skills I did not possess. As you can see, more often than not I ended up on my back in the middle of the street, my skateboard rolling away from me and into our yard.

In one strange but perhaps ingenuous moment of spontaneity, while walking back toward the camera I performed a few tricks directly in the front yard, like this sweet “jumping off a tree” maneuver. That’s one you didn’t see in those Hollywood productions! I also tried performing a few ollies in the grass. The nice thing about performing skateboard tricks in the grass is that your skateboard doesn’t roll away. The downside is that it looks

The final shot from the video is of me, out of breath and with a few fresh scrapes, walking toward the camera. I seem to be wearing an Ocean Pacific t-shirt and a pair of Converse tennis shoes, along with a pair of jams (long shorts) that my mom made for me. I didn’t just follow fashion trends… I was fashion.

It’s hard not to imagine the kinds of videos my friends and I could have made if we had owned iPhones and had video editing capabilities instead of using a camera stuck to a tripod tethered to the VCR in your living room, but no amount of technology would hade made us better at skateboarding. I did eventually get better. My friends and I bought better skateboards and built ramps and spent a lot of time learning and practicing and experimenting. Part of me wishes we had made movies then, when we had got a little better, but I really enjoy this one — a little snapshot of a kid being inspired and trying to make something of his own.

I’m still doing that, 30+ years later.