 Lance, Ray Zimmerman & I met up a few weeks later at a backyard pool. The rains had finally gone & we swept the pool out & rode for awhile. Later– back at ‘Ridiculous’– I asked him about the mid 1980s & the Bones Brigade. Lance took a drink of water before he answered. “The movie ‘Back to the Future’ had come out at the same time as ‘Animal Chin’. It was a huge ‘boom’ for skateboarding. We were selling ten to fifteen thousand decks a month. This lasted for a year or a year and a half. You must understand, there were about twenty pro riders all sharing the industry at that time. There weren’t hundreds of pro models at the time. We made a good deal of money in those days.” I pushed the recorder closer to Lance & gestured toward him–absently– with my finger. “You must have some odd stories from touring with Powell Peralta, don’t you?”  Lance laughed & I could tell that it was so. These guys had seen it all! Lance said that he had a million stories but this one was so unreal, he had to tell it. Ray & I waited as Lance began. ” Back then, there was so much going on. This is right when people started paying us for non-skate related things, so we took the opportunity presented. Tony & I were sent to Italy for a live TV show. We spent a week there. They sent Tony & I, two arrogant ‘hacky-sackers’, four roller skating dance people & a chainsaw juggler.” Ray & I exploded with laughter. “Arrogant ‘hacky-sackers’ & a ‘chainsaw juggler’…you can stop right there. That’s funny in itself!” I said. Lance was cracking up as well. “It gets better…listen.” “They put us all in this hotel in a real seedy area of town. There were prostitutes & stuff all around. Around eight at night, they locked us in. We were bored silly. One evening, Tony & I were skating down the street & saw a policeman busting a prostitute in a car. I grabbed Tonys camera & took a picture. The automatic flash went ‘poof’ & the cop started chasing me! He threw his car in reverse & chased me down a hill. He ran up over the curb! I popped my board up & ‘BOOM’…there was a machine gun pointed at me. Pssssss…! That was the first time I pissed myself since I was four years old. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I thought I was dead.” "Tony and I on our way to memories in Italy."-LM  "This is were Mike landed the 1st 540, Mike, Clause and I"-LM Lance raised an eyebrow & stated dryly, “I let the cop have the film.” He laughed loudly at the memory but Ray & I were ‘tripping.’ That must have been pretty gnarly. Machine guns are no joke. I poured us some more cold drinks while Lance continued. "The Italian crew finally finished the ramp for us. It was built on a platform & was completely surrounded by mirrors. Mirrors everywhere! They wanted us to test the ramp. It was one layer of 1/8 inch thick ‘paneling’ over a metal frame, with a 2×4 for coping. No good! We told them what was needed to make it ready because this –obviously–wouldn’t do.” “The next day, we arrived & were whisked off to wardrobe. We were like…”Wardrobe?!” We get in there & I immediately see two outfits & figure out what’s going on. I was quicker than Tony & I raced over & grabbed the blue-colored shorts.” Tony was like, “Fantastic! I get the yellow ones.” We laughed. Lance then told us that they were ‘see-through’ plastic shorts. We were making quite a raucous. We were all laughing, picturing Tony Hawk in yellow see-through shorts. Lance returned to the story. “Tony has no underwear. He’s bumming. He finally obtains some & gets ready. We go out to the ramp. I dropped in & did a BS air. I bailed & my knee goes right through the ramp…just caved it in! Tony dropped in, did a few airs, bailed his board & broke a mirror. Done! End of show. That was it. They were over it.” Ray & I looked at each other & shook our heads, chuckling. Arrogant hacky-sackers, chainsaw jugglers, cheap ramps, plastic dork shorts, machine guns…..awesome! A few weeks later, Lance, Ray & I met up at the Pink Motel. Workers were surfacing the pool. We talked a bit & recorded some of the interview sitting on the deck. The location was not lost on me & I recalled images of Kent Senatore, Dave Ferry, Jerry Valdez & other ‘Vals’ riding the Pink Motel- AKA -’Fishbowl’, back in the mid to late 1970s. I asked Lance about his exit from Powell/ Peralta. He sat quietly for a long minute, rubbing his eyes. It was like he was trying to collect his thoughts. I sat, watching a hummingbird nearby & said nothing. “Stacy left Powell.” He said under his breath. I picked up the recorder & placed it on the arm of his chair. He didn’t seem to notice. Sitting there with his fingers laced together behind his head, Lance told me the rest of the story. “When Stacy decided it was time to move on, we left as well. We all rode for Stacy. It was like “What’s next?” I didn’t really leave Powell. They made decisions that made it difficult for us to skate for Powell. Stacy came to us & said, “I’m leaving. What are you going to do?” Lance looked at me rather matter-of-factly & said, “I wanted to stay in skating, be a skater, influence younger riders & continue. At Powell, I couldn’t. “In 1990 & 1991, World had the best riders. Powell didn’t. Powell wanted me to start a company with them. I prayed & said, “No.”. I ran it by the Lord & that was that. I then started ‘The Firm’ in 1991. I wanted to have Colin McKay, Ray Barbee, Eric Koston & Matt Hensley on the team. World ended up with many of them. I started ‘The Firm’ with Ray Barbee, Keith & Joe Gruber, Weston Correa & myself.”  "I would look at this rail all the time in the Powell years wondering if people could do it. I think it is a warm up spot now. I love how skating has become so gnarly. We could only dream back then, still do."-LM “When I started the company, people would ask me how “…Christian marketing was going?” I just shrugged that away. I made the right decision. I stayed committed to the Lord & his will. The entire time I ran ‘The Firm’, was ‘character building.’ It made me stronger in my faith as well.” Speaking for myself, I thought it was fairly typical of the skateboard community. I have seen & experienced it long enough. Many skaters claim to be ‘individuals’, yet remain terrible clones of each other. We eat our own & it eats us up. Skateboarders are not alone with such thinking. Human beings seem to fear the individual that goes to the ‘beat of their own drum.’ I watched as Ray Zimmerman photographed workers finishing the Pink Motels pool surface with trowels. Somewhere, a generator growled in the distance & the mid-day sun was painfully bright. I looked back over at Lance & asked him something that I was interested to know. I knew that in all his years of riding & traveling, he has seen & participated in some insane skating moments. I wanted to know exactly what.  "I shot this photo of Hackett with my partially dislocated shoulder"-LM He thought for a few moments then responded. “I think that the day I saw Mike McGill learn 540s in Sweden, Bob Burnquist trying the Baldy pipe loop, & Alan Gelfand doing FS Ollies at Lakewood, were pretty amazing moments for me to see.” I shook my head in disbelief as he reminded me of the story when Bob tried the Baldy loop. He grabbed his ‘I-phone’ & pulled up a photograph of Bob at 12 o’clock in the Baldy pipe…upside down. Its pretty unreal. I have been to Baldy since. You can still see his wheel marks in the dust on the ceiling of the pipe. Another level. I asked Lance if there is anything he hasn’t done on a skateboard, that he would still like to do. ” Not really” he smirked. “I wanted to try the loop but got hurt. I then realized that I had wanted to ‘try the loop’… not ‘make the loop.’ That was the difference.” He told me the amazing story of David Hackett & Jeff Grosso pulling the loop on the same day! Old Dogs…? We spoke about skateboarding & the influx of new parks. Lance remarked that the new cement parks are helping to create a new type of skateboarder. I agreed. We were seeing young riders that now had tech ability & round wall technique, combining the two. Added, is the propensity for most riders to skate padless. The new guys coming up….were destroying! I was questioning Lance about his past & current involvement with the building of skate parks & pools. ” Well, I was never in the right place at the right time. We had a ‘sub-scene’. My friend ‘Enrique’ was older & he helped build ramps to ride. This was in 1977, in the ‘Rad Ramp’ days. One of the early pools that we skated, had flat bottom. When we built our wooden ramps, we put flat bottom on it. We moved it up to ‘Mountain Manor’, even while the skate parks were still going. I’ve had articles in the magazines regarding the stuff we built to skate.” I scribbled side notes in my journal. Lance peered over at me, squinting in the suns glare. He continued. “I was involved with the ‘Animal Chin’ ramp, Kevin Harris ramp, & numerous other projects since. California started building city parks but most of them weren’t good. I am opinionated. I said, “Lets build stuff better!” Eventually, I was asked by Mike Hirsch to help with a local park. I told them that if they build a pool, I will help. I’ve been doing this ever since, with a great deal of learning all the ‘ins & outs’ & red tape.” Lance then told me about various projects. I asked him about his recent assistance with Vans ‘Combi’ pool. He smirked at me & I laughed in spite of myself. I already knew the scoop. Between Ray Zimmerman & I, we had covered every angle on the refurbishing before this years ‘Protec’ contest.  Lance signature sadplant on the hip. I shrugged & Lance shifted in his seat. “Well, the skate park surfaces have been getting better. We didn’t want any structural changes in the pool. Same pool, better surface. One day, Steve Van Doren asked about re-doing the pool. Everyone knows the story now.” I nodded in assent. Indeed, the ‘Combi’ pool refurbishing has been lauded as a massive success story. Lance spent many long hours at the ‘Combi’, making sure it all went smoothly.  Putt-Putt We gathered our things together. The sun was falling behind the huge palm trees that perch over the Pink Motel. Dogs barked in the distance & a car alarm shrieked shrilly. Lance waited for the alarm to cease & asked Ray & I if we wanted to eat, then check out a pool near his house. “Of course!” was our immediate response. Lance had driven his old 1940s British war-era motorcycle that day. We ‘putt-putted’ back through the San Fernando valley & took the long way to Lances house. After a quick lunch, we stopped by an overgrown estate on the other side of Pasadena. The pool was lost to us. A large yellow bulldozer hungrily tore huge gobbets out of the yard as we unhappily looked on. I turned to Ray. “Oh well, they keep destroying & we’ll keep creating”. I believe that whenever we drain an old pool & clean the area , we are creating. We create a positive place in a world of chaos. We set things ‘right’ by example. Lance has followed just such a path his entire career. He keeps things ‘right’ by example. He follows his beliefs & the will of the Lord. His conviction stands strong & he wavers not one iota. I am glad that Lance is the way he is. Skate-Ozzie  Parting shot. Lance ripping at home. Interview / Story : Ozzie Ausband. Images courtesy of Lance Mountain & MRZ Part 1: http://www.concretedisciples.com/cd_articles/cd_articles4.php?articles=1272 |
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"Arrogant 'hacky-sackers' & a 'chainsaw juggler'...you can stop right there. That's funny in itself!"
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