3162 Kashiwa Street in Torrance, California

Sometimes a location becomes famous itself, as a focal point of human activity that affects a large number of people.  Over the last couple of days, an old school BMX freestyle rider made a Facebook post about a non-descript industrial building at 3162 Kashiwa Street in Torrance, California.  A whole bunch of us added comments.  Why?  Because that building was the longtime home Wizard Publications, which published BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  That address became legendary to us BMX freestylers of the 1980's.

After reading the comments on the FB post, I knew it was time to write a post about that place, because I worked there for a short time, from August 1st to December 31st, 1986, and it changed the entire course of my life.  Since the photos shared were on FB were of the outside of the building, I've decided to write this post about a few things I saw happen in that parking lot.  Yeah, just the parking lot, the one you see R.L. Osborn and Ron Wilton sessioning in the the early part of the video above.

This BMX Action Trick Team video was written (they did that back then) and produced by a professional video production company.  This video cost about $40,000 to produce, and lost a ton of money.  No disrespect to R.L., Ron, Windy, Dian Harlan (the world's greatest receptionist at the time) or anyone else in this video, but, let's face it, it sucked.  The reason it sucked is because nobody knew how to make a really exciting BMX freestyle video at the time, and only professionals could afford high quality equipment.  So those people were hired to make a standard, documentary-type, video about the BMXA Trick Team, and the new and emerging little sport of BMX freestyle.

In that parking lot, on my first full day working for Wizard, I helped set up for a party commemorating the 10 year anniversary of BMX Action magazine.  Gork, the editor of BMXA at the time, spent Saturday, the next day, at the party.  Andy Jenkins, Lew, and myself, made a short appearance, but then went off to other plans for the day.  But during that short appearance, I saw Bob Haro, the guy who invented BMX freestyle, for the first time.  Fan boy moment on my second day living in Southern California.

In that parking lot, I had some after work freestyle sessions on the T.O.L. (Tower Of Love) halfpipe, with R.L. Osborn, Eddie Fiola, Gork, Lew, and a few other riders. I never got up to coping, but it was fun anyway.

In that parking lot, I rode a mono-shock bike for the first time.  Some old schoolers brought a few really old BMX bikes to the warehouse for a photo shoot, so we had a couple of impromptu freestyle sessions on them, and even rode them all to lunch one day.

In that parking lot, I first rode on Gork's BMX sidehack.  We tried a few freestyle tricks on it.  We actually managed to do a few backwards wheelies on it, Gork on the bike and me on the hack.  They weren't easy, I'm pretty proud of that trick.  But no one thought to snap photos back in those days.  Bummer.

In that parking lot, I saw an unknown rider named Mitch Collins, wearing one of Woody Itson's old uniforms, blasting higher airs on the T.O.L. than anyone I had seen ride it.  He didn't air quite as high as Josh White did, but I started working there a few months too late for Josh's epic photo shoot there.

In that parking lot, I saw Eddie Fiola session the T.O.L. halfpipe many times.  He ruled that ramp in 1986.  A couple of guys got a bit higher, but Eddie had the lines and the flow since he was a skatepark rider, and rode the ramp more than anyone during my stint working there.

In that parking lot I had flatland sessions with R.L. Osborn, Gork, Lew, Craig Grasso, Chris Day, Zack, Melody, and the local kids, Dizz Hicks, Ceppie Maes, McGoo, Dave Vanderspek, Maurice Meyer, and the entire NorCal/Golden Gate park posse, along with other random freestyle travelers.

In that parking lot, one pro rider showed us the nude photos his girlfriend had professionally taken so he could check them out while on tour.

In that parking lot, I first tried a trick Gork dubbed the Spud Stall.  He named it that since I was form Idaho.  I pulled up my front wheel while rolling straight at the warehouse wall, then I tried to touch both tires to the wall with the bike straight up.  Fakie wall rides hadn't been invented yet, but that's what I was trying.  I'd get my front wheel on the wall, and my back wheel within six inches of it or so, hit the brakes, then hop back and ride out.  Craig Grasso, who saw me try these for months, and get really close on a skater launch ramp in Hermosa, ended up being the guy to actually make fakie wall rides happen and get the first photo.  I'm stoked on that.  I had to clean the white Wizard wall because my tires left black marks on it.

Just outside that parking lot, in the street, I was sent out one day to help some ramp rider kid set up Brian Scura's ramp to do a photo shoot with Windy.  It turned out, Brian had engineered the ramp to be set up by a single person, so this kid with the stringy blond hair didn't need help.  I hung out and watched him warm-up anyhow.  At one point it looked like he was bailing, but he ended up doing this insane, upside down footplant.  I'd never seen anything like it.  That was the day I met Dave Voelker.

One day, Andy led us out into the parking lot for a "meeting."  Gork, Lew, Andy, and I sat on the curb of the little island, and he brought up our topic.  He was thinking about hitting up Oz to make another video, and he wanted our ideas.  Since Oz spent $40K on the BMX Action video (above), there was a "don't ever mention making another video," unwritten rule in place at Wizard then.  Andy thought that if we could come up with a really, REALLY good idea, we might be able to talk into making another video, using the new, amazing (and cheap) Video 8 camcorders.  We all threw out ideas.  My idea was to show us getting off work on a Friday afternoon, and then going riding with all the best riders in SoCal all weekend.  Nobody liked that idea.  So I self-produced the concept as The Ultimate Weekend in 1990, 3 1/2 years later.

One morning, while standing outside the little warehouse door on our break, Haro pro Ron Wilkerson rode up on his motorcycle.  He shut it off and coasted up to us.  There was a small person, which appeared to be a blond kid, about 13-years-old, on the back of the motorcycle.  We looked at each other in confusion, wondering if Ron was going around picking up young boys or something.  They took their helmets off.  Ron said, "Hey guys, this is Spike, Spike Jonze.  He jumped in the Haro van back East and went on tour with us as our roadie."  We had no idea what that (17 -year-old) BMXer/skater kid had in store for his life.  I don't think he had any idea either at that point.  He's still surprising us all.

So those are some of my best memories from the average looking parking lot, located at 3162 Kashiwa Street, in Torrance, California.