Who new former race car driver Danika Patrick had a podcast? Obviously, a lot of people. Her Pretty Intense podcast has dozens of episodes, most with tens of thousands of views, or more. I stumbled across this podcast, while watching a bunch of Josh Gates' videos. This is a really cool interview. I knew Danika only from driving race cars and some web host commercials. She's actually really smart, funny, and into a whole bunch of weird shit. I'm going to have to check out more of her podcasts when I can.
I've been a fan of the Josh Gates hosted show, Expedition Unknown, since I first ran across it, several years ago. Since "In Search Of" in the 1970's, hosted by Leonard Nimoy, I've loved many of the weird mystery shows. But over the years, many of those TV programs mostly repeated earlier shows, and then never seem to break new ground. But in Expedition Unknown, Josh Gates and his tough and hard working crew always seem to find people actually making progress on which ever mystery they're digging into. In this podcast above, Josh talks really candidly, as he usually does, about his background, his TV shows, and many of the things he's gone looking for. If you like ancient history, historical mysteries, and just weird shit in general, check this interview out.
Ryan Fudger of Our BMX/Unclicked podcast, with S&M and Fit Bikes owner Chris Moeller as co-host, interview Harold "McGoo" McGruther, for the longest BMX podcast ever. It starts with the legendary "steamer" incident, where a rider let another guy take a dump on his back, while on tour, to pay off a debt. Then it just keeps going. Some of the craziest stories are near the end. If you're interested in a serious look behind the scenes of the 1980's, 1990's, and 2000's BMX and freestyle industry, check this podcast out. It's 5 hours long, and it's all good.
The first time McGoo entered my consciousness was in late 1985, just after I moved to San Jose, California from Boise. I ordered my first BMX freestyle video, and one of the first ever to be produced, Freestyle's Raddest Tricks. It was put out by BMX Plus! magazine. In the section shot at Pipeline skatepark, there's a bit where photographer John Ker and McGoo are sitting in front of the Pipe Bowl, talking about this hip new thing, BMX freestyle. McGoo was the editor of BMX Plus! at the time. I had been reading the magazine, and has seen his name, but didn't pay much attention to that, at the time. This video put a face and a personality to the name in my head. I was so stoked when I got that video, to finally have my own video of actual top freestylers, that I not only paid $39.95+ shipping for the video, I watched it 7 times the day I got it. Two of those times I watched the whole video while balancing on my bike in the living room. I'm not kidding.
Photographer John Ker on the left, and McGoo on the right, in the 1985 BMX Plus! video, Freestyle's Raddest Tricks.
In 1986, when I landed the job at Wizard Publications, I also became roommates with Gork and Lew, from BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines. Andy Jenkins, editor of FREESTYLIN', and my other boss, also lived nearby. All three of them were good friends with McGoo, who was working as the CW freestyle team manager then, the guy making the Mike Buff, John "Dizz" Hicks, and Ceppies Maes shows happen. I was the quiet new guy, and suddenly I met McGoo, and he was cracking jokes and making sarcastic comments continuously. I remember thinking, "Who is this guy? McGoo should be a comedian." The first time we hung out with him, we wound up driving up and down Beach Boulevard in Orange County, yelling at the hookers that used to work the sketchy area of Beach, through Westminster, Garden Grove, and Stanton, then.
About midnight, I think, we stopped at a Burger King that was still open, for a late night burger. As the five of us were eating, listening to McGoo, Andy, and Lew dream up crazy ideas, a couple of the hookers walked in. They got their food, and sat down at the next table. McGoo, just goofing around says, "Hey baby, how 'bout a date?" He wasn't really trying to pick her up, just having some fun. The hooker looked at us, McGoo was in jeans and a polo shirt, looking fairly yuppie, but the rest of us were in shorts and T-shirts. The hooker said, "I'm on my lunch break!" Total "Talk to the hand!" attitude, The other hooker laughed. She shot McGoo's joke, and all of us, down. I was this really naive dork, only 20, and a year out of Idaho, thinking, "Damn, the BMX industry is crazy!" We spent a bunch more time hanging out with McGoo, during my short stint at Wizard. He was always "on," always joking and telling stories, and keeping everyone entertained. After that, I saw him at contests now and then. When him an Frank Scura got into it, talking smack to each other, it was always hilarious.
McGoo went on to be the GT freestyle team manager, in the era of Martin Aparijo, Josh White, Eddie Fiola, and Dino Deluca. He went on to be the Mongoose team manager, signing Tim "Fuzzy" Hall and Dennis McCoy, as BMX freestyle hit its first peak, and was heading into the lean years. In the early 90's, when I was roommates with Chris Moeller, Jason "Timmy" Ball, and Neal Wood, McGoo lived right around the corner in Huntington Beach, for a while. He's the one who gave Jason the nickname Timmy. The first night Jason showed up, as an 18-year-old rider from Colorado, they all went to McGoo's to hang out. I stayed home, for some reason. Somebody introduced Jason to McGoo, and his reaction was, "Jason?" There's too damn many Jasons, there's already like four Jasons in this area in BMX, you need a new name, you're... you're... Codename Timmy." Something like that. That's the story I heard when they came home that night. That was about 1994, I think. Now, 29 years later, Jason Ball runs the shop at S&M Bikes, and lots of people still call him Timmy.
Right around that time McGoo did the Mental Jimmy'z BMX mail order business with John Paul Rogers, sharing an office with S&M Bikes. He talks about that in the podcast. He talks about everything in the podcast, so stop reading my drivel here, and just watch the podcast. Or listen to it.
For the past fifteen years or so, McGoo has been working as a co-founder of Biltwell, selling retro-styled motorcycle helmets and accessories. He's trimmed down, and I must say, looks in damn good shape these days. Harold McGoo McGruther is THE most inside insider of the 1980's-2000's BMX industry, and all 5 hours of this podcast is entertaining, if you're an Old School BMXer/freestyler. If you haven't watched this already, watch it. Thanks to Ryan Fudger and Chris Moeller for getting McGoo into the podcast for this interview.
Big Bike BMX podcast interviews Large Ray (in 2022). While I never really talked to Large Ray back in the day, he's one of those characters from 1980's BMX freestyle that, much like me, stumbled into the national scene, and got to know all the top pros and industry people of the day. I remember Bob Morales, of the AFA, telling me about Ray's smoke bomb flatland run and how the crowd went crazy. He was around a lot of the freestyle hijinks of that era, and has a ton of great stories to tell. If you were an 80's BMX freestyler, this is a great podcast to watch.
I'm currently doing one of my Sharpie drawings of a top 80's freestyle pro, for another Old School BMXer. Since my drawings take 40-45 hours each to draw, I like to listen to any content about whomever I'm drawing when I'm working. Well, I couldn't find a podcast of the guy I'm drawing yesterday, but this Big Bike BMX podcast with Large Ray popped up in the YouTube results, and I had to check it out.
It's freakin' hilarious. It also totally reminded me of how I somehow stumbled into the BMX industry. One year I was a kid in Idaho totally into this weird, new sport that nobody had heard of, and two years later I was working at a couple of magazines, and met all the top riders and industry people of that era. It still blows my mind that all that happened. That kind of thing doesn't happen in mainstream pro sports. You don't go from being a basketball fan to hanging out with Lebron, and Steph Curry, and a bunch of other top pros. It just doesn't happen. But it can happen in BMX and skateboarding, and the action sports world. That's part of what makes these sports so fun to be a part of, at any age.
This interview with Ray brings back all that crazy, goofy enthusiasm we had back in the day. And I love the part about the "Amish" kids. I was laughing my ass off. Anyhow, just watch the podcast when you can.
I'm doing a lot of writing on Substack these days, check it out:
Here's the trailer for the Netflix docu-series about American Gladiators which started airing on Netflix on June 28. I haven't seen either the Netflix shows or the ESPN documentary. The hit TV show, which ran for 8 seasons from 1989-1996, has suddenly popped back up, with a new edition of the British version of the show, Gladiators, coming out. I heard a rumor of a U.S. reboot of the show, but haven't seen any definite info.
All this talk about American Gladiators this year, and not one shout out to Lico the spotter (coolest TV industry person I ever met), and not one word about the "Puppet People" What the fuck people?
So... most of you who read this blog know me, or know of me, from my days as a mediocre BMX freestyler, and BMX/skateboard industry guy in the 1980's. I stumbled into video work completely accidentally in 1987, when my boss at the American Freestyle Association asked me to produce a contest video. That first video (see the previous post) led to more videos, and a job at Unreel Productions later that year. Unreel was the video arm of the Vision Skateboards/Vision Street Wear empire in the late 1980's. I worked there from December 1987, until July of 1990. With the skateboard, BMX, and snowboard industries all tanking then, there was a mass exodus.
A woman I worked with at Unreel found a job at a "real" TV production company in Studio City, just over the hill from Hollywood. One day, a few months later, she gave me a call. "We need someone to log a bunch of footage where I'm at, what are you up to?" I wasn't up to much, so I made the long drive from Huntington Beach to The Valley the next day, where I spent ten hours logging footage of interviews of monster truck and mud racing drivers. Logging is industry talk for watching the footage of the event, and taking notes, like "John from Bigfoot jokes about blowing a tire at 43:27." Not exciting, but it paid. They asked me to come back the next day, and the next, and the next. I worked on a day by day basis for two months, I think. Finally they made it official, and called me full time. That's how I got my first "real" TV job at G.R.B. Motorsports, working on the production crew (office staff) of that year's supercross and monster truck TV series.
Those kinds of productions last for a few months, and we rented office space in a large building from a production/edit company called Four Point Entertainment. By the time I quit that GRB a few months later, I was doing three jobs for the price of one. They hired two P.A.'s to replace me, and part of the work still wasn't getting done.
Four Point was where American Gladiators shows were edited. The next year, I called up the secretary and asked if Gladiators needed people that summer. I called too early, and had to call back a couple of times. Finally the secretary said, "We have two jobs available, talent attendant and spotter." "What's a talent attendant?" I asked. She told me that it was a person to ran errands and pretty much got the Gladiators whatever they needed, "I wouldn't give that job to my worst enemy," she laughed. "OK, what's a spotter?" "I have no idea?" she replied. "Sounds good, put me on the list as a spotter." So she did.
A month later, I walked onto the CBS-MTM studio lot, in Studio City, as we called it then, and looked for Stage 3. I had no idea what my job was going to be. That's how I got a job on a hit TV show for season 5, in the summer of 1992. I worked the final four seasons as a spotter, those guys on the sideline with the white karate pads. I didn't like the American Gladiators TV show before that, and made fun of my roommate Bill, who was a big fan of the show. But it was a lot of fun, and really hard work, to work on it, and I'm glad I took the job. I worked the last four of the eight seasons of the show. I was the head spotter, leader of 7 other guys on the crew, for the last two seasons.
We worked for about 6 or 7 weeks in the summer, when almost every other show was on hiatus, the TV industry term for summer vacation. So the huge lot was pretty much empty when we taped the show. We had 6 or 7 days of practice, where both Gladiators and contenders would practice the different games, on opposite sides of the huge, aircraft hanger size stage. Since they were the show, both groups needed people to practice against. The producers didn't want either Gladiators or contenders to get injured before we taped the shows, so us spotters practiced several of the games against both. We played Gladiators for the contenders, and played contenders for the Gladiators. So I ran through Break Through and wrestled in the Conquer ring, played Powerball, ran through The Gauntlet, and practiced against them with pugil sticks. I was in pretty decent shape then, having worked moving as a furniture mover for a while. But I still got knocked around a lot. I got the worst concussion of my life when little April Wheat from Texas got thrown down the pyramid, did a flip, and accidentally heel-kicked me in the side of the head. My pupils wouldn't change size for 2 1/2 days, so that was a pretty good concussion. But, overall, it was a lot of fun.
Then we moved to the actual taping of the shows, and we taped two shows each day, completing the whole season in about 5 weeks. We'd set up one game, have the contests for two separate shows, then clear that out, and set up another game. Us spotters worked with the grips, riggers, and camera crew to change the sets. One old crew guy told me we did the biggest set changes in the history of TV, and we did them 7 times a day. Most sitcoms might do a couple of set changes, much, much smaller ones, a day. Hell, we moved a 30 foot tall mobile pyramid in and out of the stage. We worked our asses off. Our "down" time, as spotters, was actually when they were playing the games. That was the fun part, and when we got to rest a bit.
So that's a little bit about how I wound up stumbling from the BMX freestyle world onto the crew of a hit TV show. If you were a fan of the show, check out the documentaries, and Lori's (Ice) podcast, I've listened to five of her episodes, and they've all been really interesting. While I have a bunch of memories from the show, I doubt I'll write any more posts about it. I've got a lot of other stuff I'd rather write about these days. All of the sudden there's all this other content about the show, so check out any of it that sounds interesting at the links above.
As of late summer of 2023, I'm doing most of my new writing on Substack. Check it out:
American Gladiators was a hit TV show, starting in the late 1980's and running for 8 seasons. It came out before reality was invented, and pretty much started the sports competition genre'. There were several spinoffs, the biggest being Gladiators, the U.K. version, I believe. Lori Fetrick was Ice for six seasons on the show. This is her brand new podcast, which is really funny and entertaining.
Most of you reading this blog know of me from the BMX industry days of the 1980's and early 1990's. A lot of you also know my BMX and skateboard video work led to me stumbling into the TV industry, first at Unreel Productions in the late 1980's, and then into more mainstream TV crew work in the 1990's. I worked as a spotter, on the stage crew of American Gladiators, for the last four seasons, taped in the summers of 1992-1995. The spotters were those guys on the sidelines of many of the games, with the white, shield-shaped karate pads, to keep people from flying out of bounds.
I worked right on the floor with the Gladiators and contenders, for the 7 or 8 days of practice, then a about 5 or 6 weeks of shooting all the episodes for that season. The show started on the Universal Studio lot, but we shot on the CBS-MTM lot the years I worked there. That studio in often called the Radford Studios by industry people, and is located in Studio City, "over the hill" from Hollywood. We used several of the empty stages to store all the sets used on Gladiators, including Stage 1, then the home of the Roseanne show, and the former stage where the Mary Tyler Moore Show was shot years earlier.
I knew Ice, Lori, on the set, but didn't talk to her all that much in the downtime. While us spotters actually practiced many of the games against both the Gladiators and the contenders, my biggest memory of Ice was just a weird little thing that happened on the way to lunch one day.
I lived in Orange County then, and would rent a cheap motel room near the studio, for the weeks I worked on the show. I didn't have a car then, so I would take a bike to ride back and forth to work each day. One year I had a beach cruiser, instead of my freestyle bike, I can't remember why. The crew was huge, about 100 people total, and a catered lunch was part of the deal working on the set. Since there were so many of us, and since we shot in summer, when most other shows were on hiatus (summer break), the caterers usually set up in a small stage for lunch.
So halfway through the day, we'd break for lunch, and everyone would walk halfway across the big studio lot to eat lunch. It was maybe 150-200 yard walk, winding between the big studio buildings, depending which stage they used that year. On this one day, I hopped on my beach cruiser, which was parked backstage, and started pedaling over to towards lunch, to beat the line. A few people, including Ice, walked out another door as I was rolling up. She said, "Hey, give me a ride." So I said, "OK, hop on," and in her Gladiator outfit, she hopped on my handlebars, and I rode her over to the lunch stage. We beat most of the crowd, so we didn't have to stand in line. It's really no big deal, but of all the things on the set, including getting my ass kicked by her on several of the games, that's my first memory that pops in my head, when thinking about Ice.
In the first Chillin' With Ice podcast episode above, her girlfriend interviews her about her childhood, teen years, and early bodybuilding career, leading up to trying out for American Gladiators. First of all, she's obviously still incredibly fit, and looks great. Lori is also really funny, very open, and goes into the good and bad of her early life, being rebellious, high school sports, partying, early jobs, slowly realizing her sexual preference, and one of the better babysitting stories I've heard. If you were a fan of American Gladiators, are into bodybuilding or fitness training, are LGBTQ, or just want to hear some funny stories, this is a really interesting and funny podcast. Check it out.
Rodney Mullen is probably an alien. He's too weird and cool and innovative to be from this planet. Skaters used to say he was a mutt of a human, and that's the title of his book.* He's one of the coolest, most genuine people I've ever met, an amazing skateboarder, an original member of the Bones Brigade, and a guy who has gone on stage to explain creativity and innovation to some of the smartest people in the world, at TED Talks. Here's a look at Rodney Mullen. Above is a brand new interview of Tony Hawk and Jason Ellis interviewing Rodney for their podcast Wolf vs. Hawk. I got about 50 minutes into this last night, it's a great podcast.I need to listen to the rest tonight.
"Just try to be an individual when you skate. Don't look at others, don't think about others, it just brings you down... It comes out of you, that's how it gets good."
-Rodney Mullen, in the mini interview I did with him when he was 19, at The Spot in Redondo Beach, in late 1986 for FREESTYLIN' magazine. Follow this link, and go to the December 1986 issue of FREESTYLIN', page 56, to check out that interview.
On my second night in Redondo Beach in 1986, my new co-worker and roommate, Mark "Lew" Lewman, led me down to the place where he and a few locals practiced flatland BMX freestyle every night. The large brick paved area, on the north end of the Redondo Beach Pier, had been dubbed The Spot by the freestylers. "There's a skater down there you have to meet," Lew yelled back, as I followed him on my Skway. "He's amazing."
On that night, I think it was just Lew and I practicing our flatland freestyle tricks. After an hour or so, a sandy haired guy on an old beach cruiser road up. Lew said "Hi," as the guy rode past and set up on the smooth concrete area, next to The Spot. In between trying my tricks, I watched this skater pull his socks up to his knees, and put on knee pads. Then he checked out his skateboard, meticulously put white tape on his finger tips, and then went through some stretching exercises. Only then, 15 minutes or so after arriving, did he step onto his small, flat freestyle board. He went into this sort of stationary wheelie thing, swinging the front of the board about 270 degrees, while keeping balanced on the back wheels. It was a warm-up of his. Then he started doing his tricks. I watched from a distance. It was like watching an Olympic athlete or something begin to train.
Lew and I and the other BMX freestylers just rode down to The Spot, in jeans or shorts and a T-shirt, and just started trying tricks. Rodney trained. He went on for 2 1/2 hours or so. He never fell. He stepped off his board two or three times. But the tricks he was doing were insane.
By that point, I had been goofing around on skateboards for 9-10 years, and could do rock walks and back wheel spins. I'd never bought a skate magazine, I knew almost nothing about the world of pro skating. I was a kid from Ohio and Idaho that just pulled out my board to goof around now and then. Lew told me that Rodney was the 8 or 9 time world champion freestyle skater at that point. Rodney just kept skating by himself. Lew and I finished up riding, and I think we rode down to the pier to get a Coke, maybe a slice of pizza as well, then rode back. Rodney was still just skating away, alone.
Finally Rodney took a break, and took a swig of water. Lew headed over towards him, and I followed, on our bikes. Lew introduced me to Rodney, and we talked for a few minutes. That's how I met 19-year-old Rodney Mullen. He was one of the original members of Powell-Peralta's Bones Brigade at the time. Rodney was going to college in Florida, in his first year, and debating between going into engineering or medicine. He ended up taking a much different path in life, when his friend Steve Rocco started a little skateboard company a few months later... called World Industries.
I wound up talking to Rodney quite a bit after our sessions, for the two or three weeks he was in California. Sometimes it was Lew, Rodney and I talking for a while, and sometimes jut me nd Rodney. We did the FREESTYLIN' interview one afternoon, with Windy Osborn shooting photos, there at The Spot. Rodney taught me how to do pressure flip style kickflips on his board, on my second or third night there. Night after night he blew my mind with all the tricks he could do on a skateboard. Non of it was death defying, but they just looked so freaking hard. He came back in October or November for another three weeks. Again, Rodney, Lew and I wound up talking a lot after our sessions. I remember him showing me half flip underflips then... in 1986. That trick blew the minds of street skaters about 8 years later in a Plan B video.
Rodney not only invented many of the core freestyle skating tricks, like the flat ground ollie, kickflips, double kickflips, the ollie impossible, and 360 flips, but he invented the tricks that the emerging street skaters took to bigger, gnarlier terrain, as street skating took over, and went worldwide. I watched Rodney trying to teach Mark Gonzales impossibles on his street board there, at The Spot, one night.
Rodney Mullen made a huge impression on me, like he has on thousands of other people. One big idea was that I could take freestyle seriously. It wasn't just goofing around, like most people thought then, it was a legit sport, and form of athletic creativity. Years later, Rodney re-invented street skating, and in more recent years, has given TED Talks, and done many interviews, about the nature of creativity to some of the most intelligent people on the planet.
None of us at The Spot back in 1986 expected any of that to happen. It's weird and amazing how life unfolds at times. I saw Rodney once more, when I took my bike up to the Hermosa Pier, in late 1987, I think. Rodney and Steve Rocco were skating for a crowd there, and I did some BMX freestyle, and we talked a bit. I remember Rodney saying, "You've got a lot of new stuff." I thought he was talking about my bike. But he said, "No you've learned a lot of new tricks." I had improved a ton in that first yea rin Southern California. But I didn't think Rodney ever really watched us ride. Obviously he had. I haven't seen him since then. I've been following him through videos for the 34 years since, like everyone else.
The podcast interview above is great, and here are several other videos of Rodney Mullen to check out, if you're interested. Take your cap off, our mind is about to be blown.
One of the better compilations of Rodney's skating online.
Lemelson Center interview with Rodney The Lemelson Center is part of the Smithsonian's National museum of American History, and focuses on invention and innovation.
Rodney Mullen's run- NSA Oceanside 1986 contest- Gork and Lew took me to this contest when I flew down for the weekend, for my interview with Wizard Publications. That was about a month before I actually got the job, moved there, and met Rodney. Don Hoffman, the guy interviewing Rodney at the end of his run, became my boss at Unreel Productions a year and a half later.
