Firsts. The Vision Skate Escape was the 1988 NSA halfpipe finals, held at U.C. Irvine Bren Center in Irvine, California. It was the first time a spine ramp was used in a major skateboard competition. Powell Peralta had just invented the first spine ramp a year or so earlier in Bones Brigade: The Search for Animal Chin video. When the Powell skaters were asked about the Chin ramp spine, they said, it was intimidating because it was so big. So the Unreel team went with a full halfpipe/spine to mini ramp. It was the first mini ramp in a major skateboard contest. Mini ramps had also just been invented about a year or two earlier. It was the first time a punk band called the Red Hot Chili Peppers was hired to play at the NSA finals. The Chili Peppers had been a band for about six years at this point.
In 1988, I was working at Unreel Productions, the Vision Skateboards video production company, and skateboarding was in it's third big wave of popularity, and hitting its 1980's peak. The vert skaters were the top guys at that point. Freestyle skaters did technical tricks on flat, and street skating was just turning into a thing then. This was the biggest skateboard contest ever put on, at that time.
Skateboarding had hardly ever shown up on TV, other than tiny news bits or commercials, at that point. ESPN was a little upstart cable network, mostly showing hours of kickboxing or fishing videos. It would be another seven years before ESPN got around to starting the Extreme Games (they changed the name to X-Games in 1996). In 1988, Unreel, Vision, were pushing the envelope to try and get another full hour of skateboarding on ESPN, following the minor success of Holiday Havoc, about a year earlier.
Skate Escape final battle: Tony Hawk vs. Christian Hosoi
I ran all kinds of errands for about three weeks leading up to this event, picking up supplies, taking things to the ramp building warehouse, and things like that. The contest was a two day thing, with prelims on Saturday, and finals on Sunday. It was set up in an unusual, head to head format. Two skaters would each take a run, and one would advance. Then another two would go head to head, and it kept going. By the finals, Tony Hawk and Christian Hosoi had skated several all out runs over two days, and both were pretty exhausted. But when the Chili Peppers played at the end on Sunday, they got a jam session going, Tony, Christian, and Chris Miller are the guys you see most in this video. Getting to play while the Chili Peppers played live up on the deck was a once in a lifetime chance, at least at that time.
The live hosts of the show were KROQ radio deejay The Poorman, who is also the guy who created the Loveline radio show that later made Dr. Drew famous. With Poorman was skater/rapper/musician Skatemaster Tate, and Vision pro vert skater Ken Park.
Like any fairly large live event, there was a lot of people, and a lot of work involved to make it happen. For both days of the competition, I was in a booth at the back left of the arena floor, wearing two big headsets, calling cues and communicating with different crew guys. Don Hoffman, head of Unreel was directing the action next to me, his headset on the main channel. We had another group out in a big TV truck out back, the same way they tape major sports events, like football and basketball. That was really big time for skateboarding in 1988.
Three of us from Unreel, Dave, Amanda, and myself, all pitched in on a room in a hotel in Irvine that night, along with Elaine, Amanda's sister. That allowed us to be a lot closer to get there in the morning. It was a long day of work on Saturday, and when we were done, Amanda decided we needed to go have milkshakes, or something, as a late night snack. Somehow we ended up at The Arches, a really upscale Newport Beach steakhouse, best known as John Wayne's favorite restaurant (before he died, obviously) by locals. It was one of the only places still open. The even crazier part is that Poorman and one or two of his friends came along as well. The Arches didn't have milkshakes, so we ended up eating full meals, which turned into a $140 bill. We told the waiter we worked for Vision Skateboards, and he said Brad Dorfman, owner of Vision, was a regular there. When he brought the bill, he asked if we wanted to put it on Brad's tab. For real. We all looked at each other, really tempted to do it. But common sense, and the desire to still have jobs on Monday, prevailed, and we split the tab. Poorman turned out to be a pretty cool guy to have dinner with, he had some good stories, and was a funny guy, just like on air.
By the time the contest was over Sunday afternoon, so was my job. I took my headphones of and told Don, "I'll be in the pit," and ran up to right below the mini ramp, where the inevitable slam pit formed, as the Chili Peppers started playing. I blew off a lot of steam, and it was a great show. The chairs everyone had been sitting on were all zip-tied together. So chairs were pushed out of the way to make room for a pit, and a few chairs, sometimes 2 or 3 tied together, went flying through the air at times. Like all good punk gigs, I was sweaty and happy and tired by the end of their set. The tech guys, the lighting guys, cameramen, and the ramp crew, had to tear down, but we were done. So I headed home for a much needed shower and good night's sleep.
Vision put out several videos, and a few TV shows, while I worked there. I was called The Dub Guy in the Unreel office. My main, day to day job was to make copies of different videos for people all across the Vision empire, which included Sim skateboards and snowboards, Schmitt Stix skateboards, and Vision Street Wear clothes. So running dubs was what most people knew I did. But I ran errands to Hollywood, or wherever, to pick up tapes, equipment, and whatever else was needed.
Basically I was the one permanent production assistant at Unreel. In 1989, I also became the official cameraman, so I got sent on video shoots now and then, as well. When Red Hot Skate Rock was released, I learned I actually got named in the credits. At the time, I thought it was pretty cool, but not that big of a deal. But none of us expected the Red Hot Chili Peppers to be a major band 35 years later. Now, as a broke, Has Been geezer of 56, it's cool as fuck my name's in the credits of a Chili Peppers video from the 1980's. The Peppers have just gotten better over time. And me... well I didn't. That's life.
Chili Peppers Carpool karaoke with James Cordon You HAVE to watch this.
Chili Peppers at Slane Castle 2003 - My favorite concert of theirs on YouTube
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