Hawk by Tony Hawk

Author:Tony Hawk [Hawk, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-200426-0
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 2000-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

BAN THIS

Ban This was the sixth Powell video, and I think most people regard it as the end of Powell’s reign. I know I do. It’s fitting, because up until filming The End for Birdhouse, I was proudest of my skating in that video. We used 35-millimeter film. We filmed the skating for the video at the Fallbrook ramp, and also on the ramp in my backyard. Stacy hired a lighting specialist to light my ramp with different colored lights and we shot throughout the night for three days, but the project almost didn’t happen.

My house was near the Palomar Observatory, and the stargazers complained the ramp lights messed up their stargazing. In fact, I’d originally had lights on my ramp, but after a few days of night skating the observatory ordered they be taken dawn (one of the unforeseen problems of living in the boonies). Stacy concocted a story about our filming an antidrug commercial at my ramp and applied for a special permit. Many highway drivers stopped during those nights, thinking that a UFO had landed on the hillside.

Ban This was the polar opposite of what H-Street and World were producing. There were some funny bits in the video, and everybody had an amazing part. After Kevin Harris’s part, the video halts abruptly and we see Stacy in the editing bay. He stops and speaks to the camera.

“You know, I’m asked all the time how do I get these skaters of mine to perform such great maneuvers, such great feats of physical talent? I must say, on my part, that it’s an extremely physical task for me to get them to do this.”

Cut to Stacy on top of a ramp, sitting in a director’s chair with a bell, ordering skaters to do tricks. He rings the bell. “Backside air!” Bucky does a backside air. “Oh! You blew it. That’s very weak. Can we get a stunt skater in here?”

Commercials for Rector Reke cologne (playing off the awful B.O. smell of Rector skate pads, which every skater wore) and skate-cart races with surreal bunnies and gladiators peppered the video. Powell’s big-budgeted, wholesome image was becoming the geek in a school full of cool kids. We made a skit about skaters being harassed by cops (clean-cut kid skates down a street filled with hookers, crack dealers, and thieves only to be the one chased down by a cop who ignores the illegal activities), while H-Street and World showed the real thing. (World made an ad out of an actual ticket for skateboarding.)

Ban This had amazing skating, but the skits felt a bit flat and redundant. Stacy seemed to be upset with internal struggles and the decision makers at Powell. I could tell he was burning out; he didn’t attack skating with the same energy that he always had. We could all read the writing on the wall. For the first time since I began skating for Powell, they seemed to be doubting themselves. They had become followers rather than leaders.

Even with all the changes in skating I had an amazing year, the last one I’d experience on Powell.

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