This article has never been published before. It was written by a good friend of mine who was heavily involved in the 1970’s skateboarding scene. It will leave you with a different idea about the whole skateboard revolution, and the skaters involved. It’s long but well worth the read.
ORANGE COUNTY CALIFORNIA UBER BOYZ
“Dogtown Wasn’t The Only Bowl Game”
By Stephen “Big Red” Douglas
(c) 2007 All Rights Reserved (Published with permission from the author)
Special Rights Reserved for Skurfboards.com
I hate to be the guy at the party who accidentally kicks a hole in the keg, but here goes. With all due respect to Stacy Peralta, contrary to the well-promoted propaganda lately, Dogtown, a rundown stretch of neighborhood in Santa Monica, wasn’t the sole “birthplace of the skateboard revolution,” as implied in the Stacy Peralta film, “Lords of Dogtown”.
If you consider the constantly mentioned “marriage” between the 1970’s exploding skateboard scene and surfing influences, it doesn’t give Dogtown much bragging rights. The reason is simple: most beaches from Redondo to Will Rogers rarely hold a decent swell larger than five feet. To be exact, the quality and consistency of the surf in Santa Monica is routinely way below par with most breaks in Orange County. Hence, the surf scene in Santa Monica was hardly an adequate breeding ground for “surf-inspired” skating.
That’s not to take away from the flash-bang talent and undeniable contributions the Z Boyz made to skateboarding. It just “all” of the promotion of skateboarding didn’t happen in Dogtown, nor did it happen there first. There was San Diego’s micro crew, and other areas in So Cal, but Orange County is where the movement blended the surf and skateboard scene together and gave it a massive commercial push. To their credit, the Z Boyz made it all dangerous, thereby legitimizing it with the younger generation.
At Salt Creek Beach, California, (”Da Creek”) summer always seemed to come with those deep blue skies, tinged a bit by a thin gray ribbon of smog that blew off the coast from Los Angeles and the Inland Empire and hugged the horizon. “The Creek” in 1976 was reached by walking down a long sloping hill, terraced by hungry developers who got waylaid by environmentalists. (The environmentalists lost finally, with massive development currently overtaking the area. A Ritz Carleton Hotel now overlooks the pristine breaks of Salt Creek). The cliffs overlooking the Creek were laced with sandy trails, trampled by surfers hiding in the underbrush to smoke large spleefs and check the breaks before hitting the waves. Today, the Ritz Carlton Hotel sits smack on top of land that has many a roach and beer can buried underneath it.
From the Salt Creek cliffs, you had a panoramic view of the ocean, a sandy stretch forcing your eyes to follow the edge of coastline moving up through craggy bluffs of South Laguna Beach. A hot summer day at the Creek made you feel confident you’d find four-foot glassy southwest bowls promising fun rides. Standing on the cliffs above the Creek, you could see there were three distinct surfing spots, each with their own personality.
THE POINT: For a large gathering of surfers, the Point seemed to deliver the most bang. On a big south swell, you could watch the sets hit first on Strands a quarter-mile away to the south, and then know that in a minute, twelve foot breakers would send us all scrambling for position. It was exhilarating trying to figure out where the peak would surge. Some of the longboarders would piss off the rest of the pack because of their ability to paddle quickly into the premium drop-in spot - and then call the wave. We always figured it was a wasted wave to see a longboarder go streaming by, smirking at us while we were turtling under pounding sets. Their long lines across the face of the waves spelled “minus extreme”. However, there were plenty of locals who would make the yawing drop, and shred roundhouse cutbacks and off-the-lips for the next fifty yards for a quick tube at the inside beach break.
MIDDLES: On a good southwest swell, sometimes the breakers hitting at the Point would shift into Middles, which would give someone long, punchless rides for as far as 100 yards. On a west or north swell, Middles really ripped, delivering bowls that pitched both left and right. Its name, “Middles”, confused a lot of “quwabbas” (a phrase coined by surfer/skater Dave Eidsvold that referred to young surfers from inland cities like Mission Viejo and beyond).
Many a young or clueless surfer would politely ask the locals, “Hey dude! Why do they call this break, “Middles”?” We’d just motion one hand towards the Point, and wave the other hand towards Gravels. They’d scratch their heads trying to figure it out for a few minutes, and then realize that the Salt Creek hot breaks were “The POINT” and “GRAVELS”. Middles was in the middle of those two breaks. Not always the best waves on the common swells, unless you got a sweet long distance western swell that sent in four foot waves, almost as if they were dedicated to that one spot we called Middles.
GRAVELS: Gravels was the break that tested your surfing skills. If you were a quwabba, or lacking in the necessary balls, you wouldn’t find yourself lasting too long at Gravels. Named for the crushed rock bottom and shallow sandbar bowls, if the first wave pitched you, or you backed out of an obviously pitchy steep drop tube ride, the locals would politely escort you back to Middles. Some of the better surfers would show up on those days when word got out it was six foot or larger. Local hotshots like Mike Weed, Mike Cruickshank, Jimmy Springs, Dave Eidsvold, Jeff Kuri, Laird Hamilton, and Billy O’Neal would be ripping it up with visiting pros Larry Bertleman (Rubberman), Shaun Thompson, Angie Reno, Gerry Lopez, and Mark Richards.
Mike Weed was Dana Points’ own local hero. He was a small freckle-faced teen with golden-tousled hair. His face was always screwed up to burst into a cackling laugh, that by the very sound of it, made everybody around him crack up, too. By the time he was eighteen, Mike was already in several of the first Professional skateboard contests, the big one being held down in Del Mar, California. He continued in many professional events as a Pro skater with Hobie and was ripping it with Steve Olson and Scott Dunlap in circuit contests, their slashing style and chili pepper tricks opening up the eyes of the judges and spectators. Weed’s wild style and energy garnered him constant placements in the top five, and by the early 80’s, he was appearing on television talkshows.
One memorable day I remember was quite bizarre in the intensity of the sport of surfing and skateboarding, with a new “snow surfing” product (The Snurf http://www.snurf.com). We saw Weed surfing in a contest at Salt Creek in the morning, then by early afternoon he was hitting some concrete pipes for the newest skating craze of attempting the first “round the world” revolution somewhere out near San Bernardino, and then late in the same day he was up at Big Bear testing out another new-fangled device called a “snowboard” or “snurf board”. It was a 100 mile trifecta of extreme sports during the birth of what would be soon called “busting tricks.”
Mike’s temper got the best of him at times, and it once brought him close to disaster. He had a running feud over a girlfriend who was involved with another famous local of Orange County, Matt Sorum (drummer of Guns N Roses, now a world renown drummer for Velvet Revolver). Before Matt made the bigtime, there was bad drugs and miscreant girls, parties, guns, a blade and the resultant problems almost took us all down. (I have the scars to prove it). Then we found peace and wisdom and cocaine-free lives, to a small degree, and mellowed out.
In our Dana Point circle were guys like Kenny “Meanie” Means, a champion rollerskater who, at first, in the face of verbal jeering from skateboarders, would blow minds by shredding a concrete bowl and doing some of the first aerials on rollerskates. Nobody on a skateboard looked down their nose at the Meanie after seeing him work his magic. A wiry small dude with a penchant for knowing where to hit his apex, Means was one of the first rollerskaters who blew open the doors for trick skaters.
One of the most laidback of the skaters was Bob Jarvis. Older than the rest of the other skaters, except for Skitch Hitchcock, Bob liked to keep it smooth. His approach wasn’t so much a pursuit to aggressive skating as it was a zen “let it flow” kind of style. That attitude got him a few trophies for a now under-appreciated trick of 360 degree backwheel spins. He could pull off seventy-five 360’s without breaking a sweat, which earned a skateboard wheel named after him made by the famous Hawaiian surfer Dick Brewer. Without a doubt, Bob was the Master of Cool in the Orange County skateboard circuit.
There was one character who wasn’t enamored about competition because he was too busy with his hyper-kinetic vision of speed. Natural speed. Speed you felt when you were on a skateboard with no controls. Garrison Hitchcock was your boy if you wanted to feel like you were watching someone falling into an abyss. Skitch, his older brother, designed skateboard prototypes inbetween his insane acrobatic handstanding at 20 mph. Between these two brothers and Mike Weed, Orange County skaters were represented well. Mike projected power-moves and liquid tricks. Garrison focused on getting down the hill very fast. Like, how fast could you go if your skateboard was six feet long, rigid, with ball-bearing urethane wheels and on a 20 degree slope? He was among the first to try it. Some will argue that Luge skating was borne from Garrison’s dreams… and not too many people can deny it.
Skitch was no angel — in fact, he was almost feared on tour. He was notorious for waiting until someone fell asleep, then quietly bringing a crowd around while he dropped his pants and ripped a fart, or even graced his
“behind,” over the unfortunate victim’s face. Many a worthy skater and surfer suffered under Skitch’s bizarre sense of humor. Of course, it wasn’t “bizarre” to all of us watching at the time. It was hilarious, except when it was time to go to sleep.
I hope that today’s skaterboarders will see another viewpoint in the cinematic portrayal of skateboard history. It’s commendable that the producers of “Dogtown and the Z Boys”, (Van’s Incorporated and Stacy Peralta), made the film. It needed to be made. The problem is that they make it seem like the skateboard revolution of the 70’s originated in Dogtown. No disrespect to the talented Z Boyz, but it didn’t. Sure, it was heavily promoted there by those determined rogues, but at the same time it was also embraced all over Southern California.
Orange County, specifically Dana Point, San Clemente, and even the inland cities of Anaheim and Costa Mesa, were hotbeds of young talent fighting for recognition in the 70’s. Guys like Darryl Brooks would be the first testers of Cadillac wheels on the streets of Mission Viejo. The Orange County Boyz of “Da Creek” gave more than significant contributions to the way it is today. Hobie, Herbie Fletcher, Mike Weed, Miguel Munoz, the late Craig Chastney, Kevin and Colin Hurst, Steve Cox, Garrison and Skitch Hitchcock, Bob Jarvis, Jimmy Springs, Jim Mitchell (who built one of the first ten foot skateboard ramps in his driveway and was notorious for finding empty pools for the crew to skate in before the cops came) and Kenny Means were among the few who were just as important to the growth of the skateboard phenomenon as any of the Z Boyz. Adding to that contribution was the fact that Orange County surf spots and surfers easily outranked Santa Monica and the LA beach cities. Nothing even close to the ten foot pipes at Newport Beach’s 56th Street jetty ever broke under the pylons of the Fun Zone.
I was there, and this is what I saw. Just giving credit to where it’s due.
Stephen Douglas
-Stephen Douglas is an author and Salt Creek local. He is a domain broker and musician/producer, living with his wife in the Pac Norwest. He owns the websites http://www.surfingclub.com and http://www.snurf.com.
