90s Vignettes
Our second trip to California in 1993 was driven by a thirst for product. Predominantly, anything World Industries. Everyone back in the UK was rabid for it and it was a surefire way to fund more trips. Just to clarify, for anyone who only associates World Industries with ‘Flameboy’ kids trainers at K-Mart, it should be known that from 1989 to 1993, Steve Rocco and Rodney Mullen’s highly coveted company was literally all skaters wanted and had the rest of the industry on the verge of extinction.
RUBBISH HEAP, A TALE OF FOOL'S GOLD.
by Darren Howman.
“Yeah, Rocco and Rodney live a few blocks away.”
The local surfer casually mentioned this while selling us his car on a Hermosa Beach back street. - A two tone teal and white 1963 split screen VW bus for a mere $500. Blindsided by his statement about Rocco’s house, we fell for his sales pitch, failing to notice the balding whitewall tyres, no door locks and a broom handle with a rag gaff taped to its end for wiping the windshield. LA skate spots in 1993 were scarce during the daytime meaning while based in Torrance, we were either skating a tree root surrounded planter box behind Alta Vista school baseball fields, a bizarrely waxed-on-the-top manual pad at Gemco in Torrance or night skates at ‘World underground’, a lit parking garage near El Segundo where during a game of skate, Daewon Song foolishly gave us his number and said to call him when we needed product. Taking into consideration that just a week prior, we’d starved ourselves for three days to justify buying a pair of full price bLind jeans each, this was music to our ears. With no item ever costing more than $20, we pestered him to the point that ‘Mystery boxes’ were simply left under his Honda in the driveway and our envelopes of cash deposited in the mail box. Boxes came stuffed with half screened World decks, Duffs Strombolies and whatever else he was able to grab. We didn’t care what they contained, we just knew anything coming out of that warehouse would sell for top dollar back home. Our persistent calls probably pissed him off, but I’m pretty sure we kept him happily dipped in Polo, Nautica and Guess during that period.
Daewon at Alta Vista.
When the Mystery boxes dried up, an idea hatched involving Hermosa trash day. The VW buses sliding side door would make a drive-by dumpster dive into Rocco’s bins a piece of piss. Surely those trash cans would be chock full of barely used ‘test’ decks, wheels and shoes. We wouldn’t even need to leave cash in the mailbox.
The buses noisy engine choking through the dark Hermosa backstreets demanded the mission be a lightning speed ‘leap and grab’ and a first pass-by proved fruitful. Our eyes popped from our heads on spying a stack of decks protruding from the top of the bins and quickly looping around the block, the bus slowed to a crawl as I leapt out and grabbed them. Tossing the quiver with a clatter into the van, I greedily dashed back and grabbed a stuffed soggy World box before diving through the side door as Ryan hit the gas. Parking up at a Dunkin’ Donuts, we began to inspect the haul. Each deck had a virtually untouched glossy finish in those unmistakable blue, yellow and orange stains of World Industries and the letters ‘RM’ stamped at the front baseplate. With only a rectangle of oddly placed grip tape stuck underside at each end, we thought we’d hit the jackpot. But on flipping the boards over, disappointment hit hard. The grip tape was a gouged and shredded mess with both tail and nose tips ground to a razor edge. Holding these obliterated wafer thin planks, that waxy manual pad at Gemco started to make sense. These boards were the casualties of some heavy casper and darkslide sessions. Pushing the useless stack to one side I stayed hopeful, sliding my arm into the soggy cardboard box. Pulling out an ‘In and out’ burger wrapper, a cheese grated ‘Fuct’ T-shirt and three hideous 39mm, clear urethane, Think ‘Family Jewels’ wheels, we admit defeat and head inside the donut shop, drowning our sorrows in a box of Munchkins.
Rodney Mullen scraping the wrong side at GEMCO in Plan B’s Virtual reality video and Ryan and Myself
making the most of our re-gripped dumpster dive decks a month or so later back on home soil in the UK.
making the most of our re-gripped dumpster dive decks a month or so later back on home soil in the UK.
Darren is the author of Perro Callejero (Stray Dog) and a new collection of ‘90s vignettes.
Follow him on Instagram @daz_dot_com to read more.
Follow him on Instagram @daz_dot_com to read more.