S u r f , s k at e , s n o w , t r av e l , m u s i c , f i l m , a r t , fa s h i o n

S p e c i a l E d i t i o n

MOS D EF:straight talk

HUCK 25. CONTENTS1. Rob Dyrdek

3 . BANZAI PIPE

5. Honourable photography

13. MOS DEF: in his own words

20. Eras best boarders?

Rob Dyrdek is a pro skater, reality TV star, business-man, and much more. In this interview, I talk with Rob Dyrdek about skateboarding, how we got his start, his TV shows, and what he feels is most important.

I kicked off the interview asking Rob to tell us a little about the road he took to becoming a pro skater. “I grew up in Ohio,” Rob started, “and I got my first skate-board in October 1986 from my sister’s boyfriend. 24 days later I entered my first contest, and got into Neil Blender’s car. A month later I was sponsored, and 6 months later I was sponsored by G&S, was in the NSA and winning contests. I was sponsored by Alien Work-shop at age 16!”

I asked Rob how he went from that to where he is now. “I’ve always had a business mind. I started my first company at age 18,” Rob explained. “I’ve always liked the creative side of skateboarding. The freedom inside the sport of skateboarding, and how it’s not about how good you are. So I’ve always been doing crazy creative stuff.”

“When we started doing the DC Video, I knew it would be the biggest in history, and I knew that my skate-boarding would not impact people as strongly as oth-ers. So I came up with the bodyguard idea! You know how skaters are always getting kicked out of spots. So

then we started traveling and touring together.”I always thought that Rob and Big Black were friends before the show. “No man, that was all scripted!” he said. “One call to a San Diego Security Company.” Crazy how things get started sometimes!

I asked Rob about how the show Fantasy Factory came about. “MTV wanted another Rob and Big season, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be known for it, you know? Plus my businesses were being effected, my skateboarding was being effected, and I hated that it was being filmed at my house. So, once we had a little break, it evolved. I thought, what if I added a skate-park to my business? And once it came to that I started slowly thinking about a big warehouse. I thought, what if I put all of the people who actually work in one sec-tion, and build a huge room…”

Rob Dyrdek is one of skateboarding’s most likable per-sonalities, and he has done a LOT to promote and prog-ress skateboarding, and how skateboarding is viewed. You can check out pictures of Rob in the Rob Dyrdek photo gallery. “Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory” pre-mieres August 27 at 9pm ET/PT on MTV and is part of the “See You Thursday” block which also includes new seasons of “Bully Beatdown,” and “Nitro Circus,” as well as an all-new show, “Pranked.”

Rob Dyrdek

1 HUCK

Banzai PipelineSheer geography makes this bone-crushing beauty a high-definition explosion for spectators and the ultimate athletic challenge for advanced surfers. The Banzai Pipeline has crowned champions and broken boards since the sixties. No one is immune to its allure or its danger, and anyone who has paddled over the edge into this beyond-vertical behe-moth understands it gravity. But what really makes this most famous wave on the planet tick?

The Name

Informally, this hallowed surf ground is known today as “Pipe,” a raw utterance that says round, deep, and heavy all at once. However, the Banzai Pipeline earned its more formal title as a result of a 1960’s reference to exposed pipes under nearby Kamehameha Highway and the name of the beach, which was then Banzai Beach.

The Wave

It’s nature’s perfect recipe. Breaking at its most powerful a scant 75 yards off the safety of the sand, Pipe offers giant barrels and sometimes an easy paddle out along with a spec-tacular view of the action. It is, no doubt, the world’s most famous wave.

The Peak

Depending on the swell direction, the peak can peel off into a perfect hollow left (west swell), a fast barreling right (north swell), or both (northwest swell). The right, of course, is known as Backdoor.

Ehukai Beach Park

This kinder wave breaks over a soft sand bar and can be super fun on north and northeast swells.

The Take-Off Zones

Three sections make up the infamous Pipeline reef system. All of which play a role in the many personalities of Pipeline, but it’s the first reef that is the launching pad for surfing’s most hair raising moments. The second and third reefs act more as indicators of major approaching swells or as a pre-emptive entry point for surfers trying to get in before the wave jacks on the first reef.

Third ReefResting at some 40 feet of water and 300 yards out, third reef breaks the biggest waves (at least 20 feet) and alerts surfers further inside that a big daddy is on the way. This wave has never been surfed in a contest.

Second Reef

12- 15 foot swells usually foam up and slide over the second reef, giving surfers an “easier” and more sloping entry point and a little time to set up for the tube. These waves then reform over the first reef.

First Reef

This patch of flat lava rock just feet below the surface less than 75 yards out slows the base of open-ocean swells, al-lowing the walls to stand tall and the lip to leap over like no wave anywhere. The result is a 7 second barrel that grinds and tapers down to a smaller shoulder on perfect west swells.

A True Spectacle

The surf world literally watches from the sand. Photogs, writers, pros, tourists, movie makers, and anyone renting the dozens of giant homes within view of the peak analyze every move made in the water and push the drama to a fever pitch.

Pipeline

Although it’s packed almost every day there’s waves, Pipe is rarely perfect. Usually, it’s windy and shifty but with plenty of giant drops and gaping tubes to be navigated. On those rare perfect days, however, widely spaced west swells roll in and once groomed by light off-shore trade winds result in a surfer’s dream: a clean vertical drop into a wide open tube that spins over the reef and exhausts itself over Ehukai’s soft sand.

Refraction

According to oceanographers, Pipeline’s best waves are the outcome of swell refraction, meaning that the outermost waves ricochet off third reef towards the beach and meet up with the west swells to create an A-frame peak and inside bowl. Just one of these beasts could make your entire winter.

The Ride

Many surfers will tell you, “It’s simple. Just takeoff and pull in.” However, until you have actually experienced a 10 foot wall of water jack straight up and overhead while you bal-ance, hold an edge, and commit a path past the falling lip and over lava rock caves just feet below, don’t believe that Pipe is easy.

The Wipeout

It’s not a matter of if you will wipeout but rather when and how bad. So, how do you survive?

No matter when or how you fall, get as far away from your board as possible. There are more injuries from fin and lip lacerations than from reef rash.

Try to land feet first. This helps you penetrate the water and avoid being sucked over the falls. If you do go over the falls, curl into a ball and cover your head with your arms. The reef at Pipe isn’t sharp, but it sure is hard.

If you have a choice, try to avoid being caught under the falling lip. This means that pulling into even the nastiest tube can be safer that straightening out and being crushed by the lip over the shallows.

Banzai Pipeline

3 HUCK

PHOTOGRAPHYBYANSELADAMS

5 HUCK 6 HUCK

Mos Def I n h i s o w n w o r d s

truth & soul

I n t erv i ew T i m D o n n elly || P h oto g r a p h y A n d r ew D o s u n m u

Mos Def is rocking out to an obscure seventies black punk band called Death. His arms are flailing, his head is banging and his feet are running in place. “Dude, is this

the sickest shit ever,” he says to me, in his room at NYC’s Hotel Greenwich.

We’re basically moshing inside the posh Downtown inn famously owned by Robert DeNiro. Much to the chagrin of his publicist and his girlfriend, his energy is as contagious as the rawk that’s pumping out of the speakers. “Can you believe these dudes are brothers?” he asks before screaming the words to the chorus, “ D e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e -aaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttttthhh-hhhhhhhh. Can you imagine seeing these dudes in 1974? Wow, man… Fuck…”

My interview with Mos Def has just ended and this moment pretty much says it all about my time with him. He is a candid and hugely passionate artist. His knowledge, beliefs and most of all his ability to relate who he is without blowing smoke up my ass, or his own, makes him a veritable dude’s dude.

In the entertainment business, the thirty-six-year-old is known as a triple threat: he can act (Monster’s Ball, The Italian Job, Be Kind Rewind), he can rap (Grammy winner, five albums) and,

most of all, he ain’t taking any shit - especially from some suit who seeks to sell out his persona to peddle flavoured water. His principles are firm, and it’s those exact ideals that intrigue and inspire many - and frighten a few.

His latest and most stellar collection of songs, The Ecstatic, brings Mos Def to the upper plateau of artists making any kind

of music anywhere today. For the kid from Brooklyn, it’s exactly where heS should be and, more importantly, it’s where he needs to be.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mos Def, in his own words.

The New Yorker

Born Dante Terrell Smith in Brooklyn, Mos Def grew up in a three-window tenement apartment during a time that many in New York City would rather forget.

MOS DEF: I was thirteen, fourteen when crack hit the streets and it was just like, the atomic bomb for the Japanese, and then there’s crack for my people and my generation. It hit a lot of people, but it hit us first, and hard. It didn’t matter if you were using or if you was dealing or not, everybody was affected, it just was indiscriminate. You didn’t have to be an active participant to feel the effects.

When KRS-One came out with ‘Stop the Violence’ he was telling them - he wasn’t just telling us - he was telling the world: stop the violence, stop your economic violence, stop your social violence. Stop the bullshit because you’re creating a generation of socio-pathic people.

Sure enough ten years later, you know, those anti-violence campaigns… we told you what the fuck was gonna happen. You know, we told you there would be the Crips and the Bloods. You go to Flatbush [in Brooklyn], it was United Kings and MOB. We aren’t even talking about the Caribbean gangs and all that, so it was a bunch of shit going on that you know when you’re a teenager.As a teenager going to school, we were under constant pressure and stress. Myself and others like me in that time, and in times now, are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. You go to school with five million people on a train packed up like sardines. And you get to school and the worst gang in the city is just waiting there to just whip people’s asses for fun. You know what I’m saying? It was nine o’clock in the morning.

And on top of that, nobody cared. We were criminalised for being young. It was a heavy time, man. That time makes me wanna cry, because a lot of young people didn’t survive that. And that shit is still going on today.I talked to my brother, and my nephew is like twelve going on thirteen, you know, a pre-teen. My brother is looking at me with genuine concern in his eyes like, “Every time he leaves to go to school I say a prayer because anything could happen to my son.”

The Activist

In 2006, a school yard fight got out of hand in Jena, Louisiana, between black and white youths. The aftermath of the incident led to scare tactics straight from the 1950s Ku Klux Klan playbook, including the hanging of nooses to intimidate the local black population. Among the hundreds of protestors, Mos Def was one of the few hip hop artists to take a stand against it.

MOS DEF: You know the sad shit about that shit, is the fuck loads of people who came down there. People left their jobs, they

got fired for that shit, bro. These people ain’t famous, they were just concerned. We had all the people power. The people knew what they were supposed to do. I called everybody, man. I called everybody I could call, man. And nobody picked up. And then it was like, they’re throwing us under the bus. I’m like, I’m not throwing anybody under the bus. This is the fucking facts, holmes.

I was there in that hot-ass Louisiana sun, wearing a $55,000 watch on purpose. Those motherfuckers then see that this dude that you fucked with got big brothers who are big dudes and they’re not having it. But I was the only brother to show up. Shout out to everybody who was there, but I open up

the magazines [and] the motherfuckers are on stage with millions of dollars worth of jewellery like it’s a motherfucking Fonzie moment. You know, and this is like post-Katrina. You want to be Blake Carrington? Okay, what do you do after that? I’m sick of that shit, man, and it’s like you can’t even say nothing about it because it’s like, oh, you’re being judgemental, oh, you can’t understand.

“I was thirteen, fourteen when crack hit the streets and it was just like, the atomic bomb for the Japanese, and then there’s crack for my people and my generation. It hit a lot of people, but it hit us first, and hard. It didn’t matter if you were using or if you was dealing or not, everybody was affected, it just was indiscriminate.”

Manifest Destiny Black Star Black on Both Sides The New Dan-ger True Magic The Ecstatic Manifest Destiny Black Star Black on Both Sides The New Danger True Magic The Ecstatic Manifest Destiny Black Star Black on Both Sides The New Danger True Magic The Ecstatic Manifest Destiny Black Star Black on Both Sides The New Danger True Magic The Ecstatic Manifest Destiny Black Star Black on Both Sides The New Danger True M a g i c The Ec- s t a t i c M a n i f e s t D e s t i n y Black Star Black on Both Sides The New Danger True Magic The Ecstatic Manifest Destiny Black Star Black on Both Sides The New Danger True Magic The Ecstatic Manifest Destiny Black Star Black on Both Sides The New Danger True Magic The Ecstatic

MOS DEF

13 HUCK14 HUCK

in power. I’m not making judgement on you. I’m making a judgement on your power policy. You know, you’re not just some random private citizen. You’re part of an industry that motivates people’s hearts and minds, like, what the fuck?

You have to be checked.

Mos Def is rocking out to an obscure seventies black punk band called Death. His arms are flailing, his head is banging and his feet are running in place. “Dude, is this the sickest shit ever,” he says to me, in his room at NYC’s Hotel Greenwich.

We’re basically moshing inside the posh Downtown inn famously owned by Robert DeNiro. Much to the chagrin of his publicist and his girlfriend, his energy is as contagious as the rawk that’s pumping out of the speakers. “Can you believe these dudes are brothers?” he asks before screaming the words to the chorus, “Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-aaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhh. Can you imagine seeing these dudes in 1974? Wow, man… Fuck…”

My interview with Mos Def has just ended and this moment pretty much says it all about my time with him. He is a candid and hugely passionate artist. His knowledge, beliefs and most of all his ability to relate who he is without blowing smoke up my ass, or his own, makes him a veritable dude’s dude.

In the entertainment business, the thirty-six-year-old is known as a triple threat: he can act (Monster’s Ball, The Italian Job, Be Kind Rewind), he can rap (Grammy winner, five albums) and, most of all, he ain’t taking any shit - especially from some suit who seeks to sell out his persona to peddle flavoured water. His principles are firm, and it’s those exact ideals that intrigue and inspire many - and frighten a few.

His latest and most stellar collection of songs, The Ecstatic, brings Mos Def to the upper plateau of artists making any kind of music anywhere today. For the kid from Brooklyn, it’s exactly where heS should be and, more importantly, it’s where he needs to be.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mos Def, in his own words. Born Dante Terrell Smith in Brooklyn, Mos Def grew up in a three-window tenement apartment during a time that many in New York City would rather forget.

MOS DEF: I was thirteen, fourteen when crack hit the streets and it was just like, the atomic bomb for the Japanese, and then there’s crack for my people and my generation. It hit a lot of people, but it hit us first, and hard. It didn’t matter if you were using or if you was dealing or not, everybody was affected, it just was indiscriminate. You didn’t have to be an active participant to feel the effects.It was driving so many neighbours out of their minds and souls - and making others rich - driving them out of their minds and souls and sending them to the funeral home and penitentiary. There was a lot going on and nobody gave a fuck, the New York City local government... nobody gave a fuck about us, dude.

When KRS-One came out with ‘Stop the Violence’ he was telling them - he wasn’t just telling us - he was telling the world: stop the violence, stop your economic violence, stop your social violence. Stop the bullshit because you’re creating a generation of socio-pathic people.

Sure enough ten years later, you know, those anti-violence campaigns… we told you what the fuck was gonna happen. You know, we told you there would be the Crips and the Bloods. You go to Flatbush [in Brooklyn], it was United Kings and MOB. We aren’t even talking about the Caribbean gangs and all that, so it was a bunch of shit going on that you know when you’re a teenager.As a teenager going to school, we were under constant pressure and stress. Myself and others like me in that time, and in times now, are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. You go to school with five million people on a train packed up like sardines. And you get to school and the worst gang in the city is just waiting there to just whip people’s asses for fun. You know what I’m saying? It was nine o’clock in the morning.

And on top of that, nobody cared. We were criminalised for being young. It was

a heavy time, man. That time makes me wanna cry, because a lot of young people didn’t survive that. And that shit is still going on today.I talked to my brother, and my nephew is like twelve going on thirteen, you know, a pre-teen. My brother is looking at me with genuine concern in his eyes like, “Every time he leaves to go to school I say a prayer because anything could happen to my son.”

The Activist

In 2006, a school yard fight got out of hand in Jena, Louisiana, between black and white youths. The aftermath of the incident led to scare tactics straight from the 1950s Ku Klux Klan playbook, including the hanging of nooses to intimidate the local black population. Among the hundreds of protestors, Mos Def was one of the few hip hop artists to take a stand against it.

MOS DEF: You know the sad shit about that shit, is the fuck loads of people who came down there. People left their jobs, they got fired for that shit, bro. These people ain’t famous, they were just concerned. We had all the people power. The people knew what they were supposed to do. I called everybody, man. I called everybody I could call, man. And nobody picked up. And then it

We’re basically moshing inside the posh Downtown inn famously owned by Robert DeNiro. Much to the chagrin of his publicist and his girlfriend, his energy is as contagious as the rawk that’s pumping out of the speakers. “Can you believe these dudes are brothers?” he asks before screaming the words to the chorus, “Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-aaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhh. Can you imagine seeing these dudes in 1974? Wow, man… Fuck…”

My interview with Mos Def has just ended and this moment pretty much says it all about my time with him. He is a candid and hugely passionate artist. His knowledge, beliefs and most of all his ability to relate who he is without blowing smoke up my ass, or his own, makes him a veritable dude’s dude.

15 HUCK

ERAS BEST BOARDERS?

TONY HAWK

Gender: Male Hometown: San Diego, California

Date of Birth: May 12, 1968 Began Skating: 1977

First Sponsored: 1980 Turned Pro: 1982

Favored Discipline: Vert Stance: Goofy

Tony Hawk is retired from competing

Tony Hawk is harder on himself than anyone else ever could be. This drive is seen in Tony Hawk’s skateboarding style - he is original and relentless. He has a monsterous list of skateboarding

tricks invented, a huge stack of trophies and gold medals, and is easily the most

recognisable name in skateboarding. Tony Hawk has never settled for

anything but his best, and his best skateboarding has earned him the

position at the top.

Tony Hawk was a troubled kid. He would push himself to do well in

everything - in fact, to do better than he possibly could do, and then get angry with himself for failing. His parents

had him psychologically evaluated, and discovered that he was “gifted”. His older

brother Steve gave him a skateboard, and Tony found something that he could

focus on, and get good at. He would still push himself relentlessly, which

helped propel him to be the world’s most recognizable skateboarder today.

Tony Hawk had his first film debut in the

1989 movie, Gleaming the Cube - the first feature film to use skateboarding as

a major theme. The movie stars Christian Slater, with Tony playing Christian

Slater’s friend, Buddy. Mike McGill does all of Slater’s skateboarding, Rodney

Mullen is seen skateboarding during the opening credits, and Stacey Peralta did

all of the film’s skateboarding directing.

STEVE CABALLERO

Gender: Male Height: 5’3”

Hometown: San Jose, California Current Residence: Campbell, California

Date of Birth: November 8th, 1964 First Sponsored: 1979

Favored Discipline: Street #1 Sponsor: Powell Peralta

Stance: Goofy

Steve Caballero was sponsored just one year after he started skateboarding. He’s friendly, happy, and extremely talented. Steve invented several tricks, the most

famous being the “Caballaerial”. He says he still enjoys skateboarding as much as when he first started, and is always positive. Back in his prime,

Steve Caballero would pull off massive backside airs (up to 11 feet high), and is one of the legendary skaters featured in

the famous Bones Brigade skateboarding videos. Now, Steve Caballero still skates

in competitions at the Skate Legend level.

Steve was born with scoliosis. Despite this, Steve Caballero never relented in his

interests or in his encouraging outlook on life. Steve Caballero is also very

happy to share his faith in Jesus Christ, and loves to incorporate the gospel

into anything he does. Steve Caballero’s Myspace page is full of his thoughts on God, life, and everything in between. According to Steve Caballero’s blog,

he loves the Bible, Jesus, toy collecting (super heroes, Ultraman and Star Wars),

art, music, and motocross.

Steve is also very active in art, producing a lot more than just new skateboard deck designs. See the Steve Caballero Myspace

Artist Page and see what he’s been up to. You can also see announcements to art shows where Steve’s art will be

shown, and you can find out how to buy Caballero art.

RYAN SHECKLER

Gender: Male Height: 5’4”

Hometown: San Clemente, California Date of Birth: Dec. 30th, 1989

Started Skating: 1993 Started Competing: 1997

Turned Pro: 2003 Favored Discipline: Street / Park

Stance: Regular

As the youngest pro skateboarder on the circuit, Ryan Sheckler has blown away

the crowds with his ever increasing skill and variety of skateboarding tricks. Ryan Sheckler skates fast and hard, rarely bails,

and has strong technical skateboarding skills.

In an interview for the X Games, Ryan Sheckler says, “I normally like to skate a good ramp over something, so last

year at X Games (2004) when they had the jump over the bush, that was fun. And good set of 9-stairs is good too. Right at the moment, I’m doing good

at everything I’m skating, spinning, flip tricks, it should be better for me at X

Games (2005).”

At the age of 18 months, Ryan Sheckler found his dad’s old school pool riding

skateboard. Soon after that, Ryan began to push around on one knee, and eventually stood up on the skateboard. Ryan Sheckler is now a teenager, still in school, who also happens to be a

professional world famous skateboarder. Ryan was home schooled through 7th

and 8th grade, and attends Futures High School (a one-on-one school program

for athletes and actors). Ryan loves riding moto-X along with skateboarding.

Ryan Sheckler is the youngest pro skater to ever win gold at the X Games (2004)

19 HUCK 20 HUCK

RIDE