{"id":55453,"date":"2014-05-01T09:02:15","date_gmt":"2014-05-01T16:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=55453"},"modified":"2022-06-07T18:02:51","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T01:02:51","slug":"ray-flores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/ray-flores\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Flores"},"content":{"rendered":"

RAY FLORES<\/strong><\/p>\n

INTERVIEW & INTRODUCTION BY JAY ADAMS<\/strong><\/p>\n

PHOTO BY RUDY MANHEIM<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ray Flores is an old friend of mine. I\u2019ve known him so long that I don\u2019t even remember when we met. When we talked about doing this interview I had to ask him about it. He remembered it well. He said he was in the parking lot at Bay Street in a van that had a skateboard company logo on it. That\u2019s probably what started our conversation. We hung out and skated together and have been friends ever since. Ray remembers a lot of things about skateboarding. He\u2019s been doing it all his life, and he\u2019s still a skateboarder who actually SKATES.\u00a0Ray was born in 1951 in Santa Monica and started skateboarding in 1956 when he was six years old. His next-door neighbors were surfers and after seeing them tear apart a pair of roller skates and nailing the wheels on a 2X4 then surf down the sidewalk, he was hooked. He shaped his own skates through the early \u201860s and eventually got a new red Makaha board with early clay wheels. He entered his first contest at Santa Monica Civic in 1964 and ended up getting on his first team, the C & D team. After that he got on the original Dewey Weber team. The following year, he entered the Pacific Palisades skate contest and got picked up by the Hobie team. He toured the West Coast doing demos and appeared on TV on several different variety shows. In 1967, he was going to Venice High School and skateboarding popularity took its first nosedive, but Ray never stopped skateboarding. He used to ride his skate ten miles up to Paul Revere to skate with guys like Steve and Dave Hilton, Torger Johnson and Danny Bearer (some of my early heroes as well).\u00a0I have a lot of respect for Ray for being so real. I\u2019m proud to say that I followed a similar path, so I know the feeling. About 1973, he moved up to Marin County and, after Cadillac Wheels came out, skateboarding became popular again, so he started entering contests again. On a trip down to Santa Monica to visit his mom, he hung out with Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom and became our only northern Z-Boy. In \u201874, he moved back down to Santa Monica and became best friends with [Tony] Alva. Ray skated for Pepsi and Grentec and helped design skateboards for Mattel. Later, he started riding homemade Wes Humpston custom Dogtown decks. That\u2019s when Wes handmade them in his garage. Ray loved pool riding and he helped develop our Dogtown style. Ray was always so amped to skate anything and I remember him driving all over California chasing different spots to skate. Ray has been a big part of skateboarding as long as I can remember and he also has a mean collection of old skates. Find Ray in Venice if you want to see the best collection of Dogtown stuff anybody has. Ray is a skateboarder for life and I\u2019m proud to say I know him.\u00a0 <\/span>(Hey, Ray, I hope I\u2019m just like you in ten years).\u00a0\u2013 Jay Boy Adams<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hey, Ray!\u2002You ready, buddy?<\/strong>
\nYes, sir. I am ready.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get to the basics.\u2002What kind of Mexican are you anyway?<\/strong>
\nI am a Mexican American.<\/p>\n

Where were you born?<\/strong>
\nI was born in Santa Monica. My dad was born in Santa Monica and my grandfather was born in Santa Monica.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re a fourth generation Santa Monican.<\/strong>
\nYep. My dad\u2019s mom is from Mazatlan. Mazatlan and Santa Monica are sister cities, which is coincidental. I learned how to surf in Mazatlan when I was a little kid.<\/p>\n

How old are you right now?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m 62.<\/p>\n

When did you start skateboarding?<\/strong>
\nGrowing up in Santa Monica, we were poor Mexicans.\u2002We lived in duplexes and apartments. When I was in first grade, there were some surfers that lived in our duplex.<\/p>\n

What year was this?<\/strong>
\n1956. These surfers lived behind us, and they would always grab their boards and put them in their car and take off to the beach. I would wait around for them and they would come back late in the afternoon and I\u2019d watch them take their boards out of the car and put them in the garage. One day they went out in the morning and came back a half hour later and they went in the garage and started banging away on a 2×4 and some old roller skates and made a skateboard. That was the first skateboard I had ever seen. They started riding it up and down the sidewalk in front of our house on Venice Boulevard and then they gave me the board.\u2002They just said, \u201cHere, this is for you.\u201d\u2002That was my very first skateboard.\u2002Many years later, I figured out that there were no waves that day, and that\u2019s why they came back so soon.\u2002They were jones-ing to surf, so they nailed this skateboard together and they were riding it up and down the sidewalk.<\/p>\n

You lived in Venice Beach then?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I lived on Venice Boulevard.<\/p>\n

I was born and raised in the Venice Canals and then I lived on North Venice Boulevard.<\/strong>
\nI was closer to Mar Vista. It was those apartments right there on the Venice\/Mar Vista borderline.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when you got introduced to skateboarding, and you were how old?<\/strong>
\nActually, I started surfing first. In those days, skateboarding was just what surfers did when there were no waves. It wasn\u2019t like a huge sport that you would go out and practice. It was sidewalk surfing. You didn\u2019t skateboard if you didn\u2019t surf.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t even have the name skateboarding. It was sidewalk surfing. This was before skateboarding was skateboarding.<\/strong>
\nExactly. I got my first surfboard when I was in the fifth grade. My parents wouldn\u2019t let me go surfing unless someone\u2019s dad was standing there on the beach to watch, so\u2002I had a friend named Mike Byham whose father lied to my dad and said, \u201cOh, yeah, I always stand on the beach and watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where did you surf?<\/strong>
\nWe learned to surf on the north side of Santa Monica Pier at Station 9.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where I learned to surf too. The north side of Santa Monica Pier was the spot.\u2002It had that little thing off the pier and there was a good left off of that.<\/strong>
\nYou would paddle from under the pier to catch that left right there. We all surfed either the north side of the pier or Bay Street.\u2002Those were the two places we went. When we got better, we went down to the T\u2019s or P.O.P. I surfed a lot on the north side of the P.O.P. Pier.<\/p>\n

Do you remember my step-dad\u2019s surf rental place down there?<\/strong>
\nYes. I used to keep my board at Eli\u2019s when I was a little kid.<\/p>\n

How fun was P.O.P.? I went to the Cheetah and saw the Doors play there. You know my mom used to go out with Jim Morrison.<\/strong>
\nI know. I remember your mom.\u2002She was a beautiful lady.<\/p>\n

We went to one of Jim Morrison\u2019s concerts and I remember that the snare on the drum fell down and he picked it up. I still remember that.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s rad.<\/p>\n

I want to hear one of your P.O.P. stories.<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ll tell you a story about P.O.P.\u2002I was in the fifth grade and my class was taking a road trip to the beach. We went to the north side of P.O.P. and you could see the bubble trams going up in the sky. Two guys on bicycles ride up with rickshaws with their Weber Surfboards on the back, and they look at me and go, \u201cLittle Raymond!\u2002What\u2019s going on?\u201d\u2002They walked right up to me with 30 of my classmates around me. These two guys were my cousins Tommy and Joey Balfour.\u2002Tommy and Joey were really hardcore surfers from Venice.\u2002They went to Venice High School and they were friends of Skipper.\u2002Skip used to go to Mexico with them and they used to stay at my grandmother\u2019s in Mazatlan.\u2002Skipper knows my grandma. Tommy and Joey Balfour were actually my father\u2019s cousins, so they were my second cousins.\u2002I was with my class and those kids had never been close to a surfboard, so my cousins let them play with their boards in the water. I remember their Schwinn bikes. They had big old Schwinn cruisers with tanks on them. This was probably 1957. I felt proud because my cousins were there with their surfboards and I was just a little kid in grammar school.\u2002That\u2019s when I decided that I was going to be a surfer. That\u2019s when it clicked in my mind, \u201cThis is what I\u2019m going to do for the rest of my life!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

“SURFING WAS INFLUENCED FROM SKATEBOARDING. ALL THE AERIALS DONE IN SURFING WERE DONE ON A SKATEBOARD FIRST. SKATEBOARDING IS THE FATHER OF EXTREME SPORTS. IT REALLY IS.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

[Laughs]\u2002I remember the South Side Surfers.\u2002They had that written on the wall.<\/strong>
\nThose were my cousins who I owe my love of surfing to because all of my other cousins in my family were cholos from Pacoima. They were all gnarly gang fighters and old school gangsters. They carried knives. No guns. They would fight with honor, face to face, not shoot each other in the backs. I like to call myself the white sheep of the family because everybody else in my family was just hardcore gangster, and I wanted to be a surfer. I was one of the few Mexican surfers back in the day when it was all blond-haired, blue-eyed guys.<\/p>\n

Remember how gnarly the Cove was and P.O.P. and guys like Dale Grant?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I used to worship a guy named Victor Torres. He was a Mexican that used to hang out with Skip. I really admired him because he was a hardcore Mexican surfer, and there weren\u2019t many Mexicans surfing back in the \u201850s and \u201860s. Another one of my favorite surfers was Jose Angel and it turns out he\u2019s like one of the Hawaiian surf gods.\u2002Legendary. Eddie Aikau and Jose were best friends.<\/p>\n

He was a radical waterman. One of the places I first learned to skate was at Santa Monica Pier right across from Eli\u2019s. There was a bar there and there was that hill that went up. That\u2019s the first place that I ever skated in front of people. I remember seeing this biker fight where they were fighting with chains in the middle of the bar. I remember running to the beach because I was scared.\u2002I was a little kid, so I was like, \u201cThose guys are gnarly.\u201d That\u2019s the first place that I learned to skateboard.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s where I learned to skate too, right in front of the carousel. That was a fun hill. You could get really low and do Berts on it and stuff.<\/p>\n

We learned how to go back and forth instead of just going straight down. Where else did you skate?<\/strong>
\nMar Vista Elementary School was right behind my apartment building, so that was our stomping ground from when I was a little kid. We skated\u2002that place with all the banks. From there, we graduated to Paul Revere.\u2002From Paul Revere, we graduated to Bellagio.<\/p>\n

You were on the original Hobie skate team, right?<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s right. That was in 1965.<\/p>\n

How did you get on that team?<\/strong>
\nOne of my old skating buddies was Cris Dawson, one of the original trainers of the Z-Boy Team. He lived down the street from me, and we used to watch each other skateboarding all the time. We finally got together and skated everyday.\u2002Then there was this big contest at Palisades High School that Hobie was putting on, so we both went there and won it.\u2002We won first and second place. The Hobie team manager was there and he asked us if we wanted to be on the team. We just looked at each other and said, \u201cNo way!\u201d\u2002He gave us a brand new Hobie board right then and there and took us to Ted\u2019s Ranch House on the beach in Malibu to eat lunch afterwards.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s cool. Let me ask you something else. What did the movie Skaterdater mean to you? When I saw that movie, it changed my whole outlook on skating.\u2002It showed me that you could jump down curbs and it really opened up skateboarding to me. Did you know those guys?<\/strong>
\nI knew all of those guys. Those were the Makaha guys. It was a great time because that\u2019s when skateboarding started to become skateboarding. We started to invent tricks and really take it seriously like it was its own sport. There was a whole group of us that were really into it and wanted to take it to the next level. We were trying to do these gymnastics tricks on boards, like an L sit to a handstand. It was all based on gymnastics. Going off jumps was like jumping off a sawhorse.\u2002Then we started really getting into banks. From banks, it graduated into pools.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go back to the Makaha and Hobie Team. How did you get on the Hobie team? Who was on the team and what did you guys do?\u2002Guys don\u2019t know about this.\u2002Skateboarding shouldn\u2019t start with Dogtown. There\u2019s a whole generation of skaters that skated pools ten years before Dogtown even came around. Tell me about the Hilton Brothers, Danny Bearer and Torger Johnson.<\/strong>
\nWell, Hobie Alter originally started the Hobie skateboarding team, and then the Hilton brothers got into it. Their dad was interested and he owned all the Hilton Hotels and a company called Vita-Pakt Orange Juice Company, so they bought the skateboard company, and the molds, and started making skateboards behind the orange juice factory in Covina. The first team was the Hilton Brothers, Torger Johnson, Wendy Bearer, Suzie Rowland and Colleen Boyd.\u2002Stevie and Davie Hilton were really into it, but surfing was way more important to them. They would rather surf any day than skate.<\/p>\n

Were they more surfers?<\/strong>
\nThey were more surfers and socialites.\u2002Those guys were billionaires. They had everything they wanted, so skateboarding was just a small part of their lives.\u2002It wasn\u2019t as serious to them, but they were very gifted skateboarders because they had been surfing from the time they were little kids. Stevie and Chris Picciolo were on the Hobie team too.<\/p>\n

Steve Picciolo won the Del Mar contest. People don\u2019t know that.<\/strong>
\nThey were just little kids at the time.\u2002They were my age, but older than you. Stevie and Chris Picciolo were so good. They stayed on the team because they were really serious about skateboarding, so that was the second team. We used to travel together everywhere.\u2002It was Steve, Chris, Cris Dawson, Wendy, Suzie, Colleen and I.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know Steve Picciolo was on Hobie. I thought he was my age.\u2002I guess he was a little older than me, right?<\/strong>
\nHe was maybe a year older than you. They were the little kids on the team.\u2002They were younger than Cris Dawson, Tom Waller and I. At one of the first contests that Hobie held, the Hilton Brothers didn\u2019t even show up, so they essentially were off the team. Cris Dawson and I won the Pacific Palisades contest, so they asked us to replace Steve and Dave Hilton.\u2002At the time, Cris Dawson could do twenty-five 360s, which was unbelievable.\u2002He could do more 360s than anybody in the world, and I\u2002could do handstands all the way down Bicknell full speed, when most people couldn\u2019t even ride their boards on their feet down Bicknell. So we got on the Hobie team with the original girls, Wendy Bearer, who is Danny Bearer\u2019s sister, Colleen Boyd and Suzie Rowland, who were all World Champions from the very first World Championship.\u2002We used to travel around and do demos at Montgomery Ward and places that sold Hobie skateboards.<\/p>\n

Where were the Logans at this time?<\/strong>
\nThey were Makaha boys from the South Bay. They were the South Bay guys. There was always a big competition between Hobie and Makaha.\u2002Those were the two top teams and we were always competing against each other.<\/p>\n

I bought a Makaha LX-10 kicktail at a toy store over there in Venice on Lincoln Boulevard.\u2002That was the first kicktail, right?<\/strong>
\nThose were the first. We were doing demos all over the country. We were traveling around in our station wagon that was painted with Hobie logos all over it. The team manager was an old guy named Erwin J. Beebe. We called him Skeeter.<\/p>\n

I wonder if that\u2019s the guy that lives in Hawaii?<\/strong>
\nFor a while, he did live in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

Well, there\u2019s a guy that claims he was the captain of the Hobie team and he was telling us this Elvis Presley story.\u2002He said that Elvis gave Torger Johnson a Harley Davidson motorcycle. He traded him for a skateboard.<\/strong>
\nYeah. Elvis lived on the North Shore right above Pipeline. I\u2019m pretty sure he owned that house. He used to stay there a lot.\u2002That\u2019s a true story. The Hobie team and the Makaha team were really used to competing against each other a lot. Hobie was making boards and Makaha was making boards and then Makaha patented the kicktail, but there were big fights in court over who invented the kicktail. Even I had to go to court about it and tell them that we used to ride boards and put little wedges on them before we ever bought kicktail boards. That\u2019s how we used to do it. Makaha lost their court battle trying to patent the kicktail. That\u2019s how everybody in the world makes kicktails now and nobody has to pay anybody, but Makaha and Larry Stevenson were the first to actually make the kicktail. We traveled everywhere and we were so dedicated to skateboarding.\u2002I remember when it was starting to lose momentum and people were like, \u201cWhy are you still riding those boards? That\u2019s not cool anymore.\u201d We were like, \u201cScrew you.\u2002We love skateboarding.\u201d We never stopped skateboarding. In 1967, skateboarding kind of died and became really unpopular.\u2002If you were riding a skateboard, you might as well have been walking down the street with a hula-hoop or something, because it just became super uncool.<\/p>\n

That was the first time that skating had its fad, and then it boomed out.<\/strong>
\nI graduated from high school in 1969 and I was still riding my Hobie skateboard on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

Were you riding the laminated one or were you riding one of those red fiberglass ones or the white ones with the blue stripe down the middle?<\/strong>
\nIt was the white fiberglass one.\u2002The red ones were Makaha boards.\u2002They were similar to the Hobies. The Hobies were white fiberglass with a blue stripe or wood grain stripe. If they had a blue stripe that meant that they were made for Montgomery Ward, and it said Montgomery Ward in the Hobie decal.<\/p>\n

It had a little plastic triangle almost like grip tape.<\/strong>
\nIt was the grippy surface molded into the board. When skateboarding became unpopular, I still rode that board everyday. I couldn\u2019t give it up.\u2002Everybody else gave it up, like it was a little trend or something, but I was like, \u201cNo way. This is too much fun.\u201d When I graduated from high school in 1969, I moved to San Diego and I was going to San Diego State College riding my skateboard around campus. In 1969, there were not very many people riding skateboards.\u2002Alva told me that he was still riding skateboards, and you were too.<\/p>\n

\n

“I STILL SKATE VERT BECAUSE IT\u2019S SUCH AN ADDICTION.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yeah. I have pictures of me in 1969 skating at Paul Revere, when I was eight years old. The board I\u2019m on in those photos is a laminated Hobie with clay wheels. How do you think skateboarding made a comeback again? Do you think it was the Cadillac Wheels?<\/strong>
\nWell, here\u2019s the funny thing. In 1966, the Hobie skateboard team manager had gone to a roller skating rink to buy loose ball bearings for a board and noticed some wheels in a case at the roller skating rink. He said, \u201cWhat\u2019s up with these wheels?\u201d They said, \u201cThese are professional roller skating wheels.\u201d He said, \u201cGive me three sets of those.\u201d So he got three sets of them, one for me, one for Cris Dawson and one for Tom Waller. He gave us these wheels and said, \u201cPut these on your board and tell me what you think of them?\u201d\u2002We were like, \u201cWhat are these wheels?\u201d He goes, \u201cThey\u2019re special formula wheels.\u201d We\u2019re all, \u201cCool.\u201d We put them on our boards and we couldn\u2019t believe it. It was like magic. We had the very first urethane wheels, which were made for roller skates.<\/p>\n

Those weren\u2019t Cadillac wheels?<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s all Cadillac wheels were.\u2002Frank Nasworthy saw the same wheels in a roller rink and had Cadillac put on them.\u2002Those were professional roller skating wheels. We were beating everyone in every contest because we had special formula wheels. We had urethane wheels, way before the Cadillac Wheel came out, and we didn\u2019t know what they were.\u2002We called them special formula wheels and then Road Rider came out with the first sealed bearing wheel many years later.<\/p>\n

I remember I was at a skate contest in San Fernando Valley and a guy came up to me and said, \u201cHey, I\u2019ve got these new bearings and they\u2019re called precision bearings.\u201d He gave me a set of them and no one had them that I knew of. I was like, \u201cWhoa, these are cool!\u201d Skating with loose ball bearings, it would just fall apart and you would eat it really bad. You always had to have extra ball bearings in your pocket in case your tire blew out on you.<\/strong>
\nI remember gas stations were like skate shops. We used to ride our skateboards from Santa Monica all the way to Paul Revere Junior High and you\u2019d get flats on the way, so\u2002you would stop at a gas station and they\u2019d sell you ball bearings for a penny each. They\u2019d lend you the tools and give you the bearings and grease. Gas stations were like the early pit stops for skateboarders.<\/p>\n

Do you remember the Chicago Trucks where it was a big screw? It wasn\u2019t a kingpin. It was a big screw and if you had it too loose, it would catch on the ground and you\u2019d eat shit.<\/strong>
\nIt would fall out or stick on the ground. It\u2019s like when you rode your skateboard too much and the wheels wore down. You would never know when that kingpin was just about to bottom out on the ground. When the Cadillac urethane wheels came out, I was the first one to go out and buy them. I was living in San Francisco at the time and I was still skating.<\/p>\n

Is that why you were not on the Zephyr Team?<\/strong>
\nI was on the Zephyr Team, but I was representing up north.\u2002I knew Skipper because Skipper used to surf with my two cousins.<\/p>\n

I know Tom Waller and Cris Dawson were on the Zephyr Team. They were at that Del Mar contest in that photo with all of us.<\/strong>
\nThey were more like the team managers.\u2002They were the older guys. I was still skating. Tom and Cris were skating old style, upright.\u2002I was the only one of the old skaters from the Hobie Team era that made the transition into vertical skating.\u2002That\u2019s why I was skating with you and Tony and everybody.\u2002I was the old-timer skating pools with you guys. I still skate vert because it\u2019s such an addiction.<\/p>\n

Tell me again how we met. I can\u2019t remember.<\/strong>
\nWell, I moved to San Francisco to go to school, but I still had affiliations with the Zephyr shop because I always rode Zephyr surfboards. I went into the Zephyr Surf Shop to buy a new board and Skipper goes, \u201cDude, you have to represent us up north.\u2002You\u2019re on the team. Here.\u201d\u2002He gave me a board and a Zephyr t-shirt. He said, \u201cYou\u2019re going to represent up North.\u201d I said, \u201cOkay, fine.\u201d So I was skating all these drainage ditches and big old spillways up North and that big old pipe at Lake Berryessa in Sacramento. We would go out on safaris and look for these places to skate.\u2002When I moved back to Santa Monica, Zephyr was over and it was Dogtown. I was skating for Dogtown because Wes was my friend, and he used to paint all my boards for me. One day, I was sitting in the parking lot at Bay Street checking out the waves in a big van.\u2002I used to ride for a company called GT Skateboards that made all of those cheesy plastic boards. You saw the van in the parking lot and you skated up to the van and we just started talking.\u2002I knew who you were because I\u2019d seen you skate, but you were a little kid. That\u2019s when you and I hit it off and you said, \u201cLet\u2019s go skate a pool.\u201d So we drove to the keyhole in Beverly Hills.<\/p>\n

How did you meet Alva, because you and Alva became really good friends?<\/strong>
\nAlva knew about me from the very beginning because Tom Waller and Cris Dawson used to talk about me to Alva. They were like, \u201cRay Flores is the best.\u2002He jumps off picnic tables on his skateboard.\u201d When Alva met me, he was like, \u201cFuck, dude. I can\u2019t believe I finally met you.\u201d\u2002We just hit it off and became best friends and went everywhere together. People thought I was Alva because I had the same haircut as he did.\u2002[Laughs] Then I started working with Alva, and\u2002I helped him develop the first Alva wide board and Alva wheels. I was also a consultant with the Alva clothing line.<\/p>\n

This was when Alva was living on Dudley?<\/strong>
\nRight. That was my old apartment. You and Vince Klyn used to knock on my door at six o\u2019clock in the morning when you were little kids. You\u2019d say, \u201cCome on. Take us surfing!\u201d So I would take you fuckers surfing. We would go to Oxnard and all over the place.<\/p>\n

I remember Terry Nails lived in those apartments.<\/strong>
\nYeah. Do you remember that one time we went surfing in Oxnard and we were driving back?\u2002We saw those guys at Zuma with the Karmann Ghia.<\/p>\n

Oh, yeah. We got in that automobile wreck, right?<\/strong>
\nYeah. You got into a car wreck right in front of me and Vinny.<\/p>\n

I was with Frank Corbett in his Karmann Ghia. He was driving and you guys were following us. I was going to buy that Karmann Ghia off Frank. Frank was driving, and we put our surfboards in your truck. We were racing back down the coast going to Zuma, but when we got to Zuma that stupid Volkswagen made a u-turn right in front of us.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

We hit the car and the whole car exploded.\u2002The guys flew out of the car.\u2002Everybody went to the hospital except me. I was the only guy that didn\u2019t get hurt because I saw the wreck coming. I grabbed the little handle on top of the glove box and braced myself. When we hit, we annihilated that car.\u2002We spun around, and the guys flew out of the car. You guys said that you almost ran someone over.<\/strong>
\nYeah. Dudes were flying out of the car.<\/p>\n

\n

“WE USED TO RIDE OUR SKATEBOARDS FROM SANTA MONICA ALL THE WAY TO PAUL REVERE JUNIOR HIGH AND YOU\u2019D GET FLATS ON THE WAY, SO YOU WOULD STOP AT A GAS STATION AND THEY\u2019D SELL YOU BALL BEARINGS FOR A PENNY EACH. THEY\u2019D LEND YOU THE TOOLS AND GIVE YOU THE BEARINGS AND GREASE. GAS STATIONS WERE LIKE THE EARLY PIT STOPS FOR SKATEBOARDERS.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I just remember the car stopped.\u2002I looked over at Frank and he was knocked out against the steering wheel.\u2002His chest had busted the steering wheel and I looked at myself and said, \u201cOh, I\u2019m not hurt!\u201d\u2002I jumped out of the car and those other guys were hanging out of their car.\u2002Everybody got airlifted to the hospital but me. I had a scratch on my elbow. I remember I rode home in your car. I was like, \u201cOh, my God!\u2002How did I not get hurt out of everybody?\u201d\u2002Gnarly.<\/strong>
\nIt was a gnarly explosion.\u2002Right as the car exploded, you bolted out of the car and you were running down the PCH, up and down the big ivy banks like a madman.\u2002It was crazy.\u2002We couldn\u2019t believe you were alive.<\/p>\n

Do you know why I\u2019m alive? It\u2019s because I had skateboarding skills. I saw it coming and I braced myself. It\u2019s like crashing on a skateboard.\u2002I was lucky. I saw it coming and I held on and didn\u2019t get hurt. I\u2019m lucky. I remember I went skateboarding at the Marina Skatepark later on that afternoon.<\/strong>
\nWe all did, man, and we were tearing it up. That was rad.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t you live by Venice Pier when you were hanging out with Alva all the time?<\/strong>
\nYeah. Then he moved to Malibu because I moved to Malibu.\u2002He moved next door to me out in Malibu on that ranch.<\/p>\n

You, Billy Yeron and Alva really hung out hard.\u2002I was mad at Tony because he stole Tyese from me.<\/strong>
\nTyese was such a beautiful girl. She was so nice.<\/p>\n

Yeah. She was the hottest chick. I remember taking her to parties and I was like \u201cI\u2019ve got the most beautiful girl in this whole party.\u201d She was only fifteen.\u2002She was the most beautiful girl ever.<\/strong>
\nShe was.\u2002You know she died a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Yeah. I was talking to her before she died.\u2002She said, \u201cI need to make amends to you for what I did to you and breaking your heart like that.\u201d I was like, \u201cAh, you don\u2019t owe me nothing, girl.\u2002C\u2019mon. We were young. I\u2019m just glad I got to spend time with you and you were the first love of my life.\u201d That\u2019s when I learned that girls are gnarly and they can hurt you.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] You were just teenagers. There\u2019s a shot of her in the Dogtown and Z Boys documentary at Gonzales\u2019 pool.\u2002Tony is there. Kathy Alva and Tyese are sitting in the background.<\/p>\n

Yeah. Kathy was the first girl that ever had her way with me. She was Tony Alva\u2019s sister.\u2002[Laughs]<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] I know.\u2002That\u2019s so funny.\u2002Tyese\u2019s father was a comedian and actor named Martin Mull.\u2002He used to come over to my house all the time early in the morning and knock on the doors like, \u201cWhere\u2019s Tyese?\u2002Where\u2019s Tony?\u2002I want to know where they are.\u201d I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t know where they are.\u201d [Laughs]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny because she was my girlfriend, but I went to Hawaii and then Tony swooped her up.\u2002Who could blame him? She was such a beautiful girl. I can\u2019t blame her because Tony was a handsome guy and desirable for any young girl.<\/strong>
\nHe was much more of a scammer than you were.<\/p>\n

I was an innocent kid.\u2002Tony was four or five years older.\u2002He definitely had more female experience than I did.<\/strong>
\nHe has that hot Latin blood too.<\/p>\n

[Laughs]\u2002It\u2019s all good. It\u2019s part of growing up. Let\u2019s hear about Malibu because that\u2019s when punk rock was starting.\u2002I remember Tony had some punk rock shows up there, right?<\/strong>
\nYeah. He had a birthday party and X played. That was the first time that anyone had seen punks in Malibu. Nobody had ever even heard of X except Tony, who was into punk rock before any of us. He was dressed up with plaid-Scottish print pants with chains hanging all over them. Alva\u2019s hair was butch cropped down. No dreds or nothing. Totally punk with make up on his eyes. The word got around and everybody came. X played until one o\u2019clock in the morning. Then the Malibu sheriffs all came. They arrested Tony Alva because they thought he had escaped from jail because of all the chains he was wearing. They had never seen a punk before. I\u2019m not kidding. After that party, punk rock became famous. X became famous. I got into punk rock after that myself. I tried to resist, but I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I lived on Highland then. That\u2019s when the Zephyr team broke up and we made EZ Ryder. Tony was on there and Wentzle, Shogo, Marty Grimes, Baby Paul and a couple other guys. Then that became Z Flex. Wes and you lived over there too.\u2002I remember the day Jai was born. Jenna Hardy was your woman back then.<\/strong>
\nRight. We were living practically next door to Wes.<\/p>\n

I remember you guys moved up on Santa Monica and you had that big half pipe in your backyard.<\/strong>
\nRight. You lived with Tiffany at the time.<\/p>\n

Tiffany was my girl then. We went out for about ten years.<\/strong>
\nYou have a kid with her, right?<\/p>\n

No. That wasn\u2019t my baby. We named him Jayson, but he wasn\u2019t my son.<\/strong>
\nI named Jai after you, my youngest son. Jai is the Hindu word for Jay. Jai is spelled J-A-I, but in India they pronounce it Jay. Jai still lives in Hawaii. Have you been skating at all, Jay?<\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019ve been skating quite a bit.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s good. I\u2019ve been skating a lot over at the Santa Monica Cove.\u2002I really love the Cove in Santa Monica and the Venice skatepark too.\u2002You can go on Youtube to opening day at the Venice Skate Park and see that they let me be the first one to drop into the pool. I had a suit and a tie and I\u2019m just tearing it up.\u2002It shows me getting a frontside grind in the deep end. I\u2019m skating a lot and skating hard. I\u2019m better than ever right now.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s rad. You always had nice cars like your little minis.\u2002Do you still have those?<\/strong>
\nI have a couple of old Mini Coopers.\u2002One is from the \u201860s. I love old Mini Coopers, and my son Jai really got me into drifting.\u2002He\u2019s a semi-professional drift car racer, and he fabricates custom parts for drift car racers. His company is called Broken Fabrication. I have a couple of 240 SX Nissan\u2019s, an S13 and an S14. I really love drift cars and Jai is super into it too.<\/p>\n

Do you remember when we went up to Ventura and bought that Mini Cooper car and a bunch of skateboards?<\/strong>
\nWe bought those from Todd Huber.<\/p>\n

There was some guy selling a big collection. You bought a bunch of them and I bought a bunch of them.<\/strong>
\nYeah. Stecyk was there.<\/p>\n

Somehow Cassel got my whole collection.<\/strong>
\nYeah. I bought some of it from Cassel. He said it was your collection. I love collecting skateboards and old surfboards. Each one is like a sculpture to me.<\/p>\n

When I moved to Hawaii, I sold it to Mike for $3,000.\u2002It was a lot of money at the time. I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t need all of these skateboards.\u201d I traded that for a life in Hawaii.\u201d If you have them, they\u2019re in good hands. That\u2019s great. What do you do for a living now?<\/strong>
\nI sell vintage skateboards and surfboards to different shops around town that like to get into the vintage thing.<\/p>\n

You had a shop in Newport Beach didn\u2019t you?<\/strong>
\nYeah.\u2002It was called The Board Gallery. I closed the Board Gallery in Venice.\u2002The rent got too high, so I\u2019m just doing wholesale business now.\u2002I want to move to Hawaii and open a Board Gallery in Hawaii. That\u2019s my goal. I\u2019m saving my money right now and just making as much money as I can.<\/p>\n

Do you know what I have?\u2002I have one Zephyr board from the Dogtown movie, so it\u2019s a replica.\u2002One is a Zephyr and one is a Z-Flex. Do you remember they replicated those boards?<\/strong>
\nI have one of those too.\u2002They\u2019re exactly like the originals.<\/p>\n

I have a red one that is so sick.\u2002It\u2019s in perfect shape and it looks like it has clay wheels, which are actually urethane wheels with precision ball bearings. I have a nice little collection of skates going in my storage unit.\u2002I managed to buy quite a few before I went to prison the second time. I have probably twenty skates, really nice ones, and some old ones.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s nice.\u2002Well, any skateboard with your signature on it becomes an instant collector\u2019s item.<\/p>\n

[Laughs.] So you want to move to Hawaii?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I really want to move to Hawaii because I just love surfing so much. It\u2019s just so much more difficult surfing here on the mainland because of the water conditions.\u2002I like warm water, so I don\u2019t get much surfing in the wintertime.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the endless summer in Waikiki. What else do you want to talk about, brother?<\/strong>
\nWell, right now I\u2019m at a point in my life where I\u2019m getting older and I just appreciate being able to skateboard so much that I try and give back to skateboarding.\u2002I give a lot of skateboards away to a lot of poor kids in the hood here. I just try to give back to skateboarding because my whole life has been supported by skateboarding. It\u2019s given me so much and I have to give something back to it. I just love skateboarding.<\/p>\n

\n

“IT ALL STARTED WITH ALVA, BECAUSE THAT WAS THE BEGINNING OF MODERN DAY SKATEBOARDING. THAT\u2019S REALLY THE BEGINNING OF RADICAL EXTREME SPORTS. ALSO THIS PLACE THAT WE GREW UP IN, THERE IS NO OTHER PLACE LIKE THIS. WE WERE SO PASSIONATE AND SO MOTIVATED TO PUSH HARD. WE ALL WERE TRYING TO IMPRESS EACH OTHER.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A lot of people don\u2019t know what a skateboarder you have been your whole life. People think Tony and I are the old skater guys, but there are guys like you that were ten years older than us and did it before us and still do it.\u2002You\u2019re a 100% skateboarder for life.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s right.\u2002I really feel that I will be skateboarding into my seventies and eighties and until the day I die, even if it\u2019s just riding to the pharmacy to get Advil for my arthritis.<\/p>\n

What do you think happens when you die?\u2002What\u2019s the deal?<\/strong>
\nWell, there\u2019s an old Hindu saying, which I pretty much believe in.\u2002It says, \u201cWherever your mind is at the time of death to that state you will attain.\u201d\u2002If you\u2019re thinking like a dog when you\u2019re dying, you\u2019re going to be a dog. If you\u2019re thinking like a higher thinker, you\u2019re going to go to a higher place.\u2002It just means that whatever you do comes back to you. I don\u2019t believe that there is a hell.\u2002I believe that people might suffer for a while, but I don\u2019t believe that you go to hell for doing little wrong things like smoking joints or drinking alcohol.\u2002Maybe you will go to hell if you kill another person for no reason other than just to kill somebody, but hell is right here on earth and heaven is right here on earth.\u2002If you live a good life and you walk the straight and narrow path, you will be happy here on earth. I believe that all religions are teaching something good to people. There is not a philosophy or religion that I don\u2019t respect. I just try to live a peaceful life as a vegetarian. I\u2019ve been a vegetarian since I was 16 years old, so I\u2019m always advocating peacefulness and vegetarianism and let\u2019s just all get along.\u2002That\u2019s why I don\u2019t believe that skateboarding should be an Olympic sport because then you have countries competing against each other.\u2002Right now it\u2019s a brotherhood of skateboarders who just go and skate and they\u2019re not really competing against each other.<\/p>\n

I think there are certain aspects of skateboarding that can be an Olympic sport like slalom skateboarding and downhill racing. There\u2019s a definite winner.<\/strong>
\nYou\u2019re right about that.<\/p>\n

With ramp riding or pool riding, there\u2019s not really a definite winner.\u2002It\u2019s more of who you think won. With surfing, even if you have a really good wave machine where everybody has three of the same waves to perform on, it\u2019s still going to be an opinion. With paddleboard racing, there\u2019s a stopwatch and a winner. With free surfing or pool skating, I think it\u2019s an opinion. There are certain things that can\u2019t be judged.<\/strong>
\nYeah. What I really dig about this period of time in skateboarding is that there are all these different aspects to skateboarding now. I go to Venice Beach and it\u2019s like you\u2019re in the \u201860s or \u201870s or \u201880s.\u2002There are guys out there riding boards with clay wheels because they just want to be old school in their style. Now these plastic skateboards have practically taken over. I hope the people that buy those will understand what pieces of crap they really are.<\/p>\n

Guys like us are lucky because we\u2019ve lived through all of those generations of skateboarding. There are not a lot of guys that have skated as long as we have. I started skating in 1965 when I was four years old, and I still do it to this day.\u2002That\u2019s 50 years of skateboarding.<\/strong>
\nWhen we started skateboarding, it was all about surfing.<\/p>\n

It was just surfing. It was sidewalk surfing and then skateboarding became its own thing. Now all the surfers are copying skateboarding. Every sport has progressed so much. Look at the Mega Ramp. Guys are doing stuff on skateboards that Evel Knievel wasn\u2019t doing on his motorcycle. They\u2019re flying farther and higher.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]\u2002Skateboarding is the father of extreme sports. Motorcycles and surfing have been around before skateboarding, but skateboarding really influenced those sports. Look at motorcycle riding and snowboarding now. It\u2019s like they\u2019re going off skateboard ramps and doing skateboard tricks. Every trick is named after a skateboard trick. Surfing was influenced from skateboarding.\u2002All the aerials done in surfing were done on a skateboard first. Skateboarding is the father of extreme sports. It really is.<\/p>\n

\n

“I JUST TRY TO GIVE BACK TO SKATEBOARDING BECAUSE MY WHOLE LIFE HAS BEEN SUPPORTED BY SKATEBOARDING.”<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Skateboarding is rad. We have been a part of it for so long, and there are many more years to come, brother. I\u2019m glad you got to throw down some history here. Kids need to know the real roots of skating. So many people think it all started with Alva and me, and it didn\u2019t.<\/strong>
\nWell, it started with Alva, because that was the beginning of modern day skateboarding. That\u2019s really the beginning of radical extreme sports. Also this place that we grew up in, there is no other place like this.\u2002We were so passionate and so motivated to push hard.\u2002We all were trying to impress each other.<\/p>\n

We were just kids having fun. We\u2019re lucky we get to do it on skateboards and we\u2019re lucky we got to grow up with P.O.P. as our playground. What do you think the future is for skateboarding?<\/strong>
\nAs for the future of hardgoods, there are so many categories in skateboarding that different categories will evolve simultaneously. For example, there is a lot of momentum picking up in the downhill area. The boards and hardware are also evolving. I\u2019m working on a downhill skateboard with full ground effects to reduce the aerodynamic coefficient like a racecar. I\u2019m also working on a race suit that has bat wings under the arms to slow down in critical situations or to speed up if the wind is behind you. Trucks and wheels are always evolving. Eventually, you\u2019ll be able to buy battery-operated wheels to put on your board for self-propulsion. Skateboarding as a form of transportation will evolve to a tremendous degree in the future. I\u2019m also working on a street board with a blue tooth device, speakers and an amplifier embedded into the board, which will work as a stereo system operated through your phone. Skateboarding is always evolving.<\/p>\n

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY, ORDER ISSUE #72 BY CLICKING HERE\u2026<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\"RAY<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAY FLORES INTERVIEW & INTRODUCTION BY JAY ADAMS PHOTO BY RUDY MANHEIM Ray Flores is an old friend of mine. I\u2019ve known him so long that I don\u2019t even remember when we met. When we talked about doing this interview I had to ask him about it. He remembered it well. He said he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4027,4028,4041],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-interviews","category-skate-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/RAYFLORES-1-2.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55453"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89511,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55453\/revisions\/89511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}