"This is T.A. calling you back. I'm down to do the interview. I'm out street skating right now. I'm skating and surfing every day. I've got a new 6 week old son, Zephaniah Levi Alva. Life is good. Call me."

This is the message Tony Alva left on my machine the first time I called him. We later ended the phone tag game and made arrangements as far as where and when. A week later Chris Carnel and myself were driving down the I-5 in a rented dark green Buick Skylark towards Santa Monica * Dogtown *. The Memphis or maybe Nashville of modern skateboarding. Tony later called the car our "Narc-Mobile" and he seemed comfortable driving it around the LA freeways smoking a joint.

Chris and I spent two days skating and hanging out with Tony and his family. The following is what we did and what we found out. For those of you who are new to skating, Tony Alva was once the most well known and highest ranked skateboarder in the world. I'm not sure where the title came from, but he was once dubbed "World Champion". In the mid 70's when the urethane wheel * was invented and skateboarding had it's first big boom, Tony was the undisputed King. Back in the days when huge concrete skateparks * were everywhere and Skateboarder Magazine * (Thrasher didn't yet exist) looked like a current issue of Transworld * Snowboarding, Tony and the rest of his Dogtown crew pretty much dominated the skateboarding media. Dogtown was at the forefront of progressive and aggressive skateboarding giving rise to skaters like Jay Adams *, Stacy Peralta *, Jim Muir *, Bob Biniak * and Shogo Kubo *. Much like San Francisco * today, skaters and the media made the pilgrimage to Santa Monica to seek knowledge. This is not going to be a story about the past however. This is about the present. (Every photo accompanying this story was masterfully shot by Chris Carnel on May 23 and 24, 1995.) Tony was the first of the Dogtown skaters and now he's the last.

With the exception of Jay Adams who moved to Hawaii * and surfs everyday, the rest of the Dogtown crew has quit skating. But not Tony. He skates and surfs everyday and has done so for the last 27 years without fail. Tony's 37 now, but he still skates like a motherfucker. His skating is all about speed, aggression and style. Tony Alva is the Kurt Cobain of skating, pure unadulterated soul and aggression, but instead of burning out, he grew up and matured. But, he never quit skating. I guess this would also make him the Chuck Berry or Elvis Presley of skating too. Maybe even the Grateful Dead.

We met Tony outside of his apartment in the Ocean Park (OP to the locals) district of Santa Monica. Ocean Park is a quiet, older neighborhood overlooking the ocean just up the hill from the beach and downtown Santa Monica. After the usual greetings and settling in, we decided it was time to skate. We let Tony drive the narco-rental and the first place he took us was a huge ditch in the Hollywood * Hills called the Bronson Canyon Ditch. It was a big, fairly burly ditch with a downhill * section that looked pretty fast. While Chris and I surveyed the scene Tony took the kind of first run that only a local can take; and only a local with years of skating under their belt. Tony took three or four big pushes on the shitty, hole-ridden service road that led up to the ditch, hit a crack on the top of the ditch and pop-ollied into the ditch at high speed, landing half way down the the 12 foot wall. Watching Tony skate was like watching a master bullfighter or gymnast. He's a natural with more style in his skating than most people will ever comprehend, let alone achieve. While he may not be at the fore-front of today's skating in terms of technical tricks, his aggressive, no-holds barred skating still earns respect from anyone who watches him skate. T.A. can hold his own wherever he skates as we repeatedly witnessed over the next two days.

After skating Bronson, we left to skate a secret Santa Monica backyard pool a mile or so from Tony's apartment. As we were driving through the LA Freeway system, more details of Tony's contribution to skating came out. Alva Skateboards * is now in it's third incarnation. Alva Skateboards was the first pro-owned skate company, even before Stacy Peralta teamed up with George Powell *. Alva was the first company to manufacture skateboards out of high quality plywood as they're still made today. Before the Alva decks came out, skateboards were made out of big, heavy, solid pieces of hardwood and/or laminated fiberglass and even aluminum. Tony's signature pro model for Logan Earth Ski was a 3/4" thick piece of Oak about 26" long and 5 1/2" wide with no nose and a glued on slab of angled oak for the tail. His first model for Alva skates was the precursor to today's skateboards. Soon after the Alva decks debuted, the other manufacturers followed suit. Tony is also making Alva Snowboards now and has a clothing line that is licensed in Japan *. Besides surfing everyday, which he has done even longer than skating, Tony has discovered snowboarding along with everybody else. He cites Purgatory and Wolf's Creek in Colorado * as his favorite place to ride.

As we are driving around LA, Tony is constantly stopping off at shops to supervise his various business interests. Adrenaline in downtown Santa Monica is a newer, more modern shop that is on the cutting edge tip. After checking on how his boards are selling, we go down to the basement where the offices for his snowboard company are located. Tony reviews some new graphics and shapes with his partner, Peter, and then we're off to another shop. Rip City is an older shop near the beach that should be preserved as a National Monument as a Skateboard History Museum. Displayed along the walls and ceilings are more collectors item skateboards than I've ever seen; dating back into the early 60's and including newer boards such as every single signature model that Mark Gonzales * ever rode. They all know Tony, and his boards are selling well. He sets up a new deck and then we're off.

Speaking of Mark Gonzales, he's just one of the hundreds of skaters that have been sponsored by Alva Skates at one time or another. If one's contribution to skating could be measured by how many young talented riders that were helped to progress their careers, then Tony's contribution would be larger than most. Some of the riders he's sponsored include Christian Hosoi *, Eric Dressen *, Adam McNatt *, Ray Barbee *, Ronnie Bertino *, Steve Alba *, Dave Duncan, Bill Danforth and probably almost 300 other skaters, am and pro. Tony also reflected on the competition scene back in those days. He talked about the Dogtown style, "It's a low center of gravity style based on surfing. Street style surfing."

Circa * 1975, all the skateboarding teams had matching jerseys and outfits and precise, technical, flatland *-freestyle * manuevers were the norm, executed at slow speeds. Tony and the Dogtown crew showed up in their street clothes, skated fast and aggressively using the downhill ramps and banks for tricks and dominated the contests. They pretty much changed the face of skateboarding at the time into what it is now.

By this time we reached the pool and started to skate. Tony tore this place up as well. The tight bowl had burly coping that stuck out about three inches, but this didn't stop T.A. as our cover photo and the accompanying photos testify to. I should probably mention that Tony rides only 34 and 36 inch long boards. He says that he likes a larger board and that he can ride smoother. While he makes a lot of different shaped decks, his long boards also sell the best. The funny thing is, when Tony skates it doesn't look like a long board because his skating is even larger.

We had a ripping session at the pool. T.A., a kid from France * named Frank, and ex-Alva team member Chris Cook were tearing it up. Also deserving mention was this guy with no shirt whose name we never caught who repeatedly mangled his wrist and arms on frontside grind attempts, but kept coming back for more. His bravado with lighter fluid was also helpful in getting our front cover photo.

By this time it was getting dark, and Tony was concerned because he couldn't reach his girlfriend, Donna, and their son Zephaniah. So, we went back to Tony's apartment. It turned out that the phone had gone dead and that Donna, Zephaniah and Donna's mother Dorothy were just hanging out at the apartment. Everybody was hungry, so it was decided that we would go to, Gilbert's, a mexican restaurant that was run by old friends of Tonys.

Hanging out with Tony's family was fun. Dorothy is a geology professor and we found out all sorts of stuff about earthquakes and plate tectonics. Family is very important to Tony.

"Blood is way thicker than water," he remarked at one point during dinner. Tony's family is also very involved with Tony's business. Donna is a fashion designer for Vintage Blue clothing and helps design Tony's clothing line. His father, Refugio Alva Jr., is his partner in Alva Skateboards. Tony's father used to live in Santa Monica *, but it changed too much for him and he moved to Oceanside where Alva Skateboards * is now based. Tony's mother Neeltje still lives in Santa Monica and he sees her often. Tony also has a five year old daughter, Avalon, with his first wife, Victoria *, and he sees them both on a regular basis. His brother Mark is a musician and he and Tony played together in the bands Sons Of Thunder and Itions. Tony plays bass and guitar and also played in Junkyard, Scoundrels and Community FK. Tony has broad tastes when it comes to music, listening to everything from Parliament to Punk Rock. He's currently listening to a lot of dub * music and is a big Adrian Sherwood fan. Tony is currently co-directing and skating in a video for his friend, Dan Clemens' band, Excell who are releasing a new album on Capitol Records. They are going to be mixing old footage at the Gonzales Pool with some new footage and have worked a deal with the owner of the pool to drain it for the video shoot. Tony Alva is not lacking for interest or variety in his life.

While we were eating dinner, I talked to Tony more about his interests and his past. After the heydays of Dogtown, Tony went back to school where he was an English * major and also studied dental technology. He cites Kerouac and Steinbeck as two of his favorite authors, and Tortilla Flat as a particularly good read. He also likes Kurt Vonegut, James Clavell, Michael Crighton and Stephen King. Tony's putting together an art show and book featuring a lot of the art and graphics he's developed over the years for his boards, and is studying crop circles for ideas for new board graphics. Other interests include the Hopi Indians from which his mother is descended. Tony leads a pretty interesting and healthy lifestyle. We had planned on renting a cheap motel somewhere, but Donna wouldn't stand for it. "You'll stay here," she said.

After dinner, worn out and tired from skating, Tony watches Bravo not MTV * on the cable set. I asked him about drinking and partying, since I noticed that he drank only soda to my two beers at dinner. "Sometimes when I've surfed a long day down in Mexico *, I'll drink a few beers on the beach, but that's about it," he replied.

Tony eats healthy, takes his vitamins and obviously gets plenty of exercise. Hemp, after all, is a natural substance and Tony's not hurting for lack of it's benefits.

Part Two: The Old Tony Emerges.....

The next day, we had planned on getting up early and shooting some surfing shots. But the surf was flat so we slept in. We ended up separately tooling around Santa Monica, and hooked up later in the morning to shoot some street skating shots around downtown and Tony's neighborhood. Tony's been street skating since before it was called street skating. It was just skating. He skates street just like he skates banks and pools: full-on, fast, aggressive and stylish. The pictures tell the story. While Tony's not on the technical tip of todays street wizards, he pulls some pretty nice shit on his 36" deck. Bluntslides, shove-its, smith grinds, board slides, nose slides, fast fat ollies and some very tasty one-footed nose manual 360's. And of course he shoots the hills of the city at high speeds, dodging cars and running red lights and stop signs.

"These are my streets," he says. "I know every crack of every sidewalk there is down here."

I had remarked to Tony the night before how he seems to have mellowed quite a bit from his bad-boy image of the early Dogtown days. He said that he just grew up and matured. We found out that morning, however, that the early Tony Alva was only put away inside and was channeled into his skating. Other things could bring it out.

We were skating a bench in front of some trendy hair salon in downtown Santa Monica and Tony was doing high speed board slides on it. Some older balding guy in a suit came up to us and in a very condescending and irritated voice asked Tony, "Can you go play somewhere else?"

This brought out the old T.A.

"Fuck you! I'm not playing, this is my job. I was born and raised on these streets. I've got a fuck of a lot more right to be here than you do. I make as much money as you do doing what I like and I don't have to wear a fucking suit. Go back to the Valley you fucking kook."

With that said, T.A. pulled the fastest, longest, and most aggro board slide he'd done yet and ended it with a power slide into the suit guys face.

"You call that play!," Tony screamed into the guys face.

That was all the guy could take, and he went and sat down on the edge of the bench in an attempt to make Tony stop "playing." It didn't really work though, because Tony just kept skating the bench around the guy. After a few more minutes Tony had enough and quit skating the bench.

"See you later Mr. Uptight." he shouted at the suit guy. "Have a nice day."

So, Mr. Uptight he was crowned and we left him to his job and went down to the beach to skate. Later we were talking about the incident and Tony elaborated on his philosophy on life.

"Defy authority," he said. "Don't let people tell you how to run your life. The world is a wide open book, experience it."

Tony continued to elaborate:

"Your Dharma is your purpose in life. You can't stray from that when you find it. Skateboarding is my Dharma, the center of my universe. Go with your heart."

Like Jack Kerouac before him, T.A. is not unsettled by an incident of negativity. It is only a lesson to be learned and taught, something to be discussed and reflected on. The rest of the day pretty much followed suit as Tony continued to refine his Dharma.

The next spot we hit was the Basic Bowl. This is another famous So-Cal hot spot, a pool built for skating by the Street Rod clothing guys. The pool was a clover design, with 10 foot, 7 foot and 4 foot bowls all connected to each other. When we got there, there was a full-on session already in progress. Pool ripper Dave Reul lived at the Basic house, and he had the pool wired. Huge technical airs, aggro grinds and lines that wouldn't stop. Also skating was Badlands legend Steve Alba, who still skates as full on now as he did when he was a top-ranked pro. Like Reul, he had the pool wired with fat airs, endless lines and grinds, but he also had another trick called "put a helmet on your infant son's head and then hold onto him while you carve the pool." Everybody seemed impressed, and Steve's son would start crying if he didn't get enough runs in. Needless to say, T.A. more than held his own, aggressively skating the pool. Besides the usual grinds and airs, he was pulling speed ollies over the hip and backside airs to disasters. The session was like watching a skate contest with some of the best skaters you'll ever see. After an hour or two, Tony found out from Alba that there was another empty pool on the way back to Tony's house. We decided to cut out early and go check it out before it got dark.

The pool was called the Champion Bowl and it was in a very sketchy part of Inglewood between the Racetrack and the Coliseum. It was at a huge deserted, abandoned motel and it felt like we were on the set of some weird movie about gangs roaming the earth after a nuclear explosion killed most everybody off. Chris was uneasy about his camera gear and I was just plain uncomfortable. Even Tony seemed a little off. "Let's just shoot the photos and get out of here," he said.

In the shallow end there was some gang graffiti with names and tally marks after each name. Most were between 2 and 4. I couldn't help but think that the numbers represented how many skaters each gang banger had jacked. But the pool was ripping and T.A. wanted to skate. Pretty soon he was ripping too, and Chris got some of the best photos of the trip. After about 30 minutes, more skaters showed up and the vibe was much improved. Kevin "The Worm" Anderson was ripping the pool on a circa 1981 Alva deck with a 1" nose and his buddy Scott was ripping just as hard on a new-school 7" wide street deck. It was a meeting of the generations, coming together to enjoy the pool. Old, new, age, whatever. Let's just skate. And we did.

It was finally time to split and shortly thereafter, Chris and I were back on the I-5 headed North and back home. It was a fun two days and we were both stoked *. Stoked that we got to ride so many great spots with one of the living legends of skateboarding. But we were also stoked that we got to meet a very cool person. It is rare to meet people who are as balanced, focused and at peace with themselves as Tony Alva is. I am sure that Tony will continue to contribute to humanity by being a good father and raising some children who will probably grow up to be as balanced and as focused as he is. And in these days of 12 year old kids carrying guns, that and skateboarding in general is a good thing. It had been a positive two days.

Tony Alva may not be the big name or big industry that he and Alva Skateboards once was. But, before the media discovered Dogtown in 1976, skating was underground and Tony skated every day. Nothing has changed. Tony's made his contribution to the sport and it is irreversible. He's seen the big money come and go and he seems very content where he is. "You're wealthy if you have good health," Tony remarked at one point.

Not many people return to the underground or go back to their roots after a taste of the big time. The thing is, Tony never left.

"Life is good if you're good to yourself," Tony went on to say.

T.A. has been skating every day for 27 years and shows no signs of slowing down. He seems happy, and that's something that many people search for and never find.

I suspect that Tony Alva will always be a wealthy man. May we all be so lucky.

-John Baccigaluppi, June 1995. Copyright Heckler Magazine 1995

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