I first met you 10 years ago when you moved from Okinawa back to Albuquerque, what were some of your early influences in skateboarding while in Japan?
Before moving state side it was hard finding up-to-date media, but every chance I got to find a video or magazine I would jump on it. Some of the earlier videos like Maple Blackcat with Jerry Hsu, Chad Knight, good ol Shortys Fullfill The Dream, also the Gil videos with P-Rod and Koston, the whole team! Those videos back then had made a pretty huge impact on my life. It didn’t take much for me to be influenced by skating I was just a fiend and wanted to find anything and everywhere I could!
Ah the VHS days. What do you like most about the skateboarding in Albuquerque?
Albuquerque! Man there’s so damn much about this place that many have yet to learn. Albuquerque is one of the few places that is bright, sunny skate weather about 320 days out of the year! There are endless ditches throughout the town, there are very good hearted people out here too! The scene is amazing and the Burque will expand in years to come!
What about the time you had to nearly run over a meth head at a spot? How’d that go down?
Oh man! So it all started with me wanting to skate this rail about 6 years ago. The apartments were known for their sketchy action and shit still is to this day, but I had got maybe three tries in and knew I could get it. All of a sudden one of the tenants living there wasn’t having it and the situation started escalating. Some dude in a trench coat was trying to take homies camera from him, and the more I waited the more these meth heads would come out of their caves. Next thing you know me and a few homies are surrounded by these meth heads so we decide to dip. As we are leaving I exchange a few words with one of them and the guy comes running full speed with his fist clenched to hit me, my first instinct was to throw my car into reverse you know. Complete self defense and the guy happened to get in the way as I was backing out and got his leg crushed under my front tire and hit the ground. I freak out, yell at the dude that he shouldn’t have ran at me like that and just took off before anything else hectic could happen!
Wild! Word on the street is you caught a roadrunner? Never seen that before…
Yeah that is right, although I wouldn’t say I caught him. The dude was injured laying in the middle of the road, cars were coming and I couldn’t stand back and let that go down. I scooped him up and laid him down out of the way. I’ve always wanted to pick one of those dudes up!
