Interview by Jawn Dillenger.

Photos by John Shanahan.

What’s your last name?

Abaza, it’s Egyptian. My dad is from Egypt, and my mom is from Egypt too.

Have you been to Egypt?

I’ve been there one time. When I was eighteen.

Did you see the Pyramids?

I did a little tre flip in front of them. I guess you’re not supposed to skate over there. Obviously, cause it’s high security, but because my grandma’s older they let us drive in. I took my board out real quick, I was like, I gotta do something. I think some other dude did one a week before I was there. He climbed the pyramids and went to the top and did some shit and they beat his ass. The dudes were telling me like, “Did you hear that on the news, we beat his ass last week.” But I didn’t climb the pyramids. I was just doing it on asphalt.

And you grew up in Long Island?

Yeah, in a town called Kings Park. There was a local park in a town over from me, Northport skate park, and that’s where I learned to skate transition and shit. there were these two dudes basically, Joe Mannox and Chris Riley, older dudes who all they’d do is skate transition. They put me on to Duane Peters and all the old punk rock shit and doing sweepers, and Texas plants, front side grinds, all the shit that I still like. I owe that to them.

So there were good parks around you?

That was the only one. And growing up, it was a helmet park, so no one ever wanted to skate there. But I just kind of had it to myself cause it was the closest one. When I was sixteen, that was my first job, helmet enforcer. But as soon as I started working there everybody stopped wearing helmets. It was the coolest job. You got paid to skate.

And you work at Substance now?

Kind of, but because it’s nicer out I haven’t been working there too much. I was working there all winter and that shit is just as fun. You just skate around with the kids. It’s hard for me to teach skating cause I didn’t learn it like that. I learned it by figuring it out, just trial and error. So I try to just get ’em hyped up and just keep skating with ’em and if they have questions I’ll help them or whatever. But I don’t think skating is supposed to be taught. Just let ’em do their thing. that’s what creates more diversity in skating. If you cookie cutter it up and you make it like, you gotta learn this trick, you gotta do this, and you gotta do that, it flattens the creative aspect of it.

We just got back from this trip to Pittsburgh. How was that?

Hectic, y’all are crazy dude. wish it wasn’t raining as much, but we still got it done. We still were productive. We skated in the rain, we skated in the sun. I had a good time man. And I didn’t even know that it was like a six hour drive. I thought it was three hours and then like fifteen minutes before we were supposed to leave, I looked at the GPS and I was not prepared. I started packing and shit.

What about Pittsburgh as a city? What did you think of it?

Oh, I like it a lot. It’s crusty. I like that crusty shit, and interesting people. I definitely wouldn’t be the type of character to be at Gooski’s, you know? I respect it for what it is, and it’s sick that you can smoke in there. It’s like the spot in Pittsburgh.

Do you remember anything from the first grade?

I remember one of the first things we learned about was penguins, and I was stoked. We had a unit on penguins, a unit on bears, and a unit on something else. I wasn’t skating back then, I could tell you that.

When did you start skating?

When I was like ten or eleven. My older brother skated a little bit, so I kind of had seen a board when I was like four, and I jumped on a little ass board. I saw a photo of that and I was like, whoa, I don’t even remember that. It’s like almost half my life right now.

Favorite food with peanut butter?

Can I put peanut butter on the peanut butter? Or peanut butter on top of a Reese peanut butter cup. How about that?

Are there any rules in skateboarding?

I don’t think so. There are rules of physics, but we don’t abide by those at all.

Most important thing to bring on a session?

Your skateboard, some good energy, and water too. And also, you know…

Do you watch a lot of skate videos? What’s some stuff you’ve seen recently that got you hyped?

Damn. I gotta say Kanfoush. Seeing that dude skate live this weekend was crazy. That really got me hyped. I know it’s not video, but real life.

What else you do beside skate? For work or for fun?

Well I work so that I can skate. When I’m not skating, I like to breathe a lot of air. That shit’s really good for you man. Also trying to do a little yoga. I have a little routine when I wake up before I go skate. Just taking care of myself so that I can go skate.

Are you superstitious? Or do you believe in luck?

I’m a little ‘stitious. Yesterday I was doing this job for work and I had to steam a bunch of stuff, and some of it was umbrellas I had to open up inside. I was like, nah, I’m not opening these umbrellas. So I guess I am a little superstitious. Somebody else opened it and I steamed it, but I wasn’t trying to get that bad luck.

What’s it like skating with Shanahan? He shot most of these photos. How’d you meet him?

He was actually my Woodward counselor when I was a little kid. My counselor got injured so they switched my group to John’s. It was before he was pro, but he was still tall, like all the way up there, and doing crazy shit. It’s just sick to skate with someone that’s probably more in love with skateboarding than I am. He’s so obsessed with it. It’s like all he wants to do is skate. He loves learning tricks and shit, even if we’re on a crazy session he’ll still be trying to learn new stuff. He learned all this transition shit recently, he learned how to take photos. He’s just always been that way.

If you could go back and tell something to yourself when you first started skating, what would it be?

I wish I put more time into skating flatground. I can barely flip my board. It’s like flipping a coin dude, I have no idea what’s gonna happen. So I definitely wish when I was a kid I put more time into that, just trying to figure out flip tricks. But I like skating transition, that’s my shit.

Thanks? Shoutouts? Whatever?

Shout out everybody, everyone in the world.