Three days with Christian Hosoi and his crew

 Few people, even in the skate world, remember, but 80's vert legend Christian Hosoi teamed up with Vision for a short time in 1990 with a company called Tuff Skts.  Unreel Productions, Vision's video company, had just shut down.  I was the only guy kept on full time, because I was the lowest paid and could work most of the equipment.  So I was pretty stoked to get the gig of hanging out with Christian Hosoi and his crew for three days shooting video.  I ended up editing a 7 minute promo video, which Vision said looked "too gangster."  So I cut it down to 4 minutes.  I lost my copy, but a 1 1/2 minute version that appeared on Sk8-TV is around, with lame ass music.

 In those days it was Christian with the big, high, stylish airs, and Tony Hawk with the tech tricks.  Christian with a tailgrab frontside on his ramp, in W.C. Fields old house, on top of a hill, in Echo Park. 

 Day number two we went to an abandoned pool in Van Nuys next to a crack house.  I was scared walking in there with a $50,000 video camera.  It was a great session, and I got some great footage, and Block shot photos. 

 Day three of shooting, a big, rectangle pool high on a hill off the 14 freeway, north of L.A.  Christian did so many freakin' tricks in this pool, but its hard to beat this hand behind the back grind for style.

 We met this kid, John Swope, at the Van Nuys pool.  He was doing the most amazing Smith grinds I've EVER seen in a backyard pool.  Even's Christian's Smiths were this good in that pool.  Was Hosoi jealous?  Hell no, he invited John, who he nicknamed "Johnny Grind," to our shoot the next day.  John wound up in the video and I think got a short sponsorship. 

Joey Tran with a backside Smith on Christian's ramp. 

We all stopped for dinner on the last night of shooting.  After eating, Christian gave his young guys prime skating advice for contests.  It was something like this, "Eat a big plate of pasta the night before, get up, take a big shit, smoke a joint, and skate all day."  Ah...... the things that don't make it into skate videos.