CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARDS `LORDS OF DOGTOWN' GIVES VENICE BEACH SKATEBOARDING LEGENDS THE HOLLYWOOD TREATMENT.Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer Z-Boys are back in town. OK, so they're not exactly boys anymore and it's a decked-out Culver Studios backlot backlot Noun an area outside a film or television studio used for outdoor filming , with its period-specific storefronts and authentic- looking uniforms and equipment on display for the occasion, that's doubling for Venice Beach. The real Dogtown - the stretch of Venice that was home to the skateboarding boom of the 1970s - is less than a dozen miles to the west. In fact, Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta Stacy Peralta (born October 15, 1957) is an American director, as well as a former professional skateboarder, team surfer and entrepreneur. He is one of the original Z-Boys. He was born in California. , the pioneering members of the Zephyr Zephyr or Zephyrus: see Eos. skating team - known as the Z-Boys - aren't so certain that the authentic Dogtown of their youth even exists anymore. ``My girlfriend and I rode to the beach the other morning, and it's like Rodeo Drive Rodeo Drive (IPA: /roʊˈdeɪoʊ/) generally refers to a famous three-block long stretch of boutiques and shops in Beverly Hills, California, United States, although the street stretches further north and south. at the beach. They're just destroying it,'' says Peralta, the writer of the movie ``Lords of Dogtown.'' ``I know things can't stay the same. They're annihilating an·ni·hi·late v. an·ni·hi·lat·ed, an·ni·hi·lat·ing, an·ni·hi·lates v.tr. 1. a. To destroy completely: The naval force was annihilated during the attack. the character of that city, and what's too bad is that city absolutely refuses to acknowledge its cultural heritage.'' ``The sprit of Dogtown is still there,'' adds Alva, who now owns and operates the Oceanside-based Alva Skateboard Co. ``Unfortunately, some of the neighborhoods are quite a bit gentrified. Things change and you have to kind of just roll with the punches. I still think there's, like, that funky little Dogtown vibe. I enjoy it even if I have to go out after the sun goes down and street skate People occasionally use In-line_skates, skateboards or other similar devices to tour around cities such as London and Paris. Such events are normally organized by a group of volunteers. For examples of such groups, see the web sites for the London Friday Night Skate and Pari Roller. just to get a little bit of space. It's still a special place.'' ``Lords of Dogtown'' is a partially fictionalized account of the birth of modern boarding that turned Alva, Peralta and other members of their team into rock stars. Peralta, who also wrote and directed the award- winning documentary ``Dogtown and Z-Boys'' (2001), wrote the ``Lords'' script for director Catherine Hardwicke (``thirteen''). The film opens today. ``Lords'' recounts the adventures - and misadventures - of Alva, Peralta and Jay Adams, who all grew up in working-class Venice and came together under the Svengali-ish watch of Zephyr surf shop owner and team founder Skip Engblom Skip Engblom was one of the co-founders of the Jeff Ho/Zephyr Surf Shop in Santa Monica, California. Engblom helped to create the Zephyr Surf Team and the Zephyr Competition Team, aka Zephyr Skate Team aka Z-Boys. (played by Heath Ledger Heath Andrew Ledger (born April 4, 1979) is an Academy Award-nominated Australian actor. Biography Early life Ledger was born in Perth, Western Australia, the son of Sally Ledger Bell (née Ramshaw),[1] ). With the development of new low-riding techniques imported from surfing, the Z-Boys almost single-handedly revived the sport and became countercultural style icons along the way, even following the inevitable demise of the Zephyr team. On a recent Sunday, Alva and Peralta joined their on-screen on·screen or on-screen adj. & adv. 1. As shown on a movie, television, or display screen. 2. Within public view; in public. counterparts, actors Victor Rasuk Victor Rasuk (born January 15, 1984) is an American actor. Rasuk was born in Harlem, New York of Dominican descent.[1] He has a brother, Silvestre.[2] Rasuk went to a performing arts school as a teenager, and began acting at 14. and John Robinson Several notable individuals have been named John Robinson: Politicians
``It ain't over yet for Jay. He's surfing and skating and has a really cool new girlfriend,'' says Hardwicke, who also lives in Venice. ``Besides, he lives in Hawaii - and we don't.'' Spoken like a true she-Z-Boy. Q: In the three months you spent learning to skate and surf for the movie, your instructors included Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta. Actual skateboarding pioneers. What kind of advice did they give you? ALVA: ``Take those shoes off.'' RASUK: I came straight from New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and I had these Nike basketball shoes. Tony gave me my first pair of Vans and my first skateboard right when I got off the plane. What was another piece of advice? Oh, yeah, ``You've got to kill that New York accent.'' Remember that? HIRSCH: Jay told me, ``Ego is poison.'' He was really adamant about that. I think Jay's a purist pur·ist n. One who practices or urges strict correctness, especially in the use of words. pu·ris  tic adj. . Even though he's a really gnarly (jargon) gnarly - /nar'lee/ Both obscure and hairy. "Yow! - the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt is really gnarly!" From a similar but less specific usage in surfer slang. guy, he doesn't like ego. He said, ``Don't believe you're better than anybody else just because you're good at something.'' Q: Is the Z-Boys technique even teachable teach·a·ble adj. 1. That can be taught: teachable skills. 2. Able and willing to learn: teachable youngsters. ? What sorts of issues came up? ROBINSON: It was a style we were trying to get, not so much tricks. We had a DVD player A stand-alone device that plays DVDs. It contains a DVD drive and the electronics to decode the digital video. The device may play only manufactured DVDs, or it may be able to play DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs. DVD players are cabled to a TV or home theater system for display. on the training ground and we watched our footage over and over again, trying to break every move down, and it was really about each style that reflected our character's personality because that's what it really came down to. PERALTA: It's an antique style and a certain footwork that we put in so many years to develop. You can't expect someone to come in - even a professional - and emulate that so quickly. But everybody put their stuff in. John put in his stuff, Tony and I put in a little bit. (Skateboarding icon) Tony Hawk saw the film and the first thing he said was, ``I can't believe how seamless it is. I couldn't tell that the actors weren't doing everything.'' RASUK: Tony was a little nervous if I was a goofy foot or a regular foot. If you're a lefty, you skate one way, and if you're a righty right·y Informal n. pl. right·ies 1. A right-handed person. 2. An advocate or member of the political right. adv. , you skate another way. Tony was a regular foot, and when I first got the skateboard I didn't know if I was a goofy foot or a regular foot. There was a tense moment right before he put the skateboard on the floor and said, ``Get on it.'' Luckily, I was a regular foot, so that was like a leap for us. I saw how personal it was for him that I was a regular foot. ALVA: With me being an old-school skateboarder, it's important that the stance be correct right off the bat. Stacy is a goofy-foot surfer but a regular-foot skater, so it was good that John was a regular foot as well. Then with Emile, we worked with him on the style facets with different subtleties because he was opposite to the stance Jay had. Q: How about injuries? Who got most seriously messed up? HIRSCH: During the surf and skate training, I was pumping with my left leg and I originally pumped with my right leg and I had to retrain re·train tr. & intr.v. re·trained, re·train·ing, re·trains To train or undergo training again. re·train myself. I think learning on that leg did something to my lower back. I thought that I had done something to the vertebrae Vertebrae Bones in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions of the body that make up the vertebral column. Vertebrae have a central foramen (hole), and their superposition makes up the vertebral canal that encloses the spinal cord. , so I got two MRIs, a CAT scan CAT scan (kăt) [computerized axial tomography], X-ray technique that allows relatively safe, painless, and rapid diagnosis in previously inaccessible areas of the body; also called CT scan. and bone scan Bone scan An x-ray study in which patients are given an intravenous injection of a small amount of a radioactive material that travels in the blood. When it reaches the bones, it can be detected by x ray to make a picture of their internal structure. , I was in a lot of pain, and eventually I got this really goofy back brace. I had this big bottle of Vicodin and I thought, ``Am I going to have to do this whole movie and go to rehab afterwards?'' ROBINSON: About halfway through filming ... I tore a couple of ligaments in my foot. The next day, I could't walk. We had two months of shooting skating sequences, and I thought the movie was going to have to shut down. I had acupuncture every day and all this kind of treatment. It was my back foot, which made skating impossible. But as the time progressed, my injury healed. RASUK: Working with Tony my first two weeks, I started to become really cocky, and I thought I could do tricks that I wasn't really ready for. So I went down a 5-foot ramp and when I was coming right back up, I kind of slipped off my board and fell right on my face. I had this huge black-and-blue mark and half my eye was a blood clot blood clot n. A semisolid, gelatinous mass of coagulated blood that consists of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets in a fibrin network. . ALVA: If you're training and you're sparring and you get hit once, it's kind of a wake-up call. At the same time, skateboard injuries at that level are like a badge of courage in a way, like black eyes, bumps and bruises and scrapes. That's just part of the prerequisite to really taking it to the next level. HIRSCH: Catherine had the worst one of all. HARDWICKE: We were about to start shooting the Dog Bowl sequence at the end. I was standing on the edge of the (empty) pool. I'd been directing from the back of motorcycles and Jet Skis and on the edges of a bazillion pools. I guess I was pretty tired and I was talking to these guys and getting into directing. Apparently, I guess my foot just hit the edge of the coping (a rounded lip at the top of a ramp) and I just rolled off and fell 10 feet to the concrete and just smashed my head. I was knocked out for, like, almost two minutes. HIRSCH: There was blood everywhere. I was in the shallow end, and she landed, like, face down with her head crooked. It looked like her neck was totally broken. Alva still says it's the gnarliest thing he's ever seen, and I agree. Q: There's a certain ``warts and all'' component to ``Dogtown's'' depiction of the Z-Boys. Given that some of you guys are friends since high school, were any incidents from the past considered ``off limits'' for the film? ALVA: For some of the guys, it was too much. For me, I think the more personal it got, the better it made the story. I wasn't really nervous about that. Even if they would have done, like, a hard-core version, then it really would have opened some doors to some controversial stuff. Being PG-13, we wanted to keep it entertaining and keep it hard-core but at the same time not over the top. PERALTA: I'm actually surprised I got the support I got from Tony, from Jay and from Skip. There was never a moment where these guys said, ``You know, I'll talk to you about this, but I don't want you dealing with this.'' They were totally and completely open. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. if I would have been that way myself, had one of them done this. In the documentary, (Zephyr skate team member) Jim Muir kind of summed up the sentiment. He said, ``Look I'm going to give you all the support I've got, but if you screw up, I'm going to kick your ass.'' Evan Henerson, (818) 713-3651 evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 4 photos Photo: (1 -- cover -- color) ON THE COVER: John Robinson, left, Victor Rasuk and Emile Hirsch hang out on the ``Lords of Dogtown'' set in Culver City. Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer (2) John Robinson, left, Victor Rasuk and Emile Hirsch portray skateboarding stars Stacy Peralta, Tony Alva and Jay Adams, respectively, in ``Lords of Dogtown.'' (3) Today, real-life Z-Boy Tony Alva, left, runs his own skateboarding business, and Stacy Peralta has made a successful leap to movies, writing the screenplay for ``Lords of Dogtown'' and directing a number of projects including 2001's ``Dogtown and Z-Boys.'' (4) Emile Hirsch says Z-Boy Jay Adams told him, ``Ego is poison.'' |
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