Danny Fuenzalida.

EVERY LIFE DECISION begins with a pivotal moment. It could be catching a home run ball at a baseball game with your dad, helping build a tree fort with some friends, or seeing your neighbor roll past you on a Nash. Everything ends up mattering. Once this decision--conscious or not--is made, the world begins to fall into place around it. For example, a nightclub promoter takes a trip to Miami, FL. He pays the most attention to the clubs and the beach, right? Just like if you're in the back of your car with your parents driving, whatever they're talking about could never be as important as the bump to bar across the street from the gas station where you stopped to get directions.

Danny Fuenzalida's life was physics and math well before it became skateboarding, so it's only natural that he approaches his life with the eye and mind of a physicist. As fucking corny as all this sounds, it's pretty much true. Life's corny, but so's Fuenza. I can't explain it any better than he can, so here's the latest from the man whose latest self-confessed purchase--and I can't stress "purchase" enough here--is Sponge-Bob Square Pants: The Movie. Dude, weak.--Sven Barth

Okay, let me get this out of the way. Is there any way you could possibly consider yourself the Chilean Prince?

Greg Carroll kind of threw that one out there. My dad'll claim his grandfather was secretary of defense or some shit.

I'm over it. So the first time you ever saw a skateboard was in Chile, right?

Yeah. My buddy Dave from Canada.

Not Chile?

In Chile. Our dads worked at the same mine, and he came down to Chile because of his dad. He ollied off a curb and I started tripping.

It was a popsiele board?

I was about to turn 12, like '93, so yeah. That was the first time I saw a skateboard. Dave was about the same age as me; he'd only been skating for like half a year or something. So I got my first board on my 12th birthday at this placed called "Powell."

It wasn't a Powell shop? They just ripped off the name? Explain how that works.

Well, everybody down there (South America) doesn't care, it's not illegal or something. But it's just shit product. Kids'll be all psyched, like, "Oh, I just got this Quicksilver shirt!" But it's the worst shirt ever--like

handmade logos and iron-ons, all kinds of shit. Even shoes; I've seen "Glober" shoes. Amazing. Homie had Plan B bearings like four years ago.

So back to the first board.

They were around 40,000 pesos, which is like 80 or 90 bucks. Just for a deck. Kids don't know. I used to order from Pacific Drive and FTC, which my homie Eric told me about. With all the taxes and shipping it worked out about the same. But I went off to boarding school in Canada at 13 to 14.

Where about?

Victoria, a little north. So a year or so into skating I took this three-month trip around British Columbia through all the skateparks. I needed it; I'd never seen anything like the parks up there. It was with Dave's parents, going to see all of his family's relatives, and we'd just be like, "Pull over! There's a park!" I saw a lot of pros out there and it tripped me out. I went to Whistler and saw McCrank and Alex Chalmers.

Like in '94 or '95?

Those dudes were ripping frontside flips eight-feet high out of the bowl. Mind boggled. That's when I started getting hurt; I saw how far it could be taken and started to push what I knew how to do. You know, I'm a physicist.

At 13! What are you talking about?

Seriously, dude. I just saw that there was a way to skate. I was just like, "How the fuck do they go so fast?" And after a second I started seeing that every time they hit any bank, they pumped, up, down, around, however. They're turning. I'm like, "Oh, loose trucks." Hmmm.

You sound like an anthropologist. But what about when you'd come back to Chile? All you'd get were videos, right?

Yeah. I remember shit from those, like, "I never landed that trick before in my life!"

Yeah, Harold!

Harold Hunter, rest in peace.

Seriously, that shit cracked me up for a decade. That guy was the man. I just think it was a good time for everything.

You see, when you're young you don't understand it. I was just hyped on watching something go down. I didn't even know what was going down. When you watch those older videos now you see something more, you start to understand. Those guys were the creators, throwing together a montage in the certain way they did.

So what'd you eat at Squat and Gobble last weekend?

I sat down and I ate. What did I eat? I ate an orange juice.

"I ate an orange juice." That sounds about right.

I ate an omelet, yo.

Didn't you eat another omelet today?

The first two omelets of my life.

Why you eating omelets when you hang out with me?

'Cause you're French.

I'm not fucking French!

Oh-meh-leeeh. Uh ... restauraahn--you know, I got French on lock.

So as you're multi-national and on this interplanetary culinary quest, what's your favorite food been so far?

Potato pancakes, I guess, in Kobe. Japan?

Yeah.

See, that's gangster. So what Chilean specialty is your favorite?

Fucking empanadas, of course.

What about, well, Canada has no specialties ... Australia? Shrimp?

What the fuck? I haven't lived there for 15 years.

So when you go back do you get a hankering for some shrimp?

No. My morn would always just give me salad, like raw salad.

Would you ever toss it?

Seriously, like lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, lemon.

Okay. Sorry, Holmes.

I've eaten shrimp in my day, though.

Would you say a lot of shrimp?

No, not really a lot.

Even in the States you're kind of all over the map, right?

Well, I got San Francisco and I got Miami.

So how do those work?

In Miami I have a girlfriend.

And in SF you're a gigolo? Boo ya!

Heh. No. It's basically that SF is my work.

I go to work.

How much work do you get done in Miami?

C'mon, dude, you can't ask me something like that. I don't get any skating done there. Yeah you do.

I just hang out with Brian Delatorre. Then Guru shows up and starts talking in slow motion or something.

I, myself, will give an official salute to Joel Meinholz, the mayor of South Beach, FL.

Bender's the best pool player I've ever played.

Do any Miami heads ever show up in SF?

What do mean, dude? You and Danny (Renaud) just showed up here.

You guys are the yin/yangs of the skating world. But unfortunately there are like 30 Dannys that are pro skaters.

I know, dude. Should I change my first name?

We got to come up with a good Chilean nickname, 'cause everyone down there has one. Like CookieHead Jenkins or something. Who names their kid CookieHead? See, dude?

I got like five names: Daniel Francisco Fuenzalida Albrecht Lascano.

Francisco Lascano would be a good one. That's a porno name for sure. You never had an edge, 'cause there're too many Dannys. Plus, if you ever wanted to do gay porn you could change it to that.

Wait, I'm missing one, too. It's Daniel Francisco Fuenzalida Albrecht Lascano Algomero.

In that case you should get a makeover and film all this shit, release the footy under a different name, and become an undercover double threat: Albrecht Algomero. Start skating vert or something.

We should do that.

Get a perm, start skating goofy, and come up as an am on another team.

You think it's possible?

It's still your name, right? We got to keep it on the down low.

Well, it's going in an interview so now it's kind of obvious.

Damn! We blew it.

What about just "D"?

D Lascano? That shit's thuggish ruggish. You know if you put your cell phone into a sock and then talk on it, then you can't get a tumor from it?

Oh yeah?

It's got to be a used sock, though.

Anyway ...

So when are you going to tre flip El Toro?

I did the other day. No filmers, no nothing.

Soul skate, huh?

Oh, I soul skate ... I'm cruising all the time. Just shredding. I only let people know just enough for me to live off this stuff.

'Cause you skate the super jump on a pretty regular basis, too, right?

Yeah. It's super fun. Heads don't know, you just cruise that shit. It's butter.

Plus you guys are both named Danny.

I'm D Lascano, son!