[DOG BARKING]
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: Stray!
[SNAPS FINGERS]
MALE SPEAKER: Sorry.
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: Stray.
MALE SPEAKER: Wait.
What's your dog's name?
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: Stray.
Stray.
Like a lost dog.
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah, yeah.
You got it at a shelter, or something?
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: Yeah, up in Harland.
They just found her roaming the streets.
And just the typical dog story you've heard a million times
of just falling in love with the dog in the fucking cage.
So it was cool.
I couldn't understand paying some asshole $600 for a pure
bred dog when there's so many that could just be fucking
helped or saved, or something.
So, it worked out.
It worked out.
She just hangs out in here, man.
Little Stray.
TED BARROW: Yeah, it was a rescue dog.
It was really nervous.
Like, the only person it would respond to was Pappalardo.
Like, everyone else it would bark or hide under the table.
If you could find a dog that reflects one aspect of his
personality, he's loyal to his friends, he's loyal to his
family, he's a genuinely nice person.
He's not fake.
PATRICK O'DELL: Welcome back to show.
This episode was about Anthony Pappalardo.
Now, I didn't think that would ever happen.
I mean, people write in and they request who they want a
show on, and people say Anthony a lot, and I always,
like, psht, like that'll happen.
And when I filmed the Lakai explosion day, I was like
afraid to even point the camera at him, because I don't
know, I thought he'd get mad, or be like, What's this corny
show you do, or whatever.
But for whatever reason he wrote me back when I emailed
him, and he said, Yeah I'll do an episode.
Come over.
And maybe he didn't even think it was going to
be like a full episode.
I think I kind of pitched it like, I'm just going to ask
you about Guy Mariano really fast.
And then I kept prodding, and I was like, What about Mosaic?
Anthony's done a lot in his career.
He's like a real skater's skater.
He's one of those people that when you see a photo or you
see a video clip, it just stands out.
I don't know.
I'm excited to have Anthony on the show.
And this may be the first time he's ever been on a show.
Here it is.
A full blown Anthony Pappalardo episode.
I'm as shocked as you are.
Welcome to the show.
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: I'm not that interesting of a dude,
but it's the fact of because I don't really do this stuff.
But that's the thing with pro skaters.
A lot of them like to be in front of this, and do this
whole side of it.
When you try to keep it personal to a certain level,
and you don't want to put yourself really out there,
that doesn't really give people what they want.
Automatically it turns into a falseness that they have to
create, because there's nothing out there for them to
kind of pick apart at.
You know, I'll put out a video every two, three years.
I hope you like it.
If you do, you do.
If you don't, you don't.
And I think that's maybe how I was taught.
When I was young and I used to look up to Mike or Rick or,
like, Fred Gall, I didn't know one
personal thing about Freddie.
You know what I mean?
I think that's how it should be.
I don't think I ever thought or wanted to be like, all
right this is it, I want to be a pro skater.
I think that's an east coast thing.
I think I just kind of fell into it, more or less.
There you are.
MALE SPEAKER: Here are your boards.
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: Yeah, I got two boards that I feel are
kind of fitting for a kitchen, maybe.
MALE SPEAKER: Oh wait.
Don't you have pizza in your family?
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: Yeah, my dad owns a pizza store.
So that's hat.
MALE SPEAKER: You and the Fully Flared poster.
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: Oh yeah, my mom took that photo.
I don't know.
It was my first actual skate premiere I ever went to.
I went to like an Alien one in Ohio for Mosaic that was kind
of like a half-assed one.
But this was, I guess, my first pretty big one.
Just kind of hung out with them in
kind of a little disguise.
I didn't really get noticed too much, which was a good
thing, I think.
You know, I think I lucked out, because I didn't know
anything really about the video, so I wasn't expecting
my part to be second, or something.
Like I had no idea what order or anything.
So by the time my part was on it was pretty much done.
MALE SPEAKER: Well, I remember watching right after Fully
Flared some indie video on the internet, and I was like, Oh
yeah, like, you know what I mean?
There's still this.
There's still so much to skating.
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: So much, man.
And to put out a video to say that it would, like, be the
end and all of skating, you'd have to be a pretty unoriginal
person to think that.
You know what I mean?
You'd have to be like--
fuck, I would hate to, you know--
And there was like when [INAUDIBLE] did that video,
Manic [INAUDIBLE].
Like people were like, Oh my God.
Like a month later that video sucked.
Obviously the idea that they were doing the Lakai video,
and they started getting pretty serious and they were
doing trips and stuff.
These guys were going to have parts, like Guy Mariano, or
like Mark, and all these guys, and Carroll, and I just felt
like I just couldn't really--
I don't know.
So I just came up with the idea of just trying to stay
home and film around New York.
If you watch the video from the beginning to the and, like
my part, I just wanted it to look different
than everyone else's.
Not better, not worse.
Just kind of different.
I wasn't trying to change skateboarding with my part.
I did a lot of basic stuff in my part, like Smith grinds,
and grinds, and ollies, and stuff.
But I just want to make a part where I'll watch it and be
kind of psyched on it in 10 years or something.
I think skating's so fucked, is like, how good everyone is.
Like, why not do something like that.
It's just like everyone's good at skateboarding now.
And it's just hard to break apart from that.
TY EVANS: You know what's funny, is like Paps, the whole
time we were making this video he told me, Hey, I kind of got
this idea I'm going for.
And it's going to be just raw New York
vibe skating at night.
Like early hocus pocus.
That's what he kept calling it.
BILL STROBECK: I feel like the video is so gung ho, and
everyone was so fucking, like, Whoa, we've got to get this
thing, we've go to do this.
I feel like we just did the complete opposite.
I feel like it was fun, you know?
Which is cool, because you do something so long, like the
fun part leaves, you know?
We just wanted to do it how they used to do
it back in the day.
In like video days.
You just film what you film.
It shows the time, you know what I mean?
I thought he did a lot of hard shit in his part.
I thought it was great.
I think it's great.
The only thing that I didn't think was great was that he
was in Times Square in his part.
I thought that was stupid.
I know for a fact that he would never be in Times Square
walking around.
It was a little weird.
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: We'll just go skate.
I'll call him up, cruise around for a couple hours, and
then maybe not speak to him for a week or something.
Like there's never been like, All right, well, let's meet up
tomorrow to film that.
I don't know.
It's just always on a whim.
Especially for that Lakai video.
It was nothing more than having a couple of beers or
something, and like, Hey, let's just go put the camera
light on and go skate.
And that's what it was.
It was that for a couple nights, and then it was not
that for a very long time.
The level of some of the stuff that I had on film, a lot of
people could do it, I would say.
You guys are all kind of in this video.
So it's like I guess has to be some level of skating that
makes or breaks the cut.
MALE SPEAKER: Did you have lot of stuff filmed that wasn't
going to go in or didn't go in?
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: Yeah I think so.
I had some other footage that wasn't in that video part.
BILL STROBECK: I had all this left over footage that Ty
didn't use.
I didn't want it to go to waste.
The beginning part was Anthony talking to this guy.
Like I didn't even send that to them.
Like, I knew I was going to do something with it.
It was kind of like, Oh, I'm going to use this.
I'm not giving this to anyone.
Because I thought it was awesome.
MALE SPEAKER: Want some food?
I'll feed all you guys right now.
Right there.
BK.
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: OK, thanks for the offer.
Thank you.
MALE SPEAKER: Don't let the motherfucker bullshit you.
Proof is in the pudding.
BILL STROBECK: It's Anthony, and little Alex.
Alex Olson.
And this kid Goose that I grew up with.
You know.
It was like, I'm putting everyone in there.
Fuck this, you know?
It's cool.
I'll tell you right now, he skates in New York a lot.
New York you're just not going to get as much footage.
It's different, dude.
I didn't bring any equipment with me.
Like, no one has a camera light.
No one has a camera light.
You know what I mean?
It was, like, generator.
You can't do generators.
It's way different, man.
I think Anthony's just kind of like trying to stick out.
I think that's what keeps it going for him, you know?
You can't keep doing the same thing or it gets boring.
He just wants to keep reinventing himself.
I think that's cool.
MALE SPEAKER: What do you think of that?
MALE SPEAKER: I said, Man, that was mad beautiful, man.
That motherfucker came up and over, and then came and
flipped out and came down--
BILL STROBECK (OFFSCREEN): That guy's awesome.
I see him all the time.
That guy rules.
ROB PLUHOWSKI: Hey, Laila, they want
you to come out here.
MALE SPEAKER: What's your name?
LAILA: Laila.
MALE SPEAKER: Hi Laila.
Pleasure to meet you.
Have you ever seen any skateboard videos that your
father's in?
LAILA: I don't know?
ROB PLUHOWSKI: We don't let her see those.
MALE SPEAKER (OFFSCREEN): Were you kicked off
because you had a kid?
ROB PLUHOWSKI: Oh, no.
I wasn't going anywhere.
I knew it.
You know I mean?
I was just in denial.
You get to a point in skateboarding where it's like
that's all you do is skateboard.
You forget about a job.
You forget that real life happens.
And things go on.
When Joe Castrucci called me up and kicked me off it was
probably the best thing that's ever happened to me.
I needed to move on.
I'm not the type of person that was a career
skateboarder, as you say.
Maybe would say.
I met Anthony in Philly.
Probably I was barely 21.
20, 21.
If I go skateboarding tomorrow he's the one
I'm going to call.
MALE SPEAKER (OFFSCREEN): Dude, look at that.
He would've done it.
ROB PLUHOWSKI: See, I haven't really been, like, in the
skateboard thing.
Like when Lakai video came out, from what I hear, Anthony
didn't meet people's expectations.
People were talking shit on it, and like his
part wasn't all great.
But he's done like the hardest things.
He just took a different path.
He tried different stuff and kind of put a twist on his
skateboarding.
People say he's being lazy or whatnot, but Anthony can do
anything he wants to do on a skateboard.
He is the most determined kid on a skateboard ever I've ever
personally met.
One of the most determined kids on a skateboard.
He can do anything he wants to do.
TY EVANS: There's like that section of skaters that are,
like, so into Bobby Puleo, so into Anthony Pappalardo, and
Ricky Oyola, and they're so into those really raw, city
street skater guys.
That's just a totally raw, pure form of skating.
Look at Pappalardo now compared to Pappalardo before.
They're two different types of skaters.
And they're both equally as rad.
You want to know how fucking tech he was?
He was getting into backside flips, switchfronts like
Crooks on DWP when I first saw him.
And I remember around that same time was Photosynthesis
where he did the [INAUDIBLE]
180 fakie 5.0 across the whole bench at the seaport.
That's fucking gnarly.
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: There's not one professional--
or it doesn't even have to be an issue of
professional or not--
skateboarder that hasn't changed how they've skated
since they were 15 to 30.
Like any skateboarder I was just so addicted to it at that
age, it just consumed me.
From 13 on there was a lot of skating involved, and just
watching skate videos, to skating, to
being in the city skating.
I don't know.
It's like, any skater you talk to, I think, will always have
those couple of years, will agree how it really does
consume everything.
And you miss out on, at that time, it's like stupid shit--
the high school parties, and all that stuff, college, and I
don't regret a minute of it, but that doesn't even exist in
your world.
BRIAN WENNING: I like how all these people that don't even
know him love how he is this Bob Dylan type skateboarder,
where he just does what he wants, when he wants, and
everybody loves him.
I don't know him anymore.
I know the guy that he was back then.
But everybody changes.
I don't know the Anthony Pappalardo of 2008 to 2009.
I don't know what he's like.
MALE SPEAKER (OFFSCREEN): How long has it been since you and
Anthony talked?
BRIAN WENNING: That's when we were in competition.
And I mean, I still skate the same as I [INAUDIBLE]
forgot about him.
MALE SPEAKER (OFFSCREEN): This is like the original
battleground spot for you and Anthony?
BRIAN WENNING: Right here?
Yeah, right here, this is where it all happened.
First day we met he was trying to kick from the stairs, and I
was like, No, man.
Can't let this happen.
And then I did it before him and then after that we hated
each other, and then we became best friends.
MALE SPEAKERS (OFFSCREEN): Whoaa!
MALE SPEAKER (OFFSCREEN): Back to back.
Back to back.
MALE SPEAKERS (OFFSCREEN): Ohhh!
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: Yeah, we skated a bunch, man.
We would just meet up in New York, downtown, and fucking
jump down the bank steps all day, and just be some fucking
weirdos, little suburb kids in the city getting away with it.
MALE SPEAKER: You can't skate here.
It's private property.
get that?
Understand that in your head?
Private property.
P-R-I-V-A-T-E.
MALE SPEAKER: What are you going to do if I come back?
MALE SPEAKER: Fuck you up.
And you.
MALE SPEAKER (OFFSCREEN): Me?
MALE SPEAKER: Think I'm laughing?
Think I'm joking?
Come back here tonight.
MALE SPEAKER: You can't hit him.
He's 16 years old.
MALE SPEAKER: I don't give a fuck if you was two.
Come back here tonight and see what happens.
MALE SPEAKER (OFFSCREEN): All right.
I'll be here.
I'll fucking be here.
MALE SPEAKER: I hope so.
MALE SPEAKER (OFFSCREEN): I hope so too.
I'll be here tonight.
All right, I'll see you tonight.
I'll see you, bro.
Have your boxing gloves ready.
I'll be back.
BILL STROBECK: I mean, when I first started film them it was
for Photosynthesis.
Well, the first person that I was filming was Josh Kalis,
because he was just local.
Then I call from Joe Castrucci a month later.
He was like, Dude, you want to film?
We can hook you up with some dough.
I was like, Sure.
I got all the numbers to everyone right away, and the
first person I called was Anthony.
And I was kind of nervous.
It was weird, because I didn't know anyone.
I mean, I knew Josh, and stuff, but I didn't know
Anthony when I called him.
I was like, Dude, what's up?
I'm Bill.
I got a job.
I was like, Let's meet up.
He was, like, Dude, I'll be at the seaport at like 8:00 in
the morning.
MALE SPEAKER: (OFFSCREEN): Yeah!
BILL STROBECK: I took a Greyhound and met him up here.
It was just me and him.
And then Wenning showed up an hour later.
We filmed a line that first day.
Like right off the bat.
MALE SPEAKER: These used to be the benches that you see in
the Photosynthesis video right here.
Anthony slept on this one, and then I slept on this one.
And we woke up with bums going through our pockets and stuff.
Pretty much slept like a half hour, probably.
And then he got up and nollied 180 at the big rail at the
Brooklyn banks in the Alien Workshop video.
ANTHONY PAPPALARDO: No, that was kind of wack.
I don't know about that.
Dude, I don't know.
MALE SPEAKER (OFFSCREEN): Let me keep it.