PAT DUFFY: Yeah, man, a long-ass time ago I guess Gonz
was doing an interview at Thrasher.
And he was like--
they were like, who do you think's good?
And he's like well, I don't know.
He's like, too bad Duffy doesn't skate anymore, 'cause
he used to be good.
This was a long time ago, too, when I was
totally still skating.
And then he goes, you know what he should do?
He should get on a board like this.
I'm gonna leave it here.
And then I just happened to be at Thrasher, and Jake's like,
hey, Mark left this for you.
Take it.
I was like, really?
That's really strange.
I was so psyched though.
I went and shot an ad on it and stuff for playback.
MALE SPEAKER 1: Who owns the footage of you trying the--
where you hurt your knee?
PAT DUFFY: I have that right here.
I have one right here on my iPod.
It was already used on that fucking stupid MTV show.
[GROAN]
It sucks.
Ouch, that hurt.
I worked out today man.
It's coming back.
It's getting real strong man.
I'm so psyched.
I'm so embarrassed that I did that show.
There was like roller bladers on my episode and shit.
Like, I told them I've done this for a
career for 15 years.
Don't lump me in with some kid from Bakersfield who is a
backyard wrestler for fun.
Forget it, dude.
PATRICK O'DELL: Hi, welcome back to the show.
This episode is about Pat Duffy.
I just remember when "Questionable" came out.
I had never heard of him.
Nobody had ever heard of him, and his part was one of the
best skate parts in years.
Pat was probably the first hand rail pro.
He was doing things that people
didn't think were possible.
Plan B was created as kind of a super team to have the best
people from every genre of skateboarding.
I think Mike Ternasky set this template, this Plan B formula,
that I see a lot of companies now like Zero and Baker.
You can see it all took Plan B's lead.
SAL BARBIER: The first time I heard about Pat Duffy was,
man, that was a long time ago.
Ternasky, Mike Ternasky, was talking about this new guy
that he had found that lived in Marin County.
He was coming out, and he was filming, and he was doing a
lot of really impressive things.
So we knew that he was going to be a
professional right away.
PAT DUFFY: I had flown down just to see if I would fit in
on the team, you know?
Whatever.
Yeah.
Well, Carroll I knew already because I had-- you remember
in "Hokus Pokus" the Hensley balance beam that they used to
skate at School W?
I had one of those, a portable one.
So people used to come skate that thing from everywhere.
Carroll brothers would come skate, Danny Sargent, Henry,
and then I had a ramp in my yard too.
So I'd known those dudes, you know?
But it was intimidating to go hang out with Danny Way.
I was like 17 years old.
My point of view coming from watching him and Colin in
videos growing up.
And then NT just going, hey you're
staying at Danny's house.
Go with him.
And I'm just like all right, OK, whatever.
-I can't do it.
I can't do it.
Ow, fuck!
Fuck, I'm bleeding.
There's blood.
Let me give you the theory of Pat, Taylor.
You see Pat, Pat is actually a terminator.
PAT DUFFY: We filmed for like three weeks every day.
They were just staying at my house when I went
to school and shit.
MALE SPEAKER 1: Where was that school yard with the big rail?
PAT DUFFY: That was at San Pasqual in San Diego.
MALE SPEAKER 1: You did it twice?
PAT DUFFY: Yeah, twice.
MALE SPEAKER 1: Why'd you do it twice?
PAT DUFFY: Think we were thinking different angle.
And I was like, sure.
You know, one from the top one from the bottom.
We didn't have two cameras.
It was just Mike filming.
MALE SPEAKER 1: But I remember at the time when that came out
too, thinking that you couldn't grind a round bar.
What made you think you could grind a round bar?
PAT DUFFY: Because, I don't know, I had that balance beam
growing up.
I just got comfortable grinding
metal rails, you know?
I don't know.
I just liked doing that at the time.
Just kind of scaring myself.
I literally lost my mind back smithing that
kinked rail at SF State.
Because I knew I could do it and I just wasn't doing it.
MALE SPEAKER 1: Did you know that the Plan B video would be
as big of a deal as it was?
PAT DUFFY: I mean, I don't really.
I mean, of course you knew it was because you knew it was
going to be something crazy.
Because we would see the footage going down and there
was nothing.
You know, Ternasky made it a point that we knew what
everyone else was doing.
So that we could feed off of it, you know?
He'd always call every day and be like, yep Rick did this.
Carroll, got this.
And you'd just get so psyched.
He's one of my favorite skaters of all time.
I would rather watch fucking Carroll do a back T on a ledge
than some dude jump down a 30 stair trying to kick flip it.
His whole style is like so sick.
JAKE ROSENBERG: I mean, when I started working for Plan B,
Pat's part was already done.
That was kind of how it was set up, you know?
Which I think Mike strategically did to get
everyone fired up for the video.
To have this amazing part and then have everyone doing their
own part after that.
And you know, imagine being Mike Carroll and coming down
to this new company, Plan B, and see Pat Duffy's part.
And having Mike put your arm around and say, you're my top
street pro.
Come on!
How could you be super stoked?
It's like, fuck.
MIKE CARROLL: I mean when we first got Plan B started, it
was like this whole awesome thing.
And then it seemed like there's a little bit of--
not tension, but--
I don't know.
Just people had different ideas.
You know?
Like all of a sudden, it's like I have to learn a trick.
Not like ah, it'd be cool to learn a trick.
JAKE ROSENBERG: So Mike and I were doing this voice-over for
this project.
He's like, dude do you have that old first version of
"Questionable" with Gonz in it?
I was like, what are you talking about?
He's like remember?
He was at the Pal contest, and we had the trick of him.
And he called Mike Ternasky and told him to take it out?
And I was like, what?
Gonz did that?
And then I vividly remembered Mike being really bummed.
You know?
Because I think that just the way that Mike approached
skateboarding, a lot of
skateboarders didn't like that.
But I know, that in his heart, he loved skateboarding.
So I think it's kind of heartbreaking when you think
you're doing something for the better good of something and
someone else doesn't.
Mike did amazing things while he was alive.
I'm not just saying that because he's dead.
MALE SPEAKER 2 (OFFSCREEN): Get down, boy.
PAT DUFFY (OFFSCREEN) Thanks, bro.
-You know I could have did better man.
-I believe you.
-That was tough.
Man, I like that.
What kind of wheels you got?
-Little one--
MALE SPEAKER 3 (OFFSCREEN): What do you got
to say about that?
-The only thing I got to say is look here.
The guy's a natural.
He's a natural.
And you know something?
When you want to make a million dollars, hey, you come
and look for me.
You look for the baby, because the baby knows a natural.
Hey, come on, hold it up there.
Show them who's number one.
-That was great man.
That was great.
I especially liked the flip of the board.
That was cool.
I can't jump that high.
My vertical leap is only about an inch, if that high.
MALE SPEAKER 3 (OFFSCREEN) Take it easy.
MALE SPEAKER 4 (OFFSCREEN): Yeah, right on, man.
Have a good trip now.
PAT DUFFY: What's that?
MALE SPEAKER 1: It seemed like those two, "Virtual Reality"
came out almost-- to me it seemed like immediately.
I guess it was a year later?
PAT DUFFY: It was a year later, yeah.
MALE SPEAKER 1: That's pretty fast now.
PAT DUFFY: For now a days, people sit on them for a
couple years now.
It was different.
It was just a different vibe back then though, because no
one really made any money.
It was like you were still kind of--
you were still just like skating all the time.
There was a while white rail lip slide that went down flat.
That took a couple times because I kept sticking on it
and I had to set up a slick bottom.
Jake Rosenberg filmed that one.
JAKE ROSENBERG: I mean, Pat's fucking first video part's one
of the greatest video parts in the history of skateboarding.
And it's like, who the fuck is this kid?
I've never seen it before.
And he didn't exactly have a sophomore jinx.
I mean, I think his "Virtual Reality" part is equally as
impressive.
MALE SPEAKER 1: When a lot of those guys left to do their
own, did you take that personally?
PAT DUFFY: No, I didn't take it personally at all.
I figured they had their reasons.
JAKE ROSENBERG: You know what, that's what Mike
Carroll told me.
And this, I think we have to explore at another time.
But he was like, we knew we were leaving the company long
before we did.
And that's why we had the Friends section.
It's because we knew there was never going to
be a "Blind" video.
PAT DUFFY: But I did get a call from Rick saying, this is
what we're doing.
And we want you to know that this is what we're doing.
And then you can make a decision on your own what
you're going to do.
Which I thought was pretty cool of them just to let me
know what was happening that day.
Like the day they showed up with all the "Girl"
shirts on, you know.
MIKE CARROLL: The way we did it was crazy but--
MALE SPEAKER 1: Just all at once take half the team.
MIKE CARROLL: Yeah, and not tell anyone and didn't give
any notice or anything.
But if you know how powerful World or Rocco or any of those
dudes were back then?
If we tried to let them know, we would never have even
existed because they would have never let it happen.
PAT DUFFY: Just because that happened didn't really faze me
on turning my back on MT.
Just because he kind of took me in as one of those kids.
JAKE ROSENBERG: He looked at all those guys like his kids.
Again, regardless of how he did business and regardless of
how people saw him in a certain capacity.
He cared tremendously for everyone who skated for him.
And I think he took pride in giving them an opportunity, or
promoting them, to be great skaters.
So Mike died May 17th, 1994.
I went down to San Diego for the funeral.
I remember seeing Danny outside the funeral home where
they were having the viewing for Mike.
Which was like the worst idea to go there.
But Danny was just crying.
And like, Danny was crying because he was devastated.
PAT DUFFY: I don't know, he was just kind of like a second
dad for me.
I just appreciated everything he taught me.
MALE SPEAKER 1: And so then when Plan B ended did you know
where you were going to go after that?
PAT DUFFY: No.
MALE SPEAKER 1: These are all think boards?
PAT DUFFY: Yeah, I was going through them the other day and
I was like, damn, man I must have been raging when I lived
in San Francisco.
They're all booze graphics.
All of them.
It's crazy.
Gabe Morford and I grew up together, you know.
I was hanging out with Gabe, and he was going out with this
full deluxe staff.
So he was going out with everybody.
I don't know.
I was back in San Francisco, you know?
And I was just hanging out with skateboarders again.
JAKE ROSENBERG: You know, 14 years later or whatever, I
look back on that time now.
And I'm like, holy shit.
I was involved, in my opinion, in like some of the greatest
videos in the history of skating.
When skateboarding was dead, Plan B reinvigorated it.
Whether it caused people to revolt against it or it caused
people to do more technical better tricks, Plan B was at
the epicenter of what changed skateboarding.