RICKY OYOLA: That thing is really close, man.
Imagine being a celebrity where this shit's in your face
like all day, every day.
I mean, I know you've got tons of money, and you can say fuck
off to the world, but so much pressure.
We used to have a warehouse right down there for a couple
years, huge warehouse that me, Roger, and my buddy Skip got.
I mean, it kind of sucked that we got it and that's when I
was injured for a really long time.
So it's like I didn't really utilize that space as well as
we could have, you know?
I mean, it was a huge, huge warehouse.
My back was hurt when I was filming for Z. I mean, a long
time ago was when I first felt it, like '91.
Because I was a Woodward.
And it was painful.
I was taking so much ibuprofen just to be able
to skate every day.
Just years of abuse took me out.
I mean, my disk was out.
It was after Underachievers, for sure.
ROGER BROWNE: I was living with him at the time.
Yeah, it was pretty tough to live with a guy who was
walking around with his back all fucked up.
And sponsors, I think, Estelle was on his ass.
Yo, we need some footage.
We need a photo.
I can't skate.
That kind of whole weird sponsorship pressure.
RICKY OYOLA: Mac got sick.
I got hurt.
And Surge, when [INAUDIBLE], when that guy pulled the plug
on ECU, Surge never really--
that was pretty much done for him.
And in '97 is when I first went to the chiropractor that
I go to now.
She was like, you're not going to skate that much longer, you
know what I mean?
And I just kept on proving her wrong and just kept on going.
And she's awesome, but she helped me kind of be able to
continue skating.
I talked to Steve Douglas and got on New Deal like in
October or something like that, October
or November of '98.
And then I rode for New Deal for a couple years.
-Did you go to jail or something in Australia?
RICKY OYOLA: Yeah, that was on an Australia trip.
-With New Deal?
RICKY OYOLA: I was on New Deal.
I was really into pool a lot, especially at that time.
We all go out to this place.
And we're just chilling, walking around.
And I'm looking, and I'm looking for who
knows how to play pool.
And this dude, this old dude, was just wrecking
shop, really good.
So I put my quarters on this table.
I go up to him and I ask him, dude, can we play singles?
And his partner was an old drunk guy.
And he's like, yeah, no problem.
This old drunk guy didn't know that he said that.
And he's like drunk as shit.
He's like, where's your quarters, man?
You got a partner?
He kept on saying, got a partner to me.
And I'm like, your buddy said we're going to play singles
real quick, you know what I mean?
But because of that, it means my voice got louder.
People can hear that I was American.
So all these dudes behind me were on these chairs.
They're like, hey, mate.
Oy, mate.
You're from the States, eh?
I'm like, yeah, yeah I am from the States, Philadelphia.
Oh Philly.
What's your name, mate?
What's your name?
And I'm like, Ricky.
Oy, oh, we call you Dick here in Australia.
So now I'm starting to play this guy.
I missed a shot.
Oy, nice shot Dick.
Nice shot, Dick.
This guy's calling me Dick.
Every time I miss it, nice shot, Dick.
But after the third or fourth time, I walked up to him.
It's funny.
It's cool.
Have a good time, man.
But he said, OK.
And he shook my hand.
He said, all right, no problem.
And he shook my hand.
And you know what I mean?
To me, that seals it right there.
He said nice shot, Dick, two more times.
And I just fucking-- beside myself.
I hit him with a pool cue, right in his face.
Wrong day, and he shook my hand and went further.
And I understand how Australians love to fucking
poke Americans.
And that day did not work out for that dude.
Giant paid for my fees.
And when I got home, I took money out of my check to give
back to them.
It just isn't that bad.
But it definitely is a little chapter of my book of life.
I love New Deal, love my time with those dudes.
It was Kenny, Chad, meeting Fabrizio in Prague and getting
him on the team, because he was such an amazing dude.
But no matter what they did, it wasn't going to work.
They were going to fizzle it out and do Pop War.
Kenny and those dudes fought to get that New Deal
video to come out.
That video came out February 2.
It was 2/2/02.
I got married on that day, so it did come out.
But it wasn't going to save New Deal.
Giant helped me out and got me to places and was kind of rad.
I got paid a steady check.
But as far as skate and part of what we were trying to do,
New Deal wasn't really a part of that that much.
FRANKIE: I think Rick, his skating never changed.
I feel like he never really followed
trends with his skating.
He definitely didn't fit.
His video part's sick.
His Static 2 part's way sicker, I think.
-Static 2 tapes.
Yeah, Philly-- that's crazy.
The first one I pull out.
It's like Ricky Oyola.
That's sick.
That's amazing.
JOSH STEWART: I started working on the Static video
series like '98, '99.
The Static series, I was mostly trying to do parts with
people who hadn't had full video parts, people who are
underground or who always deserved it but never got it.
Ricky had the video part.
He had the defining video part.
So it's weird to like, hey, I want to do a
Static part with Ricky.
But it just makes sense, you know what I mean, as far as
aesthetic that the Static videos are about.
And he was really apprehensive about doing it.
But he said if you did it, it would have to include Jack
Sabback, Rich Adler, and Damian Smith, because those
are like his dudes that he wanted to
see come up in Philly.
And he wanted them involved.
RICKY OYOLA: Stop.
-I could beat you up, Owen.
JOSH STEWART: To get Ricky to film a full video part, we had
to get him out of Philly, because he had so many
responsibilities there, you know?
So that was kind of necessary.
But for me, I want to see Ricky skating in the streets
of a real city like Philly, or New York, not Barcelona.
But that's kind of what it took.
The push back from Rick was that he hated
everything he got.
He's like, I don't think I should have a part, you know?
He didn't want to do it because he didn't feel like
his level skating was good enough.
He still wants to progress.
He wants to do stuff that's hard.
But all I want him to do is I want to see him pushing
through the streets.
And I don't care--
do two flatground tricks, ollie up a curb, and ollie a
bump to bar.
In my opinion, of all of skateboarders have ever
skated, Ricky is within those top three best pushes.
FRANKIE: I shot with Rick a lot during Static 2.
Rick is super critical, which I think is pretty admirable.
It's good.
Because he's had very few like whatever things come out, in
my opinion.
But I'm sure he would be way more critical, even the stuff
that has gotten out.
I was really psyched on this photo and obviously Slap was
enough that they ran it.
And then I get a call.
Dude, why'd you let them run that photo?
It's not even that high up.
I'm like, Rick, it's like really sick.
And they like the photos.
Whatever.
Rick didn't like to think of skateboarding as a job, but he
definitely was focused on what he was doing, and I think we
all kind of took a little bit of that from him.
Rick and I already knew each other.
And he sort of gave me a chance,
because he needed photos.
And we got along pretty good.
And now it's just the start of going on these insane missions
to find spots that nobody else has skated, cool
shit, unique shit.
And if there's something there that wasn't quite skateable,
we'd make it skateable.
RICKY OYOLA: Half the fun of just finding spots is when
Frankie or someone would be driving,
we'll be sitting back.
Our heads wouldn't just be going back and forth whenever
you're in area that you weren't--
even in Philly, though we've been here forever, just always
trying to find something new.
That in itself just makes skating so exciting.
This, they just built this.
And this, to me, is such an amazing setup, man.
But the woman's always home.
Can you see it on the corner right there?
But I always wanted to just to go up and ollie up and quick
nose manny.
But it's really quick.
And if you hang up, ouch.
I landed it one foot, fucking slammed.
I mean, I broke a rib.
I didn't break bones my whole life, believe it or not.
For me, I was never a trickster, where
I out tricked you.
I'm going to look at things differently.
I'm going to present something to you.
So basically, if I go out there and I find something,
that's part of the trick.
That's part of it.
Most people just disregard that.
That's not a trick to them.
That's actually one the biggest things about it.
Then you've got to accomplish what
you're trying to envision.
Then you get it, and then you document it.
FRANKIE: This spot is in an abandoned
building in North Philly.
Goddamn 25 degrees, middle of winter.
We scrape the ice off the ground and build a cement bump
to these stairs, right?
He gets a trick.
We tear it up.
We build it on the other side, gets another
trick, destroys that.
I think those tricks were in Static 2.
-OK.
FRANKIE: And then people are asking me where the spot is,
and I'm like fuck.
I don't know.
And I always would tell them, look man, if you found a spot
and you took me to it, I would show you the same respect.
With Rick and those guys, those were the guys who went
and found hard shit to skate, unique shit to skate.
Rick took the time to pour the cement.
JOSH STEWART: And again, we all say this, but basically
it's an art, not a sport.
And it's the process to which you get to your final product,
which would be your photo or your footage, is the important
side of things.
RICKY OYOLA: For me, that was part of my skating.
And when you blew up my spot, you just basically took away a
part of what I presented to skating.
It wasn't about you can out trick me or whatever.
Because that's OK.
A lot of people can, you know what I mean?
But you would have never skated it if I
didn't skate it.
If I didn't present it out here into the world, you would
have never skated it.