ERIC DRESSEN: This is like--
God damn--
this poor trophy.
Dude it was like, probably like this big.
But my dad's a minimalist, crazy guy.
So he probably thought it would be
cooler to make it smaller.
And then with all the years of traveling, these poor little
eagles keep getting broken off.
But this is an '89 Japanese contest I won.
Courthouse, Nose Bunker.
That was a good year.
I wish I had my bank account from back then.
[INAUDIBLE]
just came out.
Fucking, this was a good summer, going everywhere with
Tom Knox and Alan Petersen and [INAUDIBLE].
-That a mug shot of you?
ERIC DRESSEN: Oh I think this is like the first time I was
getting a passport.
Look at that guy, poor guy.
I wish I could tell him something.
Go back.
-Tell him to chill.
ERIC DRESSEN: I had taken a trip up to Santa Cruz just
with my friend to go see Jason.
And we went to this art show.
And they had all our graphics, all of Jim Phillips' graphics.
And it brought back all these old memories.
And I was like, damn, I want my old job back.
And then I said they were doing the reissues.
And they hit me up like, can we do your board?
And I was like, hell yeah.
But I want to be back on the team.
And they kind of laughed at me.
And I'm like, no, I'm serious.
I want to be back on Santa Cruz team.
All of these old--
all the reissue stuff is killing it.
That's your following.
I'm part of that following.
I'm down.
Let's do [INAUDIBLE] shapes.
That's what your company's lacking right now.
I got a phone call a week or two later.
They were like yeah, do you want to be back on the team?
And Tom's down too.
And we started the veterans division.
And I'd been on the team for probably four or five months,
and I hadn't done anything.
Hadn't shot photos, video, anything.
I was just partying like a maniac.
At the same time Brian Lotti was living down the street.
He rented a studio down the street.
And we were skating.
And he started working on "1st and Hope." And he wanted me to
be a part of it.
BRIAN LOTTI: The concept for "1st and Hope" was to show
what happens in between the tricks.
Or even more like skateboards are made for rolling.
And let's see what it looks like actually to
skate through a city.
We wanted to try and make this really simple
thing with two people.
But it snowballed and turned into this kind of invitational
session style thing.
It totally took on a life of its own.
Eric was living and working in downtown.
Naturally he ended up in the film.
ERIC DRESSEN: They rented out the county jail bank.
And it was like Matt Hensley and Ray Barbee, Lance
Mountain and Tom.
And I hadn't skated with Tom in almost 10 years.
And they came down a day before, and they tried to come
get me to go skating.
They were knocking on my hotel room door.
And I woke up.
I was all hungover.
I was like, you guys just skate.
I'll see you tomorrow.
BRIAN LOTTI: He was supposed to be at the session.
We only had two hours to skate that thing.
And it was like we were a half hour into it.
I was like, where's Eric?
Where's Eric?
And someone had to go track him down.
And then he might have slammed or something.
He slammed a lot for that video actually.
He slammed more than anybody.
He was kind of on a dark path.
KENNY ANDERSON: Normally you'd look at Chris Roberts, Mark
Johnson guys, like a normal session.
It's like Tom Knox, Dressen, Hensley.
And you're like, phew.
I had to text my brother that type stuff.
Like hey man.
We were filming.
But I would actually get side tracked watching Dressen.
Because I'd end up just watching him.
He looks exactly like he did in "Risk It." Because we're
skating by the same spots and stuff.
And he's doing his little turns and like carves.
And then going on to skate with him every
day and do this film.
That was really cool.
ERIC DRESSEN: I was watching Kenny Anderson.
He was trying to backslide nose blunt slides.
And getting photos and video.
And just making shit happen.
And I was just like, I'm fucking up, hanging out with
all these wrong people and in the wrong places.
I set out since I was a little kid, I wanted to be a pro
skateboarder.
I'm all fucking up.
And just spending this one day filming with all these guys
and shooting photos was like, that's what I set out to do.
I decided I gotta step up my shit.
And I just realized, I was like, I can't stop drinking.
I had blown all my money.
I didn't have money for rent or food.
Got everyone mad at me.
Got fired from my apprenticeship.
And I bumped into my really good friend, and he was on his
way to a 12 step program meaning.
And he was like, you should come with me.
And I was like, no.
That's cool.
He was like, I'll buy you dinner.
And I ended up just going.
And it blew my mind.
Everything I didn't know about myself or why got explained to
me in the first five minutes I was there.
And I've been sober ever since.
I'm 45 now, bad knees.
I still can skate but just can't go crazy like I used to.
Some of my other boards, my Sk8 Mafia.
[INAUDIBLE] just came out.
-Sick.
ERIC DRESSEN: This one, it's autographed.
I was complaining to my girlfriend that they put the
screaming hand on everything.
And I was like I gotta come up with something.
And she was like, why don't you do one holding the tattoo
machine and stuff.
That's why I love skateboarding now.
Everything's cool.
It was a little rough there in the early '90s.
Mid '90s people were like this ain't cool.
That ain't cool.
But I think everything's cool.
JASON JESSEE: You know he's there.
Dressen, how can you not love the dude?
He's like a legend, amazing innovator.
He did shit a lot of people didn't do or couldn't do.
A year ago he couldn't skate because his ankle hurt.
He was a lot bigger.
He fucking looks great right now.
JAKE PHELPS: He's not a bitter harvest dude.
A lot of the old bitter harvest dudes are all like,
fucking yea what, fucking duh.
Well, fuck dude, so what?
Skateboarding doesn't owe you shit.
Owes you a wheel bite in the rain.
You own skateboarding.
And he knows that.
And that's why I rate him and I respect him.
He was out of it for a bit.
But he got back into it.
And now he's on top of his game, just the
way he was back then.
LANCE MOUNTAIN: He experienced the part of
skateboarding that hooks you.
The first time he got on a skateboard he's
going down a hill.
It's just taking him somewhere.
And it's moving.
And he's turning and the ball bearings are falling out.
And it's real.
He didn't get on a board and go, Johnny hard flipped 10.
I'm going to do 11.
It's something else.
You fall in love with it before you get good.
I don't know any guys that skated in the '70s that don't
constantly think about it, whether they're even involved
or do it at all or care about it.
They hadn't touched a skateboard for 20 years, and
they're like, I'm a skateboarder.
And that's where Eric came from.
-You know when he skates, he skates like
he's from that world.
Like you would romanticize somebody being from like--
just yeah, fucking we're doing this.
Because he came from that, oh gee, I'm standing on a fucking
three inch wide piece of oak trying to figure out how to
turn and come back down the wall.
That's fucking profound.
They didn't know.
They did not know.
Think about the guy who walked in and was like, let's try to
ride the pool.
You know what I mean?
The first dudes that actually did that, like if you could
hit the rewind tape.
And Eric's coming out of that fucking gang of dudes.
The dude's skateboarding royalty.
ERIC DRESSEN: Today I didn't think I was going
to be able to skate.
I was super nervous and stuff.
I've got a whole brand new set up and new bushings.
But this thing's working good.
I love this board.
All the homies are here right now.
Scott Oster, Olsen, Hosoi's here.
Jake's here.
Everybody's ripping.
You know we used to do this every day.
I get these little glimpses of how it used to be
when we were young.
You know, didn't have any cares in the world, just went
skateboarding.
You know, we owned it.
I'm just a skateboarder here.
I don't really consider myself this legend or anything.
I've been around forever.
But I just don't think of myself that way.
I just fell in love with skateboarding.
[CHATTERING]
-What about the salad grind?
ERIC DRESSEN: Salad grind?
Shit.
I guess I came up with that maybe '87 or something.
Because on mini ramps we'd always kind of slow down.
You'd come up backside, slow down to set up for something.
And I was like, I'm going to try it front side.
And I didn't like it.
I thought it was a goofy trick.
And I think once I went home, I came back up to stay with
Tommy Guerrero.
And Bryce had a mini ramp.
And I was just dorking around doing it.
But then I was extending it.
And they thought it was cool.
I think Bryce shot some photos of it.
And Kevin Thatcher named it the salad grind, like Eric's
salad dressing.
But I called it the windshield wiper.
Because it was kind of like a windshield wiper.
I don't know.