mike's enigma man he like has
been basically fighting everything his
whole life and fighting himself i mean
it's like the mic i know is so different
from the mic that
is presented to the public in a way you
left new deal for you and him to start
accompanying
and that was out of vision brand orphan
brad dorffin originally yeah so we did
tv
which i think in his brain was templeton
valley but for me it was always
television i didn't want to name a
company after myself
we had writers we did some ads and stuff
and mike was sort of like the guiding
influence like i didn't really get to
like
my stuff was in there my drawings and
stuff but it was like i think mike was
calling the shots we left brad dorfman
essentially
dorfman was just over controlling you
know like trying to like
make us do stuff i'm super vague and all
this stuff i just know we weren't happy
there so we leave him to go with this
guy dean
we changed it to television basically
like from tv to television this guy dean
is like sort of an entrepreneur type
dude who is coming up with ideas to make
companies
so we took television to this guy he was
like that's the kind of guy he was he
like realized like i can do this company
do it here i guess what happened is mike
had a certain lifestyle and money
that he was making he had just had his
first daughter and i just
stopped getting i didn't get a paycheck
and i was calling like i remember
calling dean like
dude where's my paycheck you know he's
like i gave it to mike
and so i called mike like mike where's
do you have my paycheck he's like no
dean has it so i'd call dean back like
dude
you're with us man like where's
my paycheck so then i call mike back up
and he's like i'm like man i talked to
dean he swears that he gave the money to
you like
do you have it like what's up and he's
just like
are you accusing me stealing your money
click
then the phone rings again and it's anne
and she's like
mike's coming over there to kick your
ass so i'm like mike's gonna come
over and start beating me up but then
finally like i got on the phone with him
again i'm like what's going on
he just buried the hatchet with me he's
just like dude i mean he's like i need
that money
i just i just had a daughter it's like i
have bills to pay
i have stuff i'm doing and i i just i
can't i can't afford to give you that
money so i'm like essentially you're
kicking me off
my company yeah
i was like okay you know fine and like
we didn't speak for years you know
for me i was just like i'm out of a job
starting right now
you know i'm a pro skater i got nothing
going i have no company i have no
i have nothing i think i went six or
seven months with no
pay and so living off whatever savings i
had
even though at the time he was probably
like a little bit
not as popular it was probably in the
kind of after the new deal
a little bit of a wane you know i always
just like try to
shoot with like people that wherever you
go they're going to be psyched they're
not like
take me to the 16-inch ledge only please
you know
it like i just want to have fun
with people
you're still in my video i mean it was
like skateboarding was dead it was at a
low point in skateboarding
that era of like the small wheels big
pants pressure flips but i was doing
that kind of stuff
skating wise you know like all that all
that stuff you know back foot flips and
i didn't want to just ride for someone
at this point but i've had a taste of
doing a company and i kind of was like
uh it'd be
cool to start like a do a company if i
could you know because i had already
called like
jerry fowler ethan fowler all those guys
were like yeah we'll write for you
whatever you're doing and every day
getting up and calling people
i called every company and pitched like
here's my idea here's what i want to do
i got these writers everyone's just like
ah it sounds interesting but i basically
called brad dorfman back up and blamed
everything on mike i'm like all the
problems we had it was because of mike
i want to start a company with you do
you want to do it because we didn't have
any money that's the thing we needed
someone who had like
some infrastructure and some cash to
like start something
and so he bought it and i basically had
my own company now with
again with vision brad dorfman situation
i remember when
ed was like wanted to start toy machine
i remember when he like told me the name
i was just like oh no that's not a good
name
i don't think i think i was debating
should i call
the company toy toy skateboards or
machine skateboards
it was one of the other and i remember
calling up
ethan fowler and saying okay like i'm
boiling it down i got two names that i
really like
it's either machine or toy and anything
ethan's the person that says why not
both
toy machines and i was just like okay
but it was toy machine blood sucking
skateboard company was like the official
full name of the company
even though i always thought like maybe
people are going to think it's about
vampires or something
in retrospect names just turn into
whatever they become
now i think it's awesome he's awesome
the visuals are awesome
it doesn't even matter and again like
the dwarf was dorfman i mean so he would
always suggest things to me
and like do this do that and i was it
was just getting weird so
luckily i just got saved i get this call
from swank out of the blue
he had already like started a foundation
like i didn't know him at all he's just
like hey hey uh
this is swink like i like what you're
doing i like your company
have you ever thought about doing it
want to do it over here with me
i was just like yes like that's
awesome because it was like a real
skateboard company you know
run by skaters whereas like dorphin just
felt weird it was like such a weird
situation
he did on the name i think we thought
about it to the point where like yeah if
he like makes a stink we'll change the
name but whatever
he never made his tank so i feel like
essentially toy machine started
in its real like current state in 94 but
i mean officially started in 93.
we were filming starting to try to make
a video i had all this vision equipment
at my house
like set up literally like real to real
svhs
dorfman sent a skinhead to my house to
pick up the equipment
i knocked on the door and there's this
scary skin i do with a swastika tat
he's just like i'm here to get brad
it's like okay
it's in that room like and he went in
and took all the equipment out
i had all the tape yeah i mean all that
stuff is essentially toy machine live
we did it all in one night it was kind
of a joke skateboarding was small so
nothing mattered either
everything was put in there's no editing
i used every
stupid wipe he had on his in his
computer system it's just chaos it's
just like
oh jerry your bro has enough footage
throw it in he's on the team
you know it's like that's how lucy
goosey we were running it destroyed
doesn't matter if you're a girl or a boy
i say skate
isn't skating great skate to school
skate in the pools
i love to skate
you know there's well hey let's do a
company charlie coatny you know
like the whole idea was just let's have
fun it's really only until jamie thomas
got sponsored by me that we started like
shaping things up
because he kind of had visions pretty
much just when they kind of brought
jamie thomas on board when
i i guess i started to notice time
machine you know he's just like who's
this guy on the team why's he on i'm
like i don't know
he's just like he should be off and i'm
like if you want to kick him off go for
it because i'm too lazy to do that
you know
heavy metal sort of the in-between one
it's like nicely put together there's
parts it's
people tried you know it wasn't just a
collection of all your footage thrown in
there without editing like let's bring a
standard to the video
i love sewing machine i was absolutely
enamored by a toy machine
i mean the first skateboard video i saw
was welcome to hell
and maybe that's my first introduction
to him it's just like
welcome to hell all the slams you know
what my introduction to ed
was welcome to hell seeing his nut sack
but i mean really though like it didn't
take themselves too serious
it was like kind of artsy but all yeah
also not so serious and
it was just like what i think a
skateboard
skateboarding company should be playful
and fun but like
good skating i don't know it's just they
had all the right chemistry
people always come up to me and say man
welcome to hell is my favorite video
thanks a lot for doing that and i always
say like
give jamie the credit you know my only
the only credit i can take for welcome
to hell
is noticing that jamie was going to do
the best job
and staying out of his hair ed was there
ed was ripping
jamie thomas made that thing and
he put those guys on the team
and he like you know he masterminded
that whole thing
jamie thomas put me on toy machine and
i've been a big fan of ed
you know for years and years i mean he
was an older pro and he was an og
but like i mean ed he's always been able
to adapt with the times i feel like
all his close friends always talk about
he's just like ultra competitive
so like i could see like during welcome
to hell how he would be like competing
with
muska and jamie for like
i'm gonna have a good part too not that
he was old
i don't want to say but older i like to
use that term he was older
no it was always really inspiring
because ed was slamming he was
really trying to land like the best
tricks he could for the video he really
wanted to
put his all into it and it made me
really feel like i'm gonna try for this
company you know
this is my idol and he's now sponsoring
me and he's
still trying to rip as hard as he
possibly can and just covered and
bruises the
craziest hippers getting knocked out all
the time i mean he's a warrior
ed's a street skater ed adapts to
whatever
different thing he's skating every day
and he likes quirky stuff way before
anyone started to dance on rails
and so if you actually watch those
videos and there's all these subtle
differences between the rails he's
skating and even just hitting those
things a lot of times
and that's what he was really good at
and i didn't really know how to work on
a video because i was just a young kid i
never
really filmed a video apart i didn't
really know how to do that so i got to
watch ed kind of doing that
he's always had these little these
little ups and downs in his career you
know but he
always comes back you know and i
remember yeah i remember that time
thinking like
damn you know it's ed still gots it you
know he
he does and he did and he does to this
day you know
that was a big modernization shift
change
so it basically took toy machine from
like charlie coatny
send in your footage after that it was
like okay
now we know what toy machine is it's
this it's fools
going big getting broke the off
mixed in with
cool art that was a pretty good
framework for toy machine and i think
that's probably
toy machine's greatest legacy