Im not really an autograph guy but……

Im not one for hero worship. Well not in the OMG LOOK ITS THAT ONE GUY FROM T.V. OMG HAVE MY BABIES!!  sense of the phrase hero worship.  I mean of course there were people I looked up to growing up. People who seemed to have it all figured out. Of course the inevitable happened and some one went to jail or some one couldnt live up to the hype  or maybe  hero X turned out to just be a dick once I met them, whatever. The point is no one really has it all figured out in life and going around with the sense that your favorite actor or  sports figure or whomever is perfect just because they have a really great image and P.R. team isnt fair to them or yourself. Thats not to say I havent been stoked to meet folks but Ive always kept that shit low key. Handshakes and how you doings are far more cool than freaking out and grabbing an overdraft notice from your car floorboard for an autograph. Chill, its just a  person like you and me. For this reason Im not an autograph person, unless of course youre willing to put that autograph on the bottom of one of your checks made out to me. Sometimes though, well sometimes you have to break the rules….

The Lakai team was in town today doing a demo for the Zumiez Couchtour. It was just down the street from my house and there were some legends and new guys in the group that I really wanted to get a look at. For the record Daniel Espinoza and Vincent Alvarez fucking killed it. Im sure on the couchtour website they have an edit up. Rick Howard, Cairo Foster, Beibel, Mike Carroll were also in attendance and were of course solid as always as all four are legends. However most importantly for me Guy Mariano was there.  Guy Mariano holds a special place for me. Hes been up and hes been down, way down, but Im not here to get into the details of that after all a mans demons are his own. However sometimes the man is so great that his demons can even haunt those he doesnt know. Guy Mariano is such a man. Skate writer Mackenzie Eisenhour wrote a small article in Transworld Skateboarder a few years back when Mariano made his big comeback. That year with the release of Lakai’s Fully Flared DVD Mariano won Best Street Skater, Best Video Part, and Readers Choice Award making him the first to win three achievement awards in  one year.  Theres no way I could write anything in tribute that could compare with Macks piece and I couldnt find a link to it online anywhere so to be honest Im gonna straight copy that article word for word …

The following (in all bold)appeared in the 2007 Skater of the Year issue of Transworld Skateboarder and was written by Mackenzie Eisenhour….

There was a rumor the Spike Jonze cried when he first saw Guy’s part in Royce Hall. I have to admit, no matter how many times Ive watched it since (my wife can give you the exact count), when he pulls  open that sliding door and the first haunting chords of “The Funeral” come in, I cant help myself either.The emotions are overwhelming. I swallow hard. I get goosebumps. My heart grows heavy. But why? In Spikes case it makes perfect sense. He put down Guys first solo part in Video Days (’91), has witnessed and nurtured his gift through fifteen years of co-owning Girl, and obviously has a near father/son relationship with one of skateboardings near mythical prodigies, period. A prodigy that a few years back despite all his accolades, ridiculous natural talent, and landmark achievements saw his pro-model board on the company he helped build slip through his fingers as he battled a host of real life problems real enough to put even the strongest soldier among us down for the count – probably for good.  Theres something in stories of redemption that touches the most primordial of human emotions. I have met Guy a number of times through the years. Ive talked to him on the phone extensively for various interviews. Ive given him appropriate daps at appropriate parties but it would be a lie to say I know him well enough to even get  close to calling him my “friend.” All the same, when I saw him on the mat and the count was getting low -so low that I feared for his life- I could have sworn I was watching my brother. At least it felt that way.

My first rationale for all of this was that Guy, from his first splash in Ban This (’89) with the “L.A. Boys” to his Herbie Hancock accompanied reinvention of skateboarding in Mouse (’96)  is the one-man embodiment of my entire generation of skateboarders. I still believe this to be true. When I was twelve Guy was twelve. We grew up with him. He was our champion- our Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, our Babe Ruth, our Pele’. With every smattering of footage he put out a reminder ran through our generation that were part of something big enough to change skateboarding. When our champion  went down, it hurt, and so, when he rose from the ashes, crawling  back tooth and nail like a modern day messiah, to put down one of the most monumental video parts since, well, one of his earlier video parts, we -or at least I- had no choice but to let tears of joy well up just enough not to look like an emotional nutcase walking out of UCLA’s largest concert hall in front of half  the skateboard industry. I can only assume that many of the pros who voted Guy Best Street Skater Award and Best Video Part of ’07 Award felt the same way I did.

Yet my rationale omits a major integer in this equation. Guy also won the Reader’s Choice Award. Thats the one decided by you the actual TWS readers. A demographic most other publications snidely assure us all is composed of twelve to fourteen year old children who will grow up and join the Army. Why in the hell would you care?  By Chris Nieratko’s math this voting block should have elected David Loy and yet you chose Guy. Not only that but in doing so you ultimately made Mariano the first skater to ever single handedly win three separate trophies at any TWS Awards ceremony to date. Did you cry when you saw the part? I have no idea. Surely some of the older heads out there knew the score but what amazes me most about this entire triple crown coronation is that there must certainly have been a vast number of people out there who simply judged te part on the skating. And there in lies the biggest testament to our champ’s resurrection. Without even adding in the baggage, without even knowing his path and frankly without  even really having seen the guy in a video since sometime in the late 90′s (probably 5 years before most of the kids out there starting skating) young readers of our humble magazine cast their vote for Mariano. These were not sympathy votes. These were not “rad youre even still skating” votes. These were not “the old guard rewarding their own” votes. These votes were for the best mortal human being riding a skateboard today, and hopefully tomorrow. Props, Guy and thank you. Seriously.

So if I couldnt find the link to the article how was I able to copy it word for word? Easy, it’s been hanging up with a few other things in my entertainment center for the last few years, and today I took it down the street, waited in line for two hours, shook Guys hand, gave him a how you doing, said my thank yous, and collected my first autograph…