From early 1980 until the end of the park in May 1981, Kevin was the manager at Apple. After it closed, he moved back to Detroit for a spell and ended up in Hawaii working as a professional photographer for a number of years. Kevin now owns a cajun restaurant in Kailua called Kevin's Two Boots. This interview was conducted by phone on February 13 and 21, 2002.
I did. I was an Air Force brat, so I ended up in Victorville, California—which is about fifty miles from Upland, The Pipeline.
Did you shoot photos back then?
Oh, I did, and I got some really old—they're crappy, though—photos of Micke Alba, Steve Alba...they were the hot guys back then. Shogo Kubo used to go there, Chris Strople. I was skating then—I wasn't that good, but I was into it. We mostly went down there because we were just blown-away by watching those guys skate. We'd go to Mt. Baldy and we had to put the plank across the [pit] there to get to the other side, to get to the pipe. We used to actually bring sledge-hammers because they'd put tar down the middle of the pipe so you couldn't skate it. We'd pound it down and skate. We even brought these little hand blow-torches so we could heat it and make it soft, and stuff—that was pretty much a trip.
There's some photos—nothing really good back then. I was already taking photos 'cause I was in high-school and photography was my hobby. Mostly, I took pictures there and and I also took pictures at this little ditch in Victorville—it was actually in Apple Valley. It was pretty long and it was right in the middle of the desert—it was a drainage ditch. After we met Eddie Elguera, we also used to go to Colton—The Ranch. He came up to Victorville 'cause he lived in Riverside or somewhere down there in San Bernardino County at that time, Redlands—or somethhing like that. The parks we went to back then were Upland, Del Mar Skate Ranch, Colton. I have some photos from those places.
How did you end up moving to Michigan?
I graduated from high-school and there pretty much was nothing but trouble in Victorville, so I packed up and went to Detroit, Michigan—my father lived there. But before I left, we made a couple of trips up to the desert to Palm Springs to that Nude Bowl or whatever they called it—I got some pictures from that. I moved to Detroit in 1978. I wasn't in Detroit two weeks and my father told me that he had seen this article in the paper about a skateboard park. I thought he was messin' with me—I thought he was pulling my leg, for sure, 'cause I was like, "Michigan? A skateboard park?" And you gotta remember that by then I was starting to pick up tricks. I was learning ollie airs and rock 'n' rolls and I was pretty basic 'cause I was a big guy—it was always hard for me to pull-off the big tricks. He saved it 'cause he knew I was a skateboarder and he showed me this article.
That place was called Endless Summer. Bruce and—I can't remember his partner's name—used to run it. We'd call him "Animal" or something like that, oh, "Buzzard". Fergie will probably remember more than me about Endless Summer, because that's where I met him at and that's where he was ripping. He didn't really start ripping until—I mean, he was ripping...for Michigan. When we started doing these promos where all of these pros would come out, he got to be friends with a lot of those guys and they would teach him tricks. And he was just—man, he could learn tricks really quick, so he was always born-to-skate. That guy was hot. If he'd have been in California, he would have been one of the big names back then.
Did you work at Endless Summer?
Skateboard USA was the skateboard park that I ran. I met Chris Yandall—he thought that I was smart enough and older than most of the other kids to run this skateboard park and he knew the owners and knew they needed a manager. So, he convinced them that I was the guy to go with. He was working at a sports shop like a Sports Authority—a small private sports store doing rollerskates, skateboards and promotions and things like that. But he hooked me into Skateboard USA. I didn't work at Endless Summer—that was the first skateboard park I saw when I went to Michigan. That's where I started skating at, then I found this place Skateboard USA—which was down the street.
How long did you work at Skateboard USA?
Probably about two years, maybe. In that time, we traveled twice to Wisconsin to Surf N Turf. Then one time, we drove [down] to Apple. Chris Yandall—once again— was telling us about this place Apple. We had been reading about it, actually, but nobody knew where it was. He knew where it was and he knew the owner. So we went down there for a trip—the owner was there that day and Chris introduced me to him. Gene Goldberg was his name. Gene ended up liking me and he offered me a job running the skateboard park.
Was Apple very crowded when you first started?
When we were going down there, it was pretty busy. But it wasn't until I actually took it over—and I'm blowing my own horn—and I was able to arrange these promos with Duane Peters, Eddie Elguera (El Gato) came out one time. Gil Losi was the one that pretty much lined-up the Variflex tour—they were touring America, so that was already pretty much a given. I didn't really line that up, but they knew me—so that helped when they came in and we took care of them. We did promos and they signed skateboards and we sold a lot of their equipment, and stuff. I actually still have some T-shirts from the Variflex Tour.
Do you remember when Steve Caballero and Mike McGill came through Apple?
They did a lot of riding together in the halfpipe and two-thirds pipe. Lots of air—huge air, ollie airs. Caballero was launching the ollies—McGill was, too, actually. They had this thing where they skated one right behind the other.
I remember a photo of them jumping that little channel in the halfpipe. I can't remember where I saw it, though.
You probably saw it on the wall—it ended up being on the wall in the pro-shop. They were definite rippers. McGill was unbelievably smooth and Cab was a lot more radical—his tricks were a lot higher.
You started working at Apple in...
1980. I think it was the end of '79. It was the end of the year—I think we went around Christmas time. So I might have started right in the beginning of 1980. By the time we got to summer in 1980 that place was blazing, I mean, it was packed and we had a lot of pros coming doing tours there and it was quite the busy place.
By 1981, didn't it get kind of empty?
It did. There were problems—a lot of kids would get hurt. You have to remember that Apple was kind of an advanced park—technically speaking—and also a lot of kids that went there didn't know how to skateboard. You know, they would watch other people and drop in those pools, so there were always a lot of broken wrists and broken teeth where people were doing face-plants and different things like that. There were a lot of problems with injuries, and stuff. And, also, it became a hang-out, you know. We had the pinball machines, and stuff, and there were a lot of kids who were just like hoodlums and they hung out in there playing pinball.
Was there kind of like a hang-out scene at Apple where girls would come around? Del Mar was kind of like that.
Oh, yeah—there were groupies. Definitely. Apple was the same way. It was not quite as advanced as most of the Californnia places, 'cause when we were skating at Upland, there were always crowds of people all around the fences watching the Albas—they were the shit back then. Actually, at that time in California, Upland was the place, man, that was the most functional skateboard park.
The Ranch in Colton was big, but everything was big and kind of not functional. The pipes and the bowls had a lot of transition and not much vert, so it was hard to get speed going if you weren't a really skilled skater. The really good guys had no problem, but people that were trying to learn tricks were having a hard time. By 1981, Apple Skatepark was definitely having it's problems—I don't know why, but it was just a fading thing, you know. It was hard to keep something like that going in the mid-west.
Who got those sleep-overs together?
Ronn Dudley—who was the manager at the time when I came in—ended up being kind of the assistant-manager. He eventually quit because I think he was kind of surprised that Gene hired me over him, because he was the guy who put the place on-track. Interesting situation for him because he was educated, you know, he was a college graduate—he was older than me and it just seemed like a slap-in-the-face, I think, when they gave me that job. But there were some internal problems there. Kids didn't really like Dudley—he was a nice enough guy, but kids just thought he was a nerd, so they basically didn't pay attention. Those sleep-overs would've never happened if I wasn't the manager there—I can tell you that.
Did you set them up?
Well, I don't know if I really set 'em up so much—I think we all talked about it, but I was the one...see, I lived in the park for a while. Pretty soon it got too out-of-control where people were always coming by—figuring I was there—and they wanted to come in and skate. There was a room off of the office, it was like a little apartment and that's where I lived for a long time—probably for the first six months. Then I got an apartment over by Ohio State just off campus.
Did the room at Apple have a shower?
Oh, yeah. It was all set-up—a little apartment right next to the pro shop.
On school days would the park open at three?
Yeah, it was always open seven days a week—not in the morning. During the school year, it wasn't open until later in the afternoon—which became the problem. During the fall and winter time was when they had cash-flow problems. That's why Apple didn't last that long. I probably worked for Apple about just over a year—maybe close to a year-and-a-half. Summers were always no problem, but in the off-season, you know, his rent was expensive. That was a huge place—that thing was probably fifty-thousand square feet, maybe more.
The owner must have lost so much money on Apple.
He lost a shitload of money, but he was rich.
Do you know how much he lost?
I have no idea, but you gotta believe he was losing money, I mean, it was what? A dollar-fifty an hour? I don't even remember exactly what it was—that was twenty years ago. I have to believe he lost plenty of money.
Do you have any stories of funny or strange things that happened at the park?
Not off the top of my head, but I'm sure if I thought about it a little bit, I would be able to figure it out. Nah, nothing particularly unusual, or anything. There were some wild nights there. Because I lived there, sometimes girls would come in there and hang-out after-hours and we'd party. That happened, actually, quite a bit. You gotta remember, at that time, dude, I was a nineteen year-old kid running a skateboard park—shit, that was like a kid in a candy store. I lived there, I had my little apartment inside and I pretty much ran everything. I was in charge of all the promotions, all the money—I handled everything.
Were you the one who sent out those little calendars every month?
No, that had to be, probably, Ronn Dudley. I don't remember exactly, but I don't think I did anything like that.
Do you have any stories about Rob Roskopp?
The funny thing about Roskopp is that he was like this totally straight, laid-back kid in the beginning, and he was a rollerskater. He was the hottest rollerskater from anywhere around. I can't wait to find those pictures to send, because you know what? I don't think any pictures of him rollerskating have ever been published. It's going to blow people's minds to see that. That's going to be, like, the talk of the...that's going to be big-time. I was supposed to send those to Kevin Thatcher because he was interested in those. Somewhere down the line, I don't know, man, people kept talking to him about skateboarding.
Rob skateboarded before that. I saw him skateboarding in 1978 in a backyard pool in Cincinnati with the Pachinko Team. This was at least a year before Apple opened.
Well, it seemed almost immediate when he got himself a good skateboard. I mean, just like unbelievable—practically overnight—he just ripped. He was always doing these insane airs. He probably was the first local to launch out of that two-thirds pipe into that halfpipe, like, near the top, I mean...just full-on speed and flying out of that thing on a skateboard. But he was doing it on rollerskates first. No skateboarders were doing that. He just took full advantage of that thing. I've got some great pictures of him popping out of that two-thirds pipe. Actually, some of the best photographs I have are of Roskopp.
It's funny, because he didn't have a sponsor back then. But when Duane Peters came, Rob became really good friends with him. By then, Rob was starting to get more hardcore. He was starting to break out of that "good-boy" thing and just kind of started gettin' into the scene and partying and whatever. He got to be friends with Duane, and the next thing you know he had a sponsorship. Rob was a ripper—he fully deserved it and he always skated Peters boards, always skated Santa Cruz stuff and Independent trucks. He was an Indy man back then, I think.
Tell us a little about Chris Phillips.
Chris Phillips. That was probably the rippingest local little kid—lived somewhere really close to Apple. He was a really tiny kid—I can't recall off the top of my head how tall, but I think he was about ten or eleven years old. He was definitely very short or small for his age, but man, that kid had no fear—he was just an incredible ripper. He picked-up tricks really quick. Because he was so small, injuries were not a huge factor—he knew how to fall. I don't really know where he got his skills from, but anytime we had demos where the pros would come in from California, he'd always bond really good with those guys and learn new tricks really quick. He used to do this frontside invert with a board twist—he would, like, flip the board...
A Miller flip?
Something like that—under his feet. Fully inverted.
Did he do boardslides in the pools? I thought I remembered that.
Yep. He did just about everything that was happening back then. Ollie airs—he was really good at that. He got amazing height on his airs considering how light he was. He counted on speed to get him out of the bowls. He was the only kid I knew that could get maximum air in that little L-bowl. He would get to carving around that thing and get all this speed and jump over that hip on the "L" part and just launch it. In fact, whenever I find those pictures—(laughs) I have a picture of that. Unbelievable.
We need a photo of that L-bowl.
I don't know if I've got a full-on [overview] photo of it, but I've got some people skating in it. That picture I gave you—the guy on the bike—was in that L-bowl. I'll have to dig. I'll have to see if I've got something [showing] the whole thing—I'm not sure.
Do you remember any stuff that happened in the kidney pool?
One of the raddest was El Gato, man. He'd get all this speed up and drop in from the top and do these rock 'n' roll boardslides more than halfway across the pool, then go back in. Steve Hirsch used to do these unbelievable laybacks in there. I got a picture of that.
How aout Kenny Mollica?
He might have lived close, too 'cause he was there an awful lot. And he was, uh—(laughs) what do I say about Kenny Mollica? He was a pretty good skater—really good skater, actually. All of the kids liked him—they all got along really good. He always had his group of buddies. He was a good skater—definitely had potential.
Dave Bush.
Dave Bush (laughs). Mr. Punker. The funny thing about him is he thought he was really hardcore, but—technically—he wasn't (laughs). When you look back on it, I was nineteen years old, you know—I wasn't really into the punk scene heavy-duty until I actually moved to Columbus and hooked-up with all these guys. They would take me down to these clubs, and stuff. He had his idols, and we called him Duane 'cause he cut his hair really short and dyed it blond—he wanted to look like Duane Peters. He skated the Santa Cruz Peters board, you know—he always wore the spikes and whatever.
Remember Marty Jimenez?
Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure Marty lived out-of-state.
He lived down near Cincinnati.
Outside of Columbus—I knew it was not in Columbus. I knew that Roskopp—he lived out-of-state, didn't he?
They both lived a little bit North of Cincinnati.
Marty was an excellent technician—really smooth skater. Pretty good at learning new tricks, and stuff—really nice kid. Everybody liked Marty.
Wayne Lyons.
I remember him coming into Apple early-on, but I don't remember him being a regular.
What's the story on the red line that was painted around the edge (coping) of all the runs later on?
It was an insurance issue. [In most parks], usually every area was either fenced or it was clearly [defined], you know,there was coping or something where you could see the separation of the bowls. With Apple—because it was just a concrete warehouse—you could easily go flying into [a bowl accidently]. Those red stripes happened after I got there.
Did OSHA or someone come in and look at the place?
Yeah, they did.
Did you paint that stuff on there?
You know what? It wasn't done after I became manager. The first time I went down there with Chris Yandall, it wasn't done then. By the time I came down and became manager, it was done. I don't know exactly who, what or when that happened.
Did you paint the Apple logo on the walls?
That was already done when I came in—I'm not sure who did that. They had somebody come in—that was painted from the beginning.
Did you have problems with people sneaking in the back doors?
No, because it was the back of a warehouse. The thing is, when you paid, you got these things on your wrist. I don't recall anyone ever sneaking in there, but if they did, eventually we would find them because that was part of my job was to police the place and always keep an eye on things that were happening. I couldn't be everywhere at once, but, you know, I had employees that ran the register and [another] doing [equipment] sales, and stuff.
There was probably only a couple of employees.
Yeah, a couple of kids. And you know what? I don't even remember who worked in that place. I couldn't give you any names at all.
Who put up all the money to build Apple?
Gene Goldberg—I think he was independently wealthy. He didn't have a partner—he rented that [warehouse] space from this guy called Larry Fannon...Fannon Realty. Larry Fannon owned that whole building. That's why when Apple just started sliding and—I don't know, maybe the rent was getting hard to pay—Larry sold it out. He raised their lease or something and Apple had to get out and it ended up being the United Parcel Service—where they park their trucks.
Did the owner come around much?
No. When I first started, he had his imput—this, that or whatever. But then I never saw him. As a manager, I never had to worry about things like paying the rent and the regular bills. All I was hired to do was run the kitchen, I mean the—I'm looking at the kitchen—run the skatepark. The daily receipts, the pinball machines, things like that.
When the closing of the park was announced, did a lot of skaters show-up for a last session?
They did—but not as much as we thought they would. We did send out notices. We advertised it as much as we could without spending major bucks. I don't recall him [owner Gene Goldberg] running an ad in the paper or anything like that.
Do you recall a final session? Was there one?
No, I don't.
Do you remember anything from the last days?
Not really. It was a bummer. I think we all were in shock that they actually were going to do it—but we knew. I knew for a long time. I was a smart-enough kid—even though I was only nineteen years old—to know that [the owner] probably never made money on that place. It was always a losing venture because it cost him a lot of money to build it. His rent had to be astronomical. The place was in a 50,000 square-foot warehouse—good grief. I think it was always a write-off for him. Eventually, he just finally said "The heck with it". He may have involuntarily been exited from there, you know. He might have been getting his rent raised or something. I know Larry Fannon wanted something more solid.
There were problems associated with that being a skatepark. Kids were always perceived as hoodlums hanging out there. It was definitely kind of a weird thing, 'cause even when it was closed there would be complaints sometimes of kids skateboarding outside waiting for it to open and making all kinds of noise. That actually straightened-up after I became manager because I lived there and I could hear kids outside and I would tell 'em, you know—I wasn't a hard-ass—but I was like, "We've had complaints. You guys can't skate out here."
There was a rumor that some rich guy was going to buy Apple and save the park. Is that true?
I don't know, I remember that rumor. There was talk about it. I think that was just generated by the kids, because nobody wanted to see it go. Ironically, business had slowed down by then and nobody believed that they were really going to destroy that park—it didn't seem like it was a reality until those big cement trucks came in and started dumping concrete and knocking the two-thirds pipe over—we actually got to witness that stuff.
How'd they knock the two-thirds pipe extensions down?
First, they jack-hammered the front just to crack it, then they went to the back and just chipped away at it until they got it down to the rebar, then the top of it was too heavy and just fell over inside the halfpipe—it was like chopping a tree down.
Did they go down inside the runs and crunch the surfaces?
No, they just filled 'em up with rocks. It didn't make sense to crunch them. They tore all the coping off, then they filled 'em up with rocks and cemented over the top. They're still there.
After Apple closed, you moved back to Detroit?
Yep. I think I lived in Detroit for another year or so, then I ended up moving to Hawaii.
Through the '80s weren't you a professional photographer?
Yeah. Through working for those skateboard parks—first Skateboard USA and then Apple—and also being connected with Chris Yandall, I had a lot of opportunities to connect with the people that were doing major things in the [skateboarding] business. He wrote me a reference letter to, probably, the publisher of Skateboarder Magazine and said, "This is to introduce Kevin Tate, he's been working in the business a long time and he's got some really great photographs. Please consider him." I sent that letter plus some photographs. They never did make me a staff photographer, but they used a bunch of different things of mine as a contributor. My real breakout came with Thrasher.
Were you a wedding photographer?
Yep. When I first came into the business, I not only was doing weddings, but I also worked for a place called H.A. Powell in Detroit—I did sports photography. That's how I actually developed into being able to do the skateboarding stuff, because whatever sport was in season, they sent me to the school to take these photographs for the yearbooks. I had to shoot basketball, tennis, swimming, football, whatever. Baketball proved to be a real challenge, but that's where I excelled the most with these guys driving to the basket and I ended up getting these really good action shots. Doing the skateboarding kind of came naturally.
After you moved to Hawaii what were you doing?
For the first ten years, I did photography. I did portraits, weddings and a lot of scenic photography. I used to take pictures of sunsets and the volcano—I lived on the big island for two years—I ended up framing them really nice and selling them down in the touristy areas.
What made you move to Hawaii?
Apple closed, I moved back to Detroit and got married. It was just not working out. I had a lot of problems in Detroit. I got robbed a couple of times, my house got burglarized, then my marriage broke down. I was pretty upset. I lost all of my camera equipment— like 10,000 dollars worth—got ripped-off. I called my father—he lived in Hawaii—and he said "Why don't you just take some time off?" He sent me a ticket just for a three-week vaction—and I never went back.
You took twenty years off. When did the restaurant start happening?
Technically-speaking, I was always cooking. When I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, I worked for my father, prepping. My father was a chef. By the time I started working for him, he wasn't cooking—he was running restaurants. He was in management—that's how he ended up in Hawaii. He was director of food and beverage at a military hotel here. When I came here, I was really into photography—really had a good background in it. I knew how to do lab work and I got a job in this black-and-white lab processing film. That's how I ended up being able to print a bunch of my stuff. Still, I have hundreds—probably thousands—of negatives that have never, ever been printed, ever. Maybe proof-sheets—nothing else.
Anyway, Hawaii has this thing here called "pot-luck"—people have these house-parties and everybody brings food. I would always bring something really unusual 'cause I knew how to make Cajun food. I would always bring something Cajun and people would always comment about how great my dish was compared to everybody else's. So, slowly—through my photography—I got into cooking. I opened up a studio and did "boudoir" photography, which is basically—not basically, it is—it's women in lingerie. You know, it was mostly older, married women, whatever.
This one lady that knew I could cook came in to get those photographs done for her husband for their anniversary and she wanted to know if I could come by the house and make steak and lobster. Actually, it was his birthday and anniversary at the same time—she wanted to know if I could make it really special. I said "yes" and that came out really good. She told a bunch of her friends about it, and that's how it started. I started doing these little parties for five-hundred bucks for dinner-for-two plus the photographs.
Eventually, by the time I started burning out on that, (it was just too tiring—that and the weddings) I ended up getting a job at the end of 1993 at the University of Hawaii. I worked there for two years under the executive chef. I kind of got back on track, honing my skills and just got into cooking where I enjoyed it. I started a catering business.
A couple of times, I kind of slipped back-and-forth into photography, thinking that I really wanted to do it, but I knew I couldn't really go back to it. The catering business boomed, and the next thing I knew, I quit working at UH and pursued my cooking career full-time. I did the catering and eventually opened a little take-out place where you could get plate-lunches. Then I opened this place, Kevin's Two Boots, in January, 2000. That whole process has been eight years.
All right, Kevin. Thanks alot for the interview. Good luck to you. The world eagerly awaits the rest of your many Apple photos.