This interview was recorded over the phone on February 21, 2002. Marty grew up in Orange County in the ’70s, surfing and sampling the first-ever generation of skateparks like Carlsbad, the Concrete Wave and Skatopia. In the summer of 1979, his family moved to Columbus, Ohio. Oddly enough, considering the time and place, there seemed to be some major construction activity related to skateboarding going on inside a warehouse at 5100 Sinclair RD...
We moved to Ohio.
Columbus, 1979?
Uh-huh. I was a junior. When we first moved back, there was no skateboarding going on—no parks at all. Out in the boondocks, there was actually...
That park with the long, concrete quaterpipe?
Well, originally it didn’t. They put a concrete quarterpipe in afterward—that was the big thing. Before, it just used to have a mogul run—a lot like the first Carlsbad park. So, we’d skate there and at some point I met these guys that were totally into skateboarding. Actually, they were into making their own skateboards, too. We went on a road trip and skated Cherry Hill.
No way! How was that?
Great—it was awesome.
Was there anything there that was kinked?
I just remember it being pretty much perfect. From what I remember, there were two kidneys, a keyhole, an egg and then the halfpipe, which went to two-thirds walls—all that stuff was good.
Was it all just like glass?
It was perfect, except for...I just remember the egg bowl being huge. It was sixteen-feet-deep, I’m pretty sure—maybe it was fourteen—but it was a deep bowl. It had big transitions, and stuff—it was good—that was the biggest thing I ever really skated. After that, I was lucky enough to come back—in the summer break I’d be able to come back out to California and hang out, cuz we had relatives out here. I was able to skate Paramount, Lakewood, Big-O. When I was back in the Midwest, I was able to skate Endless Summer...
Did you meet Mr. Hate then?
Yep (laughs), The Turf—it was a lot smaller and tighter than people realize.
How was the Endless Summer pool?
Endless Summer was a right-hand kidney—I think they tried to do it like the Dogbowl. It was a really good pool—I don’t think it even had a roll-in, which was kind of a cool thing. Somewhere around that time is when Apple opened. The funny part of my story, I guess, is the year before Big-O opened—or eight months—is when we moved to Ohio. I lived about a mile-and-a-half from where they actually built Big-O. When they decided to go ahead and make Apple, the same thing kind of happened—we ended up moving a hundred miles away to Cincinnati right at the same time it was near completion.
You were playing “dodge the good skateparks”. Did you ever go in and see Apple while it was being built?
Uh-huh. The first thing was, we were just hearing about it, like, “Ah, they’re going to build a skatepark!” Then I remember some of my friends that skated were trying to get hooked-up to work on the crew. Finally, we went down there and checked it out. Some of the pools were already made and they were full of water. Actually, did I go before when it was just dirt? No, I remember going there and one of the pools had water in it—I think it might have been the kidney—and we were just like trippin’ out cuz it was like, “Ah, wow! That’s how they do it! They put water in it to make it good.” So, it was like a new thing, you know, it was like, “Oh, that’s the whole secret of making a skatepark,” It was just dirt all over the place and big holes.
Dirt pits with rebar?
Yeah, I remember the L-bowl—which was maybe four to six feet deep—just seeing it in the rebar, and stuff, and it just looking so rad. Just looking at it and going, “That’s going to be so fun!” I remember going back and I don’t know if they actually had a big grand-opening or what—because at that point is right when I was moving away—so I wasn’t there on a daily basis. Then I remember coming back and everything was done and perfect and a lot of my friends were working at the park. I think there was a guy named Pete Kunz—I’m pretty sure Pete worked at the park.
Dave Bush.
I always remember him there—I don’t actually ever remember him working. It was a big turning point for him when Duane showed up. Basically, Bush became a little Duane clone, but it was rad cuz at the time, nobody else was—and it was kind of hot. He went the whole way—the whole nine yards—cutting his hair, dying his hair, wearing the same get-ups, and stuff. At that same time is pretty much when punk-rock was like a new thing, so he was one of the first guys to really jump on that, too.
Do you remember Chris Phillips?
He was just a really little kid that had natural ability and some pretty good style. He was a good kid, you know. I can’t really remember his actual skating, but I remember toward the end of the park, he definitely did get really good.
Kenny Mollica?
Kenny Mollica was another guy that was super-smooth. Before Apple opened, every now and then little local contests would pop-up and he’d always win ‘em. He was always really good, but when Apple opened up, he was just like...he did really well there, too. I just remember him being really smooth—really good style.
Was anyone really blasting airs in those pools?
Yeah, Kenny Mollica was, Mike Ohm was—I remember him getting hurt all the time, but he was also another guy that skated really clean and kind of like had a really good style, too. That was one thing with Apple—I guess back in the day, people had good styles from skating there.
Did you know that guy Jeff Kasson that got the picture in Skateboarder doing a frontside grind in Apple’s kidney pool?
No. There was another guy that had a picture...
Michael Grau.
Yep, Mike Grau. I met that guy after I moved to Cincinnati, through Rob Roskopp. He was part of the Pachinko Team. For some reason, he was kind of getting out of skateboarding. So even after he had that picture, it didn’t even matter to him or anything—he was already pretty much done with skateboarding. I think I remember him going to the park with us once, or something.
Did you meet Rob Roskopp before Apple or during?
While Apple was being built, I didn’t know him. After I moved to Cincinnati, I was just trying to find someone who skated there. I got the Yellow Pages and looked up “skateboarding” and there happened to be one place, The Pachinko Factory (laughs) that said they sold skateboards. That guy hooked me up, “Oh this guy sounds like he might live by you.” I didn’t really live in Cincinnati, I lived on the outskirts and he said this guy did, too. It was actually called Union Township. So, I called up Roskopp and he seemed like he was on the verge of getting out of skateboarding, too, cuz he had his quarterpipe that looked like it was never really ridden that much. We started skating together. I don’t know if he already knew about Apple—he must have—and we just started carpooling. I would go up almost every weekend. At that time, I had a girlfriend—she still lived in Columbus—so that was an extra reason to go up there. I also had my sister and other friends that lived there, too, so I always had places to stay. I think I remember that we were able to spend the night in the park. It was cool. The park was never all that crowded—except for when they had a contest, or something. But then they would do these all-nighters. They were just fun, you know—just rage all night and skate all night. You'd just be stoked, “Ah man! It’s four in the morning and we’re still skating!”
Would you have sleeping bags?
Yeah, that was the only bummer—it was cold in that place. One day, Roskopp busted-out rollerskates and charged the park. I think Duane Peters, Steve Olson and Fred Blood were there and Fred Blood was just ripping—he was kind of a loud, obnoxious guy. But anyway, the next time we went up there, Rob had some rollerskates and he tried ‘em out—he must’ve already had ‘em. Then I remember a couple of weeks later before we went, he ordered the right kind of rollerskates—the same kind Fred Blood was riding—and he got Indy hangers for it, skateboard wheels on it. He was ripping. Rob’s originally from Michigan and he used to play hockey as a kid, so he knew how to maneuver around.—it came to him pretty easily. I just remember him riding the two-thirds, but I think he could pretty much skate everything. He had that, what’s it called? The little side-stance? Right off the get-go. He made it look so easy. I remember asking, “Let me try it.” I tried it for, like, a second and said, “This is retarded. There’s no way—I cannot get my feet to go sideways like that."
Did anyone make fun of him?
We all horsed around with him, but he was so good, (laughs) it was like, “Woah!” It was kind of hard to make fun of him.
Any parking lot stories?
No. From my experience of the place, groupies were gone. Usually when we went up there it was, basically, just go skate and worry about our two-hour drive home.
Do you remember Kevin Tate?
Yeah, I just remember Kevin being a super-cool guy that was really stoked on the park. I don’t know if he was a photographer before the park opened, but I think he might have got inspired by Ted Terrebonne when he was out there. I think they hit it off pretty well. The next thing I know, Kevin was taking photos all the time. His photos were really good.
He’s probably the only person who still has a bunch of Apple pics. Ted Terrebonne said he lost all of his photos.
There was another local there, Wayne Lyons. He was another guy that was really rad and just real smooth—he had good style, too. Back then, it was funny, most of the guys...we’d just all jump on the bandwagon and thought the whole Santa Cruz team was just awesome, you know? It was rebellious and punk-rock—we kind of all jumped on that at the same time.
Were there any non-skating people that would come and hang-out at the park?
No, there wasn’t too much of that, because skateboarding was pretty much dead. It was so weird that this big, giant park was built and it was pretty much empty all the time. The biggest thing about Apple is when the pros came touring through. I was lucky enough to see David Andrecht. The first guys to come were Steve Olson—I think Olson came twice.
I probably saw him the second time—I got him to sign my board.
I think Duane came twice, too.
Some guy on rollerskates did 540s out of the halfpipe.
Yeah! Fred Blood.
That wasn’t Duke Rennie?
No, that was Fred Blood.
I couldn’t believe it. I was like, “What was that?”
Yeah, exactly! I remember seeing that stuff, too. So we were there probably the same day. It was rad enough that he was doing that 540, but I remember it was so high compared to...cuz you can’t really do ‘em low. I just remember going, “Man, the guy’s like five feet out!”
What do you remember about David Andrecht?
He did long boardslides in the egg.
Ridge said it was in the kidney.
Everybody kind of skated everything at some point...
He probably did it in both.
I remember him doing it in the egg bowl. The kidney was gnarlier—it had a lot of vert. I remember Steve Olson skating that thing, though—mainly just like carve grinds and stuff like that. I remember him also coming into the shallow-end and doing little frontside channel airs. I remember Duane pretty much shredding the halfpipe and the two-thirds, basically just flying out of the thing—frontside airs out. He was doing his tricks like layback rollouts, sweepers—that was awesome to see all that stuff. My memories are of him ripping the halfpipe—I barely even remember seeing him riding the pools.
Did you see the Variflex guys?
I saw the Variflex guys. When they came through, there was Allen Losi, Steve Hirsch, Freddie DeSoto, Patti Hoffman, Gil Losi. I think even Ziggy might have been with them—Mike Siegfried. Wasn’t Elguera with them?
Yeah, they came twice. He was there once—there’s a photo of him.
I just remember a couple of things—Allen Losi doing backside ollies in the little keyhole. I think he was just learning them or something—or it was a new trick. It was rad just seeing that. I remember somebody on the Variflex team or a couple of those guys—maybe they were just horsing around—but in the keyhole they tried to jump the gap. It was way too wide and they would just land down in the middle of the roll-in chute. I remember all those guys doing really long boardslides—hauling butt in the egg bowl in the deep end—no fear whatsoever, you know? Just charging it. Again, what I remember the most was Elguera skating the halfpipe and the two-thirds pipe—cuz it wasn’t really a three-quarter—he did some crazy stuff on that. It was rad enough that he could just go up and grind the thing, but I remember him doing axle stalls on it, and fakie ollies, rock ‘n’ rolls. At the time it was just unbelievable, “No way! Nobody could do that on that thing.” Then he would do big fly-outs, too. The only guys I ever really missed there were McGill and Cab.
Did anyone ever use that bowl at the back of the halfpipe?
I never really saw anybody, but I know that after McGill and Cab showed up, that was the big talk of the park—because it basically made a channel right there—everyone was talking how they were jumping the channel. I don’t think anybody really did it before them.
I think there’s a photo of that, but I can’t track it down.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure there was, too.
I wrote about it in Skate Fate, but I can’t find it any mags anywhere. Did the kidney drop-off from shallow to deep or was it gradual?
No, it had a drop-off.
Was it like three or four feet?
It must have been, because the shallow-end was four or five feet deep, and the deep-end of that thing was deep—it was like twelve—a lot of vert on that sucker. The egg was more gradual—it was deep, too—twelve feet.
Did you ever jump those little channels?
Yeah, that was one of the funnest things to do. I don’t know if we were doing ollies or if it was mainly just frontside airs. I don’t remember doing ollies.
Do you remember anything going on in the banked bowls?
I remember we used to have killer sessions in the L-bowl, though—like follow-the-leader.
Did anyone blast over that hip?
Yeah, it must have been early-grab airs, probably mainly frontside airs.
No one ever makes transition to flatwall banks anymore. Everything’s a quarterpipe transition these days. I wish they’d make those banked bowls again.
Hopefully, Wally Hollyday will remember. I remember one time going to the park with Rob Roskopp and him pointing you out.
(Laughs)
Back then you had long hair, and stuff, and he said that you lived in Cincinnati, too. It was, like, another six months before we saw you again.
At Cherry Lane.
The other thing that was weird about that skatepark...do you have an idea how big it was?
Kevin Tate said it was maybe 50,000 square-feet.
That’s the weird thing—it was probably in a 50,000 square-foot building or whatever size, but they only used a third of it or two-thirds of the building. It was in a huge building. I know for a while there was a lot of talk of them expanding. Like, “Oh we’re going to make this other stuff here. We’re going to make a snake run. We’re going to do this other bowl.” We were just freaking out even more.
It’s funny they had that blank “freestyle” area—like someone was going to go in there and freestyle.
I don’t think I ever remembered seeing that happen. It had two little bank bowls, too. Was it two of them? There was the L-bowl...
The peanut—which I can’t remember too well—there was that reservoir, then between the egg pool and the entrance to the halfpipe there was this little bowl and I couldn’t really remember it too well, but after seeing photos, turns out it was a teardrop shape. Did you guys ever ride that thing? Do you remember that?
Yeah, it was mainly like a...I don’t really remember sessioning it. I think we did a few times, but it was more like it was fun to just skate over and then into the other thing.
How was that little peanut bowl?
I don’t think it was that good, actually. I liked the keyhole, though.
Was Apple one of the best parks you’ve ridden?
Yeah, definitely, just because the surfaces were smooth, the transitions were pretty flawless and it had a pretty good variety—especially if you’re into pool skating. Then with the L-bowl, too—that was a good compliment to everything else that was going on there. It was a pretty well-rounded park. I’m trying to think if there was anything better that I’ve ever skated, really, as far as parks go. I don’t think so.
What tricks did you pull near the end?
Kind of toward the end, Steve Olson and Duane Peters were the heroes, so I was trying to do what they were doing. The magazines always were harder to get at that time. It seemed like the stuff that was in the magazines was either way behind or for some reason during the Apple times, magazines didn’t really have a big influence—maybe [because it was] Action Now.
The last year of Apple, it was Action Now.
Mainly, it was just like the basic tricks—trying to do high backside airs, just try to get your lines down in the pools where you could do figure-eights and try to keep going.
Did you ever do Duane’s tricks?
I remember trying some of the Duane stuff in the halfpipe cuz it was pretty mellow—it was a good place to learn tricks. In the pools, I don’t remember me doing inverts and stuff like that—it was mainly grinds, boardslides, rock ‘n’ rolls, frontside and backside airs. The Variflex guys did a lot of tricks where they did footplants and stuff like that, but for some reason we didn’t really get into those. I think we were more into the Duane stuff—fakie footplants and stuff like that.
Do you remember hearing that Apple was closing?
Kind of, but it was more like I wasn’t surprised to hear it. It was more like, “Oh, that’s great! What’s next?” I was on a roll that year, cuz that was like senior year moving to Cincinnati. I had a girlfriend there for a little while, but she broke up with me—so that whole year was basically a drag.
When you heard it was closing, did you charge up there for a last session?
No, I just remember us still going and still going and then we just stopped. When did it close?
It was in May, 1981. Somehow, we heard about it down in Cincinnati. I don’t know how, because we were kind of isolated at the D.O. or whatever.
Maybe that’s when I saw you when Rob pointed you out.
That was the last time I was there.
Did you go on the last day?
Not the last day, but it was close to it, because somehow we heard through the grapevine that it was closing and the next weekend we begged someone’s mom to take us. That must’ve been when you saw me.
I could be wrong, but we might’ve skated it after it closed, too.
Did you see it getting wrecked?
No.
Did you hear of anyone else going for a last session?
No, cuz by that point it was super-dead. Even the original local guys—you saw them there less and less. It was pretty much a ghost town. Finally hearing that when it did get torn down, that they didn’t destroy anything—they just filled everything in—the dream was, “Well maybe someday it would come back." Then all of sudden, they said it was UPS that moved in—one of those people that will probably never move out. The only thing I heard was they dynamited the two-thirds walls down. As far as the demolition of the place, that’s the only thing I heard. You know what I liked about that park that I wish other parks would do—especially the Vans parks? They had a calendar set-up, and you’d get these little calendars—like flyers. I remember if you rode a Santa Cruz board, you got a buck off your skate time.
There were Asteroids contests and stuff like that.
I just think that’s such a simple thing—it amazes me at some of the new parks how they don’t take advantage of what they’ve got. I remember that thing was cool—maybe because there weren’t as many companies.
Did you ride a Duane Peters board?
At Apple, I was mainly riding Steve Olsons. I think Roskopp was the first guy I know who got a Duane—except maybe Dave Bush did—but at that time it was definitely Rob because he got one of the original green ones. That’s when everybody switched and we all started riding Duanes, which is crazy—those boards are so gnarly. It’s funny if you actually see one today.
What were the common equipment set-ups at Apple?
At the time, it seemed like the most popular boards were Powell and Santa Cruz. With Powell, I remember the Brite Lights came out and everybody was riding those.
Beamers.
Yeah, weren’t the Brite Lites Beamers?
Brite Lights didn’t have the beams.
Okay, that’s what I meant—it was the Beamers. A couple of guys had some Alva Lite Beams, which were super-hard to get—they were super-trick. Everybody else basically rode Santa Cruz decks, mainly Steve Olsons—then at the end it was all Duanes.
How about wheels?
The very first go-arounds, I think it was kind of at the end of the Sims Snakes era, then it was Blackharts, then it was a split between Blackharts, OJs...and Gyros came out. Maybe people rode Powell Bones, but I don’t remember that too much.
Trucks?
It was pretty much all Indy. It’s kind of funny, because I don’t really remember anyone riding anything else, except again with the Variflex guys—they were all riding Variflex [Connection] trucks and we were all tripping-out. It was just the craziest thing that they could be riding those trucks and shredding so hard. After they came, a bunch of guys switched over and started riding them, but they were just too wacky. But it was killer, I remember all the boards back then also had the routed undersides.
And just stripe graphics. I’m tellin’ ya—those were the days.
Yeah, it was...when it came to product. That’s for sure.
As you probably know, Marty moved back to California in 1984 and rode for Madrid, Vision and his own Channel One (among others) throughout the ’80s. He now works for Volcom, lives in Huntington Beach and still shreds mini-ramps and bowls.