Mystical giant. A spinning UFO. Read on. Betraying the Grim Reaper. 
Visiting this planet- so centered, like an elephant balanced on the 
point of a pin. Read on. Accelerated motion. Activated pendulum. He 
swings from side to side, universe, up and down. Belying reality, 
troubled by nothing. This moment of speed in front of him. 
Challenging wood, steel, lead, rubber, even the Grim Reaper. In a deck 
of cards, gravity, the royal flush, ascendant Saturn flying high above 
the lip. Like apostles we gather surrounding the ramp, our necks 
pivot up to follow the line we watch, you watch, you, reading this, 
you watch. You watch him skate, you watch him spin, fly, move. It's 
unreal.

Heckler (Sonny): What are you into other than skating?
Tony Hawk: Activity-wise: surfing, snowboarding, my computer.

H: Like Photoshop, etc.?
TH: Yeah, I also do video stuff. I have a Video Toaster which is a 
    pretty good system. And hang out with family.

H: Who's your family?
TH: My wife, Cindy; and our son Reilly, who's 21 months now; and 
    our nanny.

H: Of course, you're on the road so much.
TH: Yeah.

H: What's up with the movie Skateboard Kid 2?  Your dad was on the 
    ramp or something...
TH: They called me cause they wanted to get a ramp set up and at 
    the same time, they're having meetings for this, the ASR, so they 
    said that they would build a ramp for the movie and then just give it 
    to someone who'd want it. The ASR was talking about doing this but 
    they didn't have the money to build it so it all worked out. So what 
    happened was ASR built it and paid for it and ASR just took it. And 
    it's gonna be in a skate park down here, in a YMCA, I think.

H: Rad, they're gonna build a park! Where do you skate, when not on 
    the road, for practice, etc. Ramps?
TH: I sold my house with the ramps and stuff so I just skate the 
    YMCA next to me. They have a street course.

H: So you street skate?
TH: Yeah, sometimes, like when we're going to shoot a video, I'll go 
    skating with all the guys on our team. But mostly I like skating park 
    stuff.

H: Cool, how do you feel about competition now as opposed to when 
    you first started?
TH: I'm not into competing anymore, I've tried to stop entering 'em. 
    They're still a part of it but people don't really emphasize it too 
    much.

H: I saw you in Sac at the Fat City Jam, you entered there. Do you 
    do it just for fun now?
TH: Yeah, actually that was one of my last contests. I haven't really 
    done it since then. I guess even the guys that are winning the 
    contests aren't necessarily the most popular skaters, which is kind 
    of sad because that's saying something about consistency in skating. 
    Consistency in skateboarding needs to play a bigger role and it's 
    coming into it's own.

H: How do you feel about trade shows?
TH: I don't know, they're all right, it's just a good time to, you know, 
    schmooze.

H: How old are you?
TH: 26.

H: Tell me about your team, Bird House.  
TH: We started Bird House almost two years ago, and then one of our 
    skaters, Jeremy Klein, wanted to start doing Japanimation type 
    stuff so he's got his company that we distribute and he also makes 
    decks. And we just picked up Flip, which is from England and then 
    moved all their riders and their business out here.

H: So Flip was already an established team in England?
TH: Yeah, four or five of those guys moved out here.

H: That's cool, you guys have a lot of riders in the demo. So are you 
    still sponsored by other people or are you completely independent?
TH: I don't really consider myself sponsored in the sense of 
    sponsorship cause I've kinda been through it all I still skate for 
    Airwalk for sure, and we do a lot of stuff with Rusty & Tracker. 
    That's about it.

H: You're famous to a certain extent which means people listen to 
    what you say, so do you have a message, or do you think about that?
TH: No, I don't try to make too many political stands or anything but 
    I just like to see guys skating that are diggin' it, not because they 
    think they're looking cool doing it or because they'll be accepted. The 
    guys who just do it purely because they enjoy it, that's what I like 
    to see.

H: So that's your message?
TH: I guess so. That's the only reason why I've done it, because I dig 
    it. That's why I'm not entering contests. If I was going to go back 
    into contests I'd wouldn't be doing it for myself, I'd be doing to 
    please whoever else and make money. I'm just not into it for that.

H: What makes you really angry?
TH: I don't know, that's a good question, umm... I just get really 
    flustered cause I have a lot of responsibilities, sometimes all at 
    once, and that gets my head spinning for sure. Especially when I've 
    gotta do computer stuff, work on the team thing. A lot of stuff 
    comes down at once - that gets me spinning.
    The only thing that gets me angry, I guess, would be in skateboarding 
    all this kind of political fighting, just bullshit, that we've gone 
    through for so long is still happening. It almost seemed like we were 
    past it but it's back around.

H: On the other side of it, what makes you incredibly happy?
TH: Watching Reilly. Just being with him.

H: What is your view on humanity as a whole?
TH: I think humans are basically good, for the most part.

H: Do you think world peace is a possibility, or is that kind of out 
    there for you? If man is intrinsically good, do you think world peace 
    is possible.
TH: I would think so, but I don't think on a completely peaceful level. 
    There's always going to be something.

H: What is a typical day like for you? Do you spend a lot of time 
    doing your business stuff?
TH: Yeah, I work at home, all my computer stuff's at home. So I have 
    my own hours. If there's a chance I can hang out with Reilly I'll do 
    that for maybe some of the day, then maybe work on computer stuff 
    all night, go surfing early in the morning, go skate a little during the 
    day, I don't have a set schedule, but I always try to do something 
    active during the day, Reilly, and some work.

H: Sort of like what we do, if there's something that needs to get 
    done, you do that but then you also go skate, see Reilly, whatever. 
    What about snowboarding, where do you snowboard?
TH: I take at least one or two trips every year. Last year I went to 
    Snowbird for awhile, and during the winter we go up to Big Bear, 
    once or twice a week.

H: Do you free ride or do you ride half-pipes? What do you mostly 
    ride?
TH: I ride the half pipe when it's good. Usually I ride Summit.
 
H: How do you feel about videos, there's so many skate videos now.
TH: I'd just like to see the quality improve, the technical side of it, 
    the editing, stuff like that. Not really the skating because skating is 
    always there. And I've seen a little bit of that in some videos but not 
    for the most part. They just slap it together to show the skating. I'm 
    really stoked on this video The Jammies. I think it's really cool.

H: Do you ever use film, 16mm?
TH: Some guys do, but no one can really afford it. We shot some 
    stuff of Rusty with Dan Merkel, who was an old surf movie 
    photographer. We shot a bunch of high speed stuff, it was really 
    good!

H: If you shot 16mm, then you have to chop the film and can't really 
    use the computer.
TH: What we've done is shoot some film then transfer it to video and 
    it still looks great. You can still tell it's film for sure.

H: Is this a curio, the Japanimation?
TH: It's a lot of different stuff.

H: Did you have to get licenses for that?
TH: No, a lot of it is just ideas from other stuff. Some of it is 
    probably direct but it's all different. It's just whatever Jeremy finds 
    inspiration from.

H: What do you think is the future of skateboarding?
TH: I can't tell anymore. I don't want to say it but it has to be a 
    little bit more skate park oriented just because of how hard it is to 
    skate and how it's banned everywhere even though people don't 
    wanna skate stuff that's man-made and wood and things. So I guess I 
    see a future in that. And I see vert getting attention again. Not 
    necessarily that it'll be "the" thing again, but it will definitely have 
    it's own area.

H: Vert's so much more interesting to watch.
TH: Yeah, it is more of a spectator's sport. I guess that's why I'm 
    still doing it cause there's so much interest in that respect. People 
    want demos and stuff.

H: Do you still get nervous when you go out and skate?
TH: Yeah, but now that I don't have to compete anymore, I don't 
    worry as much.

H: What about when you do like 7 McTwists in a row. Do you ever get 
    nervous and think you're gonna slam. Like the vert ramp at Fat City 
    Jam, you slammed. Remember that?
TH: Yeah.

H: Do you ever get nervous going up on a trick and thinking "fuck, I 
    might bail!"?
TH: Not really too much. I don't really try stuff that I can't do 
    anymore.

H: What can't you do!?!
TH: Well, I mean, there's guys that are pushing it doing different 
    variations and I just have this idea that I do what I do and I'm happy 
    with that. There's nothing that's too unfamiliar to me.

H: Any things you wanna say, like shouts or anything?
TH: Naw.