HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE (2006)
I've been working on these for a few weeks and although it's Tuesday here, it's still New Year's day in California so I guess I made it in time to make a gift of them for all of you. I've obviously jumped forward a bit here; there are still a lot of earlier pictures....but I've just been in the mood to do these. I've only edited out a few and only cropped where it wouldn't disappear bystanders
Below you'll find the story of why these pictures exist...


In 1987 I was working full time as a lowly assistant manager in an upscale clothing store on San Vincente. That Spring I was invited to the owner's son's Bar Mitzvah. I was the only gentile in management (it was a little chain of three stores) and it was the first Bar Mitzvah I had ever attended. I was stymied as to what would be an appropriate gift. They certainly weren't paying me enough to warrant anything extravagant but I also didn't want to embarrass my manager, who had gone out on a limb a bit to hire me in the first place. Plus I liked the kid. I had once given him some 5x7s of himself skating in the store parking lot, which he had obviously appreciated, so I began to contemplate the idea of giving him some skate shots.
At this time there had been a renaissance of ramp skating around the Pavilion, but I had been a long time away from the skate scene, and I was even less connected with the oceanfront altogether those days since I was working those longer hours...( you might notice that more than a few of these shots were taken when the sun about to set)... Of the 'name' hotshots skating the ramps at that time I knew George Wilson, Jesse Martinez, and to a lesser extent Eric Dressen. [ I had recently managed to come across a picture of a very little Eric from his days at Skateboard World down on Hawthorne.....but that's for another gallery to come] But there were three guys rippin' it up who didn't know me from Adam. They were Christian Hosoi, Scott Oster, and Aaron Murray.
In many ways it was a replay of my experiences 10 years previously, getting to know Dennis, Froggy,Sergio, Zingaro, and the rest of the guys. Although many of the pix are dated 5-11-87 they were actually taken in three stages. STAGE ONE: I went down one afternoon and started to taking skate shots. I was wondering a bit if I might have lost the technique, but looking at the first shot (489-22) I guess I shouldn't have worried... STAGE TWO: I developed and printed the shots, 8x10s instead of 5x7s this time around and brought them down as gifts. I took the roll#490 shots that day and at some point I asked Hosoi, Oster and Murray if I could take a portrait. (I got only one chance with each of them and those three shots show up right in a row on one negative strip!) STAGE THREE: I developed and printed those pix and brought down more 8x10s including one set of portraits as gifts for the guys and a second set that they were nice enough to autograph.....so somewhere out there there may still exist an 8x10 glossy portrait of Hosoi inscribed with something like: " Hey Eddie! Congrats on your Bar Mitzvah...Hang loose dude [signed] Christian Hosoi " Jesse and George also did their part, and although I never managed to get a portrait of Eric, I think he signed a group shot that has already appeared on the site.
[ https://pbase.com/venicepix/image/44828856 ]
My manager at the store seemed a bit worried when walked into the reception and put a plain manila envelope on the gift table, but on Monday morning she called me into her office and said.” You knew all along, didn't you?" "What?", I said. "That your gift would be Eddie's favorite of them all..." she replied. Well, I hadn't known all along and in fact had had some major doubts, but when I had come into the reception I had discovered that one of my 5x7s of the Eddie skating in the parking lot had been enlarged into a huge 24"x36" poster to greet the guests. I knew then!