Kinda funny story:
In early 2000 I moved to Hollywood from the Bay Area with my girlfriend (now my wife). We lived a few blocks from Hollywood High and I would skate the stairs/ledges on the corner of Orange and Sunset all the time. One day we're all skating and this dude is lurking, watching people skate and comes over and is like "hey, are you interested in being in a music video?" Being a jobless dirt, I say "OK!" He gives me an address and tells me to be there Saturday morning - a van will be picking skaters up and driving them to the desert where they're shooting the video. I don't recall even knowing what band the video was for or how much I was getting paid at this point .
Saturday morning; show up at the address and it's Danny Minnick's house (classic LA skater/filmer/lurker). Jake Brown is there. I knew Jake from working at Woodward so that was cool. The three of us shoot the shit for a bit and the van shows up. We pile in and the driver says he has two more stops. Pull up to the next house and Greco, Ellington and Reynolds get in. Minnick and Brown know these guys, I've seen them around LA but we haven't hung out before. Greco looks at me and says "Didn't know Fernandez was invited" because I have a curly fro/mop hair situation going on. Everyone chuckles. (I'm not Chad Fernandez btw). The second stop is at Guy Mariano's house. Pull up to Guy's house, Greco hops out of the van, disappears around the side of the house, comes back five minutes later, hops in the van and says "he aint coming." We head for the desert.
So we arrive at this location in the desert after about an hour. Most of the van ride was spent drinking from a bottle of whisky I brought in my backpack. We get out and they had this food tent setup and other other skaters there chilling. Wee man was there, Omar Hassan was there, other dudes who I can't remember were there, and I see this guy Leonard who used to manage Hot Rod (LA Skateshop) - who I was also homies with from Woodward. Leonard and I kick it and talk shit while the production crew finishes the set. So, the "set" consists of (1) the most ghetto vert ramp I've ever seen and (2) a burned up, spray painted truck with a plywood run-up and a launch ramp. The landing area was one sheet of warped plywood. Siiiiick. So Jake actually starts skating the vert ramp and blasting. A few of us drop in and attempt some lip tricks but the crew is definitely waiting for Jake to drop in.
After they're done filming vert, they tell us that they need to set up the "night shot" and that we had a few hours to chill. Someone must have run to a nearby store, because after a little bit we're sitting on the hillside overlooking the set with a few 30 packs and proceed to get shitfaced. At a certain point after the sun had gone down, the production people are yelling up to us to come down for the shoot and we're like "FUUUUUCCCCK YOOOOUUU." Greco being the most vocal participant of our mini-revolt. Oh, this is what made me think of this story for this thread - I talked to EE for most of that time and he was chill as shit.
Anyway, we eventually climb down off the hillside and the production people are pissed with Greco. Eventually, they're like "What's your name? You want a paycheck don't you? CHILL OUT!" and he keeps yelling and freaking out. They finally press him for his name when they've had enough and he says "Guy Mariano."
A few people are trying to ollie over the truck at this point and I'll shit you not, Wee-Man was the first one to stick it. I don't recall him being on the hillside drinking so that may explain it. After it became apparent that the truck/launch ramp setup was regular and that most of the "talent" was faded - the production crew decided that they would just shoot the band performing in front of a crew of drunk, rowdy skaters. So that's what they did.
After all was said and done and it was time to head back to LA, we climbed back in the van drunk, smelling like a campfire and Greco had a check made out to Guy Mariano in his pocket. That was the first 200 bucks I made in Hollywood.
With that in mind, here's the video. Enjoy!
Topic: Erik ellington interview (Read 23436 times)