1 00:00:00,208 --> 00:00:20,346 (Music) 2 00:00:20,346 --> 00:01:05,731 (Skateboard sounds) (Music) 3 00:01:05,731 --> 00:01:12,411 (Applause) 4 00:01:12,411 --> 00:01:16,105 So, that's what I've done with my life. (Laughter) 5 00:01:16,105 --> 00:01:18,737 (Applause) 6 00:01:18,737 --> 00:01:25,382 Thank you. (Applause) 7 00:01:25,382 --> 00:01:27,833 As a kid, I grew up on a farm in Florida, 8 00:01:27,833 --> 00:01:29,788 and I did what most little kids do. 9 00:01:29,788 --> 00:01:33,524 I played a little baseball, did a few other things like that, 10 00:01:33,524 --> 00:01:35,804 but I always had the sense of being an outsider, 11 00:01:35,804 --> 00:01:38,699 and it wasn't until I saw pictures in the magazines 12 00:01:38,699 --> 00:01:40,757 that a couple other guys skate, I thought, 13 00:01:40,757 --> 00:01:42,520 "Wow, that's for me," you know? 14 00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:44,956 Because there was no coach standing directly over you, 15 00:01:44,956 --> 00:01:46,858 and these guys, they were just being themselves. 16 00:01:46,858 --> 00:01:49,253 There was no opponent directly across from you. 17 00:01:49,253 --> 00:01:52,962 And I loved that sense, so I started skating 18 00:01:52,962 --> 00:01:56,235 when I was about 10 years old, in 1977, 19 00:01:56,235 --> 00:01:58,925 and when I did, I picked it up pretty quickly. 20 00:01:58,925 --> 00:02:02,829 In fact, here's some footage from about 1984. 21 00:02:02,829 --> 00:02:08,124 It wasn't until '79 I won my first amateur championship, 22 00:02:08,124 --> 00:02:11,280 and then, by '81, I was 14, and I won 23 00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:13,805 my first world championship, 24 00:02:13,805 --> 00:02:16,213 which was amazing to me, 25 00:02:16,213 --> 00:02:19,410 and in a very real sense, that was the first real victory I had. 26 00:02:19,410 --> 00:02:20,234 Oh, watch this. 27 00:02:20,234 --> 00:02:22,732 This is a casper slide, where the board's upside down. 28 00:02:22,732 --> 00:02:26,099 Mental note on that one. (Laughs) 29 00:02:26,099 --> 00:02:30,700 And this one here? An ollie. 30 00:02:30,700 --> 00:02:34,899 So, as she mentioned, that is overstated for sure, 31 00:02:34,899 --> 00:02:36,885 but that's why they called me the godfather 32 00:02:36,885 --> 00:02:38,788 of modern street skating. 33 00:02:38,788 --> 00:02:41,532 Here's some images of that. 34 00:02:45,748 --> 00:02:49,487 Now, I was about halfway through my pro career in, 35 00:02:49,487 --> 00:02:52,439 I would say, the mid-'80s. 36 00:02:52,439 --> 00:02:54,852 Freestyle itself, we developed all these flat ground tricks 37 00:02:54,852 --> 00:02:57,752 as you saw, but there was evolving 38 00:02:57,752 --> 00:03:00,267 a new kind of skateboarding, where guys were taking it 39 00:03:00,267 --> 00:03:04,115 to the streets, and they were using that ollie, 40 00:03:04,115 --> 00:03:07,071 like I showed you? They were using it to get up onto stuff 41 00:03:07,071 --> 00:03:09,975 like bleachers and handrails and over stairwells 42 00:03:09,975 --> 00:03:11,905 and all kinds of cool stuff. 43 00:03:11,905 --> 00:03:14,178 So it was evolving upwards. 44 00:03:14,178 --> 00:03:16,523 In fact, when someone tells you they're a skater today, 45 00:03:16,523 --> 00:03:18,756 they pretty much mean a street skater, 46 00:03:18,756 --> 00:03:22,071 because freestyle, it took about five years for it to die, 47 00:03:22,071 --> 00:03:25,032 and at that stage, I'd been a "champion" champion 48 00:03:25,032 --> 00:03:29,526 for 11 years, which, phew! 49 00:03:29,526 --> 00:03:32,487 And suddenly it was over for me. That's it. 50 00:03:32,487 --> 00:03:35,587 It was gone. They took my pro model off the shelf, 51 00:03:35,587 --> 00:03:38,732 which was essentially pronouncing you dead publicly. 52 00:03:38,732 --> 00:03:39,843 That's how you make your money, you know? 53 00:03:39,843 --> 00:03:43,566 You have a signature board and wheels and shoes 54 00:03:43,566 --> 00:03:47,108 and clothes. I had all that stuff, and it's gone. 55 00:03:47,108 --> 00:03:49,026 The crazy thing was, there was a really 56 00:03:49,026 --> 00:03:53,484 liberating sense about it, because I no longer had to protect 57 00:03:53,484 --> 00:03:55,698 my record as a champion. "Champion," again. 58 00:03:55,698 --> 00:03:58,334 Champion sounds so goofy, but it's what it was, right? 59 00:03:58,334 --> 00:04:02,237 And I got to -- What drew me to skateboarding, the freedom 60 00:04:02,237 --> 00:04:05,078 was now restored, where I could just create things, 61 00:04:05,078 --> 00:04:07,278 because that's where the joy was for me, always, 62 00:04:07,278 --> 00:04:09,935 was creating new stuff. 63 00:04:09,935 --> 00:04:13,048 The other thing that I had was a deep well of tricks 64 00:04:13,048 --> 00:04:15,792 to draw from that were rooted in these flat ground tricks. 65 00:04:15,792 --> 00:04:18,850 Stuff the normal guys were doing was very much different. 66 00:04:18,850 --> 00:04:20,260 So, as humbling and rotten as it was — 67 00:04:20,260 --> 00:04:24,151 And believe me, it was rotten. I would go to skate spots, 68 00:04:24,151 --> 00:04:26,926 and I was already, like, "famous guy," right? 69 00:04:26,926 --> 00:04:30,015 And everyone thought I was good. But in this new terrain, 70 00:04:30,015 --> 00:04:32,924 I was horrible. So people would go, "Oh, he's all -- 71 00:04:32,924 --> 00:04:37,245 Oh, what happened to Mullen?" (Laughter) (Laughs) 72 00:04:37,245 --> 00:04:39,909 So, humbling as it was, I began again. 73 00:04:39,909 --> 00:04:42,639 Here are some tricks that I started to bring 74 00:04:42,639 --> 00:04:44,263 to that new terrain. (Skateboard noises) 75 00:04:44,263 --> 00:04:49,079 And again, there's this undergirding layer of influence of freestyle 76 00:04:49,079 --> 00:04:50,570 that made me — Oh, that one? 77 00:04:50,570 --> 00:04:53,611 That's, like, the hardest thing I've ever done. 78 00:04:53,611 --> 00:04:55,656 Okay, look at that. It's a darkslide. 79 00:04:55,656 --> 00:04:59,194 See how it's sliding on the backside? 80 00:04:59,194 --> 00:05:02,200 Those are super-fun. (Laughter) And, actually, not that hard. 81 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:04,816 You know, at the very root of that, see, caspers, 82 00:05:04,816 --> 00:05:07,512 see how you throw it? (Skateboard noises) 83 00:05:07,512 --> 00:05:10,015 Simple as that, right? No biggie. (Laughter) 84 00:05:10,015 --> 00:05:14,012 And your front foot, the way it grabs it, is -- 85 00:05:14,012 --> 00:05:16,659 I'd seen someone slide on the back of the board like that, 86 00:05:16,659 --> 00:05:18,260 and I was like, "How can I get it over?" 87 00:05:18,260 --> 00:05:20,889 Because that had not yet been done. And then it dawned 88 00:05:20,889 --> 00:05:22,273 on me, and here's part of what I'm saying. 89 00:05:22,273 --> 00:05:26,087 I had an infrastructure. I had this deep layer, where 90 00:05:26,087 --> 00:05:28,254 it was like, oh my gosh, it's just your foot. 91 00:05:28,254 --> 00:05:30,474 It's just the way you throw your board over. 92 00:05:30,474 --> 00:05:32,520 Just let the ledge do that, and it's easy, 93 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:34,440 and the next thing you know, there's 20 more tricks 94 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:36,361 based out of the variations. 95 00:05:36,361 --> 00:05:38,714 So that's the kind of thing that, here, check this out, 96 00:05:38,714 --> 00:05:40,884 here's another way, and I won't overdo this. 97 00:05:40,884 --> 00:05:43,107 A little indulgent, I understand. 98 00:05:43,107 --> 00:05:45,576 There's something called a primo slide. 99 00:05:45,576 --> 00:05:47,384 (Skateboard noises) 100 00:05:47,384 --> 00:05:50,192 It is the funnest trick ever to do. 101 00:05:50,192 --> 00:05:53,307 (Skateboard noises) 102 00:05:53,307 --> 00:05:56,179 It's like skinboarding. 103 00:05:56,179 --> 00:05:59,060 And this one, look how it slides sideways, every which way? 104 00:05:59,060 --> 00:06:01,837 Okay, so when you're skating, and you take a fall, 105 00:06:01,837 --> 00:06:04,988 the board slips that way or that way. It's kind of predictable. 106 00:06:04,988 --> 00:06:08,006 This? It goes every which way. It's like a cartoon, the falls, 107 00:06:08,006 --> 00:06:10,118 and that's what I love the most about it. 108 00:06:10,118 --> 00:06:13,518 It's so much fun to do. In fact, when I started doing them, 109 00:06:13,518 --> 00:06:16,318 I remember, because I got hurt. I had to get a knee surgery, 110 00:06:16,318 --> 00:06:19,236 right? So there were a couple of days where, actually 111 00:06:19,236 --> 00:06:21,305 a couple of weeks, where I couldn't skate at all. 112 00:06:21,305 --> 00:06:23,298 It would give out on me. And I would watch the guys, 113 00:06:23,298 --> 00:06:25,131 I'd go to this warehouse where a lot of the guys 114 00:06:25,131 --> 00:06:27,756 were skating, my friends, and I was like, 115 00:06:27,756 --> 00:06:29,675 "Man I gotta do something new. I want to do something new. 116 00:06:29,675 --> 00:06:31,515 I want to start fresh. I want to start fresh." 117 00:06:31,515 --> 00:06:33,589 And so the night before my surgery, I'd watched, 118 00:06:33,589 --> 00:06:34,984 and I was like, "How am I going to do this?" 119 00:06:34,984 --> 00:06:37,716 So I ran up, and I jumped on my board, 120 00:06:37,716 --> 00:06:39,818 and I cavemanned, and I flipped it down, 121 00:06:39,818 --> 00:06:42,894 and I remember thinking, I landed so light-footed, thinking, 122 00:06:42,894 --> 00:06:45,883 if my knee gives, they'll just have more work to do in the morning. 123 00:06:45,883 --> 00:06:47,524 (Laughs) (Laughter) 124 00:06:47,524 --> 00:06:49,982 And so, when it was the crazy thing. 125 00:06:49,982 --> 00:06:51,947 I don't know how many of you guys have had surgery, 126 00:06:51,947 --> 00:06:55,309 but -- (Laughter) -- you are so helpless, right? 127 00:06:55,309 --> 00:06:57,660 You're on this gurney and you're watching the ceiling go by, 128 00:06:57,660 --> 00:07:00,046 every time it's always that, and right when they're putting 129 00:07:00,046 --> 00:07:02,204 the mask on you before you go to sleep, 130 00:07:02,204 --> 00:07:06,251 all I was thinking is, "Man, when I wake up and I get better, 131 00:07:06,251 --> 00:07:09,228 the first thing I'm going to do is film that trick." (Laughter) 132 00:07:09,228 --> 00:07:11,724 And indeed I did. It was the very first thing I filmed, 133 00:07:11,724 --> 00:07:13,962 which was awesome. 134 00:07:13,962 --> 00:07:16,508 Now, let me -- I told you a little bit about the evolution 135 00:07:16,508 --> 00:07:19,869 of the tricks. Consider that content, in a sense. 136 00:07:19,869 --> 00:07:23,038 What we do as street skaters is, 137 00:07:23,038 --> 00:07:25,284 you have these tricks. Say I'm working on darkslides, 138 00:07:25,284 --> 00:07:29,294 or a primo, that you guys know this stuff now. (Laughter) (Laughs) 139 00:07:29,294 --> 00:07:31,550 What you do is you cruise around the same streets that 140 00:07:31,550 --> 00:07:35,063 you've seen a hundred times, but suddenly, because you 141 00:07:35,063 --> 00:07:38,794 already have something in this fixed domain of this target, 142 00:07:38,794 --> 00:07:42,130 it's like, what will match this trick? 143 00:07:42,130 --> 00:07:45,091 How can I expand, how can the context, how can 144 00:07:45,091 --> 00:07:47,904 the environment change the very nature of what I do? 145 00:07:47,904 --> 00:07:51,666 So you drive and drive and drive, and, actually I gotta admit, 146 00:07:51,666 --> 00:07:54,361 just because I was struggling with this because I'm here, 147 00:07:54,361 --> 00:07:57,767 but I'll just say it, is, I cannot tell you, not only to be here 148 00:07:57,767 --> 00:08:01,461 in front of you, but what a privilege it is to be at USC campus, 149 00:08:01,461 --> 00:08:05,815 because I have been escorted off of this campus so many times. (Laughter) 150 00:08:05,815 --> 00:08:10,483 (Applause) 151 00:08:10,483 --> 00:08:13,373 So let me give you another example of how 152 00:08:13,373 --> 00:08:16,243 context shapes content. 153 00:08:16,243 --> 00:08:18,636 This is a place not that far from here. 154 00:08:18,636 --> 00:08:20,922 It's a rotten neighborhood. Your first consideration is, 155 00:08:20,922 --> 00:08:24,004 am I gonna get beat up? You go out and -- See this wall? 156 00:08:24,004 --> 00:08:30,282 It's fairly mellow, and it's beckoning to do bank tricks, right? 157 00:08:30,282 --> 00:08:33,082 But there's this other aspect of it for wheelies, 158 00:08:33,082 --> 00:08:36,450 so check this out. There's a few tricks, again, 159 00:08:36,450 --> 00:08:39,203 how environment changes the nature of your tricks. 160 00:08:39,203 --> 00:08:42,625 Freestyle oriented, manual down -- wheelie down. 161 00:08:42,625 --> 00:08:45,261 Watch, this one? Oh, I love this. It's like surfing, this one, 162 00:08:45,261 --> 00:08:47,052 the way you catch it. 163 00:08:47,052 --> 00:08:50,354 This one, a little sketchy going backwards, 164 00:08:50,354 --> 00:08:53,115 and watch the back foot, watch the back foot. 165 00:08:53,115 --> 00:09:00,049 Oop. (Laughs) Mental note right there. Again, we'll get back to that. 166 00:09:00,049 --> 00:09:03,028 Here. Back foot, back foot. Okay, up there? 167 00:09:03,028 --> 00:09:05,645 That was called a 360 flip. Notice how the board flipped 168 00:09:05,645 --> 00:09:09,422 and spun this way, both axes. 169 00:09:09,423 --> 00:09:14,053 And another example of how the context changed, 170 00:09:14,053 --> 00:09:17,980 and the creative process for me and for most skaters, 171 00:09:17,980 --> 00:09:21,317 is, you go, you get out of the car, you check for security, 172 00:09:21,317 --> 00:09:23,502 you check for stuff. (Laughter) 173 00:09:23,502 --> 00:09:25,573 It's funny, you get to know their rhythms, you know, 174 00:09:25,573 --> 00:09:27,527 the guys that cruise around, and 175 00:09:27,527 --> 00:09:30,632 skateboarding is such a humbling thing, man. 176 00:09:30,632 --> 00:09:33,166 No matter how good you are, right, you still gotta deal with — 177 00:09:33,166 --> 00:09:37,078 So you hit this wall, and when I hit it, the first thing you do is 178 00:09:37,078 --> 00:09:39,485 you fall forward, and I'm like, all right, all right. 179 00:09:39,485 --> 00:09:43,105 As you adjust, 180 00:09:43,105 --> 00:09:45,464 you punch it up, and then when I would do that, 181 00:09:45,464 --> 00:09:48,261 it was throwing my shoulder this way, which 182 00:09:48,261 --> 00:09:51,714 as I was doing it, I was like, "Oh wow, that's begging 183 00:09:51,714 --> 00:09:55,626 for a 360 flip," because that's how you load up for a 360 flip. 184 00:09:55,626 --> 00:09:57,966 And so this is what I want to emphasize that, 185 00:09:57,966 --> 00:10:02,171 as you can imagine, all of these tricks are made of 186 00:10:02,171 --> 00:10:05,478 sub-movements, executive motor functions, more granular 187 00:10:05,478 --> 00:10:07,638 to the degree to which I can't quite tell you, but one thing 188 00:10:07,638 --> 00:10:11,071 I do know is, every trick is made of combining two or three 189 00:10:11,071 --> 00:10:14,239 or four or five movements. And so, as I'm going up, 190 00:10:14,239 --> 00:10:16,927 these things are floating around, and you have to sort of 191 00:10:16,927 --> 00:10:19,674 let the cognitive mind, like, rest back, pull it back a little bit, 192 00:10:19,674 --> 00:10:22,463 and let your intuition go as you feel these things. 193 00:10:22,463 --> 00:10:24,951 And these sub-movements are just kind of floating around, 194 00:10:24,951 --> 00:10:27,663 and as the wall hits you, they connect themselves 195 00:10:27,663 --> 00:10:29,518 to an extent, and that's when the cognitive mind, you think, 196 00:10:29,518 --> 00:10:31,653 "Oh, 360 flip, I'm going to make that." 197 00:10:31,653 --> 00:10:34,053 So that's how that works to me, the creative process, 198 00:10:34,053 --> 00:10:35,936 the process itself of street skating. 199 00:10:35,936 --> 00:10:39,705 So, next — Oh, mind you. (Laughs) Those are the community. 200 00:10:39,705 --> 00:10:42,363 These are some of the best skaters in the world. 201 00:10:42,363 --> 00:10:46,080 These are my friends. Oh my gosh, they're such good people. 202 00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:48,615 And the beauty of skateboarding is that, 203 00:10:48,615 --> 00:10:52,197 no one guy is the best. In fact, I know this is rotten to say, 204 00:10:52,197 --> 00:10:55,120 they're my friends, but a couple of them actually 205 00:10:55,120 --> 00:10:57,607 don't look that comfortable on their board. 206 00:10:57,607 --> 00:11:00,487 What makes them great is the degree to which 207 00:11:00,487 --> 00:11:03,681 they use their skateboarding to individuate themselves. 208 00:11:03,681 --> 00:11:05,832 Every single one of these guys, you look at them, 209 00:11:05,832 --> 00:11:08,489 you can see a silhouette of them, and you realize, like, 210 00:11:08,489 --> 00:11:11,009 "Oh, that's him, that's Haslam, that's Koston, 211 00:11:11,009 --> 00:11:14,001 there's these guys, these are the guys. 212 00:11:14,001 --> 00:11:18,291 And skaters, I think they tend to be outsiders 213 00:11:18,291 --> 00:11:21,766 who seek a sense of belonging, 214 00:11:21,766 --> 00:11:24,497 but belonging on their own terms, 215 00:11:24,497 --> 00:11:28,544 and real respect is given by how much we take what 216 00:11:28,544 --> 00:11:31,665 other guys do, these basic tricks, 360 flips, 217 00:11:31,665 --> 00:11:35,185 we take that, we make it our own, and then we contribute 218 00:11:35,185 --> 00:11:36,827 back to the community the inner way 219 00:11:36,827 --> 00:11:39,804 that edifies the community itself. 220 00:11:39,804 --> 00:11:43,622 The greater the contribution, the more we express and form 221 00:11:43,622 --> 00:11:47,571 our individuality, which is so important to a lot of us 222 00:11:47,571 --> 00:11:50,699 who feel like rejects to begin with. 223 00:11:50,699 --> 00:11:53,738 The summation of that gives us 224 00:11:53,738 --> 00:11:57,491 something we could never achieve as an individual. 225 00:11:57,491 --> 00:12:00,873 I should say this. There's some sort of beautiful symmetry 226 00:12:00,873 --> 00:12:03,704 that the degree to which we connect to a community 227 00:12:03,704 --> 00:12:06,929 is in proportion to our individuality, which we are expressing 228 00:12:06,929 --> 00:12:09,194 by what we do. 229 00:12:09,194 --> 00:12:12,174 Next. These guys. Very similar community 230 00:12:12,174 --> 00:12:15,150 that's extremely conducive to innovation. 231 00:12:15,150 --> 00:12:20,164 Notice a couple of these shots from the Police Department. 232 00:12:20,164 --> 00:12:22,139 But it is quite similar. I mean, what is it to hack, right? 233 00:12:22,139 --> 00:12:25,640 It's knowing a technology so well that you can manipulate it 234 00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:29,969 and steer it to do things it was never intended to do, right? 235 00:12:29,969 --> 00:12:31,357 And they're not all bad. 236 00:12:31,357 --> 00:12:35,649 You can be a Linux kernel hacker, make it more stable, right? 237 00:12:35,649 --> 00:12:38,353 More safe, more secure. You can be an iOS hacker, 238 00:12:38,353 --> 00:12:42,159 make your iPhone do stuff it wasn't supposed to. 239 00:12:42,159 --> 00:12:44,728 Not authorized, but not illegal. 240 00:12:44,728 --> 00:12:46,526 And then you've got some of these guys, right? 241 00:12:46,526 --> 00:12:49,092 What they do is very similar to our creative process. 242 00:12:49,092 --> 00:12:52,229 They connect disparate information, 243 00:12:52,229 --> 00:12:55,986 and they bring it together in a way that 244 00:12:55,986 --> 00:12:58,345 a security analyst doesn't expect. Right? 245 00:12:58,345 --> 00:13:00,387 It doesn't make them good people, 246 00:13:00,387 --> 00:13:04,077 but it's at the heart of engineering, at the heart of 247 00:13:04,077 --> 00:13:07,581 a creative community, an innovative community, 248 00:13:07,581 --> 00:13:10,192 and the open source community, the basic ethos of it 249 00:13:10,192 --> 00:13:14,077 is, take what other people do, make it better, 250 00:13:14,077 --> 00:13:16,470 give it back so we all rise further. 251 00:13:16,470 --> 00:13:18,678 Very similar communities, very similar. 252 00:13:18,678 --> 00:13:23,534 We have our edgier sides, too. It's funny, my dad was right. 253 00:13:23,534 --> 00:13:26,028 These are my peers. 254 00:13:26,028 --> 00:13:28,438 But I respect what they do, and they respect what I do, 255 00:13:28,438 --> 00:13:30,929 because they can do things. It's amazing what they can do. 256 00:13:30,929 --> 00:13:34,678 In fact, one of them, he was Ernst & Young's 257 00:13:34,678 --> 00:13:36,799 Entrepreneur of the Year for San Diego County, 258 00:13:36,799 --> 00:13:41,228 so they're not, you never know who you're dealing with. 259 00:13:41,228 --> 00:13:43,551 We've all had some degree of fame. 260 00:13:43,551 --> 00:13:47,182 In fact, I've had so much success that I 261 00:13:47,182 --> 00:13:48,719 strangely always feel unworthy of. 262 00:13:48,719 --> 00:13:50,904 I've had a patent, and that was cool, and we started 263 00:13:50,904 --> 00:13:54,104 a company, and it grew, and it became the biggest, and then 264 00:13:54,104 --> 00:13:55,701 it went down, and then it became the biggest again, 265 00:13:55,701 --> 00:13:58,760 which is harder than the first time, and then we sold it, 266 00:13:58,760 --> 00:14:01,160 and then we sold it again. 267 00:14:01,160 --> 00:14:03,633 So I've had some success. And in the end, 268 00:14:03,633 --> 00:14:06,425 when you've had all of these things, what is it that continues to 269 00:14:06,425 --> 00:14:09,447 drive you? As I mentioned, the knee stuff and these things, 270 00:14:09,447 --> 00:14:11,057 what is it that will punch you? 271 00:14:11,057 --> 00:14:12,697 Because it's not just the mind. 272 00:14:12,697 --> 00:14:16,192 What is it that will punch you and make you do something 273 00:14:16,192 --> 00:14:19,234 and bring it to another level, and when you've had it all, 274 00:14:19,234 --> 00:14:22,903 sometimes, guys, they die on the vine with all of that talent, 275 00:14:22,903 --> 00:14:26,184 and one of the things we've had, all of us, is fame, 276 00:14:26,184 --> 00:14:28,496 I think the best kind of fame, because you can take it off. 277 00:14:28,496 --> 00:14:31,088 I've been all around the world, 278 00:14:31,088 --> 00:14:33,556 and there will be a thousand kids crying out your name, 279 00:14:33,556 --> 00:14:35,119 and it's such a weird, visceral experience. 280 00:14:35,119 --> 00:14:37,297 It's like, it's disorienting. 281 00:14:37,297 --> 00:14:39,192 And you get in a car, and you drive away, 282 00:14:39,192 --> 00:14:42,431 and 10-minute drive, and you get out, 283 00:14:42,431 --> 00:14:45,656 and no one gives a rat's who you are. (Laughs) 284 00:14:45,656 --> 00:14:48,319 And it gives you that clarity of perspective of, man, 285 00:14:48,319 --> 00:14:50,018 I'm just me, and popularity, what does 286 00:14:50,018 --> 00:14:53,140 that really mean again? Not much. 287 00:14:53,140 --> 00:14:55,983 It's peer respect that drives us. That's the one thing that 288 00:14:55,983 --> 00:14:58,074 makes us do what we do. I've had over a dozen bones, 289 00:14:58,074 --> 00:15:01,773 these guys, this guy, over, what, eight, 10 concussions, 290 00:15:01,773 --> 00:15:04,128 to the point where it's comedy, right? 291 00:15:04,128 --> 00:15:08,504 It is actually comedy. They mess with him. 292 00:15:08,504 --> 00:15:13,943 Next. And this is something deeper, and this is where I'm — 293 00:15:13,943 --> 00:15:16,633 I think I was on tour when I, I was reading one of the 294 00:15:16,633 --> 00:15:19,833 Feynman biographies. It was the red one or the blue one. 295 00:15:19,833 --> 00:15:27,101 And he made this statement that was so profound to me. 296 00:15:27,101 --> 00:15:28,831 It was that the Nobel Prize 297 00:15:28,831 --> 00:15:32,086 was the tombstone on all great work, 298 00:15:32,086 --> 00:15:35,429 and it resonated because I had won 35 out of 36 contests 299 00:15:35,429 --> 00:15:39,310 that I'd entered over 11 years, and it made me bananas. 300 00:15:39,310 --> 00:15:41,580 In fact, winning isn't the word. I won it once. 301 00:15:41,580 --> 00:15:42,887 The rest of the time, you're just defending, 302 00:15:42,887 --> 00:15:46,163 and you get into this, like, turtle posture, you know? 303 00:15:46,163 --> 00:15:49,087 Where you're not doing. It usurped the joy of what I loved 304 00:15:49,087 --> 00:15:52,309 to do because I was no longer doing it to create and have fun, 305 00:15:52,309 --> 00:15:54,560 and when it died out from under me, that was one of 306 00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:57,654 the most liberating things because I could create. 307 00:15:57,654 --> 00:16:01,587 And look, I understand that I am on the very edge 308 00:16:01,587 --> 00:16:03,727 of preachy, right here. I'm not here to do that. 309 00:16:03,727 --> 00:16:06,192 It's just that I'm in front of a very privileged audience. 310 00:16:06,192 --> 00:16:09,119 If you guys aren't already leaders in your community, 311 00:16:09,119 --> 00:16:12,350 you probably will be, and if there's anything I can give you 312 00:16:12,350 --> 00:16:15,863 that will transcend what I've gotten from skateboarding, 313 00:16:15,863 --> 00:16:19,019 the only things of meaning, I think, and of permanence, 314 00:16:19,019 --> 00:16:22,218 it's not fame, it's not all these things. What it is 315 00:16:22,218 --> 00:16:24,705 is that there's an intrinsic value in creating something 316 00:16:24,705 --> 00:16:28,311 for the sake of creating it, and better than that, 317 00:16:28,311 --> 00:16:30,938 because, man, I'm 46 years old, or I'll be 46, and how 318 00:16:30,938 --> 00:16:33,230 pathetic is that I'm still skateboarding, but there is — 319 00:16:33,230 --> 00:16:37,839 (Laughter) -- there is this beauty in dropping it into 320 00:16:37,839 --> 00:16:42,185 a community of your own making, and seeing it dispersed, 321 00:16:42,185 --> 00:16:44,897 and seeing younger, more talented, just different talent, 322 00:16:44,897 --> 00:16:47,303 take it to levels you can never imagine, 323 00:16:47,303 --> 00:16:50,393 because that lives on. So thank you for your time. 324 00:16:50,393 --> 00:17:00,616 (Applause) 325 00:17:00,616 --> 00:17:03,945 Krisztina Holly: I have a question for you. 326 00:17:03,945 --> 00:17:09,175 So you've really reinvented yourself in the past from 327 00:17:09,175 --> 00:17:12,294 freestyle to street, and, I think it was about four years ago 328 00:17:12,294 --> 00:17:16,216 you officially retired. Is that it? What's next? 329 00:17:16,216 --> 00:17:18,573 Rodney Mullen: That's a good question. 330 00:17:18,573 --> 00:17:19,884 KH: Something tells me it's not the end. 331 00:17:19,884 --> 00:17:24,197 RM: Yeah. I, every time you think you've chased something 332 00:17:24,197 --> 00:17:25,671 down, it's funny, no matter how good you are, 333 00:17:25,671 --> 00:17:28,499 and I know guys like this, it feels like you're polishing a turd. 334 00:17:28,499 --> 00:17:32,989 You know? (Laughter) 335 00:17:32,989 --> 00:17:35,640 And I thought, the only way I can extend this 336 00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:38,880 is to change something infrastructural, 337 00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:42,142 and so that's what I proceeded to do, through a long story, 338 00:17:42,142 --> 00:17:46,427 one of desperation, so if I do it, rather than talk about it, 339 00:17:46,427 --> 00:17:48,272 if I do it, you'll be the first to know. KH: All right, we won't ask you any more. 340 00:17:48,272 --> 00:17:49,468 RM: You'll get a text. 341 00:17:49,468 --> 00:17:52,862 KH: (Laughs) Right. Thank you. Good job. (Applause) RM: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause) 342 00:17:52,862 --> 00:17:58,734 (Applause)