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Empire Skate tells the story of a group
of kids who ushered in a new era of

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skate culture in New York City in the
90s. A lot of these kids came from

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rough neighborhoods, broken homes, tough
situations, yet they found family in

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each other. And their meet -up spot,
their clubhouse, was their local skate

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called Supreme.

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Skate shops were hard to come by. They'd
pop up and then they'd close, which is

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the nature of any small...

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skate shop that's struggling to get by.

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And it's not until 1994 when Supreme
opens that these kids finally have a

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that is going to stick around and is
going to do it in a way that's so

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and so fresh and so incredibly New York.

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The energy and the attitude and
everything that was happening at Supreme

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undeniable that it couldn't be stopped.

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The inspiration for this film came from
my experience skateboarding, falling in

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love with the sport, the culture, the
camaraderie. My local skate shop is

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me and my friends hung out and shared
ideas and learned about the culture.

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And because of those reasons, this story
really hit home for me.

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were to go around one of these streets
you frame things whether you know it or

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not like a psychiatrist might call it a
kind of selective attention or

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unattention this is going on that's
going on but you are looking this way

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a sense you're not even seeing something
you just have a general view there are

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many many beautiful things happening
there are many ugly things happening

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Do you really have an idea of the
thousands of things going on?

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You have to understand New York in the
90s because it was all of it. The music,

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the culture, the attitude, the game
boarders, the clubs over

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capacity, 200 people outside.

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You had rappers battling each other.

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Everybody was fresh and full of ideas.

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Hip -hop just blew up. Nas, Biggie, Wu
-Tang.

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It was the culture and the lifestyle,
and we were a part of that.

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We were just like the fly guys on
skateboards.

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New York City was our playground.

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What we were doing, what we were saying,
we had hard in the 90s.

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We changed skateboarding. We changed the
slang of it.

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There were no skate parks. There were no
vert ramps. New York was like raw,

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gritty, real street skating.

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Power, pop, the aggression.

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People used to call them from like Cali
and shit, and they couldn't even hang

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out with us. They used to be like, these
motherfuckers are crazy.

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There were just this chaos of the
streets, taking it in places at speeds

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downstairs that I would never consider.

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And that brought a freshness.

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And there needed to be a fresh skate
shop in New York, because it wasn't

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that. You can't think of skateboarding
in New York City without thinking about

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Supreme.

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That's just how it is.

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It'd be a skate shop, yeah.

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But we'd have the finest and the flyest
shit.

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It's going to be a really high concept.
The skateboards are going to be the art.

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That was our clubhouse.

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It was like our home base.

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You know, nobody really knew what
Supreme was.

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People would be like, what's Supreme?

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What's Supreme? And we'd be like, oh,
the skate shop on Lafayette.

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It was bold.

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It was big.

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And it was ambiguous.

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The way it switched.

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The clientele changed and the rest of
the world caught on.

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These are clothes that are about
culture, often counterculture.

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We had guys spend $10 ,000 on clothes
and they gave us 30%. That's when I

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started to realize, like, there's big
money in this shit.

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Bye.

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Bye. Bye.

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We didn't just say, hey, there's
something special happening here.

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We were creating.

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Day by day, night by night.

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There was no Supreme without us.

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The only way to truly understand Supreme
is

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to understand the kids who lived it.

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The ones who called it home.

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If you won the raffle last night, just
stay against this wall and we'll start

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letting you in.

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Make sure you're on that list. Don't
waste my fucking time.

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We hustle for this. So we've been
camping out. We have people camping out

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Tuesday.

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A lot of limited items in there. Stuff
is running out fast.

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When I walked in, I said, give me
everything you guys got. It's a pucker

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It's really crazy. They gave a certain
amount of people raffle tickets.

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So those are people that get to go
inside the store first, they get to shop

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first, they can buy everything, and the
rest of the 150 people waiting around

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the block can get nothing.

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Supreme's just a phenomenon.

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Fucking world famous.

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You hear rumblings and you hear rumors
about, you know, daily totals and amount

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of product and every Thursday drops and
what's up.

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It's incredible.

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There's a lot of value in the brand. You
buy the shirt, you can resell it.

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This is all hype.

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Everything is hype.

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Hype, hype, hype.

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The hype is kind of like, I just think
most people don't know what they're

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buying into.

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Do rappers even know what the origin of
Supreme is?

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Do athletes?

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You know what I'm saying? I think it's
important for people to know the origin

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of that.

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To kind of like know like everything
that was or is supreme is a byproduct of

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kids from New York City adopting
skateboarding as a culture.

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Which we were anomalies to begin with.

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Growing up in New York in the 80s,
touching a skateboard was like unheard

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We were weirdos back then.

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My brother and sister were like so
against me too with it. They're just

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oh, you're trying to be this white boy.
Like, I don't understand.

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But the minute I touched the board, it
was set in stone.

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I'm going to get the green.

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This is my life.

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Who is Mike Hernandez to Mike Hernandez?

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That's interesting.

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to self -judge. The story actually,
relative to skateboarding, starts in

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school. And all I thought was eat,
sleep, skate.

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Constantly looking at a gap, a railing,
a ledge. You know what I'm saying? A

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city skater or a street skater.

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And then subsequently, Jeff Pang became
my rabbit of inspiration.

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Very talented skateboarder.

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Man, we've heard so much about you, you
don't even know.

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Like, all very good.

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Okay. That's comforting.

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I got a dollar for that shit. What? You
got a dollar, son. You're gonna make it

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this time.

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Jefferson Pang.

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I call him my ninja.

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100 % skateboarder, but one of the
toughest people I know. Like, do not

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Pang.

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Peter Vesey, he was a fucking swag
master extraordinaire.

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very vibrant, very outgoing.

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I grew up in the Bronx when I was
younger. I grew up in the South Bronx

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was younger.

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Once you live in the Bronx, you have
this thing.

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It's a special thing.

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It's like you're from the Bronx.

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And when I was a kid, my guidance
counselor was like, what do you want to

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life? And I was like, I want to become a
professional skateboarder.

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She laughed right in my face.

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I looked at her and I said one word. I
said, watch.

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Have a good day. Have a good day. Have a
good day. Have a good

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day.

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Every fucking trick there was.

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Shut up and do it.

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That's when I met Stephen Cowles.

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Stephen was super good. He could skate
anything, vert, pool, street.

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When I first started skateboarding, it's
because of my older brother.

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Let me tell you a quick story. There was
a kid skateboarding down the block, and

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my older brother was with me.

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I stopped the little kid, and I asked
him, hey, can I see you skateboard?

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So I rode on it.

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It was a feeling I cannot describe.

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This is my love. This is what I love
doing.

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So when it was time for me to give the
kid back his skateboard, my brother was

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like, oh, no, you can just go home, kid.
You can just go home.

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And the kid was like, I have my
skateboard.

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He goes, ah, it's my brother's now.

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Thank you to that kid.

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I feel bad.

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When I found a skateboard and I got the
bug, it was it.

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Nothing mattered all the way up to high
school.

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Nothing.

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Parents were like, where are you going
to college? And I was like, I'm not.

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He's mad, but like tough.

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Street skating was evolving at that
time.

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Now in New York, it was, you know, a
bunch of crazy kids, like mostly from

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dysfunctional families that came from
all these different boroughs. And

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eventually we all just became one unit
and we skated together.

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The skateboard was my, like, vessel to
go anywhere I wanted.

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You know, being 13 years old and not
having anyone but your friends take you

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around skateboarding really, like,
opened up my eyes.

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We were skating these uncharted
territories.

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We'd go in the direction of wherever
skateboarding took us.

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It was like having the ultimate freedom.
If anything, we were like swarm of bees

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in Midtown or financial districts
getting whatever we wanted to.

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Stairs, a ledge, a flat ground trick.

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Man, we would go from uptown all the way
to downtown to skateboarding miles.

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It was just like raw skating back then.
The skateboarding scene was underground.

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We didn't have a lot of shit out here,
like skate shops.

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Like, I mean, there would be one or two
at a time.

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We had the whole skate, but that started
going downhill.

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And then there was ODs that was opened
up by, like, kids, like, our age.

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Then there was also Benji's, which was
fucking insane.

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Benji's skate shop was a bedroom in his
apartment.

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He would go up, it was on, like, the
18th floor, and he would have whatever

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could get his hands on.

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He'd have some wheels around. He'd have
some trucks.

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And this little kid going to this guy's
house.

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This is so wrong on so many levels.

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I think anybody who ever went to Benji's
apartment was like, still to this day,

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like, that was fucking weird.

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Oh, that dude was hilarious.

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Oh, there's a...

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That's our ceiling of the shop.

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We had all these broken boards all over
the shop and everything.

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Let's see.

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A skate shop was like a workshop.

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And Skate NYC, that was so, like, them.

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You know, we're going to put these
fucking cracked boards, like, on the

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It's a relic of skateboard lore and
tradition and just where we met up.

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It's almost like if you build it, they
will come. It's not like we have this

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kind of vision, like, oh, we're going to
do this thing, everybody's going to

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hang out. It's just like, we're going to
do this thing because we love it.

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When I worked at Skate NYC, they were
passionate about creating a space for

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kids that skated.

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You know, some of the first people that
I ever saw do art shows for the kids.

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So way ahead of the curve.

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You know, these are things that are
regular occurrences now at skate shops.

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You felt welcome. You felt belonged. You
felt like you were somebody.

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It was, in my opinion, it was the first
Supreme in that it was a clubhouse, a

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safe haven, somewhere to come and be you
with other people that are you.

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We'd be there every day, every day.

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We were the iconic place to hang out if
you were a high school dropout.

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I'm not proud of this, but, like, these
kids were not gone.

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Okay, but they were learning about
skateboarding and some of them had hard

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lives, man.

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I grew up in like a real dysfunctional
household.

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I wasn't going to high school, so I
would just go straight to the city.

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The meeting place was Skate NYC.

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My friend Harold Hunt at the time, he
was the one that introduced me to them.

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I remember everything about Harold. He
would just frequently come by the shop

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from day one. And with Harold, because
he had such a giant personality, came a

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lot of other people, right? Because he
was the most likable person you'd ever

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meet. Harold was a character. He had
flair. He was the East Village diplomat.

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Harold Hunter made you feel... If you
met him for an hour, he made you feel

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your best friend.

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Harold Hunter. That was my introduction
to the Lower East Side and

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skateboarding. And it was the first time
I saw a real passion, passion about

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skateboarding. And I was just so
impressed with him, just how he stood it

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did it and dealt with it.

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I came from a broken, broken, broken -up
home, you know?

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Man, he would crash at my place. So,
like, when you're like that, you know,

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you're always living by your wits. So,
like, skateboarding is salvation.

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Skating -wise, I feel like there was
just little glimpses of New York in the

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00:17:29,910 --> 00:17:30,910
80s.

231
00:17:31,130 --> 00:17:34,780
Little... Little snippets. There was a
few Thrasher articles.

232
00:17:34,980 --> 00:17:37,480
Jeremy Henderson had the cover doing a
wall ride.

233
00:17:37,740 --> 00:17:39,760
There was a few little articles that
you'd see.

234
00:17:40,340 --> 00:17:44,140
But you got to remember, like, New York
was not even close on the map on the

235
00:17:44,140 --> 00:17:48,680
skateboarding, like, in the
skateboarding market at all. Like,

236
00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:49,680
the king.

237
00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:54,520
California, that's the playbook for the
tricks, the culture.

238
00:17:55,360 --> 00:17:59,480
Board sales, wheel sales, anything
skateboard related, they were number one

239
00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:01,780
globally. This is who the pros were.

240
00:18:02,240 --> 00:18:06,040
You had Tony Hawk, who was this super
progressive kid.

241
00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:10,860
You had Rodney Mullen, who was the
freestyle innovator.

242
00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:15,700
There was just like a mix of amazing
skaters. It was mesmerizing.

243
00:18:16,040 --> 00:18:21,760
The heyday of the 80s skating, we were
rock stars, literally traveling the

244
00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:25,620
on someone else's dime, doing what we
loved doing, performing everywhere.

245
00:18:27,820 --> 00:18:30,440
For us, California felt a million miles
away.

246
00:18:30,940 --> 00:18:32,400
There was this big gap.

247
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:38,400
They had skate parks, they had ramps,
they had all, every way you possibly

248
00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:43,820
Perfect weather, the skate scene, the
photographers, the companies, they

249
00:18:43,820 --> 00:18:44,820
have that in New York.

250
00:18:45,460 --> 00:18:49,660
It was, hey, hit this, do what you can.
Skating in the middle of the streets was

251
00:18:49,660 --> 00:18:50,660
just chaos.

252
00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:53,100
Nothing was optimized.

253
00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:58,460
New York fucking city ate a big fucking
apple under a coat of fucking ice.

254
00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:03,380
20 degrees, gloves from the hardware
store, duct tape.

255
00:19:03,620 --> 00:19:06,800
We're trying to make happen what they
already have.

256
00:19:07,360 --> 00:19:11,240
New York is a completely different type
of animal, not to mention the vibe.

257
00:19:11,460 --> 00:19:15,980
I mean, the vibe on the streets of New
York was, I think, quicker and more

258
00:19:15,980 --> 00:19:16,980
dangerous.

259
00:19:17,200 --> 00:19:19,880
You're going to have to get dirty, and
it's rough.

260
00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:25,880
My motivation and who I was inspired to
emulate or hate was the Shutt crew.

261
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:29,720
Those were early instrumental, kind of
like shaking my brain, like, oh, that's

262
00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:32,480
ill. Like, those are street
skateboarders.

263
00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:37,200
Shutt Skateboards was a homegrown
skateboard company dedicated to street

264
00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:41,140
involving the stars of New York and the
surrounding areas.

265
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:45,420
What we showed the world was that you
don't have to be from California to make

266
00:19:45,420 --> 00:19:48,740
it. They were the badass dudes, you know
what I mean? They just were different.

267
00:19:48,860 --> 00:19:49,860
The brand was different.

268
00:19:50,080 --> 00:19:53,700
I was like, holy shit, that's not lying
on the U -ramp or the vert ramp and shit

269
00:19:53,700 --> 00:19:56,300
like that. Like, that was something that
I was like, I can relate to that.

270
00:19:56,720 --> 00:20:00,680
This New York -style graffiti I hadn't
seen on a skateboard before.

271
00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:02,480
It's city -inspired.

272
00:20:02,820 --> 00:20:06,960
So the graphic had to do with the life
that we were living. So we had a street

273
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:10,240
posse, and the street posse was like,
you know, we're wearing hooded

274
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:13,300
sweatshirts, but we're not really
committing crimes. We just want to

275
00:20:13,790 --> 00:20:18,970
Took that whole California beach life
thing and it just automatically became

276
00:20:18,970 --> 00:20:22,710
harder because we were doing it out of
New York City. So everything was so raw

277
00:20:22,710 --> 00:20:25,830
out of New York and so gritty and dirty
and grimy, you know.

278
00:20:26,330 --> 00:20:32,090
It wasn't neon and hair down, you know,
it was more like you're living in the

279
00:20:32,090 --> 00:20:33,530
streets, like you better learn to
survive.

280
00:20:33,930 --> 00:20:37,670
We're talking about probably like 86, up
to like 89.

281
00:20:38,270 --> 00:20:42,450
And at that point in time, New York City
was a fucking shithole.

282
00:20:43,290 --> 00:20:47,270
Yet another violent incident struck our
subways during tonight's rush hour.

283
00:20:47,470 --> 00:20:50,970
Homelessness, drugs, crime. People are
afraid to look out at night.

284
00:20:52,590 --> 00:20:54,550
Crack epidemic was hitting hard.

285
00:20:54,790 --> 00:20:57,810
People fucking robbing people, shooting
people.

286
00:20:58,090 --> 00:21:03,090
I was in foster care, taken from my
parents because they were addicts.

287
00:21:03,610 --> 00:21:05,270
I had to learn to survive.

288
00:21:06,790 --> 00:21:10,570
That neighborhood I grew up in was
either you either made it or you became

289
00:21:10,570 --> 00:21:11,570
product of the environment.

290
00:21:12,090 --> 00:21:14,810
You know, like most of the people I grew
up with, they're in prison or dead

291
00:21:14,810 --> 00:21:15,810
right now.

292
00:21:16,490 --> 00:21:18,370
You know, we call them at -risk kids.

293
00:21:19,050 --> 00:21:20,930
Kids who are kind of AWOL.

294
00:21:21,130 --> 00:21:23,690
Their parents and their teachers don't
really know where they are.

295
00:21:24,610 --> 00:21:26,410
And they're in a pretty rough spot.

296
00:21:26,870 --> 00:21:30,050
What was great about our crew, our
skateboard crew, is that we looked out

297
00:21:30,050 --> 00:21:34,290
each other. We always looked out. I had
a skateboard and a whole community that

298
00:21:34,290 --> 00:21:37,630
would support me out on the street that
was always going to have my back.

299
00:21:38,949 --> 00:21:43,950
So, again, it's really dark and scary,
but, like, there's all this really

300
00:21:43,950 --> 00:21:45,850
interesting stuff happening at the same
time.

301
00:21:48,710 --> 00:21:51,330
And all these amazing subcultures
intertwined.

302
00:21:54,710 --> 00:21:58,710
I hung on Lower East Side, and over
there, Lower East Side in the late 80s

303
00:21:58,710 --> 00:22:00,670
totally different. It's not like his
now.

304
00:22:01,070 --> 00:22:02,810
It was like that was the ultimate.

305
00:22:04,270 --> 00:22:09,050
Raw New York City melting pot of
everything from like skateboarding to

306
00:22:09,050 --> 00:22:11,190
to punk rock to artists. Everything was
there.

307
00:22:11,390 --> 00:22:14,450
The East Village art scene is going off.

308
00:22:14,690 --> 00:22:17,170
You got fashion. You got music.

309
00:22:17,670 --> 00:22:21,450
And we were putting all those influences
into our skate shop.

310
00:22:22,390 --> 00:22:25,450
There was this real embedded culture.

311
00:22:25,950 --> 00:22:32,230
And all these kids were like finding out
like how to dress, where to go, what is

312
00:22:32,230 --> 00:22:33,230
cool.

313
00:22:34,360 --> 00:22:36,700
dreaming and plotting a future for
themselves.

314
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:51,680
You know someone back in the day that
had a skate shop that was doing

315
00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:53,120
it for the love of skateboarding?

316
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:59,020
There wasn't enough skateboarders to
support the business to actually survive

317
00:22:59,020 --> 00:23:00,020
a skate shop.

318
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:02,820
There was no way. We weren't making any
money.

319
00:23:03,689 --> 00:23:04,689
whatsoever.

320
00:23:05,130 --> 00:23:09,110
But we were contributing so much more
than that, which we were well aware of.

321
00:23:09,170 --> 00:23:11,530
But, you know, landlords still need to
get paid and shit, right?

322
00:23:12,430 --> 00:23:13,650
So I shut it down.

323
00:23:15,590 --> 00:23:17,210
Skate and YC went out of business.

324
00:23:19,390 --> 00:23:20,790
Soho Skates went out of business.

325
00:23:21,210 --> 00:23:23,010
Benji's was a wrap. O .D.'s was a wrap.

326
00:23:23,250 --> 00:23:24,850
We had no, zero skate shops.

327
00:23:25,170 --> 00:23:28,510
Nothing. Right when I started
skateboarding, if you look back in like

328
00:23:28,510 --> 00:23:29,750
80s, that's when it died.

329
00:23:30,110 --> 00:23:31,270
And it went completely underground.

330
00:23:31,630 --> 00:23:32,630
You know?

331
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:35,320
Skateboarding does that.

332
00:23:37,540 --> 00:23:39,340
Skateboarding died every other decade.

333
00:23:40,460 --> 00:23:42,020
And that's been our history.

334
00:23:42,340 --> 00:23:43,540
It happened quickly.

335
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:49,020
We lost our team, and we're no longer
manufacturing shut skateboards out of

336
00:23:49,020 --> 00:23:49,719
York City.

337
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:54,000
I would say the lowest point of skate
popularity was around 91.

338
00:23:54,840 --> 00:24:00,000
Skating was no longer in fashion, but
the industry was largely centered on the

339
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,100
West Coast, so it was never going to die
in California. It was always going to

340
00:24:03,100 --> 00:24:04,100
survive here.

341
00:24:04,250 --> 00:24:07,630
In New York, it was so impossibly hard
to keep it going.

342
00:24:08,090 --> 00:24:10,150
I never considered quitting
skateboarding.

343
00:24:11,750 --> 00:24:13,090
New York did it for life.

344
00:24:13,330 --> 00:24:15,890
That's all I wanted to do. I wanted to
go pro.

345
00:24:16,110 --> 00:24:17,350
I wanted to live the lifestyle.

346
00:24:17,950 --> 00:24:19,490
This is my dream.

347
00:24:20,710 --> 00:24:24,450
Fall, get up. Fall, get up. Fall, get
up. And get up.

348
00:24:26,930 --> 00:24:32,710
This is part of the glory of what
skate's built on. So much of it is

349
00:24:32,710 --> 00:24:35,210
in... a kind of abject failure.

350
00:24:40,350 --> 00:24:43,990
Skateboarders are just like, we're not
cockroaches, man. There's no way you're

351
00:24:43,990 --> 00:24:45,430
going to get rid of us that easily.

352
00:24:46,410 --> 00:24:50,790
And then what happened, I think, what
was so important and I think shapes the

353
00:24:50,790 --> 00:24:55,230
world today of skateboarding more than
almost anything else is what was going

354
00:24:55,230 --> 00:24:57,890
on the East Coast, especially coming out
of New York City.

355
00:25:00,050 --> 00:25:02,290
Skateboarding culturally was in a
transition.

356
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:08,820
Bird skating was pretty much on its way
out, and it being a Cali deal, and

357
00:25:08,820 --> 00:25:11,300
street style skateboarding was
transitioning in.

358
00:25:12,980 --> 00:25:18,500
In the early 90s, skating was so small,
and street skating was where everybody

359
00:25:18,500 --> 00:25:24,120
kind of came together, steering the ship
toward the future of skateboarding.

360
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:26,380
It's going to flow, you know what I'm
saying?

361
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:28,000
It's going to go with the flow.

362
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:33,390
And in all fairness, What is
skateboarding? Because skateboarding

363
00:25:33,390 --> 00:25:35,010
of its heart, it's riding down the
street.

364
00:25:36,490 --> 00:25:40,690
So in New York, it went underground, but
at the same time, they're actually

365
00:25:40,690 --> 00:25:44,130
reseating and revitalizing
skateboarding.

366
00:25:47,310 --> 00:25:51,550
We all were kind of progressing at the
same time, and I was really picking that

367
00:25:51,550 --> 00:25:53,950
shit up real fast, all the technical
free skating stuff.

368
00:25:55,020 --> 00:25:58,320
Cats were honing their craft and like we
started to simulate what trick

369
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,460
selection was and like what the fucking
swag was and shit like that.

370
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:10,620
So what came out of that rebirth sort
of, you know, I see it as a rebirth.

371
00:26:11,180 --> 00:26:16,360
And if there was ever a kickoff to a
culture or time in New York City with

372
00:26:16,360 --> 00:26:17,760
skateboarding, it was in 1993.

373
00:26:19,360 --> 00:26:22,280
93, it's like bubbles start to occur.

374
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:26,580
Started meeting this new generation
that's starting to come up, guys who I

375
00:26:26,580 --> 00:26:28,260
started to meet through skating.

376
00:26:30,700 --> 00:26:31,860
Shocking how good they were.

377
00:26:32,100 --> 00:26:35,720
We were like the up -and -comers. Us
being that crew that was going to set up

378
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:41,560
the new New York, you saw this one
thread evolving in the scene where

379
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:43,020
like, oh, this is New York style.

380
00:26:43,380 --> 00:26:45,620
You know, you knew it by seeing it.

381
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:48,180
This was some New York shit.

382
00:26:49,279 --> 00:26:55,240
So this is 93, skateboarding started to
grow, and my mind is going crazy because

383
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:57,500
I'm thinking somebody's going to come in
and eat our lunch.

384
00:27:01,180 --> 00:27:05,460
And Rodney Smith came to me one day, and
he was like, I'm going to do another

385
00:27:05,460 --> 00:27:09,920
skateboard company. It's going to be
called Zoo York, and that's it. The dam

386
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:10,920
breaking.

387
00:27:11,220 --> 00:27:14,340
We're cracking this shit open, and it's
going to be New York first.

388
00:27:14,580 --> 00:27:16,600
I just was like, I live in New York, and
it's a zoo.

389
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:17,960
Okay, Rodney, Eli.

390
00:27:18,510 --> 00:27:19,510
It's a go.

391
00:27:23,930 --> 00:27:24,930
Fernandez.

392
00:27:26,170 --> 00:27:31,450
So Eli and I got started. We went and
pooled our money together, got this

393
00:27:31,450 --> 00:27:35,510
warehouse in the dirty -ass meat market,
and it was great. It was glorious.

394
00:27:35,910 --> 00:27:40,330
It's not going to be a skate shop,
though. We're going to sell clothing and

395
00:27:40,330 --> 00:27:46,130
skateboards to the rest of the world. So
as I am good at drawing graphics,

396
00:27:46,590 --> 00:27:49,750
Rodney is good at finding skateboard
talent.

397
00:27:50,070 --> 00:27:55,010
Most of the importance of having a
skateboarding company falls on the

398
00:27:55,010 --> 00:27:56,730
that you have representing your company.

399
00:27:57,570 --> 00:28:01,890
And my whole concept was to bring
individuals that represented the skate

400
00:28:01,890 --> 00:28:03,330
that was going on at the time.

401
00:28:03,570 --> 00:28:08,370
You know, we brought on Ryan Hickey. No
one's ever heard of this guy before, but

402
00:28:08,370 --> 00:28:09,990
he's freaking phenomenal on the
skateboard.

403
00:28:10,410 --> 00:28:15,110
New York kind of crept up on us. They
were introducing a lot of guys that you

404
00:28:15,110 --> 00:28:16,150
hadn't heard of.

405
00:28:16,540 --> 00:28:19,800
But it was clear that there was a rise
in the East Coast. There's something

406
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,800
exciting happening there. And it all
started coming together like that.

407
00:29:01,110 --> 00:29:06,330
The Zoo York crew was like these misfits
of the time. Maybe at times

408
00:29:06,330 --> 00:29:08,590
intimidating because we were out of our
minds.

409
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:13,300
You got the whole package. This wasn't
just like some kid dating. This was like

410
00:29:13,300 --> 00:29:17,100
some kid skating with his friends,
telling a story, doing his trick.

411
00:29:17,380 --> 00:29:18,780
New York City was the backdrop.

412
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,960
And the skate industry. Never seen
anything like that. Like a crew of

413
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:25,400
from New York being New Yorkers.

414
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:30,760
All

415
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:37,860
that

416
00:29:37,860 --> 00:29:38,980
stuff started to come out.

417
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:40,720
Oh, my God.

418
00:29:42,700 --> 00:29:47,360
On our side, I think we were so used to
what we'd been doing, we were all

419
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:49,720
turning to, hey, what are these guys
doing?

420
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:55,800
All these dudes had a unique style, a
unique look, a totally different

421
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:56,800
aesthetic.

422
00:29:57,050 --> 00:30:01,310
And then pulling it together at this
iconic place called the Brooklyn Banks,

423
00:30:01,430 --> 00:30:04,770
where all of a sudden it was like, oh,
this is what hardcore street skating can

424
00:30:04,770 --> 00:30:05,770
be.

425
00:30:07,630 --> 00:30:14,390
Brooklyn Banks are a public

426
00:30:14,390 --> 00:30:18,450
plaza on the Manhattan side of the
Brooklyn Bridge. It was everything a

427
00:30:18,450 --> 00:30:20,370
spot needed to be the best skate spot.

428
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:26,780
Put the boys in the better line. You're
always talking about the boys in the

429
00:30:26,780 --> 00:30:31,180
better line. Put Ali over the wall with
cars, running down the ramp. It was

430
00:30:31,180 --> 00:30:32,180
crazy.

431
00:30:33,460 --> 00:30:35,380
Put the boys in the better line.

432
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:38,180
You're always talking about the boys in
the better line.

433
00:30:39,020 --> 00:30:40,900
The boys in the better line.

434
00:30:44,420 --> 00:30:46,240
I was a young one.

435
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:51,620
That zoo crew, those were the top pros
during that time. So I was under their

436
00:30:51,620 --> 00:30:52,620
wing.

437
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:54,800
Taught me the bad, the good, the ugly.

438
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:03,840
We had a lot of issues with security
guards.

439
00:31:05,220 --> 00:31:09,000
I was a big antagonist. Fucking tried to
get inside security guards' heads while

440
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:11,480
they were skateboarding so they could
get their shot.

441
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:19,200
We were just like right there in this
little like moment of change.

442
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:22,460
There's more skaters now.

443
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:24,800
It's growing day by day.

444
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:31,920
New York is having magnitude and being
recognized, and other pro skaters are

445
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,420
coming to New York City to, like, hang
out and skate.

446
00:31:35,580 --> 00:31:36,580
Thank you so much.

447
00:31:36,780 --> 00:31:42,200
There was always so much East Coast
talk, like, this is California, but...

448
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:47,100
There's a whole thing, a land of streets
and buildings and bricks and cold

449
00:31:47,100 --> 00:31:50,960
weather. And when you went to spots in
New York, 9 times out of 10, no one had

450
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:52,360
even done a trick here yet.

451
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,960
Is there a skate renaissance going on in
New York?

452
00:31:59,420 --> 00:32:02,080
But there's no skate shop.

453
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:05,640
There's no skate shop.

454
00:32:13,130 --> 00:32:15,590
My name is Frank Crittenden, junior from
the Bronx.

455
00:32:16,310 --> 00:32:17,710
My nickname is Chappy.

456
00:32:18,730 --> 00:32:22,050
Grew up, raised, 163rd Stebbins Avenue.

457
00:32:22,670 --> 00:32:26,170
At the time, growing up, in my hood with
a skateboard, it was like, what the

458
00:32:26,170 --> 00:32:29,570
fuck, Cap? What the fuck does this do?
Like, you want to be a white boy? What

459
00:32:29,570 --> 00:32:34,310
the fuck? And that's how it was, you
know? But I skated every day and moved

460
00:32:34,310 --> 00:32:35,310
to the village.

461
00:32:36,750 --> 00:32:40,530
Started working at Union, one of the
hottest boutiques at that time.

462
00:32:41,430 --> 00:32:44,150
Marianne and James Jebbia, they owned
this shop.

463
00:32:45,030 --> 00:32:49,770
James Jebbia comes from England, and he
arrives to New York in the early 1980s.

464
00:32:50,110 --> 00:32:54,790
The Union store, when it opened, was
selling sort of very, very, very early

465
00:32:54,790 --> 00:32:55,790
streetwear stuff.

466
00:32:55,990 --> 00:32:58,270
It was one of the first streetwear
boutiques.

467
00:32:58,550 --> 00:33:01,230
People from all over the world came to
visit Union.

468
00:33:03,790 --> 00:33:07,650
We had the fly shit, honestly. Union had
the fly shit at the time.

469
00:33:09,930 --> 00:33:14,390
This was quality goods from, you know,
designers that were sort of, I guess,

470
00:33:14,430 --> 00:33:15,430
potent.

471
00:33:16,150 --> 00:33:21,230
I was courting the store to sell my
stuff, and James refused it. He was

472
00:33:21,350 --> 00:33:25,310
well, you're selling to, you know, those
guys up the block, so I'm not going to

473
00:33:25,310 --> 00:33:29,170
be in that same radius. I was like,
well, I'll stop selling to them. I'm

474
00:33:29,170 --> 00:33:30,170
selling your stuff.

475
00:33:31,030 --> 00:33:36,650
So James Jebbia, after the success of
the Union store, expands and they open

476
00:33:36,650 --> 00:33:37,650
a Stuckey store.

477
00:33:38,670 --> 00:33:43,490
Stussy was one of the first streetwear
skate cultural brands.

478
00:33:43,930 --> 00:33:46,690
John Stussy, it's his artwork, it's his
design.

479
00:33:46,910 --> 00:33:49,690
It's like surf skatey, but it's like
Rasta.

480
00:33:50,350 --> 00:33:52,170
It was a real lifestyle brand.

481
00:33:52,510 --> 00:33:56,890
The messaging was amazing, the graphics,
just like the statements.

482
00:33:57,170 --> 00:33:59,130
It was always so tongue -in -cheek.

483
00:33:59,350 --> 00:34:01,950
They did some things that were very
unorthodox.

484
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:09,300
and almost seemed opposed to growing, to
becoming more mass, to becoming

485
00:34:09,300 --> 00:34:12,179
more appealing to a larger group of
people.

486
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:17,400
Like it could right now be in a lot more
stores, but then, you know, you guys

487
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,320
wouldn't be here wanting to talk about
it and all my homeboys wouldn't want to

488
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:21,820
wear it because everybody else did.

489
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:25,340
A lot of people collect them, you know,
like if, say like, you know, like these,

490
00:34:25,500 --> 00:34:28,560
you know, there's 10 colors and people
buy every single color.

491
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:36,460
So with Stussy, even Union, James Jebbia
is bringing this energy of streetwear

492
00:34:36,460 --> 00:34:41,280
and the sensibility to New York and
creates this foundation that can sort of

493
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:42,280
build up.

494
00:34:44,420 --> 00:34:50,620
The time, you know, I'm at Union and I'm
skating and James is like, oh, what do

495
00:34:50,620 --> 00:34:51,940
you think about opening a skateboard
shop?

496
00:34:52,500 --> 00:34:54,600
And I'm like, well, yeah.

497
00:34:57,190 --> 00:35:00,110
But he's like, let's make it a boutique
skate shop.

498
00:35:00,430 --> 00:35:05,830
It'd be a skate shop, yeah. But we have
the finest and the flyest shit.

499
00:35:07,510 --> 00:35:09,550
So, looking for locations.

500
00:35:10,050 --> 00:35:11,630
We're trying to figure out names.

501
00:35:12,530 --> 00:35:15,310
And this one name just kept popping up.

502
00:35:17,530 --> 00:35:18,530
Supreme.

503
00:35:19,150 --> 00:35:20,150
Supreme.

504
00:35:20,750 --> 00:35:21,750
Supreme.

505
00:35:23,770 --> 00:35:25,050
It's a very...

506
00:35:25,530 --> 00:35:26,530
Strong and powerful.

507
00:35:27,870 --> 00:35:34,050
The name of the business as Supreme, you
know, let's do the best possible, most

508
00:35:34,050 --> 00:35:36,270
uncompromising version of this thing.

509
00:35:36,490 --> 00:35:42,670
It was bold, it was big, and it was
ambiguous.

510
00:35:43,750 --> 00:35:49,990
A name that somebody could relate
themselves to, you know what I mean, and

511
00:35:49,990 --> 00:35:52,050
of like big themselves up for Supreme.

512
00:35:54,660 --> 00:35:58,400
The location, downtown Lafayette Street.

513
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:03,520
When we went to Lafayette, I was like, I
like the space.

514
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,140
People could skate. Pretty much an empty
street.

515
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:07,440
It was a hair salon.

516
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:09,100
It's a furniture store.

517
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:10,600
It's a pop shop.

518
00:36:11,900 --> 00:36:15,300
People were like, what? Skateboard shop?
Where? What? Lafayette? What? Who?

519
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:16,360
What?

520
00:36:16,720 --> 00:36:20,360
Who would even open a skate shop in New
York? Every skate shop in New York's

521
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:22,180
failed. But Supreme.

522
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:25,200
was definitely not your normal skate
shop.

523
00:36:25,420 --> 00:36:29,600
Like, for me, I still, to this day, I
think about how, like, my first

524
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:30,880
introduction to Supreme was.

525
00:36:32,140 --> 00:36:34,420
I remember, like, going from Queens,
skating downtown.

526
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:36,760
I'd never been there before, Lafayette.

527
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:39,380
So I'm, like, looking around. I can't
see. I don't see anything.

528
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,980
I'm skating the wrong way. I ask the
lady. She's like, no, it's the other

529
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:45,120
I see this, like, store.

530
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:46,840
It looks kind of, like, nice and clean.

531
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:48,700
Brown paper over the windows.

532
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:50,320
And it says Supreme on it.

533
00:36:50,710 --> 00:36:52,270
I walked in, and I was just like, whoa.

534
00:36:54,150 --> 00:36:56,830
This is like a state -of -the -art,
modern skateboard shop.

535
00:36:57,690 --> 00:36:58,690
Sick.

536
00:36:59,050 --> 00:37:02,650
The concept was neat, clean, very
manicured.

537
00:37:03,190 --> 00:37:04,390
Is this a gallery?

538
00:37:04,630 --> 00:37:06,810
Are the skateboards the pieces of art?

539
00:37:07,110 --> 00:37:10,550
Because in your mind at this time, when
you think of a skate shop, you think of

540
00:37:10,550 --> 00:37:14,910
graffiti tags and skateboard bolts
screwed to the wall, a catastrophe.

541
00:37:15,650 --> 00:37:17,090
And then they went and opened Supreme.

542
00:37:20,110 --> 00:37:24,970
It looked like an empty space, but it
really wasn't because it was so neat in

543
00:37:24,970 --> 00:37:27,570
there. You know, nobody's ever thrown
something like that before.

544
00:37:29,590 --> 00:37:32,990
I feel like I was the first person when
they unlocked the door, I was there and

545
00:37:32,990 --> 00:37:34,910
holy crap, like, this is mind -blowing.

546
00:37:35,570 --> 00:37:38,110
It was a legitimate skate shop.

547
00:37:38,950 --> 00:37:41,570
It was kind of like skating while she
was junior high.

548
00:37:42,310 --> 00:37:43,430
But here's high school.

549
00:37:45,170 --> 00:37:48,510
I went there to get wheels and hang out
and do skate shop shit.

550
00:37:49,150 --> 00:37:53,050
Supreme was selling Zoo York, so you
didn't have to come to the warehouse if

551
00:37:53,050 --> 00:37:55,570
didn't want to. And everyone was skating
Zoo York boards.

552
00:37:55,790 --> 00:38:00,450
There was pride that like, oh, we have a
skateboard company. It's doing good.

553
00:38:00,690 --> 00:38:02,110
Now we got the skate shop.

554
00:38:03,990 --> 00:38:05,690
Supreme became that main hub.

555
00:38:06,170 --> 00:38:10,990
You know what I'm saying? That's where
we came to chill, organize, decide where

556
00:38:10,990 --> 00:38:11,990
we're going to go fucking skate.

557
00:38:14,830 --> 00:38:15,830
Yeah,

558
00:38:16,290 --> 00:38:17,290
kid.

559
00:38:18,380 --> 00:38:20,780
We would meet there and go skate
throughout the day.

560
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:24,100
We'd always wind up back there, you
know, use the bathroom, clean up.

561
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:28,200
Everyone would be there.

562
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:32,100
If you can't find anybody, nobody has
cell phones there. You would go to

563
00:38:32,100 --> 00:38:33,100
Supreme.

564
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:36,600
We used to always play, like, really
loud music.

565
00:38:38,900 --> 00:38:40,760
Super loud, like the windows were clean.

566
00:38:45,259 --> 00:38:46,980
Plus, like, you know, you had a
bathroom.

567
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:51,060
Like, you had a little changing room in
the back, you know. You had free

568
00:38:51,060 --> 00:38:53,140
clothes. You're like, this place is
great.

569
00:38:53,460 --> 00:38:58,440
We would go there and hang out all day,
skate in the front, and get taken care

570
00:38:58,440 --> 00:38:59,440
of.

571
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:07,880
You knew every skater. You know, every
skater. You met either at that shop or

572
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:10,240
maybe another spot, but for the most
part, everybody came through there. You

573
00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:10,939
knew everybody.

574
00:39:10,940 --> 00:39:11,940
Supreme was family.

575
00:39:12,230 --> 00:39:15,910
Everyone they hired and anyone that was
a part of it was a part of us.

576
00:39:16,990 --> 00:39:20,630
Yeah, Chappie had asked me from the
beginning to work there.

577
00:39:21,170 --> 00:39:25,530
Well, my friends are part of this, then
I'm going to be with it too.

578
00:39:25,790 --> 00:39:30,290
When I worked at Supreme with Al and
these guys, it was cool. Everyone had

579
00:39:30,290 --> 00:39:30,968
other's back.

580
00:39:30,970 --> 00:39:31,970
We could trust each other.

581
00:39:34,250 --> 00:39:37,350
And at that time, Lafayette was fucking
dead.

582
00:39:37,970 --> 00:39:39,630
There was nothing happening.

583
00:39:40,070 --> 00:39:41,070
Nothing.

584
00:39:42,210 --> 00:39:43,850
We're talking about Supreme 1994.

585
00:39:44,790 --> 00:39:46,110
There was no reputation.

586
00:39:46,350 --> 00:39:48,470
We were making no money then, man, you
know.

587
00:39:48,750 --> 00:39:52,730
So it gave us a lot of time to entertain
ourselves with storefront and the

588
00:39:52,730 --> 00:39:54,010
streets that come along with it.

589
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:39,980
James was a perfectionist. Like, this
could be neater and tighter, and just

590
00:40:39,980 --> 00:40:43,380
try to turn this way to display a bit.
It looks better.

591
00:40:43,620 --> 00:40:46,300
Everything was neatly tucked, like the T
-shirts.

592
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:48,340
Don't you unfold those T -shirts.

593
00:40:51,980 --> 00:40:57,240
I could still fold a shirt in my sleep
just because how many fucking shirts I

594
00:40:57,240 --> 00:41:01,880
folded. That's really your only job. The
rest of it is all like, come on, you

595
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:02,960
have the best job in the world.

596
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:04,520
Yeah, it's retail.

597
00:41:05,740 --> 00:41:06,740
But it's not.

598
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:09,380
These guys would come to work drunk.

599
00:41:09,700 --> 00:41:10,900
I'd be like, go upstairs and sleep.

600
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,740
I don't think I was bloodshot. I think I
had blood coming out of my eyes.

601
00:41:14,980 --> 00:41:17,440
We'll take breaks. Like, who's going to
sleep first?

602
00:41:18,020 --> 00:41:19,020
I'm crying blood.

603
00:41:19,630 --> 00:41:23,690
And I'm speaking in Psalms. And he's
like, oh, my God, what's wrong with you?

604
00:41:23,730 --> 00:41:26,450
I'm like, you were there last night.
What's wrong? What do you mean?

605
00:41:28,010 --> 00:41:32,330
I can't stand the rain.

606
00:41:34,670 --> 00:41:37,630
He's like, just go to sleep. Just go to
sleep. Go in the back and go to bed.

607
00:41:41,950 --> 00:41:45,330
I don't know if James knew what was
really happening at the store.

608
00:41:47,240 --> 00:41:50,900
Beer bottles and people screaming and
yelling and cursing.

609
00:41:51,340 --> 00:41:54,000
And they're running a business on the
other side of the door.

610
00:41:57,940 --> 00:42:04,800
What is incredible about Supreme,

611
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:10,720
even from the earliest days, is how
menacingly New York it was.

612
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:12,660
You went into the store.

613
00:42:12,860 --> 00:42:15,500
You might not be able to find anyone who
could help you.

614
00:42:16,710 --> 00:42:18,470
We were frustrated that you were even
here.

615
00:42:19,470 --> 00:42:23,630
If you've never skated, if you don't
have a scab on your knee from falling,

616
00:42:23,730 --> 00:42:24,750
please don't come in here.

617
00:42:26,770 --> 00:42:29,590
This is for insiders and it's for people
who get it.

618
00:42:30,530 --> 00:42:33,110
Because it was like, this is our store.
You know, this is our shop.

619
00:42:40,330 --> 00:42:44,910
It wasn't like you could be, you know,
someone in from Long Island or

620
00:42:44,910 --> 00:42:49,070
Connecticut, Westchester, Jersey. You're
like, oh, this is nice. What do you do

621
00:42:49,070 --> 00:42:51,670
here? Those kids would be really abusive
to you.

622
00:42:52,770 --> 00:42:53,950
They were not polite.

623
00:42:54,950 --> 00:42:56,030
This is our rules.

624
00:42:57,270 --> 00:43:00,750
Like the store back then was our rules.
We don't like it. Fuck you. We don't

625
00:43:00,750 --> 00:43:02,610
care. We don't need your money here.

626
00:43:04,930 --> 00:43:06,850
Shutting people down just for being
annoying.

627
00:43:07,090 --> 00:43:08,370
You know, like, no, you can't buy
anything.

628
00:43:08,790 --> 00:43:09,970
No, leave, buy.

629
00:43:10,550 --> 00:43:14,070
Someone would probably get sued now if
you fucking try to do that. Oh, you

630
00:43:14,070 --> 00:43:15,070
tell me.

631
00:43:16,130 --> 00:43:18,150
Don't take the fucking shirt off the
shelf.

632
00:43:19,890 --> 00:43:20,890
I was an asshole.

633
00:43:21,470 --> 00:43:22,470
I was an asshole.

634
00:43:24,870 --> 00:43:27,930
James, he knew there was an attitude in
the shop and he liked it.

635
00:43:30,220 --> 00:43:33,780
We wanted this, like, fucking
dysfunctional, crazy kids from the

636
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:38,340
That whole attitude we all had is kind
of what made Supreme what it was.

637
00:43:40,100 --> 00:43:41,860
What's up, James?

638
00:43:44,300 --> 00:43:46,200
You know, James is a very private
person.

639
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:48,040
I knew the employees, I knew them.

640
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,800
But who was the mysterious person that
was enamored with skateboarding culture

641
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:53,220
at that point in time in New York City?

642
00:43:54,180 --> 00:43:56,760
I mean, I think that's, like, the
million -dollar question.

643
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:58,200
Is James Jebbia right?

644
00:43:59,150 --> 00:44:01,590
He probably doesn't like any of us
talking about him.

645
00:44:02,130 --> 00:44:06,870
It's funny with James because you don't
want to say anything to piss him off.

646
00:44:07,210 --> 00:44:08,450
That's the thing I'm holding back.

647
00:44:08,770 --> 00:44:10,190
Are you crazy, man?

648
00:44:10,710 --> 00:44:14,470
He's just like, literally, he is like
the Wizard of Oz, right?

649
00:44:15,830 --> 00:44:19,890
James Jebbia is a very mysterious
figure. And of course, that approach,

650
00:44:20,210 --> 00:44:23,850
especially in fashion, is always going
to make you more tantalizing.

651
00:44:24,110 --> 00:44:27,730
He likes his thing to be his thing on
his time.

652
00:44:28,410 --> 00:44:29,410
The evil genius.

653
00:44:31,730 --> 00:44:36,470
Now, James is fucking a great dude.
Super humble, smart.

654
00:44:36,910 --> 00:44:42,090
And even before Union, he worked at this
very cool downtown boutique called

655
00:44:42,090 --> 00:44:47,550
Parachute. So he obviously had some kind
of elitist retail experience.

656
00:44:48,630 --> 00:44:51,670
One of the more creative minds who are
understanding that there's something

657
00:44:51,670 --> 00:44:55,110
happening. Sort of seeing that there was
a community out there ready to put

658
00:44:55,110 --> 00:44:58,230
their blood, tears, whatever you want to
call it, on the streets. But can you

659
00:44:58,230 --> 00:45:01,230
now give them, like, merch that follows
their attitude?

660
00:45:03,290 --> 00:45:07,830
To create a skate shop was an early
exercise in branding.

661
00:45:08,030 --> 00:45:11,510
So you created a set of T -shirts,
things that went on boards.

662
00:45:12,050 --> 00:45:18,050
James had that vision. You know, he saw,
basically, from his deals with Stussy,

663
00:45:18,250 --> 00:45:21,870
he saw what he needed around him, what
he needed to use.

664
00:45:22,430 --> 00:45:24,990
He knew who needed to wear these T
-shirts.

665
00:45:25,590 --> 00:45:29,310
He knew the garments and the garment. I
mean, I never seen James ride a

666
00:45:29,310 --> 00:45:33,850
skateboard. He never skateboarded with
us. He wanted us to wear his shit.

667
00:45:36,250 --> 00:45:37,430
He's like, these kids are cool.

668
00:45:37,630 --> 00:45:40,550
I want to make clothing for these cool
kids, and I want them to wear it.

669
00:45:41,090 --> 00:45:42,290
I know that for a fact.

670
00:45:47,950 --> 00:45:51,570
James was very smart to fill out the
culture around skating.

671
00:45:52,879 --> 00:45:57,140
Sensing who the kids were, who were the
ones to put up, the ones to represent.

672
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:00,880
When we were all skating at Astro, and I
was told this about me, that James

673
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,380
Jebby used to sit in the diner across
the street and watch me skate.

674
00:46:03,780 --> 00:46:06,740
He liked the way I dressed and all this
shit, and that's kind of like where they

675
00:46:06,740 --> 00:46:07,860
went with trying to bring the brand.

676
00:46:12,240 --> 00:46:12,600
People's

677
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:19,740
attitudes,

678
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:22,280
people are already attracted to, you
know what I mean?

679
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:26,300
But James does his research as well, and
he would see these skaters and go, oh,

680
00:46:26,300 --> 00:46:28,520
yeah, so what about this guy, and what
about that guy?

681
00:46:30,260 --> 00:46:36,500
A lot of us in New York, we already had
that in us, war things that other people

682
00:46:36,500 --> 00:46:38,460
wouldn't wear when they were skating,
you know?

683
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:45,940
Don't get it twisted, like, we didn't
grow up like skaters, not me.

684
00:46:48,260 --> 00:46:51,100
We used to dress in, like, baggy clothes
like kids from the hood.

685
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:58,020
So James Jebbia is looking at how these
skateboarders are wearing their clothes

686
00:46:58,020 --> 00:47:02,780
and finding that really compelling. You
can see that so clearly in the kinds of

687
00:47:02,780 --> 00:47:06,560
young men who are on the Supreme
skateboarding team.

688
00:47:07,140 --> 00:47:07,780
The

689
00:47:07,780 --> 00:47:14,640
original

690
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:21,140
Supreme team, like the inaugural team,
was Ryan Hickey, Justin Pierce,

691
00:47:21,820 --> 00:47:22,820
Mike Hernandez.

692
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:26,160
Giovanni Estevez, Jones, Keefe, and
myself.

693
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:30,360
That's the original squad right there.

694
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:32,340
That was my routine, Clay.

695
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:33,840
Back.

696
00:47:44,430 --> 00:47:49,190
And they're a group of soulful kids who
aren't going to win X Games. You know,

697
00:47:49,230 --> 00:47:51,370
they're not going to medal at this
stupid event.

698
00:47:51,590 --> 00:47:53,370
But they got style, personality.

699
00:47:54,610 --> 00:47:57,350
They did an ad with us, shot in the
basement of Supreme.

700
00:47:57,690 --> 00:47:59,830
We're like, you know, two little lambs,
and we're drinking.

701
00:48:00,330 --> 00:48:04,090
And it was like an homage to, at the
time, the Calvin Klein ads. There were

702
00:48:04,090 --> 00:48:06,530
these black and white ads. It was very
similar to that.

703
00:48:07,090 --> 00:48:10,730
There is an authenticity to it, and it
doesn't feel like anything's being,

704
00:48:10,730 --> 00:48:12,130
pofered. It's more like...

705
00:48:12,620 --> 00:48:16,140
How can we actually bring the streets
into the mainstream?

706
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:21,660
And at the same time, they're trying to
get their message across.

707
00:48:21,860 --> 00:48:26,760
The final nail in the coffin, the key,
the thing that made this all work was

708
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:31,640
into this world sort of stumbled Harmony
Corrine and Larry Clark.

709
00:48:32,260 --> 00:48:35,440
Harmony got a film script bought from
him.

710
00:48:35,870 --> 00:48:40,390
So now he's telling all his friends that
he's been writing about observing for

711
00:48:40,390 --> 00:48:45,870
the past year or two. So now kids, this
movie, and Hollywood and other things

712
00:48:45,870 --> 00:48:46,870
are coming into play.

713
00:48:47,670 --> 00:48:51,850
You know, it's called Shop Up, and
they're like, yo, we're making a movie,

714
00:48:51,850 --> 00:48:54,870
Justin Pierce. We're making a movie in
Harold. Yeah, we're making a movie

715
00:48:54,870 --> 00:48:55,870
Kids.

716
00:48:56,430 --> 00:49:00,930
Justin, I knew from the beginning he
wanted to be an actor. I knew that. He

717
00:49:00,930 --> 00:49:02,510
in the drama club in fucking high
school.

718
00:49:02,830 --> 00:49:03,830
What you want to do now?

719
00:49:14,740 --> 00:49:21,220
We didn't really know the whole
storyline of the movie, but they made

720
00:49:21,220 --> 00:49:23,000
in the park and they brought all of us
in it.

721
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:26,000
It was like a regular day at Washington
Square Park where a lot of friends were

722
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:27,540
hanging out, but they were filming us.

723
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:31,600
Casper, our friend Justin Pierce, you
know, one of the original Supreme guys,

724
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:35,440
was skateboarding and bumped into
someone by accident, and then the guy

725
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:37,440
really mad, and everyone taxed the guy.

726
00:49:38,620 --> 00:49:43,140
Showing it how it was, really, you know,
there was no acting, no real makeup.

727
00:49:43,220 --> 00:49:45,480
They were all being themselves, pretty
much.

728
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:51,280
Kids was based on the things that we
used to do when we were younger, and as

729
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:54,520
young kid, you know, you're just living
wild, you're living just reckless.

730
00:49:56,970 --> 00:49:58,050
I was supposed to play myself.

731
00:50:00,190 --> 00:50:04,790
But when I was going to pick up the
script, I ended up stopping first and

732
00:50:04,790 --> 00:50:08,810
into a store that sells gear, and I
ended up doing something stupid, and I

733
00:50:08,810 --> 00:50:11,450
up getting locked up, and I couldn't put
it that way.

734
00:50:15,310 --> 00:50:21,030
Sad to say, I was already smoking weed
before that movie.

735
00:50:23,050 --> 00:50:27,590
So it was no pressure, nothing when we
did that. It was just us being us.

736
00:50:27,910 --> 00:50:31,790
I didn't think nothing of it. After we
did this movie, I just thought, cool,

737
00:50:31,850 --> 00:50:33,490
I'll go back to skiing and doing that.

738
00:50:33,910 --> 00:50:38,250
The Movie Kids has become a bona fide
hit, the critically acclaimed new film.

739
00:50:38,330 --> 00:50:39,950
Critics love it, so do audiences.

740
00:50:40,290 --> 00:50:44,430
Ever since this film played earlier this
year at the Sundance and Cannes Film

741
00:50:44,430 --> 00:50:48,110
Festivals, it's been one of the hottest
topics of conversation in the film

742
00:50:48,110 --> 00:50:53,360
industry. Kids was a culture shock movie
of the time. It was showing real life.

743
00:50:53,580 --> 00:50:56,680
I mean, they had real people that really
lived this way.

744
00:50:56,880 --> 00:50:58,520
Sex, drinking, drugs.

745
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:02,760
It's a deeply shocking and disturbing
film, which feels absolutely authentic.

746
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:06,720
The new film, Kids, poses shocking
circumstances for today's youth. It's

747
00:51:06,720 --> 00:51:08,420
disturbing. Is it bad for kids?

748
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:10,720
Is it bad for kids to see?

749
00:51:11,500 --> 00:51:15,040
No, because it's the truth and it's what
a lot of kids are doing.

750
00:51:15,260 --> 00:51:18,300
I saw Kids in the theater when I was in
college.

751
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:20,800
We thought it was shocking and gnarly.

752
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:26,580
This was like a loss of innocence in
skateboarding. Like, whew, man, it's

753
00:51:26,580 --> 00:51:28,400
getting raw out there.

754
00:51:32,340 --> 00:51:33,340
Kids,

755
00:51:36,260 --> 00:51:39,440
that was the changing of the guard, the
moment for everybody.

756
00:51:46,060 --> 00:51:48,620
A lot of people would compare Justin to
Matt Dillon.

757
00:51:49,020 --> 00:51:51,960
Justin had that talent and ability.

758
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:57,860
Harold loved the attention. Harold loved
it. Any chance he got to talk about it,

759
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:01,600
any chance, any girl that came up, you
seen kids? You seen kids?

760
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:07,100
Kids just took us to a global platform.

761
00:52:07,500 --> 00:52:11,620
It really did. It put skateboarding on
the map. It put our crew on the map.

762
00:52:11,870 --> 00:52:14,170
After that, people started recognizing
Supreme.

763
00:52:14,550 --> 00:52:18,670
If there was an audition or casting,
everybody, those castings would go to

764
00:52:18,670 --> 00:52:21,390
Supreme. They know where to get the cool
skaters.

765
00:52:21,670 --> 00:52:23,310
You know, we was getting lit.

766
00:52:23,770 --> 00:52:25,390
People were starting to pick up.

767
00:52:29,190 --> 00:52:32,050
They started to see Supreme stickers.

768
00:52:32,770 --> 00:52:33,930
James Giver stickers.

769
00:52:34,410 --> 00:52:36,290
Packs of Supreme box level stickers.

770
00:52:37,030 --> 00:52:38,030
Everywhere I went.

771
00:52:40,980 --> 00:52:42,700
People were looking and seeing him.

772
00:52:43,240 --> 00:52:46,220
You see that red sticker with a white,
you're like, oh shit, what is that?

773
00:52:46,420 --> 00:52:47,940
You see it here, oh shit, I've seen that
before.

774
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:52,420
It became a set of iconography.

775
00:52:53,100 --> 00:52:55,280
This kind of urban hieroglyphics.

776
00:52:56,380 --> 00:52:58,380
At first people would be like, what's
Supreme?

777
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:00,860
And we'd be like, oh, a skate shop, a
Lafayette.

778
00:53:02,300 --> 00:53:05,580
And then it was kids pointing at it, oh,
Supreme, Supreme.

779
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:09,840
Supreme was gaining a lot of popularity.

780
00:53:10,180 --> 00:53:13,580
People wanted to be associated with it,
so they had to be associated with us.

781
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:19,280
You were like a celebrity if you were a
part of the Supreme crew back then.

782
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:23,980
It could allow me to go to a club. It
could allow me to walk up in an area

783
00:53:23,980 --> 00:53:27,020
I normally wouldn't be able to go to
because I have these guys around me.

784
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:31,340
Wait, you're letting skateboarders in in
front of dudes that have thousands of

785
00:53:31,340 --> 00:53:33,320
dollars to spend on bottles for models?

786
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:35,680
And we're getting into every party.

787
00:53:36,330 --> 00:53:41,070
If you didn't give free drinks to 20 of
us at a club where half of us aren't

788
00:53:41,070 --> 00:53:44,630
even old enough to get into, then you
can't come in the store and you can't be

789
00:53:44,630 --> 00:53:45,630
cool.

790
00:53:46,370 --> 00:53:47,710
Unfortunately, that's the truth.

791
00:53:48,950 --> 00:53:52,210
It was noticeable. If you were in New
York in the mid -90s, you knew, like,

792
00:53:52,230 --> 00:53:53,230
those are the Supreme guys.

793
00:53:53,830 --> 00:53:56,490
All wearing the same sweatshirt with the
box logo.

794
00:53:56,710 --> 00:53:58,070
Box logo. With the box logo.

795
00:53:58,930 --> 00:54:00,430
That's Supreme font.

796
00:54:00,830 --> 00:54:01,830
It's not original.

797
00:54:02,030 --> 00:54:03,570
It came from somewhere else.

798
00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:10,600
What I think is really interesting about
the box logo is that it is itself an

799
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:13,940
appropriation inspired by the artist
Barbara Kruger.

800
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:20,580
Same typeface and that style with the
red sort of backing behind it and saying

801
00:54:20,580 --> 00:54:23,560
something provocative and strong.

802
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:30,540
She's got the kind of rhetorical
fierceness that really fits Supreme,

803
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:33,140
this language of coercion.

804
00:54:33,530 --> 00:54:38,310
I shop, therefore I am. A comment on our
materialistic society.

805
00:54:38,630 --> 00:54:43,450
If I don't have the cool new sneakers,
if I can't afford those things, am I

806
00:54:43,450 --> 00:54:44,450
cool?

807
00:54:46,610 --> 00:54:52,410
I don't think that another shitty logo
would have the same effect as it did.

808
00:54:52,710 --> 00:54:57,350
People have a real connection to that
box logo. Those were pretty instantly

809
00:54:57,350 --> 00:54:58,350
collectible.

810
00:54:59,570 --> 00:55:02,810
Our clientele back then was 80 %
Japanese.

811
00:55:03,480 --> 00:55:06,220
And they just loved the street culture.
They loved Supreme. They loved

812
00:55:06,220 --> 00:55:07,240
everything that we were doing.

813
00:55:10,140 --> 00:55:17,020
I think there was a perfect storm of
Supreme being

814
00:55:17,020 --> 00:55:21,700
in the right place at the right time
with a Japanese culture, wanting to

815
00:55:21,700 --> 00:55:23,960
on something real.

816
00:55:27,720 --> 00:55:30,780
I remember going to Japan and some
gentleman, right after I got done

817
00:55:30,780 --> 00:55:34,080
skateboarding, literally bought the
shirt right off my back.

818
00:55:34,740 --> 00:55:40,960
$1 ,000 for Supreme box. He was like,
here you go.

819
00:55:41,620 --> 00:55:42,620
Thank you.

820
00:55:45,940 --> 00:55:49,400
Supreme had a thing. It was limited on
what you could buy. Like a box of old t

821
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:50,400
-shirt, you could buy one.

822
00:55:50,700 --> 00:55:52,500
I don't care how much money. It's just
what it was.

823
00:55:53,280 --> 00:55:57,160
And there's only this many of this and
the limited of that.

824
00:55:57,640 --> 00:56:02,700
So there were certain ways that business
was done at Supreme that needed a

825
00:56:02,700 --> 00:56:09,660
certain kind of salesperson, a certain

826
00:56:09,660 --> 00:56:15,380
kind of tact, if you will, to deal with
customers that were coming in.

827
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:17,360
These are buyers?

828
00:56:18,380 --> 00:56:20,240
Some of them are buyers, yeah.

829
00:56:20,700 --> 00:56:21,740
They were called buyers.

830
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:26,840
They wanted to buy Supreme Coals in
bulk, bring them back to Japan and

831
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:27,840
them.

832
00:56:29,220 --> 00:56:31,260
So we would be straight up.

833
00:56:31,820 --> 00:56:32,820
Oh, you want this?

834
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:35,840
Yeah, it costs $28, but you want another
one?

835
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:37,640
This is how it's going to work.

836
00:56:38,340 --> 00:56:40,340
You got to pay cash on top of the
retail.

837
00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:51,460
At the time, the going rate was 30%. We
had guys that would come in and spend

838
00:56:51,460 --> 00:56:56,520
$10 ,000 on clothes, and they'd give us
30%. That's when I started to realize,

839
00:56:56,680 --> 00:56:58,320
like, this is big money and this is
shit.

840
00:57:00,529 --> 00:57:02,910
You take care of us, and we take care of
you.

841
00:57:03,430 --> 00:57:07,810
Go get us three bottles of champagne, a
bottle of alcohol, go shopping.

842
00:57:08,210 --> 00:57:11,910
I mean, we just give them kind of like
ridiculous laundry lists of things for

843
00:57:11,910 --> 00:57:13,490
them to go and get.

844
00:57:24,399 --> 00:57:27,380
I'd have the guy come in the morning,
leave me his credit card. He'd give me

845
00:57:27,380 --> 00:57:30,120
order. I'd pull it. And all through the
day, I'd bring up three t -shirts with

846
00:57:30,120 --> 00:57:32,800
two t -shirts with a couple pairs of
sneakers.

847
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:36,540
The boss couldn't tell. He would see the
shit getting sold, but not in bulk.

848
00:57:43,220 --> 00:57:44,220
And that was it.

849
00:57:44,700 --> 00:57:47,860
So we just made sure that everyone was
taken care of at the end of the day.

850
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:52,200
Like, no one left sad. Let's put it that
way. We all walked out very happy.

851
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:56,960
We're making fucking thousands of
dollars a week each, and we're not

852
00:58:00,100 --> 00:58:02,100
These are the first resellers,
absolutely.

853
00:58:02,940 --> 00:58:09,100
These are the people that are making
money off brands that's growing,

854
00:58:09,460 --> 00:58:13,240
and becoming an iconic brand in the
making.

855
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:16,580
And this was the price.

856
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:18,260
It's the price for everything.

857
00:58:33,049 --> 00:58:35,490
Oh, yeah, the back room is very
infamous.

858
00:58:35,770 --> 00:58:37,890
It's VIP only, you know?

859
00:58:39,810 --> 00:58:43,890
Man, it was like T .G. Chong lived back
there.

860
00:58:48,410 --> 00:58:51,510
Basically, it was the Vatican. Like, if
you didn't have access, you couldn't

861
00:58:51,510 --> 00:58:53,790
come back. And there was a very small
amount of people that literally couldn't

862
00:58:53,790 --> 00:58:55,410
go behind the counter and go into the
fucking back.

863
00:58:55,710 --> 00:58:59,990
We treated like Studio 54, like, yeah,
no, no, you, no.

864
00:59:02,550 --> 00:59:06,950
So after, you know, a long day of
skating, we'll go by Supreme.

865
00:59:07,330 --> 00:59:11,970
It's already closed. You knock, you see
if anyone's in there, and roll the dice

866
00:59:11,970 --> 00:59:12,970
for a little bit.

867
00:59:13,830 --> 00:59:16,770
I won $550 back there. I love that.

868
00:59:26,750 --> 00:59:29,510
It was basically like a pre -party
before the party.

869
00:59:30,210 --> 00:59:34,390
A lot of it was basically snapping on
each other, making fun of each other.

870
00:59:36,670 --> 00:59:38,390
You know,

871
00:59:39,910 --> 00:59:40,910
a lot of tough love.

872
00:59:41,090 --> 00:59:44,570
You definitely have to deal with getting
roughed up.

873
00:59:45,450 --> 00:59:49,910
They were quick to tell me, Dill, your
shirt's way too tight. What are you

874
00:59:49,910 --> 00:59:52,970
doing? What are you doing with those
pants? Those shoes are crazy.

875
01:00:02,359 --> 01:00:04,440
It was a safe haven for us.

876
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:06,640
We had love there.

877
01:00:07,260 --> 01:00:12,200
We had love at Supreme, love that we
didn't even have in our own homes that a

878
01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:13,200
lot of us, you know.

879
01:00:17,180 --> 01:00:20,840
Unfortunately, a lot of the stories I
hear from my fellow skateboarders

880
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:24,580
up, you know, they came from, like,
broken homes, right? They had massive

881
01:00:24,580 --> 01:00:25,600
in their homes.

882
01:00:26,420 --> 01:00:27,720
And I was one of those kids.

883
01:00:31,210 --> 01:00:34,670
You know, my mother passed away when I
was six years old. My father was not

884
01:00:34,670 --> 01:00:35,670
around.

885
01:00:35,890 --> 01:00:37,290
I'm the first generation American.

886
01:00:37,570 --> 01:00:39,690
My Albanian grandparents raised us.

887
01:00:41,590 --> 01:00:44,910
Imagine being like 10 years old and your
mother being like, Daddy's coming home,

888
01:00:44,990 --> 01:00:45,990
go upstairs.

889
01:00:47,530 --> 01:00:50,990
You never knew who you were walking into
when you came home. When you open that

890
01:00:50,990 --> 01:00:54,130
fucking door, it could be, you know,
cool, or it could be like you're walking

891
01:00:54,130 --> 01:00:55,390
into like a straight brawl.

892
01:01:00,580 --> 01:01:04,380
You know, not boo -hoo me, but, like, my
folks broke up when I was super young,

893
01:01:04,520 --> 01:01:07,460
and I never saw my parents because they
were always out doing their own thing.

894
01:01:07,500 --> 01:01:09,320
They were like, oh, the kids got it.
They got keys. They're fine.

895
01:01:09,720 --> 01:01:11,200
Holy shit, that's fucking scary.

896
01:01:12,340 --> 01:01:15,880
And thankfully, I found skateboarding,
and skateboarding introduced me to

897
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:16,698
everybody else.

898
01:01:16,700 --> 01:01:18,800
We fucking had the same exact story.

899
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:25,580
Mike Hernandez's parents died when he
was a kid. He was being raised by his

900
01:01:25,580 --> 01:01:27,420
grandmother in Section 8 housing in the
Bronx.

901
01:01:32,470 --> 01:01:34,190
Justin didn't ever have to go home.

902
01:01:36,870 --> 01:01:39,990
We could stay out for three nights and
no cops coming for you.

903
01:01:40,270 --> 01:01:43,150
Like, they'd just be like, oh, cool,
they're not bothering me at home.

904
01:01:45,170 --> 01:01:46,670
Harold didn't have a mom or dad.

905
01:01:48,290 --> 01:01:51,030
He had a grandmother who died when he
was 16 years old.

906
01:01:52,550 --> 01:01:55,790
We knew that about Harold, and, you
know, everybody knew I didn't have a

907
01:01:55,870 --> 01:01:58,650
but it's not like we all spoke about it.
We just knew that...

908
01:01:59,630 --> 01:02:03,950
His skating comes from a place that's
real, and my skating comes from a place

909
01:02:03,950 --> 01:02:04,950
that's real.

910
01:02:05,570 --> 01:02:06,910
It was just a release.

911
01:02:07,330 --> 01:02:11,330
You can go skate the whole city all day
and just forget about everything.

912
01:02:13,790 --> 01:02:16,750
This moving, like I'm moving, I'm moving
fast.

913
01:02:17,210 --> 01:02:21,510
I was in control of my skateboard, where
everything around me, like I had no

914
01:02:21,510 --> 01:02:23,950
control. And it just made me happy.

915
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:29,440
Skateboarding was the second family.

916
01:02:29,740 --> 01:02:33,740
Not saying my mother and my siblings
didn't give me love, but it was just a

917
01:02:33,740 --> 01:02:36,820
different kind of love that you had with
the skaters that grew up with each

918
01:02:36,820 --> 01:02:37,820
other.

919
01:02:43,160 --> 01:02:48,240
This made me love them, and they love
me.

920
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:50,960
And so, you know, it's beautiful.

921
01:02:52,560 --> 01:02:56,500
But a lot of us from that type of
upbringing have a lot of emotional

922
01:02:56,500 --> 01:03:01,780
that we kind of don't, we hold it in,
but it's still fucking there.

923
01:03:02,500 --> 01:03:06,340
And I think with Justin, it got to a
point where it was like that baggage got

924
01:03:06,340 --> 01:03:07,340
too heavy.

925
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:15,560
I can't

926
01:03:15,560 --> 01:03:21,260
speak for every individual from our
clique and what they were going through.

927
01:03:21,680 --> 01:03:26,000
I can only speak for me being a
byproduct of what I witnessed growing up

928
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:27,580
skateboarding and who my parents were.

929
01:03:28,220 --> 01:03:29,220
You know what I mean?

930
01:03:30,500 --> 01:03:36,140
But I know that there was issues at home
with his real father. He didn't know

931
01:03:36,140 --> 01:03:39,720
who his real father was. And his
stepfather, he didn't fuck with him.

932
01:03:39,980 --> 01:03:40,980
You know what I'm saying?

933
01:03:42,060 --> 01:03:46,140
The person you saw in the film, kids,
that was Justin. It's that Justin had a

934
01:03:46,140 --> 01:03:47,720
lot more emotion and...

935
01:03:49,210 --> 01:03:51,710
He was a super deep person, dark, very
dark.

936
01:03:52,130 --> 01:03:53,330
Justin's a whole nother story.

937
01:03:53,850 --> 01:03:57,050
You know, he was making it. He was doing
good. He had everything going in the

938
01:03:57,050 --> 01:03:58,050
right direction.

939
01:03:58,490 --> 01:04:01,730
He moved to L .A., got the part next
Friday.

940
01:04:02,170 --> 01:04:05,210
We fucking were just like over the moon
about that for him.

941
01:04:06,310 --> 01:04:11,050
People in Hollywood or whatever, films,
saw a lot in Justin.

942
01:04:13,150 --> 01:04:15,750
Justin's a passionate dude. He wanted to
try to make it.

943
01:04:16,470 --> 01:04:17,710
Then it's just like...

944
01:04:19,690 --> 01:04:20,690
You get a phone call.

945
01:04:27,370 --> 01:04:33,950
And it just, nothing up

946
01:04:33,950 --> 01:04:40,210
to that point in my life, it was just
like, you know what I mean? Like, this

947
01:04:40,330 --> 01:04:44,750
first time you ever have, like, a loss,
especially a loss, like, as close as

948
01:04:44,750 --> 01:04:48,910
that, it's like, it's just tough. You
know, it's tough for everyone.

949
01:05:00,019 --> 01:05:06,940
As much as I love Justin, I'm mad at
Justin for, you know, taking himself

950
01:05:06,940 --> 01:05:08,400
out because he could have been here
right now.

951
01:05:11,200 --> 01:05:17,980
When that

952
01:05:17,980 --> 01:05:18,980
kid died,

953
01:05:21,580 --> 01:05:28,540
I've never felt that much pain in my
life because, like, I had such a

954
01:05:28,540 --> 01:05:29,540
close bond with him.

955
01:05:30,700 --> 01:05:33,880
Supreme closed that day, and it was a
day of mourning.

956
01:05:34,540 --> 01:05:38,580
Justin was the first of our really good
friends to pass.

957
01:05:39,300 --> 01:05:43,120
You know, and there were too many others
after that.

958
01:05:43,520 --> 01:05:46,840
And they were all devastating.

959
01:05:50,000 --> 01:05:52,440
Harold was devastating for more than his
friends.

960
01:05:53,060 --> 01:05:55,080
Harold was devastating for the world.

961
01:05:56,480 --> 01:06:00,260
Because Harold was bigger than himself.

962
01:06:01,540 --> 01:06:03,800
I mean, how could you deny that
personality?

963
01:06:07,620 --> 01:06:11,500
When I heard Harold had a heart attack,
I broke down like a baby.

964
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:15,700
And my feelings haven't been that hurt
since my mother died.

965
01:06:16,480 --> 01:06:19,280
So it kind of, you know, it brings me
back to that.

966
01:06:19,520 --> 01:06:20,520
That hurt.

967
01:06:26,540 --> 01:06:32,580
You know,

968
01:06:36,740 --> 01:06:39,680
to me, skateboarders are like, they're
like superheroes to me.

969
01:06:40,440 --> 01:06:46,300
So when someone dies that's a
skateboarder, more so even a

970
01:06:46,300 --> 01:06:48,080
ran with, that's like a shock.

971
01:06:48,670 --> 01:06:51,950
Put me in a place of humility, you know?

972
01:06:53,470 --> 01:06:54,470
Yeah.

973
01:06:55,110 --> 01:06:58,170
Thinking about skateboarding, it's like,
you know, what do we do?

974
01:06:59,230 --> 01:07:03,250
We eat concrete all day, every day, and
that's what we do.

975
01:07:04,590 --> 01:07:06,010
We seem unbreakable.

976
01:07:08,510 --> 01:07:13,070
That mentality of being unbreakable
carries along with life and death. It's

977
01:07:13,070 --> 01:07:15,590
like, there's no way this person's going
to die.

978
01:07:17,360 --> 01:07:18,600
And then shit happens.

979
01:07:30,460 --> 01:07:35,940
I had, like,

980
01:07:35,940 --> 01:07:41,300
screaming in the building. I lived in a
tenement building in Lower East Side.

981
01:07:41,640 --> 01:07:43,520
I went up to the roof. We had access to
the roof.

982
01:07:45,420 --> 01:07:48,260
I looked at the World Trade Center, and
I see this huge gaping hole in it, and

983
01:07:48,260 --> 01:07:49,260
it was just fire and smoke.

984
01:07:50,740 --> 01:07:53,560
And then we all know what happens.

985
01:07:57,900 --> 01:08:00,980
You know, everyone says New Yorkers are
tough, but that was just, that came out

986
01:08:00,980 --> 01:08:04,460
of nowhere. So that was really, it
blind, literally blindsided everyone.

987
01:08:05,660 --> 01:08:09,360
But the skateboard community checked in
with everyone. Like, we would call the

988
01:08:09,360 --> 01:08:11,120
shop up and see how everyone was doing.

989
01:08:11,860 --> 01:08:12,860
Was anyone affected?

990
01:08:14,640 --> 01:08:17,540
We found out that everyone was fine, and
unfortunately all these people, you

991
01:08:17,540 --> 01:08:19,140
know, passed away, firefighters, police.

992
01:08:22,720 --> 01:08:24,560
That was a crazy dose of reality, you
know.

993
01:08:25,819 --> 01:08:29,220
Nothing's promised, and like that, we
could be gone, you know.

994
01:08:32,720 --> 01:08:37,680
The day after, the streets were
completely abandoned. There was nobody

995
01:08:37,680 --> 01:08:41,399
except for emergency vehicles and then
us.

996
01:08:43,180 --> 01:08:45,420
Us trying to make sense of what had just
happened.

997
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:51,800
We're all cooped up. No one knew what to
do. We needed to release some stress,

998
01:08:51,960 --> 01:08:54,200
block everything out, and just go skate.

999
01:08:58,960 --> 01:09:00,359
It was just a beacon.

1000
01:09:01,540 --> 01:09:04,340
You know, you use those buildings to
figure out where you're at in a city.

1001
01:09:10,029 --> 01:09:14,529
I was devastated. It was where I cut my
teeth. It was my childhood skate park.

1002
01:09:16,689 --> 01:09:18,870
It really was. It's where I learned to
skate.

1003
01:09:21,810 --> 01:09:26,729
I could, like, close my eyes and
literally draw a map of the footprint of

1004
01:09:26,729 --> 01:09:27,729
World Trade Center.

1005
01:09:27,870 --> 01:09:29,210
We used to go there every day.

1006
01:09:33,050 --> 01:09:37,529
And I was very fortunate to get the
shot, and, yeah, it's one of my

1007
01:09:40,750 --> 01:09:43,310
I didn't go down there for a while.

1008
01:09:44,010 --> 01:09:45,050
So much loss.

1009
01:09:46,649 --> 01:09:47,770
So much change.

1010
01:09:50,090 --> 01:09:54,130
Obviously, there's a horrible trauma
with a lot of denial within New York.

1011
01:09:54,710 --> 01:09:59,590
But one of the things New York does well
with is trauma to some degree.

1012
01:10:00,530 --> 01:10:02,130
It's good when it's humble.

1013
01:10:07,500 --> 01:10:11,900
There was a big shift between the night
before 9 -11 and then what life was like

1014
01:10:11,900 --> 01:10:13,480
in New York after that.

1015
01:10:16,100 --> 01:10:21,020
After 9 -11, all the people that were
part of the downtown scene sort of

1016
01:10:21,020 --> 01:10:25,280
tighter knit. I think everybody started
living in a creative way like it was

1017
01:10:25,280 --> 01:10:26,420
going to be their last.

1018
01:10:26,860 --> 01:10:29,880
Anything that you thought about, you
experimented with, you wanted to now do

1019
01:10:30,360 --> 01:10:33,520
This U kind of doesn't have a
separation.

1020
01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:38,640
The photo at Supreme, you've probably
seen it on the back side of the flyer.

1021
01:10:38,640 --> 01:10:42,380
me, it was definitely a time of
inspiration by what was happening around

1022
01:10:42,380 --> 01:10:45,920
who I was able to be in the same circles
with.

1023
01:10:47,160 --> 01:10:50,020
Supreme was part of that because it was
a hub.

1024
01:10:51,380 --> 01:10:56,020
Cool kids were hanging out. Skaters were
in front of the store. Loads of people

1025
01:10:56,020 --> 01:10:58,140
started coming by, and it gained
momentum.

1026
01:10:59,400 --> 01:11:04,360
There's this real affection for New York
that happens. And Supreme, in a way,

1027
01:11:04,420 --> 01:11:10,120
became this, I mean, I don't want to say
hometown hero, but almost in a way, you

1028
01:11:10,120 --> 01:11:15,460
know, that survivor attitude, that
relationship that skateboarders have to

1029
01:11:15,460 --> 01:11:20,360
city. That attitude almost seems to
reflect the attitude that everyone here

1030
01:11:20,360 --> 01:11:21,360
at that time.

1031
01:11:23,400 --> 01:11:27,180
You know it was going to get popular and
big because it was getting popular and

1032
01:11:27,180 --> 01:11:29,560
big. Even way back when, slow and
steady.

1033
01:11:29,900 --> 01:11:31,200
Oh, we got a decal.

1034
01:11:32,020 --> 01:11:37,940
Decal. But it grew into this huge, you
know, mushroom cloud

1035
01:11:37,940 --> 01:11:39,160
explosion.

1036
01:11:40,540 --> 01:11:44,760
The explosion of Supreme came with the
Supreme Nike collaboration.

1037
01:11:46,800 --> 01:11:49,600
That's where it actually went worldwide.

1038
01:11:50,700 --> 01:11:53,080
We did the Supreme dunk with the
elephant print.

1039
01:11:53,440 --> 01:11:54,460
That was the shoot.

1040
01:11:55,440 --> 01:12:00,700
When the cement dunks came out, I
remember that day pretty clear.

1041
01:12:01,120 --> 01:12:02,380
A lot of people online.

1042
01:12:02,860 --> 01:12:06,160
And we made so much money over those
next several years, man. It was fucking

1043
01:12:06,160 --> 01:12:07,740
nuts because Supreme was blowing up.

1044
01:12:08,960 --> 01:12:14,880
We went from like taking breaks, sleep,
do whatever we wanted, to now we

1045
01:12:14,880 --> 01:12:15,880
couldn't even leave the store.

1046
01:12:17,610 --> 01:12:21,670
So you're seeing this happen, this
global phenomenon is happening on so

1047
01:12:21,670 --> 01:12:26,810
different levels, and we see the
beginnings of the sneakerhead, and then

1048
01:12:26,810 --> 01:12:29,610
spread to other areas of the fashion
industry.

1049
01:12:31,370 --> 01:12:35,510
One of the things that happened with
streetwear was a lot of money rushed in.

1050
01:12:36,309 --> 01:12:39,390
Ukraine started to be able to do collabs
with different brands.

1051
01:12:39,750 --> 01:12:43,370
You know, what these collaborations do
is they sort of bring two communities

1052
01:12:43,370 --> 01:12:47,330
together, which I think doubles up on
like the kind of energy that you can

1053
01:12:47,330 --> 01:12:51,110
create. I can't think of anyone who's
done it more prolifically and more

1054
01:12:51,110 --> 01:12:52,110
successfully.

1055
01:12:52,530 --> 01:12:55,370
The cross -marketing, it was brilliant.

1056
01:12:56,150 --> 01:12:58,530
But that was just half of it.

1057
01:12:58,770 --> 01:13:03,550
The other half is the way that they roll
it out.

1058
01:13:04,620 --> 01:13:07,100
You make it super exclusive.

1059
01:13:07,800 --> 01:13:09,680
How much is this? A thousand?

1060
01:13:10,020 --> 01:13:14,740
Yo, get the biggest in a black sweater,
get the white shirt and get the deck.

1061
01:13:14,940 --> 01:13:19,300
The limited way in which Supreme dropped
its product is something that was

1062
01:13:19,300 --> 01:13:20,760
really pioneered by Supreme.

1063
01:13:21,220 --> 01:13:25,480
No one else is doing these weekly drops
and like the quantities are very small.

1064
01:13:25,760 --> 01:13:30,240
But then that's also what started the
whole retail business because there's

1065
01:13:30,240 --> 01:13:32,640
like so many of these pieces in the
world.

1066
01:13:33,050 --> 01:13:37,150
And if you want something, then you got
to go and spend three times as much on

1067
01:13:37,150 --> 01:13:37,989
it.

1068
01:13:37,990 --> 01:13:41,830
I walked in today, I spent like $7 ,000.
Some of the stuff is collector's items,

1069
01:13:41,870 --> 01:13:45,350
so I'm going to keep that. A lot of
stuff is for high -end clients that I

1070
01:13:45,710 --> 01:13:47,110
I'll probably double or triple that.

1071
01:13:47,510 --> 01:13:52,790
I've gotten book bags and sell the book
bag for like $400, like for nothing. And

1072
01:13:52,790 --> 01:13:56,530
I get a few of them, you know what I
mean? So $800 in one day, $1 ,000.

1073
01:13:57,090 --> 01:14:00,890
Cool, thank you. We got a couple of
bags, a couple of boards, a couple of

1074
01:14:00,890 --> 01:14:01,890
logos.

1075
01:14:02,490 --> 01:14:04,490
It's a profitable week.

1076
01:14:05,030 --> 01:14:10,250
Once people figured out that they could
go and buy something for a certain price

1077
01:14:10,250 --> 01:14:15,830
and make any amount of money on it after
that. The clientele changed and became

1078
01:14:15,830 --> 01:14:17,450
such a giant retail thing.

1079
01:14:18,370 --> 01:14:20,330
That drove people crazy.

1080
01:14:20,830 --> 01:14:25,930
For a couple hundred dollars? For a
couple hundred dollars, bro?

1081
01:14:27,740 --> 01:14:30,560
We were doing, like, a sneaker drop,
like, on a Monday, and these fucking

1082
01:14:30,560 --> 01:14:34,680
would show up in lawn chairs Friday
night, be camping outside. It used to be

1083
01:14:34,680 --> 01:14:36,980
funny, because I used to drive by the
shop sometimes at, like, one or two in

1084
01:14:36,980 --> 01:14:39,960
morning, coming back, and I used to
fucking stop, be like, what the fuck,

1085
01:14:39,960 --> 01:14:42,060
I'd start making fun of them. So they
hated me.

1086
01:14:43,380 --> 01:14:49,740
They were fighting their own battle that
we had nothing to do with.

1087
01:14:51,760 --> 01:14:55,680
Like, we show up in the morning, we open
the store, whoever the fuck was first.

1088
01:14:56,620 --> 01:14:58,020
They might have been last night.

1089
01:14:58,840 --> 01:15:00,180
And I don't know how they got there.

1090
01:15:02,780 --> 01:15:05,640
And for me, when it got like that,
that's when I was kind of over it.

1091
01:15:07,760 --> 01:15:12,060
It was losing its thing, I thought. It's
like, it's underground, it's kind of,

1092
01:15:12,060 --> 01:15:13,060
it's becoming mainstream.

1093
01:15:15,620 --> 01:15:18,720
To the point where like, all right, I'm
making good money, but now I'm not happy

1094
01:15:18,720 --> 01:15:19,720
over here.

1095
01:15:20,240 --> 01:15:22,140
And that's why I stopped working at
Supreme.

1096
01:15:25,390 --> 01:15:27,190
I left Supreme in 2004.

1097
01:15:27,970 --> 01:15:29,350
I couldn't do it no more.

1098
01:15:29,850 --> 01:15:32,270
This whole retail mafia game.

1099
01:15:33,570 --> 01:15:35,310
It wasn't the same dynamic.

1100
01:15:35,750 --> 01:15:37,610
People just moving in different
directions.

1101
01:15:38,210 --> 01:15:44,850
But I was inspired by where I've been,
and I wanted to try to make my own mark

1102
01:15:44,850 --> 01:15:51,050
and emulate sort of it, but emulate what
I've learned, but do it in my own way.

1103
01:15:52,790 --> 01:15:57,590
Over time, I was able to build something
that was mine.

1104
01:15:58,950 --> 01:16:00,490
And that was DQM.

1105
01:16:08,330 --> 01:16:11,150
I phased out of my skateboarding career
at that point.

1106
01:16:11,830 --> 01:16:15,990
And I was considering what I want to do
with the rest of my life professionally.

1107
01:16:16,750 --> 01:16:17,750
You know what I mean?

1108
01:16:18,030 --> 01:16:19,710
Chose to become a firefighter.

1109
01:16:20,520 --> 01:16:22,620
And I took the test with Mike Hernandez.

1110
01:16:23,000 --> 01:16:25,640
I became a New York City firefighter in
2004.

1111
01:16:26,160 --> 01:16:28,820
And I worked in the Lower East Side in
Ladder 18.

1112
01:16:29,240 --> 01:16:32,060
I was skating in that neighborhood, and
now I'm a firefighter in that

1113
01:16:32,060 --> 01:16:35,700
neighborhood. It was just this weird,
like, full -circle thing that just kind

1114
01:16:35,700 --> 01:16:37,060
happened on its own.

1115
01:16:38,060 --> 01:16:42,080
There's a beauty in the simple
trajectory of being a pro skateboarder.

1116
01:16:42,320 --> 01:16:46,800
And now you've humbled yourself to a way
where you're like, now I serve my city.

1117
01:16:46,960 --> 01:16:48,200
I ran through my city.

1118
01:16:48,700 --> 01:16:49,820
Now I serve my city.

1119
01:16:52,010 --> 01:16:55,430
Everyone thinks that skateboarding is
this fountain of youth, but bills catch

1120
01:16:55,430 --> 01:16:58,650
to you, and all of a sudden, you're
going to have to actually become an

1121
01:16:59,770 --> 01:17:03,750
Thankfully, the brand's popularity has
created an opportunity for a lot of

1122
01:17:03,750 --> 01:17:07,470
people from the skate culture and from
the era to actually thrive, and me

1123
01:17:07,470 --> 01:17:09,390
working for Supreme happened
organically.

1124
01:17:14,710 --> 01:17:18,270
Could there ever be another Supreme? I
highly doubt it.

1125
01:17:18,650 --> 01:17:20,930
It's amazing what it became.

1126
01:17:21,430 --> 01:17:25,990
The menswear designer of the year is
Supreme.

1127
01:17:29,470 --> 01:17:31,470
I will sum it up like this.

1128
01:17:31,710 --> 01:17:37,330
There's no other brand that I know of
like Supreme that would come from a

1129
01:17:37,330 --> 01:17:41,590
store on Lafayette Street to grow this
big.

1130
01:17:42,430 --> 01:17:46,490
And they built this huge, in the end,
multi -billion dollar industry.

1131
01:17:49,930 --> 01:17:52,510
And they have a lot of power now.

1132
01:17:56,510 --> 01:17:59,370
But it had to rise from something.

1133
01:18:00,850 --> 01:18:05,690
And to me, that came from a level of
self -expression. The kids were

1134
01:18:05,690 --> 01:18:07,970
this whole evolution of style.

1135
01:18:09,650 --> 01:18:12,290
And they were skateboarding and they
were hanging out.

1136
01:18:12,570 --> 01:18:13,710
That was the glue.

1137
01:18:21,759 --> 01:18:25,400
It's just this beautiful thing that's
kind of organic that happened.

1138
01:18:25,600 --> 01:18:30,800
And it goes back to just the love we had
for skateboarding. And we show that

1139
01:18:30,800 --> 01:18:32,780
love to whatever we touched.

1140
01:18:52,980 --> 01:18:54,480
I love skateboarding.

1141
01:18:54,780 --> 01:18:57,080
I love the attitude. I love the energy.

1142
01:18:57,340 --> 01:19:01,600
I love everything about it. I love
seeing the youth coming up.

1143
01:19:02,460 --> 01:19:03,680
It means a lot to me.

1144
01:19:04,100 --> 01:19:05,680
So I still carry the torch.

1145
01:19:07,760 --> 01:19:10,680
We've left valuable marks on our city
culturally.

1146
01:19:11,240 --> 01:19:13,800
Good thing we had each other. Good thing
we had skateboarding.

1147
01:19:14,680 --> 01:19:17,140
I met friends that are still my friends.

1148
01:19:18,040 --> 01:19:19,380
Skateboarding gave me a family.

1149
01:19:20,140 --> 01:19:22,340
Definitely gave me a family, nine and a
half.

1150
01:19:22,840 --> 01:19:24,620
It's all about family and being close.

1151
01:19:25,240 --> 01:19:29,400
We were different, man, you know, out
here. The cultural, the friendships, the

1152
01:19:29,400 --> 01:19:32,220
people that we would become, the streets
made us.

1153
01:19:33,180 --> 01:19:37,740
It's very surreal being a firefighter
for the last 19 years, seeing the

1154
01:19:37,800 --> 01:19:40,360
the gentrification, skate parks being
everywhere.

1155
01:19:41,920 --> 01:19:44,820
It's cool to watch the city embrace it
and support it.

1156
01:19:46,350 --> 01:19:49,530
I just marvel at how many kids are
skateboarding.

1157
01:19:52,350 --> 01:19:56,730
Seeing skate parks and all this stuff in
New York City makes me feel good for

1158
01:19:56,730 --> 01:19:57,730
the younger.

1159
01:19:58,050 --> 01:20:01,950
But I'm from the raw, the hardcore -ness
of it, you know, the streets.

1160
01:20:02,910 --> 01:20:04,590
Oh, my God.

1161
01:20:06,030 --> 01:20:10,810
Ain't no other like us. Ain't no other
people going to do this like we did it.

1162
01:20:11,630 --> 01:20:13,270
That's what you call a hard day skating.

1163
01:20:14,510 --> 01:20:15,510
Fuck that.

1164
01:20:19,070 --> 01:20:23,930
Empire Empire Empire

1165
01:20:23,930 --> 01:20:29,170
Empire Empire

1166
01:20:29,170 --> 01:20:32,610
Empire Empire Empire Empire

1167
01:20:45,470 --> 01:20:47,510
Ah, yeah, Empire City.

1168
01:20:47,730 --> 01:20:52,910
Ah, yeah, Empire City. On the move, on
the move, to the toe, it's so gritty.

1169
01:20:53,610 --> 01:20:58,190
Empire City.

1170
01:20:58,490 --> 01:21:00,810
Empire City.

1171
01:21:02,050 --> 01:21:03,050
Empire.

1172
01:21:07,110 --> 01:21:08,110
Empire.

1173
01:21:09,790 --> 01:21:10,790
Empire.

1174
01:21:12,130 --> 01:21:13,870
Empire City.

1175
01:21:21,170 --> 01:21:25,250
Empire City on the move, from the moon
to the tower, it's so gritty. Fuck

1176
01:21:25,310 --> 01:21:27,170
yeah, the two -way's crackin', no
Whitney.

1177
01:21:27,450 --> 01:21:29,890
Yeah, what we want can't stop, it's no
ditty.

1178
01:21:30,230 --> 01:21:32,370
Ah, yeah, Empire City.

1179
01:21:32,850 --> 01:21:35,050
Hey, ah, Empire City.