I grew up in the cities surrounding Laguna Beach with my dad, like Newport, Dana Point and the other little burgs. On weekends when I was 10 to 13 he would take us to school and we would drive by El Moro and I would just wonder, ‘has anyone hit the top? Can anyone?’ I guess that’s where things started.
I kinda worked my way into extreme sports like downhill skateboarding, freeride mountain biking, free diving, and body surfing because they were things I could do that were close to wherever I lived.
I really started getting into missions to jump off stuff and film it last summer. I hated GoPros–I would just see these kids in the water with their stupid sticks waving around with nobody taking off. I’m a diehard bodysurfer. I’d go, pull in, never receive a single shot from anyone, and it frustrated me. I had no friends at the time. Bored and itching to go to the beach, I ran into an old school buddy, Mitch, who had posted a pic at a local beach. I hit him up and was like, “dude, who do you go with?” He was solo, so we started hanging.
One day we hit these cliffs and he filmed me doing a couple of jumps. As the day ended and we headed back, I told him I was taking the camera home to get the footage. The next day, I wanted to free dive. I rigged a stick out of a fishing pole, broke it to the right size, used some bamboo to secure it, and went diving. The cliff jump footage was ok, but when I saw how rad the diving footage was, Mitch didn’t get his GoPro back for three months.
Then this past summer neared, and I was completely shredded from pushing it downhill skating. I broke my foot in the beginning of July on a bike at a skatepark, and El Niño made the water murky for so long, so I was really bumming. There was no surf at the time, and I couldn’t free dive, so I was going. In. Sane. I started going down to Table Rock in Laguna and I would just post there. I liked the shade that the cave provided. I saw all the kids jumping off the smallest part of the rock, not where I used to do it when I was their age, so I started jumping off the normal part. The kids were amazed. So amazed I was kind of like, huh? Since I was a grom, my friends and I would look at Table Rock Roof. We didn’t think it was possible, but I had obsessed over it. I jumped it and it worked out. I started posting footage and people have seriously gone nuts over everything since, and things have snowballed.
I think it’s just because I like to push it. I’ve always pushed things in whatever sport I’m doing, whether it be freeride mountain biking, downhill skating, free diving….. whatever. Risk? I don’t consider these to be risks, more like advanced physics. I just put my imagination to work to find what is possible to jump from.
I wanted some support, though, just to keep going hard. Funny story: I spilled Diet Coke in the ice bin at the bar while working at a high-end restaurant with a broken hand from skating to work. They made me work through it, swollen hand and all. That’s when I lost all motivation to continue being a slave. I walked out, walked into Gooch Apparel and said, “This is what I do. I need support.” To my surprise, they gave it to me. I started sending it off everything.
The hotels, for me, they are just amusing challenges. I love having to scout the area for sometimes days at a time to try and figure out the routes. I don’t do these things for the views nor the followers. It’s more like a competition with myself. Just trying to push the things I’ve been doing since I was a kid further, I guess.
But it’s funny, I’ve come to realize that it made me some sort of hero to kids from my area. It’s shocking, to be honest. I literally have “followers” when I go to the beach. It’s crazy. Everyone has sort of gripped on to my “FUCK THE MAN,” thing and why not? I believe in it. You can’t keep me off of rocks saying that it’s private property. What the hell is that? The Earth is ours and I’m taking it back. I don’t feel I’m giving anything to anyone but myself. I’ve gone unnoticed for so long. Sacrificing life and limb. I could care less what people think of me. I’m a Rebel Force Leader. Not a pop fame fuck.
My family hates it. They don’t speak of it. They see me on the news. Nobody really even talks to me. It’s strange, but they are all very concerned. Like I said, though, my stunts are more like advanced physics. El Moro (near Crystal Cove State Park, below)—where I got busted by the police, and scraped my back in a really close call—is something I can’t discuss with them. It was different. I knew in my gut the wind was too much and went against that feeling.
I’ve talked about “the industry” in obscure terms with people in the media and here’s my definition of it: “the industry” is all the people out there who are pushing the limitations of things that were once deemed impossible by others. I guess you could say “the industry,” to me, is extreme people doing extreme things. A better word instead of “industry” would be “movement” You should see how many kids are jumping the things I thought were impossible only a few years back.
For me, this is a scratch in the surface; a small step to the unknown realm I enter into. The main purpose in life I have come to understand and accept is that I’m going to push it. Push it harder than anyone who’s lived. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die…
Editor’s Note: This summer, 8Booth went on a rampage, jumping from multiple hotel roof tops in Laguna Beach and Newport Harbor. His personal art project has created a large fan base and a robust Youtube following, suggesting that the public still very much loves a rebel. Read more here and here.
