Action Sports: Kicking it Old School With the Bones Brigade
Written by playerpress.com, Friday December 05 2008
Steve Caballero is my favorite skater. In fact, I bought his signature shoe when it was first introduced by Vans. Currently, I am wearing a pair of black adidas, but nothing beats the royal blue Half Cabs I wore out before ending my own skate days. Those shoes were tough, durable, comfortable and cool. Just like their name sake.
The last time I saw Steve was in Vancouver in 2003. He was skating during the Warped Tour that was playing in BC University’s Thunderbird Stadium. As he was running his lines I yelled to him, “Hey, Steve, I’m wearing your shoes.” “I knew someone was.” He replied while cutting a turn at the lip and dropping back into the bowl.
Caballero started skating back in 1976 when he was 12. Skating was in its second evolution following the side walk surfing of the ‘60’s. Magazines, videos/dvds, fashions and music devoted to skating hadn’t even been imagined when Caballero decided to see how much air he could grab with his Powell Peralta board.
The skeleton artwork that adorned the Powell decks easily lent to the team who rode them being dubbed the Bones Brigade. Their rip it at all costs attitude to skating lent to the broken and dislodged bones that cemented their rep.
Among Caballero’s team mates on that ’79 band of brigands was a guy named Tony Hawk. He created quite a splash and generally over shadowed team mates and any one else who ever stood on a board, but Cab was always my favorite.
Even today he continues to give it his all. Sure, he lacks Hawk’s exquisite style, who doesn’t, but he makes up for it by pushing himself beyond the limits. He is still taking Master’s Contests against guys who are masters in their ‘30’s while he is 44.
Yes, while the rest of us are either too busted up, or smarter with age, he continues to demonstrate that old guys have it. He even helps out his old skate Bro’ by appearing in those games that Tony Hawk creates because he must continue in his quest of world domination through skating.
The Peralta boards he rides are composite and don’t have those goofy looking kick tails, but Cab is still dropping in with abandon. That includes appearances at Caballerial, a keyhole shaped pool he designed in Campbell, CA. Cab knows that pool skating is still the best there is. And, since it is tough to get anyone to drain their pool and allow you to have a session, he did the next best thing and designed a dry pool to carve.
That’s the type of thinking that has kept Cab a staple in a sport that is dominated by younger guys and usually reduces the old heads to cruising on long boards and talking about the gold old days of Dog Town.
While the rest of us are in the retirement home cursing out the roller bladders Cab is still running with the young bulls and winning their respect. For the record, he still has the best shoe on the market, too. Thanks Vans for remembering us old guys and keeping them around. And, thanks Cab for making them look so good when you do your thing.
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