Transcript
Speaker: Last season on the Yo-Yo Player Podcast.
Speaker: I'm going to go ahead and call it. I'm going to call it on season one the Yo-Yo Player Podcast. This is it. This is where we're ending the season.
Speaker: And then we're going to come back for season two. And for season two, we're going to lead off with six yo-yo pros, 12 skaters, 30 bands, and 11,273 miles of American highway.
Speaker: The story of the entire Fiend Magazine North American Yo-Yo Tour 1999. Season two. Here we go. Season two. And we're going to get everybody. We're going to get the whole fucking band back together. It's going to take a while, though. but It might take a little while. might take us couple of years.
Speaker: And we're going to get all the yo-yo players back, and I think we're going to try and get some of the bands, too. I can... i can Yeah, we can get a couple. Yeah, let's do it. Let's just, let's call it now.
Speaker: Are you good? ever i Here's the thing. Like, I feel like we had a pretty good year. It was, it was been a very good year. It was a really good year. So Fiend Magazine died, but this podcast will continue. All my best points have spent.
Speaker: I'm Steve Brown and I'm Mark McBride and welcome to season two of the Yo-Yo Player podcast where a couple of dusty old gray beards grab their friends and reminisce about the 1999 Fiend Magazine Yo-Yo Tour.
Speaker: Today's episode, rollerblades and bikini models.
Speaker: So this season we're doing something different. we do We are. we're It's very different, actually. I'm a little surprised that we went this far off the fucking road. I mean, it's still Mark and Steve talking a whole lot.
Speaker: It is. And if you enjoy hearing Mark and Steve talk, boy, have we got a fucking treat for you because we run our mouths a lot in this season also. Again, I think the whole reason we did this podcast is because the people who love hear Mark and Steve talking are Mark and Steve.
Speaker: it's yeah i The only thing I love more than Mark and Steve talking is Steve and Mark talking. It's so true. and's say okay So yeah, so this season... is about one summer.
Speaker: Yeah. to So, you know, season one, we kind of like every episode was like a different story about a specific thing. This whole season is sort of a long, loose oral history of the 1999 Fiend magazine yo-yo tour, which was a multi-manufacturer yo-yo tour attached to the 1999 Vans Warped tour. So we had It a food roll tour.
Speaker: Yeah. So we had a booth and, ah you know, every single day, an assortment of yo-yo professionals got up on a rickety ass little stage while a shit ton of bands were playing and tried to get people's attention with yo-yo tricks. And yeah it was was interesting.
Speaker: It was 30 stops. And a full summer, man. It was six yo-yo pros, 12 skaters, 30 bands, and 11,273 miles of American highway.
Speaker: It was good. It was a really good time. And honestly, I'm really happy that we were kind of able to get so many people involved. We got most of the demonstrators that were on the tour. We got, ah you know, we got Darren from Less Than Jake. We got Timmy Chunks, who is the driver for the Bouncing Souls. We got Greg, who was the owner and and founder of Fiend Magazine. You know, we were able to get a lot of people to come and talk about this. So this whole season is going to be a little more loosey goosey, but we're it really came together amazingly.
Speaker: A wild time, man. Such a good time. It great time. then there's quite a moment in Yo! history. i mean, it's right when that boom, and this boom was happening, right? And somehow we end up right the middle of freaking rock tour. I mean, come on. Like, it's unreal, right? So to see you guys keeping it alive.
Speaker: Yeah, it was like it was kind of like the last hurrah of the boom because it really sort of died like right after that. So that that was kind of like our big that was our big outro. It's true. It's true.
Speaker: sure Yeah, it was. Momentous. Yeah, it's been a while. I mean, it's been 25 years, you guys. It has. 25 fucking years. I mean, we Mark and I you know are still really active in Yo-Yos, and there's been ah more than a few times recently where we're hanging out with people and we're talking about this project, and we're like, oh yeah, I've been listening to the podcast. And we're like, yeah, like the next thing we're going to do is we're going to Warped Tour and blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we realize we're talking to someone who was not born when this happened.
Speaker: Yeah, like not by a long shot.
Speaker: So let's, okay, let's go back to the very, very beginning here. Like, so this, this whole thing was originally your idea and you took it to Yomega. When you took this to Yomega, what did you pitch them?
Speaker: So that was the thing that was really funny is that I, um I'd have to go back and see the exact chronology, but I had this idea. was like, man, I could, we should get yo-yos on the Vans Warpedway. That'd be a really great promotion.
Speaker: And, back to our whole like how do we make yo-yos more punk rock totally totallyboarding and a theme that will come up repeatedly is that the target demographic of yo-yoings especially then was 14 year old boys so yeah 14 year old boys love them some fucking blink 182 holy shit yeah they do yeah they do and 14 year old girls as we would eventually learn on the tour like them some blink 182 yeah Um, so yeah, it was, it was, it was obvious. And the thing that's hilarious is that, um, is that I, i remember taking it to dunk, like to Omega, excuse me.
Speaker: Um, about the same time that they had me go and talk to the guy who was putting on like the nash world championships of rollerblading.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. yeah So you, so you pitched this to your mega and then your mega kicked you to talk to this guy. No. So this guy had reached out to your mega.
Speaker: Okay. you Those are big. I'm looking for sponsors. He's just, he's just a guy whose job is to find sponsors for this event. You know, he's just to okay like, so he's hit. So he reaches out to your mega, you know,
Speaker: this is the thing. And they said, and at this point, they don't know what to do with me living in Los Angeles. They're, they, think I mean, in fairness, they never knew what to do with you ever. No, no, they really didn't. And so they're like, well, this guy's in LA. We've got a guy in LA. Hey, Mark, why don't you just go talk to him?
Speaker: Okay. And so, and it was under the guys that I was like, but so I think that I had given him the, the, the, I think I'd given him the warp tour. I'd done the homework on the warp tour before this.
Speaker: Were you on salary with you Omega at this point or like a retainer? Okay. Nope. I was on salary at this point. And so I had, i was on salary with you Omega. I found the warp tour.
Speaker: I sent, I was like, this is the thing we should do it. And they're like, well, this guy for the, the rollerblading contest, he's he, you should go talk to him.
Speaker: i Okay, fine. I mean, and this is so classic, Yomega. You go to Yomega with Warped Tour, and they're like, what about Rollerblades instead? And it's just like, god damn it, man. It's so true. Every chance to not be cool, these motherfuckers would just lunge for it. It's so true. You're like, hey, cool or uncool? And they're like, oh, definitely uncool. Go talk to the uncool guy, please.
Speaker: It's so true. It's so true. So I roll up it, it, it gets doubly bad because I roll up to this guy's office and I go in there and I'm like, all right, so, Hey, let's talk. You know what are you offering? What kind of thing? And he's like, so, I mean, if you're a sponsor, you could actually have a booth there. And there's like so many rollerblading competitors. They would definitely buy yo-yos.
Speaker: And I'm like, wait, wait, hold on. Like, I don't, I'm not trying to sell yo-yos to 12 fucking rollerbladers. I want some video on ESPN2 of some rollerblader at the top of a ramp putting a yo-yo in his pocket before he does his run. like what do you what do you talk you think I give a shit about selling yo-yos to 12 fucking rollerbladers?
Speaker: Yeah. like And not even like, oh, we're going to have like X amount of foot traffic. like He's trying to pitch you on selling yo-yos to the competitors? Yeah. like I think that he he probably would have gone into the the foot traffic at some point, but just the but like I just remember leaving that meeting going like, this guy doesn't get what I'm trying to do. Now, ah he knows, like, surely the people in charge understand how this shit works because they understand how commercials work. They understand the point.
Speaker: But I'm like, man, even this guy doesn't get it. And so... So I roll back to Omega and I go, this guy doesn't get it. you wrote did you Did you blade back to Omega?
Speaker: That would have made – if the guy gave me a set of rollerblades out of that meeting, it would have actually made the commute worth the effort.
Speaker: <unk> got I've got some friends who are fucking great on Rollerblades. I just want to give them a shout out real quick. But also, like, the the larger cultural context is this is fucking 1999. Everybody shit on Rollerbladers. It's true. And especially, you know, like, we're talking about, like, Warped Tour, sponsored by Vans, right? Had, you know, an amazing roster of pro skaters on the whole tour.
Speaker: And, you know, the idea of like looking at Warped Tour, which was the coolest fucking thing happening at that time, and the Rollerblade World Championships, it's like, it's the difference between, hey, do you want to get laid or do you want to play chess?
Speaker: ah So I was just like, i was just baffled by it. because and they and and i know i I do remember ah point of trying to and explain it to John Marcantonio, like the VP that I reported to at Yomega, he and I was like, but it's Warped Tour.
Speaker: This is the coolest thing that happens in the summer. I mean, and I remember the words leaving my mouth. Unless the Sex Pistols themselves went on a reunion tour, there's nothing more for this subculture than Warped that And he's like, well, you should at least meet with the rollerblade guy. Maybe it's not that bad. What a bummer that the sex puzzles getting back together turned out to be awful.
Speaker: I know. I know. Oh, man. And so your heroes. Never reach heroes. So. So at that point, Yomega said, no, they're out. Now, I kind of hedged my bets.
Speaker: Okay, wait. in that so So, okay. let's I just want to make sure we're clear on the timeline here. So you went you met with the Rollerblade guy. The whole deal just sounded bad. So you went back to Yomega, and you're like, no fucking way.
Speaker: Exactly. I was like, the Rollerblade deal is bad. Warped Tour is better. And we're not going to beat Warped Tour. Yeah, so we're not going to beat Warped Tour. And then Yomega's response was, eh.
Speaker: yeah that's it They were just they're just not yes not... I had the proposal together. I said, this is what it takes. god I would love to see... Do you still have a copy of that proposal anywhere? I'll see if I can dig it up.
Speaker: I would love to. If nothing else, I would love to just see that. I definitely found a i found a memo that I wrote about this. So I'll... I'll dig that up. And honestly, i i feel like we should like scan all of this shit and put it online.
Speaker: Like once, like at at once these episodes start dropping, like I just, I want to be able to just have this massive archive of like, here's the whole, here's everything we've got. Here's all of it.
Speaker: Yeah. I've still got my laminate somewhere. so so I said, so Omega is like, eh, I don't know. It sounds too cool for us. So then you went and talked to Greg and by this point I had already hedged my bets with Greg. I brought it up with Greg and Greg had said, look, if your mega does it, we should do with fiend.
Speaker: We got kind of Mark's version of like his sort of initial idea, like pitch to Omega. and how Yomega just like totally bunked it. And then he went to you. So I think I definitely want to start with like all of your ah original conversations with Mark on how this thing kind of pulled together.
Speaker: Well, I hope I can remember it. I do remember the rationale behind it. I was printing Fiend magazine. The magazine was great. It actually was one of the best written things in any field, which was one of the problems. It probably needed to be stupider to sell. And I couldn't get distribution, and I wanted to give it legitimacy. And Mark gave me way to be legitimate. We were going to go on the Vans Warped Tour because the... thing that i had discussed with the two of you when you were working for me is that yo-yos had to go away from a craze mentality because back in the day the crazes were regional the crazes were you know this city this year or this region of the country this year so they always had a craze going on somewhere but once television came around the crazes had nationally and the yo-yo companies went from feast to famine
Speaker: And I went, that sort of craze can't survive. And we talked about losing good players to fumes. Do you remember this, Mark? No. I mean, like, we talked about losing in many different ways. but At 16, we lost them to fumes.
Speaker: Car fumes and perfumes. There's a rip shot. And I believe that Dale Oliver told me that one. That sounds like a Dale Oliver quote. Absolutely. And they they didn't have any idea how to change this. And I went, well, it's easy.
Speaker: Bring the age up from 10 years old. so They're starting after they already have a girlfriend or if they can't get a girlfriend. um And, you know, the first worlds that I went to... You know, there were people who were 12 and people who were 40 and nobody in between. I mean, the young end of things was a very small end of things. And they were your age and Mark Hayward and John Gates. And the reason we know all these people, there just weren't a lot.
Speaker: back then the uh the only yo-yo communication was the yo-yo times which was its own decorative publication and and photocopied yellow paper that you got in the mail i remember trying to learn tricks out of that off of like text descriptions that people had mailed in to stew But they were all the same trick, just with a different name. And the interesting thing that I discovered later on, because, you know, I've opened up a soda fountain, I've got all these soda fountain magazines from the 1920s, and they're exactly the same thing. The only difference is everybody used a different measurement system. If they were a druggist, they used rams. If they were a kitchen, they used...
Speaker: Dessert spoons, which is actually a measurement, as well as team spoons and tablespoons. Weird. Very strange. The dispenser's formulary is a wonderful collection of of recipes, or rather names of great soda fountain drinks that are all the same.
Speaker: but But the names are wonderful. So let's get back to this. So Mark approached me that he knew this guy on the Vans Warped Tour. Do you remember his name? Because I don't. Oh, I found it.
Speaker: No, it was a guy that I looked up. Oh my gosh. I'm going to find his name. Um, like let's, I want to say it was Ken. It wasn't, it was, it was, he was a rep.
Speaker: Yes. He worked for Vans or the Vans tour. Yeah. He was a rep for the tour. So he was the guy that you talked to. He wasn't really a rep. He was a salesman who for the best I can tell got commissions by selling booths on the tour. Totally. That's exactly right. Because the booths that paid for, paid for the thing to come and the ticket sales made the profit, and possibly paid the bands. I don't know how all this worked. It seemed pretty obvious to me during all of this that... His name was Jim.
Speaker: His name was what? Jim. Jim, yeah. It pretty was pretty obvious to me. There was like a publishing thing. The magazine or the newspaper broke even with the ads and made money with the sales. So they were guaranteed not to lose money. And that was the whole thing with the formula of the tour. They wanted lots of people to pay them to press their...
Speaker: products or whatever and some of the bands perform for free in exchange from being able to set up a schwag table and i went i can divide this between five or six people come yo-yo companies and do this all we need is a tent god those tents were expensive you know i still use that tent i believe you i got a new canopy for it the old one got eaten by somebody
Speaker: I felt obligated to give Yomega first crack at it since I was on salary with them. And when they passed, Greg's like, Fiend's going to do it. So that's when we there's when Fiend took it and then was going to sub-sell it to all the different – companies. So we just got all the different companies to jump on instead of it just being just your mega.
Speaker: So Fiend basically was like, Hey, we're going to do this booth. Do you guys want to be part of it? And then pitched them like a smaller dollar amount to just be part of the larger booth. Exactly.
Speaker: Greg and I said, look, we did the math to do it. We have to get, we had to get like five companies or maybe four. What did it actually cost to have a booth on warp tour in 1999?
Speaker: I'd have to double check, but I think that it was around 75 grand.
Speaker: So, and that was, I mean, 75 grand and that was six weeks, but that was just the booth. cut So was that all in? Like, was that like the bus? That's all it. That's all. Yeah. So that included like the bus space and like, I mean, everything, everything except for paying for your demonstrators. Like the idea is that like for 75
Speaker: Yeah, it was, yeah, it was around there. And so maybe less, but around maybe 80, it was somewhere around there.
Speaker: It was a package deal. So in fact, actually what happened was that that would have been the date on the memo that I sent to Yomega after I had met with, after I talked to the guy at Warped Tour and after I had talked to the rollerblade guy was December 1st.
Speaker: And then in January, there was a there was surf expo. And the so the guy like, which was a big, kind of you know, trade show in Florida and basically Vans work towards rep the same way that I met with the rep of the,
Speaker: roller blade thing. He's there. So i I had to get a rejection before then. Got a rejection from the Omega, but I was in Florida because it was the holidays, my family's there.
Speaker: And so Greg and I went out and met with him.
Speaker: And I went down to the Surf Expo and it was wonderful. I expected just surf stuff. And it ends up that it was surf. I was expecting surf stuff, but it was also skate stuff and apparently bikinis, which I guess is surf stuff. And do you remember that Eli Balin was there?
Speaker: Yes, that's the only time that I've hung out with Eli. the the it in The significance of Eli is that he was never involved with the yo-yo scene, but we all know Eli hops.
Speaker: he He created tricks like nobody else. He had a whole bunch of tricks where he'd slip his shoe off and use his foot to do string tricks that I've never seen anyone else do since. And he just did it delicately. would switch He would hop from one foot to the other, landing basically trapezes off his foot feet and dancing.
Speaker: He would also love to jump on things and yo-yo on them like on the top of – I once saw him get on the top of a moving trolley and do two-handed loops while it was moving without the trolley operator knowing.
Speaker: The thing that I remember so – like so small and subtle from hanging out with Eli that day was we were having – like it was something where like doing photos and hanging out because – for Fiend Magazine at the Surf Expo with Eli. You know why he was there.
Speaker: Why? He was repping a paper company for rolling joints with an logo on it. And he was going around giving it. He he didn't have a booth. He just was walking with He had a big shoulder pack and he was giving it out. And he was successfully hitting on the South American, I think they were Brazilian bikini models. Gorgeous, curvy. And he would convince them without sharing a language to lay down and let them walk this dog on their stomach. I've never seen anything like this. Exactly. He went home with one that night.
Speaker: Of course. It was amazing. Like, and I remember. I don't understand how Eli works. I didn't either. And I always thought like that again, Yo-Yo was something that I myself did.
Speaker: I discovered it just randomly. It was always like, I only know dudes that did it. So it was never a cool thing. So the fact that this guy was a Kung Fu master at impressing women with Yo-Yo's and you're right. We're talking Brazilian bikini models. He impressed with Yo-Yo tricks. I was just like,
Speaker: This guy's otherworldly. yeah And handing out ah joint paper, you know, rolling paper. It was just like, what? um I still have a pack of that rolling paper.
Speaker: ah so So we're there. I'm hanging with him. I also got to meet, ah that was the first time I got to meet, what's his name? The great ah the great skateboarder, ah Tony Hawk.
Speaker: That was where I got to meet him. I got to meet him there and I got to meet him at the Gravity Games. it The strangest conversation I ever had. We were all in the VIP booth. Me, the owner of Tommy Boy, which I believe is a clothing line. Record label.
Speaker: record label, but he had clothing. He gave me clothing in my size. so I was wearing Tommy boy clothing for years. He gave me a whole stack of it, which confused everybody in Tallahassee. um And the three of us were talking about tax deduction options for, ah for 941 employees.
Speaker: amazing and it was just like it was just like you know this is my experience with but this is what we really talk about when we're business people he has a show personality and a non-show personality and the We were all older than everyone else at that event.
Speaker: So um we did I set up the event. I met with your guy, Jim, was it? Yeah. And we hung out and we talked and I got the basis. And then I started sketching out how to sell this to the yo-yo companies.
Speaker: This whole season is going to be a little more loosey-goosey, but we're it really came together amazingly. And huge shout-out to Mark McBride, because he did the heavy lifting on all of this fucking editing and assembly, and the poor guy is just about dead from it.
Speaker: You're so kind. You're so kind, Steve. I mean, i appreciate that I didn't have to fucking do it. That was, it was incredibly generous of you to be like, no, Steve, you just hang out and I'll take care of this eventually in a year ish.
Speaker: There it is. Fuck you. It's okay. It took you about a year to put it together. It would have taken me at least three. So, you know, I think you are still very much the winner as far as this whole season is concerned.
Speaker: Oh, shit. well its This was ambitious. like This was kind of like overly ambitious. I feel like we bit off a lot with this. No, I disagree. I think it was the right amount of ambition. I think what was overly ambitious was thinking we were going to do it that fall.
Speaker: Yeah, okay. That's fair. the The timeline was ambitious. The project was the proper amount of ambition. Okay, I'll take it. I'll take it
