One: 15 MINUTES with Randy Spizer (Interview)
There’s this guy I know who wears what most would call women’s pants. He also doesn’t shave much, sports a mullet and enjoys the color pink.
He gets away with all of this by calling himself an artist! Well, he’s always said, “Randy Spizer was the first true rollerblader.” Meaning that the other pros at the time, who were much older than Randy, came from other action-sport backgrounds.
Randy was a true roller, and the guy who wears girls’ pants was right! Randy skated and traveled all over the world, and he has inspired a planet just by being himself!
— Mike Opalek
“To me, Roadhouse is rollerblading. There is no doubt in my mind I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for him. I bought a red Yankees hat when I was 12 because I saw him wear one at a NISS contest. He was my hero.
A few years later he took me under his wing and I pretty much lived with him for a while. Skating with your hero on a regular basis can be a rather motivating situation to be in. He will always be one of my favorite people on the planet, and rollerblading is well off having had him lead the generation following him.
He still holds it down every time I see him blade, and I hope it’s not very long before I see it again!”
— Chris Haffey / professional blader / Pasadena, Ca. [...]
Randy Spizer (Interview):
How old are you, and how did it all start?
I’m at the age of 28. I got my first pair of rollerblades two months before my 12th birthday. I had to beg my dad to buy me an early birthday present, some Zetra Blade 303s.
They came with a brake; I used a hacksaw to cut that off. Then they became street skates! [...]
Check the Randy Spizer Article on One.
Tags: one, randy spizer
June 11th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
wow… oldschool.
brings back great memories!
June 11th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
sad to see how it`s not possible to make money in this industry… randys an icon thats 4 sho
June 11th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
he should have stuck it out like Julio and Shima. Good that he has other passions, but he was an icon for rollerblading that fell by the wayside.
June 11th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Yeap nice memories
June 11th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
anyone who has anything negative to say better have a big track record in this game before they say somthing. one outdid themselves and definatly since i always wait for there issues to come out pdf i will buy there next issue to salute to a great interveiw
June 11th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Roadhouse is the man !!!
June 11th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I love Roadhouse, i’m just disappointed. I wish he had the Chris Haffey approach:
“Even if I stop getting paid to skate I will never stop pushing myself. That is just what I do. I skate and I love it. I suppose I can’t speak for everyone, but I think most people would agree.” – Chris Haffey SHOCK interview
June 11th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
TRUE HERO !
still have his 3 piece poster on the wall… kindgrind, almoust true size ! from the crazyroller magazine back in 97 :oD
to bad that the kids of theze days don’t realize that guys like julio & roadhouse are the true rollerbladers !
June 11th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
by the way for all those young guys:
if rollerblading was as good organized like skateboarding… guys like Spizer whoud be to rollerblading what guys like tony hawk are for skateboarding…
he whoud be rich and famous.
the roots are forgoten…
verry verry sad !
June 11th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
so sad to see how he doesn’t care no more about rollerblading… well to me it sounds like that.. nothing but fishing wtf ?? still an icon though
June 11th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Respects Randy. Bit older = Smarter …spending your days on a boat fishing. Enjoy all that dude! Roadhouse will be there when everything comes back around… right now he’s busy being Randy.
One of the most influential skaters in several generations. Mature enough to understand how to roll with the punches and pursue something outside of skating in order to enjoy life.
Maybe build the first aquatic skatepark so theres no time wasted in between skating and bass slaying? Awesome.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Roadhouse = LEGEND Im still repping the Crayola wheels in my skates now!
June 12th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Once agen miss old days..Nice one :
“Even if I stop getting paid to skate I will never stop pushing myself. That is just what I do. I skate and I love it. I suppose I can’t speak for everyone, but I think most people would agree.” – Chris Haffey SHOCK interview
June 12th, 2009 at 2:09 am
The difference is Randy was skating back when skaters made real money. He was 16 and making like 100,000 a year or more just from blading. Haffey is the man, but he’s never had that. Give that to a kid, take it away, then see how they feel.
June 12th, 2009 at 6:04 am
These writings will start you thinking when you are around 25-30 that what the fcuk am i still doing. I became 27 previosly and since my birthday i’m watching old videos like Words, and USD tour. I was thinking about the old names like Aaron Feinberg, Josh Petty and Randy Spizer, that what could happened to them. Hope they found their way and doing well, cause i really loved them, and respect them for what they were to us old bladers back in the day.
I wanna say to the youngsters that you better start building your bloody life when you are 22-24 and put rollerblading to the 2nd, 3rd most important thing in your life or one day you will wake up in a party full with 16-17 years old kids and realize that its not your world anymore and you are an old yerk.
Randy said he was too busy to think of who he had looked up to those days. That happens to all fanatics. You can’t see how many other things you can enjoy in life. I still love rollerblading, but i really hate myself that i missed the born of my nice and some nice fishing with my brother and sister:) Cause i prefered to go out filming and blading on every sunny day. I made a rollerblade video called Awakening, and i said the meaning of it is that rollerblading could be a way out from this material world so you better wake up and finish hunting for money. Now 3 years after the video i realized that it’s better to find the balance in your life and not to be so fanatic in things like rollerblading. Use it as a hobby, a nice part of your life but don’t let rollerblading rule your life. Go to work, than go home to your family or friends and spend only a few days a week with blading.
About rollerbladers making money: I think they weren’t smart enough 10 years ago to get a good manager and sign some worthfull contracts with companies like Rollerblade and Roces who made huge money out of aggressive rollerbladers back in late 90s. Now freestyle rolling is less powerful, but i can’t belive that Powerslide,Remz or Razors not making a good profit of it. I say you better start thinking about your future before you sell your soul2roll. If you will be a bitch of the industry and get a sponzor, at least be an elite, expensive bitch. Rollerbladers like Haffey, Aragon, Morales, etc. could kill themselfs anytime, cause what they are doing is insane. They should get paid for that well, like fuckin skateborders. Its time to milk these bloody companies, who make a living out of these guys, out of us rollerbladers. We should organize a Fundation for Professional Aggressive Rollerbladers and force the companies to pay a fee after every rollerblades sold on the market. This fund could pay for the professional bladers at least when they get injured.
Thats what i think, and i respect any others opinions so tell me your ideas guys.
A blader from Hungary
June 12th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
@ QueensCityCrew Grandpa
couldn’t be said better. not to mention that once you hit 25-26 you realize how much damage you’ve done to your knees. some days I can hardly walk, but I still roll when I can.
these guys had money coming in back then, but never skateboard money. I remember Matt Mantz and Randy Spizer (my two heroes at the time) in an ad in Inline Magazine advertising pocket protectors, even back then (1998 or something) I remember thinking: our sport is a joke because of this kind of shit.
the people running companies were kids and people with no business sense. no management for the skater’s interests. I wonder how much cash some people pocketed that had little or nothing to do with the athletes or the sports progression?
cool thing about spizer is that he still loves the sport. I’ll always remember him as a huge influence on me and that era of rollerblading changed my life completely, and I’m happy and successful now partially because of it’s influences, I just don’t get to skate as much as I like.
A blader from Canada
June 12th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
i have wondered what happened to this guy… it’s so good to know. what i really want to see is him skating again. that backslide he did in the intro of vg3 is one of the most amazing things i’ve seen in skating. huge inspiration indeed.
June 13th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Just check his section in 50/50 Juice. The best of Randy ever.
June 14th, 2009 at 1:29 am
Very thought provoking.
I personally think that we as an industry are suffering from the fact that we are so dependent on products that are derived from oil, and the industry behind it. In contrast with skateboarding, where wood and metal are raw materials that can be obtained and manufactured rather cheaply, urethane compounds are dependent on the vast industrial resources and manufacturers from places like the middle east and china.
Too many middle men in a process that could basically follow the role model of NIMH, which is a brilliant attempt to get closer to the tip of the pyramid, or
Eulogy is a brilliant example too, but we lack an actual boot company owned directly by skaters.
Non skating middle men are troublesome, I believe.
That being said, it is a matter of time until we all see that the real struggle of our little bubble is monetary/resource based, and so we will have to find solutions from an industry that will find the primary source going scarce.
Oil.
Thinking ahead in time, I believe it is very relevant to understand that we, as a whole community, want an industry from skaters and for skaters, and therefore, getting access for our industry heads to those materials and industrial machinery is crucial. Not only crucial, but a task that seems impossible in these days with the global crisis and the imminent collapse of the petrol industry.
Back into subject, leave to one side for a moment the decline in popularity of the sport and the leisure industry´s ups and downs. Think about producing your own goods. I feel if people like Randy Spizer could have had access to maintaining a simple wood pressing machine, make decks with it and sel them without having to deal with a man on a suit, things would have been quite different. If Randy and Louie could have produced their own goods, imagine what more business minded brains like Hyser and cobun would have been.
I also feel I need to adress the “Rabbit Hole” issue.
(Ref. the apple series)
Dedication has so many different levels, and it is up to oneself to sacrifice a lifetime dedicated to something with a passion. Categorizing rollerbading as a first priority is such a syndrome among us. Queens city grandpa knows the down sides of the Rabbit Hole, and has chosen to get a family member and fishing back into routine. Such good and benevolent piece of advice, I cherish these type of posts because they really are talking what matters. The Rabbit Hole can be such a cold place, with injuries not being backed up by anything but other skate-friends, and yet, there are usually much happier lives to be lived with just a bit of judgment on how much balance is put into activities.
Some of us have not happened to be the formula that can live off it, but the ones that are that formula need our understanding of the bigger picture so that they are backed up by us.
Long process.
Sorry for the lengthy post, but how about some debate?