skateboarding mid 80's in hawaii: pre free skateparks, pre mainstream acceptance, pre moke (big dumb locals) harassment, pre free gear (hand me downs), pre constraints. bottom line: we skated for ourselves - carefree.
in 1983, i had the opportunity to skate for the first time with stacey gibo aka "the bear." the general had encountered him soon before. gibo had the reputation as being one tough guy. he never took shit from anyone (big samoans included), he dressed punk rock: trench coat & smeared eyeshadow (social d's mommy's little monster was big at the time) and he skated fearless with pure F.U. abandonment. Stacey was our duane peters, he was punk rock to the core and was in his own right a master of disaster. he rode a splintered dp red&black stripe deck with indy's (no other trucks allowed) and beat chuck taylors. my buddies scott and mark oblow took me to "off the walls" ditch in hawaii kai to skate with gibo. watching him rip that day was amazing and scary, tricks with power and slams paid in blood. his first words to me were "good deck ya got" - luckily i was riding a dp deck w/indy's too. he spoke few words and did all the talking with his skate. over the next few years we got hang and skate a lot together, his memories live on with a lot of hawaii's o.g. skaters. best of times.
the highlight of the day was his notorious "bomb drop" from the fence top, i had heard about this crazy move for months. he swayed at the top wavering from the wind, once he caught his balance he put his front foot on and jumped - upon contact he pulled a wilson and slammed his back and head. he got up shook it off and climbed back up and proceeded to pull off the trick of all tricks at "off the walls." stacey was hands down the best at OTWs, jonee kopp came close but stacey was the king. stacey's pool ripping is another legendary post in itself.
gibo lived in hawaii til 1990 and moved to s.f. to work at d.t.s and later thrasher mag for years. his reputation lives on in the city today as a "tough as nails" hard core skater.
keep rippin' stacey from your brothers.
photo: john silberstein
-rhps
"back in the day"
