Joust GSA NSA GND

A few weeks ago, I met up Keon to give him some decks for a project we're working on. While we were chatting, his old friend Joust's name came up. Next thing I knew, Keon had Joust on speaker phone and he was introducing us. Joust and I exchanged numbers, I sent him some questions, and the following interview unfolded. 

How did you first get into skating and graffiti?

My first memory of seeing skateboards was walking with my family after a dinner in Chinatown... 2 black kids came thundering down the sidewalk, one in a crouch holding a broomstick out at arms length. My first skateboard was a fiberglass Hobie with a waffle texture on top and clay wheels with loose ball bearings bought from the Rockaway Beach Surf Shop. I skated for a while on my own. I would practice riding down the hill of my grandfather's driveway, taking the turn onto the sidewalk and just going up and down my block. 

Joust and his brother at Paved Wave skatepark in Oakhurst, N.J.

The first graffiti I noticed were the tags around Newkirk Plaza, a couple of blocks from my house. I began to try to do a name I came up with on all my notebooks, but never actually on a public wall. This early skateboarding and graffiti writing was done on my own. They were just a tiny part of my kid life, while I was going to school, playing sports, being a cub scout, dreaming about girls, listening to the radio, having 45 rpm records by the Beach Boys and The Isley Brothers, watching the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family on T.V., riding bikes, throwing tops and yoyos, flipping baseball cards and having little electric race cars. 

Joust tag in the background.

How did you get your tag?

The name Joust was given to me by a guy who wrote Pawn 1, who also went to Murrow H.S. He really never got up, but he had written with Shadow & Deal early in their careers. His style was incredible. Not only did he give me the name, but he would draft amazing styles to spark my imagination. I didn't even know what the word meant till I looked it up. He was also a skateboarder and was there for the first time skating the big bowl. Which was a monumental day, though I got a serious ear infection from cutting through the swampy stagnant slime in the deeper end. He rode an aluminum KONA board. Thinking of him reminds me of something else we used to do called a "catamaran." Two guys would each sit on their own board facing each other with their feet on the other guys' board and your hands on the other guys' shoulders. There was a steep hill entering some kind of parking area at Brooklyn College, which is where we used to do this. It almost always ended in a wipeout, and that Kona board with its metal edges was deadly. There were so many good times. 

JD throw (aka Joust)

When I went to high school is when they (skating and graffiti) started to play a bigger part in my life. First writing went to the next level. I was being educated by a handful of kids who knew more and had better style than me from different neighborhoods. There was a click I became a member of. I started to carry a marker and was motion tagging everyday to and from school. By the end of 9th grade it came to a quick end when a friend and I were caught by the police and brought downtown. My mother was so disappointed in me that it made me quit writing. 

I started to ride my skateboard to school and met a few kids with boards. I started to learn tricks. Around this time is when I met Charlie (Keon). We met at the Flatbush Frolicks Festival on skateboards. We became fast friends and soon found we both had interest in graffiti as well (though I had quit). While hanging out Charlie and I would often do crazy pieces in chalk on my street. A small pack of guys would meet up after school or on weekends usually in front of our house and would practice tricks and try to show off to passerbys. I was constantly looking for interesting places to ride in the neighborhood. I found two buildings with drained fountains (the Big and Little Bowls). I found a maze of huge smooth brick inclined walls on the campus of Brooklyn College (the Flower Pots). 

 

 

Joust's quiver.

 

One evening my Dad, my brother and I went to the Baskin and Robbins on Flatbush Ave. The guy working there had a longboard with a WAR tag on it, and he had long hair. He told us about Manhattan skaters that met by the Alice in Wonderland statue near the Central Park boat pond on Saturday mornings. We went the next weekend and maybe a few more times. Skaters started showing up near the statue doing tricks. A kid named Andy Kessler (with a KESS tag on his board) determined the events of the day whether it be ride the "Highway Hill", skate uptown to Scandinavian Ski Shop or ride downtown to Paragon Sporting Goods. The city skaters would be grabbing onto bus and truck bumpers flying to the destination while the rest of us huffed and puffed... blocks behind. We did bring skaters from N Y.C. to our spots like Jaime Affoumado (RUST). I remember on the little bowl, there were some carving lines and also we would go up, hit the coping and do a kick turn. Jaime hit that coping so hard, he came down with a huge chunk of it, wedged under his board. At a Brooklyn Heights street fair I won a slalom contest by pumping my way through the cones and took home a case of soda. 

Keon and Joust up on the Prospect Expressway w/ Bishop Ford H.S. in the background

One guy I met who was both a real skater and a graffiti writer who got up was SIE1. We met on the Staten Island ferry heading out to New York's first skateboard park. There was a bus from the ferry that went right there. It was indoors in a warehouse, made entirely of plywood. I heard "We Will Rock You" for the first time in that place. After that, there were some ramps and half pipes, but eventually I returned to my street skating. Keon and I would just skate our old streets like veterans holding nose wheelies for entire blocks and hitting our old skate spots. 

 

As my teen years were running out I had come out of my graffiti retirement... Charlie and I had thrown a couple of pieces around the neighborhood, and we had also done a bunch of nice tag spots in Greenwich Village. I rode the train by myself down to the Sheepshead Bay station in the middle of the night with a shopping bag full of silver and red cans. I walked off the platform and caught throws on every sleeping train car. I kept up for over 2 years, always tagging everywhere I went, and piecing trains, highways and walls every weekend. I wasn't an all city king, but I now could quit and be satisfied. 

 

 

Trike posted this photo and story - do you remember that night?

I love this picture. I don't remember this roll-up gate, but we did so many in so many neighborhoods. I remember walking, bombing and laughing. Trike and I hit different train lines, and when we partnered up, there was a buzz. The streets were our coup de grâce. 

Do you still keep up with skating and graffiti?

In graffiti, I will take note if someone has a nice tag or throw. In skating, I'm very excited about some of the new wheel technology. The bearings, the urethane, the cores in the wheels. I've become way more of a crafter of boards. I still hit the skatepark, but mostly, I ride trails and streets. 

I would say what drew me to both skateboarding and writing were that they were purely invented by kids and required skills and creativity. They also gave you a certain credibility on the street. They were not part of main stream society. Now 40+ years later, I still love skating and doing graffiti pieces on paper. It's in my blood.