Steve Caballero - Guest Post

I have been asking people to participate in doing ‘Guest Posts’ on the Blue Tile Obsession. It allows for me to have a break & also gives everyone a differing perspective on things from others. I supplied Steve Caballero with five photographs and asked him to choose one & talk about it. He chose an older image from the Big-O. Steve is hovering a frontside ollie mid -channel. It’s an epic photograph. Here is what he recollects from that time.

Steve Caballero

“The Big-O contest was the second Gold Cup. It went like this: Gold Cup -  Oasis, then Big-O, then Colton, then Marina & finally Upland. All had channels & doing a trick over the channel was –pretty much–a requirement. People were doing airs over them. Oasis & Marina were gnarly because the channel walls were not straight across. You had to pull hard to make it. Big-O was directly across so you could frontside ollie it. I don’t recall anyone making a backside ollie over it. I think Alan Gelfand and Steve Olson frontside ollied it as well. I actually came down for practice before the contest. I made airs over the channel & then started trying the ollie. Back then we had compulsory runs. If I remember correctly, it went like this: FS carve, FS air, invert, BS carve, BS air, slide to fakie on the wall, fakie ollie, rock walk, rock-n-roll then out. This kept all the riders on the same level. I remember that Alan Gelfand had to come and learn inverts before the contest. He made them in practice. I think I ended up 3rd in the Big-O contest. The next contest was Colton which I won. I went home to Winchester and practiced. I tried to learn new tricks. I was skating and saw Robert ‘The Fly’ Schlaefli doing a fakie 360 kickturn in the bowl. He went too fast & flailed it around. The board spun around with him. It made me wonder- “Maybe that could be done as a 360 ollie.” Between the Colton and Marina contests, I learned the Caballerial. I explained it to Stacy on the phone but he didn’t understand. Word got out to Lance Mountain & Neil Blender. When Stacy & I pulled up at Marina for contest practice, they were waiting. They wanted to see this 360 ollie. I got out & pulled one in the upper keyhole for Neil, Lance and Stacy. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the Caballerial at the Marina Gold Cup, but I did at the next contest in Upland. I  won at Pipeline. Neil & Lance went back to Whittier and worked on the Caballerial but couldn’t make it without grabbing. They started doing it and they thought it was gay that they had to grab, so they named it the ‘Gay Twist’. That is where it all came from. Eddie Elguera was a huge inspiration. He always had something new at a contest & I tried to do the same. The fakie ollie and frontside ollie all progressed into other tricks. It was a long progression.”

Thanks to Steve Caballero for the words & memories. Thanks to Tim Lunt and Paul Horning for the stellar images. Skate- Ozzie