The Rules of Skateboarding #19: Tom Karangelov
Artwork by Charlotte Tegan
The idea of a skater hunting for spots conjures up some pretty specific imagery: East Coasters in brown pants looking for cellar doors, hesh crews peeking over fences to suss out empty pools, heads in puffy DCs looking for any trace elements of Love Park, and so on. California pros might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about sifting for diamonds through the crust, but Tom Karangelov has carved out his own niche in a place where every skateable handrail has a dozen sets of eyes on it. In a lot of ways he and Lurker Lou are opposite sides of the same coin, which is why it made sense to chase Lou’s interview with Tom’s thoughts on spot hunting in LA.
Words & interview by Ian Browning
So in your Out There, you talked a lot about going and looking at spots inspired by films. Is there anything else that inspires your spot hunt?
The movie thing, I realized I would drive all over LA and I noticed, like, I swear this was from Drive, and then eventually, it was like…I wonder where Tupac lived. Oh, he lived in Woodland Hills. I grew up in Orange County, which, in the ‘90s was where the entire [skate] industry was. Every single thing was skated until death. I grew up around the 2000s skating, so I was handrail-heavy, and I like stairs and gaps. As I got older and I realized that wasn't the only way to skate, it kind of became a thing. I guess I'm stoked to find stuff in Orange County and LA that people missed back in the day.
There’s this really famous spot in Menikmati where Arto skates down the stairs, and he skates a handrail. The other day, I randomly found that church, found the rail, and right next to it is this weird bump-over-bar line that you can get. It’s kind of cool to find both spots and see what’s there. There's so much stuff that those dudes didn't skate. I'll be like, “Oh my god, that's where the Jeremy Wray ledge-across-roof is? In this parking lot? What else is on that roof, or what’s by it?”
What does a day of spot hunting look like for you?
It’ll only be Monday through Friday. I rarely do it on the weekend because everyone wants to skate on the weekend, and people can film. So it'll be Monday or something, and I'm just like, “I'm just going to find a zone I don't think I've been in. I'm going to drive there in the morning and then leave before traffic.” It's kind of sad, but I don't touch my skateboard. I just drive behind every single business and kind of get lost. And then when the weekend comes, I'll have spots.
It's kind of funny; there's times when I do that so much, and then I have spots for a minute. And then right now, I don't have any, so I need to do more of those days. But that's how it works, pretty much. Pretty weird, I think.
These doors were only able to be taped open thanks to the lockdown.
Were you able to break any new ground or unlock anything you'd been trying to skate during lockdown?
Oh yeah. So many things—it’s insane. A lot of schools and stuff were way more empty. You could do the kind of things that you normally wouldn't be able to do. This one's kind of insane but I'll tell you: I had this video part called Enter The Museum. There's this spot in La Crescenta, which is a super famous over-the-rail into a bank. Figgy had a cover on it doing a crook. Inside that school there's this spine hubba, and I was like, “Dude, if you could open these doors, this thing would be super sick to skate.” It's this pretty famous high school with a bunch of spots. Sometimes I drive to places at night and look at the spot and see what's going on. I don't know why, but I noticed that a lot of the windows were open. I was able to climb in through a window and open the doors and tape them. I came back on the weekend, and the doors were open.
There's a handrail next to that spine hubba, and I ollied over the handrail to noseslide the hubba. So random, but I was so stoked on it because we used to go to this school and I was like, “Damn, this thing's so rad, but like you'll never be able to skate it.”
I feel like that's pretty much only because of COVID. Less people and teachers and janitors. A lot of businesses were empty too.
There's this other one, it's not as sick, but in that same part, I do this nosegrind pop out and this super long board slide. I’m not really a board slider, so I was really stoked on it. But that building is in this crazy park, and there's always a security guard that sits in that building. On my spot days I would just check, is the security guard there, and then one day just for fun to show my friends, I put my phone in my pocket and I knocked on the glass to the security guard. I was like, “Excuse me, I think I left my wallet playing basketball in the park. What day would there be a security guard here to let me know if it's been found?” The person was like “Oh, actually no one's going to be here tomorrow. But if you come Tuesday through Sunday, someone will be here.” So I knew to skate this on a Sunday or Monday. I wanted to record it [on the phone] to show my friends this actually works.
What's the most work you've put into a spot?
I went to Boston while I was filming the New Balance video, String Theory. This kid Shawn Mac that skates for Politic was showing our friend Tim, who films, this rainbow rail. And I always, when I go to other states or countries, I'm like, “Is there a rainbow rail here?” Because those are the sickest things I've ever seen. I always love jam/rainbow rail things. So Shawn shows Tim this pole jam rail, Tim shows me, but it was like two hours from Boston, so we didn't get to go. A week ago, Jordan Taylor and I actually went back to Boston to just film for WKND stuff. And I'm like, “Dude, Tim, I'll pay for gas, whatever, we have to go look at the rainbow rail.”
So we go to the rainbow rail. It's like two hours away, and it rained the night before. There's so much mud and sludge everywhere. We bought shovels and cleaned it out. It took forever. And then bondoed the ground, but it was still really bad. There was some to-go food, and I put the container of food in this hole, so I knew, “Okay, don't ride over this to-go food, because if I do, I'll probably die. So just avoid the to-go food, go over the bondo, throw down on this wood.”
It took forever, and I swear I said to Jordan, “I think this is the most work we've ever done to actually skate a spot.”
The bondo, the takeout container, the wood - it’s all just part of what it takes to skate original spots.
Nice. Did you get a clip out of it?
Yeah, I did.
It’s not a lot of work unless it's like knobs or something. In that Museum part, there's a spot at this famous high school where Templeton and a bunch of dudes skated. There's this bench that Ed [Templeton] noseblunts to fakie. I love skating spots that Ed skates. He's one of my favorite skaters. They knobbed this bench by putting these bars in the way, so I cut the bar out in the middle of the day while my friend was watching for security. I didn't even know what trick to do. But I ended up doing the last trick in that Museum part. But that one was kind of gnarly, because I never cut out a handle on a bench. So that one is kind of special to me, because it's a Tempster spot. I did this random bluntslide wallie thing.
Cutting that out was kind of gnarly. It's a lot of tinkering with stuff like that. It's not really like moving spots.
Ed walked so Tom could run.
Yeah, definitely. What's your dream spot?
Imagine a small mellow rail and then at the end for some reason there's naturally a pole jam. that would be so sick, just imagine a yellow shitty pole that got hit by a semi truck and then a mellow small rail and then you can grind it, sit on it, and then pole jam it.
Clive Dixon kind of did it, but I think he bent the pole at the bottom at the bottom of the stairs.
The white whale. Do you have any good stories from skating house spots? Or just good pedestrian stories in general?
I have a crazy story about a movie theater: In String Theory, the New Balance video, I carve into a curb cut, and I wallie to grind on this ledge into a pit and crash at the bottom. That thing is in Sierra Madre at this theater arts building. I remember rub bricking and clear coating this ledge to get it to grind. All my friends were like, “What are you going to do when you get to the bottom?” And I'm like, “Dude, I'll just crash.”
We kept getting kicked out, and one of the last times this old dude comes out, and he's like, “You guys again, what are you doing?” And I'm like, “Oh, we're just trying to film this, once I do it we'll be gone, and you'll never see us again.” So he's like, “Alright, but I'm going to have people here, and you guys need to leave as soon as you do it.” So then I did it, I crashed and it was super loud, and he came out again. I said I did it, and that he didn't have to worry about us ever coming back, and he's like, “Oh, is that a RED camera?” He’s asking the New Balance filmer about what kind of connections it has, and I was like, “Dude, can we watch the clip in the movie theater?” And the guy was like, “Oh my God, Yes. I'd love that.”
It was me, Chad Tim Tim, and a few of my friends. We projected the RED camera onto the screen of the sickest movie theater. The guy called out a couple people that work there, and we all watched the clip with movie theater audio. That was insane. I feel like it'll never happen again. He was so stoked after. It felt like a screening.
This would have been cool to see on the big screen, but it is cool here too :)
Do you get people hitting you up for spots frequently?
I feel like I used to have that happen a lot. I don't know what happened, but slowly, no one really does it anymore. I think it's a known thing that it's really hard to find spots. If you give them up, they get kind of blown out quickly. So not too many filmers do that anymore. I ride for this shop called Jokers in Huntington Beach, and sometimes kids will be like, “Tom, where's this thing?” I always tell them. Little groms hit me up, but filmers don't really hit me up anymore. They'll try and go around me, like, go to my friends or whatever, but it usually doesn't work.
On keeping spots under wraps, how quick after filming a trick do you use it? Do you have any thoughts on keeping spots off Instagram?
Yeah, I'll sit on clips for a long time, and I'm like, “Please, nobody skate this. Please.”
I could throw people under the bus right now. But there's this one thing in String Theory, it's my last trick. It's an ollie over nosegrind. A lot of skaters live in that part of LA. And that thing's been there forever. Jeremy Klein ollied it back in the day, it was a different bump-over-bar. I would go to the school and I'd be like, “If somebody cuts the kink off this rail it would be a perfect bump over bar to handrail.” It doesn't look the sickest, it kind of looks like an Orange County school—super bright, sunny out. But something about Jeremy Klein ollieing this thing, I just wanted to cut this kink off and skate it.
All my friends are like, “Just go for ollie over 5-0, because when you ollie a bump-to-bar, naturally, the easier trick is to do a 5-0. It'd be harder to 5050 it.” I remember thinking, “This video doesn’t come out for a while, and if I ollie over nosegrind, and sit on this clip for a while, someone's probably going to 5-0 it, but I don't think the go-to thing for somebody would be a nosegrind or a crook.” So I was like, I'm just going to sit here and battle the nosegrind. I had to go like five times to do it. But if I knew if I got a nosegrind, it wouldn't matter if somebody 5-0’d it. I'd still be stoked on nosegrind.
We are all still stoked on the nosegrind.
I like this strategy there.
Yeah, it's kind of weird. But you have to think like that.
That one was really funny because I had to go so late at night, and I had to cut it two different times, because they would weld the kink back on. I don't always cut kinks off, because I know it kind of looks gross having a hole in the rail. This time, I was like, “Jeremy Klein skated this. I'm trying to skate this too.” I remember seeing it as a kid. That one was really special to me.
It was really funny because my friends were like, “Oh, for sure, this going to get 5-0’d.” We just knew the second another crew came to the school they'd be like, “Oh, this thing”, but funny enough, it didn't happen until the footage came out. I love that though—spots can be right under people's noses, but they miss them. It takes a little bit of effort, so they don't do it. They wait till somebody else does it. I would say the majority of the skate industry doesn't care who finds a spot or who does the work, they just care about getting their trick on it. So I'm kind of in the minority here caring about that, but I do because I… I don't know. I feel like I put in the effort.
There's definitely something to be said for going out spending a day looking for spots and not even really skating, just trying to find something else.
I think skaters where I live, maybe everywhere, know that it's hard to find those things, but I swear I feel like filmers and I vibe way more, because they understand how hard it is. A lot of the filmer’s job is showing skaters spots. So I feel like I can always kind of relate more with the filmer. They probably understand my struggle better than anybody. The filmers for a lot of brands probably have the same issues: “Well, I filmed so-and-so on this, I hope the other companies' filmers don't find out and do something else here.”
I know you didn't ask me, but there is a weird competitive thing. Like, something can be so rad, but you got to do all this work, and then in the back of your head, you're like, “I have to do all this work and then sit on it for like six months.” I have the respect to not skate some stuff that I realized I didn't put work into, but I feel like the majority of skateboarding doesn't care who fixed the spot, or what tricks had been done. Everyone's just horny to film.
It's such a weird LA thing. I swear, when I go on trips I don't really see it. I was just in Boston and I feel like a lot of the kids I was skating with aren't like that. There's not a million pro skateboarders that live in Boston that are competitive. There's only like, Westgate, who comes down from Maine. And then Kevin Coakley found all the cool shit back in the day. I always say LA seems so fucking hard to skate versus these other places. I'll take crust any day.