FIRST TRACKS
Giant Robot: When did you start skating?
Jerry Ongkeo: Back in 1987, I was in the seventh grade.
Paul Leung: Jerry taught me how to skate. I got his leftovers. A lot of people say we were ahead of our time. We skated everything as best as we could. We called ourselves "Team Zone".
JO: Everyone else was doing small tricks, like 360 kick-flips. We just went by them. We did double sets (eight and a platform and eight), handrails, 50-50 slides... Right now if we were still doing that, we'd be making the money.
GR: How did you two wind up taking a bus from New York City to San Diego?
JO: Poverty had a scout out here. He heard about me doing crazy stunts, crazy shit like backside 180s over 14 steps. Paul attempted 360 backside pull-up airs over 14 steps at the Fuji Building. This shit was five years ago.
PL: So we went to San Diego to represent Poverty at a trade show. Three guys were supposed to get signature models and Jerry should have been one of them.
JO: Then the shit went sour. Nobody got anything. And all that chest-high ollieing, backside180ing over garbage cans, combined into ankle problems.
GR: Paul, how did a New Yorker like you get mixed up with San Diego-based AD Unit?
PL: Alyasha Moore, who founded American Dream, lived in Brooklyn. He had this concept about how everybody's trying to get their slice of the pie. He wanted to have a lot of minorities on the team, guys struggling to make a name for themselves. The pros are the signature guys. I belong to the Recon Unit, which is like the back-ups.
LIFE AFTER SKATEBOARDING
GR: Jerry, what turned you on to music after skateboarding?
JO: We started Alienz as me, Paul, and Zoo York skateboarder Peter Bici. Now it's just me and Michael Urrutia.
PL: I lacked the skills and I was holding him back, and I couldn't do that to my friend who had potential.
GR: How would you describe your style?
JO: They say it's a cross between Wu-Tang and Redman. The Redman thing came first, but I had my style before Method or anybody. But word-of-mouth doesn't count. Points count. The bar code counts. I met Ol' Dirty in the train station. I said, "What about it? I'm a rapper," and so on, and he said, "Yeah?" He passed me off. He looked like he was on crack or something.
GR: What do you think about hip-hoppers who rap about martial arts?
JO: They have to back it up. They can't say, "Fuck aikido. Fuck jiu-jitsu. Fuck karate. Muay Thai's the shit." They can never say that the way I do. They don't know. They might have an idea that the technique is better, but their ideas are all based in movies. Wu Tang is pronounced "Wu Tung." Their slang is all bullshit. They bring up swords and blades when they don't know a goddamned thing about it. They know how to bullshit. Too much Raekwon watching John Woo movies.
GR: I like John Woo's movies.
JO: Yeah, but they got to watch out. They talk a lot of shit. Biggie Smalls is dead. Tupac is dead. You know who's next, right? Snoop Doggy Dogg. You heard it here first: Snoop Doggy Dogg is dead. First you got West Coast, but Tupac was from Brooklyn. He just made himself West Coast. Then they killed Biggie. East Coast wants a piece now. Alienz will be the first Asian hip-hop truly on the market.
GR: Aren't there a couple already out there?
JO: But they're faggots. They don't have the structure. They don't have the ability, the credibility, or the background.
DELAYED KARMA
GR: What happened with the knife fight?
PL: I was walking home with a bag of groceries in one hand and my skateboard in the other. I saw these two dudes watch me walk by, and I blinked. I should have looked right through them, but I didn't. They just whomped me from behind. So I was thinking, "Maybe I should do some karate moves or something." Then I thought, "Fuck it, I ain't risking that shit." They cornered me in front of my neighbor's house and one guy had his knife right in front of my belly. They asked me how much I had, and I only had six dollars in my pocket. If they would have swung, I would have, too, but they didn't. One said, "Nice sweater," and took my sweater. I called Jerry that night and told him about the incident. About a month later, he caught the same guys...
JO: I was late from work, sort of pissed off, when these guys asked me for my money, but not at knife-point. They had to come a little closer, so I gave one a head-butt and an elbow to the face. The first one went out with a broken nose. The second one gave me a sissy kick, so I gave him a forward kickŠthe way you would kick a door down. I kicked his chest in. They were fleeing, and I screamed, "Now give me your money!" Then I thought about Paul's thing. I got on my phone and said, "Paul, I think I ran into the same two guys. Were they kind of short?" Paul said yes, and I was stoked. It's a small world and I took revenge for Paul.
GR: Did you use the Muay Thai technique?
JO: Oh yeah, Muay Thai all the way. A head-butt first, then an elbow, and then a nice front foot kick. Three simple combinations.
MUAY THAI MONK
GR: Are you Thai Buddhist?
JO: I'm Thai-Laotian-French-Chinese Buddhist forever. After my uncle died, I was a monk. You couldn't touch women and food had to be served to you, but you could dress normal. You'd have to go to the monastery to get served food. You'd learn a little Muay Thai here and there.
GR: Why did they teach boxing to monks?
JO: Training. It was "survival of the fittest" and "by any means necessary." That's how Muay Thai was used in ancient situations. When you lose everything and you lose your weapon, if there's trouble, if you're touched first, this self-defense means kill. Not just break him or cripple him a little; knee him until his ribs are broken and he bleeds at night.
GR: Would you do that to a woman, too? How can you fight a female if monks aren't allowed to touch one?
JO: If it's a bitch, it's a bitch.
GR: And when you get married, you'll have to become a monk again?
JO: A month, three months, nine months, a year, or three years. I was thinking about a month.
GR: What are those charms on your neck?
JO: One's for riches and one's for health. Women can never touch this or they'll get jinxed. One Vietnamese lady from Toronto touched my charms and she got into a car accident two hours later. She ran into a tree.
GR: What's with the long pinky nail?
JO: That's for picking boogers like the old people. That's function, not style at all. My girl doesn't like it.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
GR: Do you feel as close to AD Unit as you did to Team Zone?
PL: We're separated. I mean, we have meetings and all the guys go out together for dinner, but it's time for us to get together and do demos. That would be even better.
JO: Me and Paul, we'd book. We speed skated. That was our shit, hitting fat bio ollies, cracking over anything. The session was two blocks. You go down one block doing wheelies, manuals, whatever, then get on the other block and do ollies, 360 kick-flips, technical trips, switchstance, shove-its...
GR: What do your parents think of your skateboarding?
PL: I was born in Hong Kong, moved here when I was four. My parents are mad traditional. They think it's kind of crappy because there's no money. But there's this feeling you get. There's adrenaline, creativity, coordination, so many things physically, mentally. When I skate, I feel like I can do anything.
JO: But it's never going to be like Team Zone. The rasta parties, the spaghetti with just sauce every day, watching re-runs of kung fu flicks again and again...
PL: Team Zone was just a bunch of guys growing up. But the good stick together.
