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Skateboard legend Donnie Ho remembered

VaselineJuly 18, 2024

0 9 minutes read

Donnie Crist was something of a legend on the Phoenix skateboard scene, where he was better known as Don or Donnie Ho.

A sponsored skater as a young man in the ‘70s, he appeared catching air in the pages of Skateboarder magazine and went on to produce, direct and write a 2020 documentary on the local scene that meant so much to him, “High Rollers: The Golden Age of Arizona Skateboarding.”

As Michael Cornelius of Phoenix skate-rock band JFA says, “Donnie really is a local legend. He put Arizona on the map back in the ‘70s.”

Crist died on the morning of Tuesday, July 2, eight days after starting radiation treatment on the cancer that would claim his life.

He was 62.

Daughter Mia Hernandez says, “I’ll tell you one thing, if he hadn’t gotten sick, he’d still be skateboarding.”

From skating at the mall to the pages of Skateboarder magazine

Crist took up skateboarding in the summer of ‘75.

He recalled his introduction to the culture in a blog run by AZPX, a local skateboard brand that produces boards, clothing, music, videos and official merch for JFA and Sun City Girls.

“I knew a kid with a board with clay wheels,” Crist recalled on the blog. “We used to go to the mall and skate. My first day on a board, I was being pulled by a bike, I wiped out and took out an old lady in the process. She was pissed.”

In 1978, he was recruited by West Coast skate legend Stacy Peralta to skate for Powell Peralta, a skateboard company founded by Peralta and George Powell.

“Stacy had Jim Cassimus shoot me at High Roller in the snake run,” Crist recalled on the AZPX blog. “That’s where I got my full-page shot in Skateboarder mag.”

By that point, Crist was skating Dead Cat Pool (an empty pool on the west side of Phoenix), High Roller Skatepark (for which his documentary is named) in Sunnyslope, and Desert Pipes, a series of smooth concrete pipes in the West Valley.

“It was a great time for skateboarding,” Crist recalled.

Steve Shelton on ’70s skaters: ‘We were super-fixated and devoted’

Steve Shelton was skating the same spots as Crist in the ‘70s.

“He was, like, 15 and I was 17,” Shelton recalls. “I’d pick him up at his dad’s place and we’d drive out to the pool. And then the parks came. And, of course, the pipes.”

Shelton, a local musician who acted as music director and plays a starring role in “High Rollers,” says they took their skating very seriously.

“We were super-fixated,” he says. “And devoted. It wasn’t just a ‘have a couple beers and fool around at the pool’ type thing. It was super intense. We were super competitive. And we were west siders.”

The west side of Phoenix had “some of the best terrain of all time” for skating, Shelton says. “So it was really a feather in our cap. That’s why the pros were coming out here.”

A photo of Shelton appeared in the same Skateboarder magazine (February 1979) as the full-page shot of Crist.

“That’s when Donnie got the major frontside air,” Shelton says. “And the focus section of Skateboarder was full-color pages. So it wasn’t just a little, ‘Hey, you got a snapshot in the mag.’”

Stacy Peralta was ‘really good at picking the right guy’

Crist was an “explosive” skater, Shelton says, “talented and explosive. One of those guys that’s so talented, maybe he didn’t have to practice quite as much as I did.”

Getting picked for Powell Peralta spoke to how impressive Crist could be.

As Shelton says, “Stacy Peralta was really good at picking the right guy. So the fact that he picked Donnie is a testament to the fact that he was in that upper echelon.”

Todd Joseph skated with Crist as a teen in the ‘70s.

“We met when High Roller skateboard park opened,” he says. “That was kind of the place that brought everybody together. And Donnie was one of the standout guys.”

An injury sidelined Crist in 1980.

As Shelton recalls, “He broke his humerus and was already leaning towards playing a lot of guitar. Randy Rhoads was his idol.”

Donnie Ho was ‘the Tony Hawk or Tony Alva of Phoenix’

Crist returned to skating in the ’90s and over time became more heavily involved in the promotion of the sport — to the extent that Shelton calls him an “ambassador” of skateboarding.

Michael Pistrui of Fat Gray Cat had heard of Donnie Ho but didn’t really get to know him as more than a mythical figure until the ‘90s, bonding over their shared love of skating ditches.

“Donnie was the Tony Hawk or Tony Alva of Phoenix,” Pistrui says. “A true legend.

“There’s only a handful of guys that can do some of the stuff he would do. He’s from the old school. I’m talking late ’70s. If there was a Mount Rushmore of skateboarding for Arizona, I have to believe that Donnie would be one of those guys up there.”

Pistrui enjoyed seeing kids at the skatepark react to what his friend could do.

“It was fun to watch younger guys go, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anybody do that before,’” Pistrui says. “He had some particular moves that there’s only a handful of older guys can pull those off.”

‘He was just a great soul. Anyone that met him could see that’

Kiersten Hall was among the more devoted young admirers of Crist’s technique. She’s also his granddaughter.

“Obviously, he’s a legend of skateboarding,” she says.

He taught her how to ride when she got her first flex board at 6.

“One day, I remember, I was out with a friend of mine, she had a little board, too, and we decided to go bomb a hill like he used to, thinking obviously I can do it if my grandpa did,” Hall recalls.

“It turns out I was not as good as he was at that time. I ended up breaking a wrist and I got road rash down my legs. I remember my mom being all like, ‘There’s no way she’s skating again!’ But I still did. I learned his style.”

Hall loved hanging with her grandpa, watching “Lords of Dogtown,” a film that chronicles the rise of skateboard culture in the California of the ‘70s, or skating ditches.

“He was just one of those people, he would walk into a room and everyone gravitated to him,” Hall says. “He was just a great soul. Anyone that met him could see that.”

Rob Locker of AZPX on Donnie Ho: ‘The dude was, like, a visionary’

Rob Locker had just started AZPX when he met Crist in 2002 at the Wedge Skatepark in Scottsdale.

“The dude, was, like, a visionary,” Locker says. “He always had something he wanted to do and he would do it. And he would bring his friends along for the ride.”

When Locker’s skateboard team fell apart in 2012, Crist suggested a collaboration.

“Donnie came to me out of nowhere, saying, ‘Hey, I want to do some boards. Let’s do this,’” Locker says.

“I was just thinking of maybe closing up, not knowing what to do, but he decided he wanted to do something with me. And we did it.”

How AZPX came to launch a Don Ho skateboard line

Crist and Locker launched a skateboard line together.

“He wanted to have his own skateboard line, and he did,” Locker says. “He made boards for his buddies he grew up skating with, and we had a really great time doing it. He was self-directed. I just kind of guided him through everything.”

Crist’s can-do attitude became a source of strength for AZPX.

“He embraced what my company was about,” Locker says.

“We loved Arizona skateboarding and the whole history and lore behind it. We felt we had just as deep a history as the California guys. So Donnie wanted to start doing interviews with all his old buddies about where they used to skate and what they’re up to now. “

Those interviews became a series called Viejo Guerrero (old warrior) on the AZPX blog.

“He would never use a computer,” Locker says. “He would always hand-write everything.”

The birth of ‘High Rollers: The Golden Age of Arizona Skateboarding’

The documentary grew out of an interview Crist did with Shelton for that blog.

“When it came to his buddy, Steve Shelton, Steve wouldn’t shut up and Donnie couldn’t write fast enough,” Locker says. “So they decided to videotape his interview. That’s how ‘High Rollers’ came about. One day, he’s like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna make a movie.’”

That movie took three years to make.

“He just stayed after it,” Shelton says.

“I would consult but Donnie was guiding that ship. Like any good director or producer, he was good at bringing in the right people and knowing when to defer and let them do their thing. He was a super-easygoing guy, but super-focused and visionary.”

To Cornelius, it made perfect sense that Crist would be the guy to make a Phoenix skateboard documentary.

“He didn’t have money to do it,” Cornelius says. “He didn’t know how to make a movie. He thought, ‘We should have a movie about all the stuff we did.’ And he went out and made it happen.”

AZPX rented out a west side movie theater for the premiere on March 6, 2020, a day before Skater Con and a week before the world shut down for COVID-19.

“It was sold out with a line around the whole front of the building,” Cornelius recalls. “It was a pretty big deal for the skateboard community.”

Shelton says, “It was so packed that people were sitting in the aisles and standing in the back, the way you would want it to be.”

Three years after that premiere, Tempe History Museum held a screening of the film with a panel discussion and a live performance by Fat Gray Cat.

“It was an awesome time,” Locker says. “And it was all Donnie Ho.”

Reuniting the gang from the High Roller Skatepark days

Crist also organized a series of ‘70s skateboard scene reunions starting in the mid-2000s after running into one of his old friends from the High Roller days, Todd Joseph, at the skatepark.

“One day, I was at the Chandler skateboard park,” Joseph says. “I’d just gotten there and was putting my pads on when this dude was like, ‘Hey Todd, what’s up?’”

A few years later, in 2006, Joseph suggested organizing a reunion of the old High Roller gang and Crist was instrumental in making it happen at a Goodyear skate park.

“We had a really good turnout,” Joseph says. “Some guys brought their kids and Donnie was there with his granddaughter.”

Crist staged several more reunions after that.

“He really dove back into skating,” Joseph says. “That was a good 20-some-year run where he was really active and involved in the skate community.”

In recent years, Crist, a longtime veteran of the local metal scene, assembled a rotating cast of musicians he called Ditch Diggers (until a cease-and-desist order forced a name change to Ditch Service), recording songs that were closer in spirit to classic garage-rock and recruiting Locker to play bass at one point.

“I’m no musician whatsoever,” Locker says. “This dude got me to play the bass and write some songs and sing and record with him. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would do that, but he said I could so we did.”

Crist was especially proud of the tracks recorded with granddaughter on backing vocals.

“They were used in the movie,” Locker says. “It was soulful. Or skateful. There’s a new word for you. You can have that.”

‘Tiny Bubbles’: How Don Crist became Don Ho (or Donnie Ho)

Crist’s skate name was a reference to Don Ho of “Tiny Bubbles” fame.

Sometimes at night, the kids at High Roller would skate the roofs of the nearby ramadas at North Mountain Park.

“We’d grind the edges of the roof and either make it or fall off,” Shelton says.

“We’d call them luaus. And there’s Donnie, right? So then you’re thinking ‘Tiny Bubbles,’ Don Ho. That’s where it came from, the after-skatepark luaus at North Mountain Park.”

‘Everyone loved Donnie,’ says Michael Cornelius of skate-rock icons JFA

In all the years they knew each other, Shelton says, he never knew of Crist to come off as having an ego.

“And that’s coming out of the rock ‘n’ roll world and the skateboarding world where that can be rampant,” Shelton says.

But Crist was always more the type to compliment a friend than talk about himself.

“If you were good at something, he’d say ‘Hey, you’re awesome at that’ – just, like, out of the blue,” Cornelius says.

“It was always such a pleasure to see Donnie. He was always positive, always had something good to say. He was just that kind of guy to bring people together. Everyone loved Donnie.”

That’s the man Hernandez knew her dad to be.

“He liked to see people succeed,” she says.

“He liked when people were good people for them to be recognized for their achievements or for who they were as people. And he had a heart of gold. He would do anything and everything for anybody, didn’t matter what it was, no matter how big or how small.”

Crist worked at Bizarre Guitar in the Melrose District of Phoenix for more than two decades and had his own detailing business, cleaning cars.

“He kept it simple,” Shelton says.

“I’m not saying he lived on the outside of society, because he was such a man of this world, of the people, but I admired how he kept it simple so he could do the things he loved to do. He marched to his own tune, you know? And he did that until he couldn’t do it anymore. Any man would be lucky to be able to do that.”

VaselineJuly 18, 2024

0 9 minutes read