Nov 21, 2024
Jacob Rosenberg
had a front-row seat to some rad SF/Bay Area history.
In this bonus episode, the
filmmaker/storyteller shares some of that history, especially as it
relates to his upcoming book, Right Before My Eyes.
Jacob was born and raised in Palo Alto. He grew up in the Seventies
and Eighties. His parents moved there from the East Coast and
Midwest to raise kids in an environment that matched their liberal
values more.
He started skating in the Eighties
and would visit Justin Herman Plaza/EMB in The City with his
skateboard but also his camera. He was one of the first to capture
the skateboarding going on at EMB who was a peer of the skaters he
was documenting. He soon found enough success with photography that
he dropped out of high school and moved to San Diego to do that
work full-time.
Two years or so later, he went to
film school at Emerson College in Boston, where he met his mentor.
That mentor passed away while Jacob was still in school, but he
finished a movie that guy had been working on at the time of his
death. After college, Jacob moved to Los Angeles, where he's lived
ever since.
At this point in the episode, I
share with Jacob the draw that SF had on me from about age 12,
thanks to skateboarding, Bones Brigade, and especially, Tommy
Guerrero. I never got to visit The City when I skated, but it was
always fresh in my imagination. Jacob then goes on a sidebar about
Tommy.
Jacob goes on to talk about the time
frame covered in his book—1988 to 1998. His life changed at skate
camp in the summer of 1988 (if my math is correct, this would be
Jacob's last summer before high school). He met pro skateboarders
that summer. Suddenly, unrelatedly, he was in Hawaii making a video
for Hieroglypics. He cites 1988 as a pinnacle year for hip-hop. And
he says that '91–'93 were the same for street skating. 1993 was
also important for hip-hop.
The conversation then shifts to what
the two cultures—hip-hop and skateboarding—had in common. He cites
his childhood hero, Chuck D. (who wrote the afterword for his book)
who noted that members of both subcultures were disenfranchised
youth who found a way to express themselves. Well-put.
In the early Nineties, the dominance
of ramp skating waned and gave way to street skating. With easier
and more affordable access to video cameras, the scene got
documented and documented well. Similarly, sampling and other
recording equipment was getting cheaper and cheaper, and DIY
hip-hop songs and videos flourished. And in a very specific way, a
video that Jacob created and put Hieroglyphics' music in helped to
unite the two groups in the Bay Area.
Jacob says that his self-published
book, Right Before My Eyes, is meant to be a coffee
table book. He intends for people to see the world he was
documenting all those years ago through his eyes. There are photos,
of course, but the book also contains screengrabs from videos he
made as well as ephemera from that time—stuff like photos of
photos, the cameras he used to shoot, and more.
Follow Jacob Rosenberg
on Instagram to see his work. And visit Jacob's
website to buy Right
Before My
Eyes, available now.
Photo by Stephen Vanaso
We recorded this episode over Zoom in November 2024.