Barefoot Phantom: Remembering New Zealand's First Skateboarding Legend, Lee Ralph

This Saturday, and every Saturday at 8.55 PM on VICELAND you can watch KING OF THE ROAD, the show where three teams of the world's best pro-skateboarders travel across the States putting life, limb, and dignity in increasingly-ridiculous peril to be crowned Kings of the Road. That got us thinking about New Zealand's original fearless skating pro.

To be remembered as great is one thing. To be remembered as a true original is a whole other kettle of fish.

For the true original, personal success is not always guaranteed. In fact, it very rarely comes. It is a by-product of a pursuit in life that they know, in their bones, to be undeniably worth it.

Casting aside all judgment, they let their rawness hang out there for all the world to see, so they may better understand what they're all about themselves.

Lee Ralph—New Zealand's first true skateboarding legend—is that kind of original.

You know that straight away when you meet him. A long, ragged ginger beard. Torn clothes. A rotting front tooth. Skin as worn as old leather. Lee Ralph, looking all of his 47 years on the planet—and a helluva lot more.

But then the bloke talks, with an honesty, passion and openness that is rare to this world. You get it. This guy is something else.

A West Auckland tearaway, Ralph headed to California in the mid-80s and blew the skateboarding world away. Talk of his name and style was everywhere.

Here he was: this barefoot Kiwi, rugged as hell, with four big tikis slung around his neck on the bowls and ramps of LA. He had a style that was brutally aggressive in its approach—but smooth and near-poetic in its execution.

Endorsements and a big money contract with Vision flew his way. For a time, in arguably skate boarding's true glory era, Ralph was up there with the best: superstars like Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi and Mark Gonzales. Ralph was even best man at Gonzales' wedding.

But then it all disappeared. Green card issues in the States, a bad knee injury—and the booze starting to take hold.

He'd mount a comeback in the late 80s in Europe, competing in Skateboarding World Cups—the X Games before there was X Games—as well as touring with Hosoi. The parties were epic, but with no chance of impressing the skateboarding company execs back in the States, Ralph couldn't quite make it stick.

So Ralph turned phantom. A cult-hero turned ghost, moving silently from Auckland to Melbourne, back to the States, and then New Zealand again.

He'd turn up, unannounced, at some urban bowl, blow a few minds with a few unbelievable skateboarding moves, then move on again. Unattached to the growing mythology around him, just dedicated, instead, to the pursuit and process of his craft.

He'd had nearly two decades of that, and while it's still a hard job pinning Ralph down, he's beginning to come back into the light.

Now the Kiwi skateboarding icon has transformed into a widely respected contemporary Maori carver. He's held exhibitions all over Auckland; the most recent coming at The Vice in Davenport last March, presented by the Auckland Art Festival.

Auckland filmmaker Alex Dyer, meanwhile, has been working on an extensive documentary into Ralph and his cult hero-like life. With more than five years of research and interviews—including comments from Hawk himself—Dyer is planning to release Barefoot: The Lee Ralph Story in 2017.

From a personal point-of-view, I interviewed Ralph, back in 2012. I was a reporter for a Sunday newspaper and was inspired to track him down after reading Hosoi's epic autobiography. It took me months to do find him.

Carrying with me a six-pack of beers, I found him out in Swanson; a Yeti-looking dude with a great big smile.

We got through that six-pack and shot down to the bottle store for another box. We drank too much and laughed a lot. I came back a few more times, and learned about a true Kiwi original with an unsentimental honesty about his experience that is as rare as it is inspiring.

Ralph knew the things he'd messed up in life, and didn't present himself as anything else other than what he knew he was.

In a world fill of fakers, shit-talkers and glory hunters, Ralph is the real deal. A deserved cult hero of his sport.

A true original. Would he trade that in for a couple more bucks? Doubt it.

Watch King of the Road on VICELAND, Saturdays at 8.55 PM. 

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