In Memoriam: Marc Johnson (1977-2026) Cupertino Spot Tributes

Jul 06, 2026 828 views

It has been just over one month since Marc Johnson left this world. In the mortal sense he is no longer here. Yet I feel he is more present than he ever was. Almost like skateboarding’s Obi-Wan Kenobi—his energy feels stronger now than it did last month. “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” As if the sum total of Marc’s life’s work—his skateboarding, his art, his writing, his humor, his song choices, his style can only now come fully into scope. Only now, somewhat tragically can we see the true size of it.

And it is absolutely massive. Marc gave so much to our culture, he indirectly set the table for so many things. Each and every one of us who loved Marc, either as the living breathing person he was, or as the crazy talented hilarious superhero character he played as a pro skater have felt a void over this past month we didn’t even really know was there. We didn’t know what we had until it was gone? No, we did know, I did know—he is my favorite skateboarder from our generation. I just didn’t realize how far it went.

I know that others feel the same way. I know this personally because I received a near landslide of Marc Johnson spots and tributes for my Star Maps Instagram project. So many that I could not even hope to keep up or post them all. It was almost overwhelming. But their testament to Marc’s influence could not be missed. I had thought about writing a long article about his life and his passing. I still might. But right now it feels more appropriate to share one of the many tributes I received.

Shona Sanzgiri is an editor at Apple, a freelance writer, and grew up skating in and around San Jose. In early June I received my first guest essay for my Star Maps project from Shona as a tribute to MJ and all the spots he immortalized in Cupertino, California (famously the home of Apple). Even in such a small slice of CA—the outsized influence and impact on others lives, let alone lifting up the whole skate scene is colossal. In addition to mourning the loss of Marc, I feel many of us are simultaneously mourning the loss of our own youths, the vibrant scenes, and the skate culture that Marc was such a big catalyst of. I miss and love you Marc. Thank you for all that you gave us. Here’s Shona. —Mackenzie Eisenhour

Shona: Marc Johnson's passing left me more emotional than I expected. I'm 41 and it's been years since I skated with any determination, but scrolling Instagram that day I realized some of my old San Jose skate buddies were as much mourning Marc as that brief moment when San Jose's skateboarding scene felt enormous.

Many of the spots burned in skaters' memories worldwide aren't actually in San Jose, but Cupertino, the suburb where I went to high school. This was pre-iPhone, so back then you'd have to explain where it was. To make things easier, I'd just say "San Jose" and promptly get scolded by a friend.

The 5-stair ledge across from Cupertino Library blessed by Marc in *Seven Steps to Heaven *('96) and *Mandown* ('01).

In the early 2000s, Marc and some of the Tilt Mode guys had moved into a house on Tantau Avenue, down the street from friends of mine with a ramp in their front yard, and right around the corner from one of my oldest friends, who's John Cardiel's younger brother. One day I showed up expecting to bail front blunts for the millionth time and instead found John, Marc, Jerry Hsu, and Jesse Erickson standing on the deck of the ramp. Only one of us had the nerve to join them. A little more than two decades later, that friend, Jesse, and Marc are all gone.

I met Marc in 1998—I was 12, he was maybe 20—at one of San Jose's many circle parks, Maywood, skating in my private school uniform and the only sneakers my school allowed: Emerica MJs. He was gracious and oddly engaged, giving detailed trick tips and helping me land my first kickflip, which excited him almost more than it did me. "Holy shit, it worked!" he laughed.

From then on I saw him regularly at local spots like the Cupertino Library, our crew's own EMB, a submerged plaza with ledges running all along the perimeter. The library underwent a major renovation and the plaza was filled and replaced with trees, ground-level fountains, and benches where families sit to watch their kids run around, oblivious to history in a place with little of it. More than 30 years ago in the first two Maple videos, MJ ran circles in its square, doing what I think was the first nollie backside flip tailslide in a video. Across the street is a ledge going across a low five-stair that was skated by many Tilt Moders, including Marc and Louie Barletta.

De Anza Park metal ledges from *Tiltmode*! ('00) and *Modus Operandi *('00).

A friendly looking dog walks past another portion of De Anza Park's circular ledges.

Given its size, it's funny how much of Cupertino was immortalized by Marc. In the first Tilt Mode video, Marc filmed a nighttime line at a Land Rover dealership with two gently sloping sand-colored banks. Driving past it, Yo La Tengo's "Decora" plays in my mind.

A short drive from Apple's old headquarters there's a trifecta of noteworthy spots: The metal-edged circle park De Anza Park, back-to-back ledges at Stocklmeier Elementary School, and the white step-up ledge in a Walgreen's parking lot, where Marc floats a slow moving nollie heelflip out of a nose manual.

Starbird Park in nearby Campbell hosted many skate jams on account of its smooth basketball court and handful of ledges. I will always remember it for the symmetrical lines Marc filmed there, ones that required the swift, balletic footwork he was known for, including a half cab noseslide and a nollie back tail on the main ledge and a switch frontside 180 followed by a backside flip over a pair of colored mounds in the playground. I watched him do such lines in person, studying how his feet seemed to fall into place for the second trick after the first, how that required thinking about skateboarding as the sum of its parts rather than obsessing about the present.

The Land Rover Dealership from Marc's first *Tiltmode!* part ('00).

The car display ramps made for a perfect natural skatepark.

Revisiting all of these places without hearing the jubilant din of skateboarding and teenage and twenty-something guys laughing and talking shit, I felt profoundly alone and acutely aware of my gray hairs. There was a time when you'd be thrilled to have any of the spots to yourself. Now the silence is sobering. The words "Tilt Mode" sound like an anachronism. Marc is dead. Once these banal liminal spaces and the anodyne suburbs in which they are still found took on an outsized importance to us and skateboarders around the world. And we owe so much of that to Marc.—Shona Sanzgiri