"King Killing" and Performing Magic on the Streets to Survive:

Zolton Torkos

Zolton “The Magician” Torkos grew up on the Westside of Santa Cruz, on the same street as such surfing greats as Barney, Flea, Tom Powers, and the Acker brothers. He is the 4th generation from a family of magicians, and it shows in his surfing. Zolton is one of the most innovative surfers coming up in Santa Cruz these days, pulling switchfoot pop-shove-its at will, along with a full bag of tricks. “Zolton is the Joe Crimo of Santa Cruz.” Jason “Ratboy” Collins said. “He consistently pulls off varials, pop-shove its, and other air tricks. He is also a real character.” In the last year of the SMAS “Airshows”, he finished in the top 24, only competing in a few of the events. Lately, Zolton has focused his efforts in cultivating his unique approach to surfing, and developing new tricks that no one has seen yet.

WK- Zolton is an interesting name. How did you get it?

Zolton Torkos- I come from a long from a line of Hungarian immigrants. My mom named me after Attilla-the-Huns main warrior, Zolton. It means “king killer”.

Your kidding, right?

(Laughs, then gets serious) No, I am serious.

Wow. That’s pretty cool. How did your family end up in Santa Cruz?

My Great Grandpa, Nick Pasquarosa moved to Boston from Italy, and performed magic on the streets to survive. His family became stable in Boston, but at the time there was a lot of gangs, violence, and bad influences. Nick wanted his son Frank to have a better life, so they gave him a bag of gems and told him to get as far away from Boston as possible. He ended up in Monterey, and some of my family migrated to Santa Cruz.