When did you start skating?
I’ve had a board since I was 8 or so but started trying tricks and all that at about 13. That would be 1991.
What was your first skateboard?
My first board ever was a Toys ‘R’ Us complete with a demon doing a wallride while smashing a skeleton with a mace as the graphic. When I got really interested in skating, beyond just a fad, I was given a hand-me-down Santa Cruz from a kid in the neighborhood. It was an ’80s shape with a slightly kicked up nose. The board was a few years old already when I got it but I didn’t know any better. The first board I picked out myself was a New Deal Danny Sargent pro model slick-bottom with a graphic ripping off a Too Short album cover. I had Venture trucks and, if memory serves, Real “Little Bunny Shit” wheels that were maybe 38 millimeter. If skateboarding hadn’t evolved back to bigger setups and cleaner tricks, I probably would have quit. Shout out to Jerry Fisher for selling me my first set of “big” wheels at Love Park for $6 in 1993. I think those were 50 millimeters. Ridiculous.
When did you stop or slow down significantly?
I’m happy to say I’ve never stopped skating, nor really slowed down in the past 22 years. Obviously, adult obligations like work and family come into play now. But, weather permitting I try to skate 3 or 4 days a week for at least two hours at a time. My thing these days is to get up at dawn and skate the LES skatepark here in New York before work. Working in new media, no one looks at you weird for bringing a skateboard in to the office.
What do you do for a living?
I currently oversee and curate video for Yahoo Screen. Programming sports video especially, I get to throw in some skate video stuff every now and again so long as I think it’s something that has appeal for a broad audience. In the past I’ve been a writer and editor for Skateboarder magazine (RIP) as well as for ESPN’s foray into action sports: what is now xgames.com which used to be a broader spectrum action sports site and I ran the skateboarding portion. I’ve also been a classroom teacher and a counselor at the Visalia YMCA Skate Camp (now known at Element Skate Camp)–probably the coolest place on earth. It’s pretty crazy that my complete nerd-dom about skating has actually helped my professional life in big and small ways for a long time now.
When you are not skating, how often do you think about skateboarding?
Constantly. I’ve reached a point with my career and my life where I know that skateboarding shouldn’t be at the forefront of my brain quite so much, but if I’m really honest, it kinda still is.
How did skateboarding affect the direction of your life?
Where to begin? I picked a college in Washington D.C. mostly because I wanted to skate Pulaski Plaza. I went to grad school for journalism because I wanted to write for skateboard magazines and had no idea how to do that living on the East Coast–somehow, that harebrained idea worked! I moved to California for a few years to pursue that dream… Man, the list goes on and on.
What is the connection between skateboarding and creativity?
If you’re interested in doing anything on a skateboard apart from the most basic mechanics of rolling, you need to engage in complex problem solving. Everyone’s coordination, balance, body-type, and expectations are different. There are building blocks but there are no set rules or boundaries. That kind of open activity inspires thinking outside the box and it has attracted so many characters because of it. We engage with our environments in a naturally creative way. “What can I do here? What could be done here? What happens when I do this?” Whenever I think that my skateboarding, or skateboarding as a whole has hit a lull, something new always presents itself. The combinations and possibilities are really endless. Any person whose default is to look at possibility and opportunity, is bound to be a creative person.
I’d also add that skateboarders take determination to triumph over failure as a given. Being willing to fall, to fail, every day just to maybe achieve something that matters most to you and you alone, that’s pretty much my definition of art.
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