BIRTH New Prague, MN HOME Zimmerman, MN SKATE 17 years SPONSORS Roots, Fobia, DVS flow SETUP 7.5" deck that is fairly flat; Indy's and only Indy's; 51 or 52m Iota wheels (the only wheels I have never flatspotted); alen head mounting hardware (never phillips head); Swiss bearings TRICK Frontside pop shuvit SKATE WITH Chad Benson the most, Chris Carpenter the second most, and not enough with Josh Holtan or Ryan Hansen. All the other people I skate with are quite fun to roll around with as well. Thank you to all of you. MUSIC Some Bob Dylan, Some Morrissey. After that, the gamut runs from GWAR to Enya to Willie Nelson WORK Zareba Systems where I engage in various marketing activities such as package and graphic design, page layout, and web maintenance. ANIMAL A cat, squirrel, or a duck ALCOHOL Old E. Es el Tigre! HOBBIES Golf, going to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area MINNESOTA MN is a very nice place to live, but there are also a lot of other places I would want to live. I am set up pretty well here and am very happy. Thoughts on skateboarding? It is a very strange thing--a piece of wood with some wheels bolted on. Its been such and integral part of my life for so long, but at the same time I feel pretty detached from “skateboarding” as a whole. I feel like I am still skating better and better each day, and I still manage to find ways for it to always be fun. I do feel old and sad when I see how good some of the newer kids are now. Nate Compher makes me feel that way a lot. I hope he goes far. I used to think it was all a mental game after you got to a certain point. If you can 50-50 a knee high ledge, you could 50-50 a 30 stair rail. It was all confidence, which I have never had much of. But things like kickflip back lipslide on long rails I don’t get. How do you test out how high to flip it? How fast the rail is? How the board is flipping that particular day? And people are doing flip tricks down 20 stairs. I don’t understand how it physically can be done. When I would have been in what would have been my “prime,” there is no way I could have stood up out of a 20-stair ollie, much less a flip trick. Most kids don’t know that that stuff is supposed to be scary. Unfortunately, I am old enough that I went through a time when it was terrifying to caveman boardslide a three stair rail. That is still in my head somewhere. Most skaters now started out watching Muska or somebody and that is the standard and the fear is gone. It does make me sad to see my hero’s passed by and forgotten. The Chico’s, Rudy’s, and Timmy’s. Their shoes and boards don’t sell today or got pulled. Nobody cares about them. I have seen a few generations come and go and somewhere along the way I lost the ability to identify with “skateboarding.” It is now something for little kids that don’t know a Tim Gavin other than a plump-faced man in the skate magazine’s party pictures. How do the people all those people fade out? They seemed to have so much fun and ability. I have always chalked it up to the industry, which is why I have always stayed away from as much as possible. Skateboard money is based on little kids and while the hero’s of each day grow up, the money source doesn’t. On to a more positive note--the act of skateboarding, which I feel as close to as ever. For whatever reason, I have never felt the “burn out” that everybody else feels at some point. I think as long as I have a chance to 50-50 a little curb I won’t lose that love—I don’t even need to make it—just that chance in my mind that I could do it will keep me coming back. That’s where I started, and I reckon I will be doing this until that’s the all my body can muster. SHOUT OUTS To Dom, if you actually run this whole ramble. To my wife Jane. Everyone I have skated with. And thanks very much to a lot of people over the years that have hooked me up.

Relaxing in Arizona. Photo by Joe Blum.