Going Deep with Chad and JT - EP 284 - Paul 'P-Rod' Rodriguez Jr

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Today we are joined by the legend Paul 'P-Rod' Rodriguez Jr. He is one of the greatest street skaters of all time. Paul became a young prodigy at the age of 14 and evolved the sport of skateboarding over the last 20+ years. P-Rod was one of the first skateboarders to form the Nike skateboarding team, and later, Paul was the first skateboarder to be endorsed as an official Nike Athlete. One of the nicest guys and we were honored to spend time with this legend! Call us, leave a 60 sec voicemail with your issue or question: 323-418-2019(Start with where you're from and name for best possible advice) Check us out on tour!  We've got San Francisco and Portland up this weekend! More dates below!www.chadandjt.com Check out the reddit for some dank convo: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChadGoesDeep/  Episode sponsored by: KIVA CONFECTIONS: Californians, you can get 30% off your first order, delivered straight to your door. Go to kivaconfections.com/godeep and use code GODEEP.

What's up guys? Before we begin this podcast, I want to let you know that we got JT on the ads right now. What up? I'm gonna start doing ads now. Guys, we're going on tour this week. Tonight, actually, we're gonna be in Sacramento, San Francisco. Tickets are going fast. They might be sold out. So get your tickets now at chatantjt.com. We're also in Portland on Friday. Two shows. And then we got Austin, Texas coming up on April 15th. That's gonna be a sick show. Moon Tower Festival. And then,

what do we have after that? We have Arlington. Back to Washington, D.C. That was fun. I'm excited to get one of those Italian subs that they got out there. Dude, yeah. ChadandJT.com for tickets.

All right. We're also brought to you by the legends at Kiva Confections. Guys, if you want cannabis edibles, you like edibles, right? Uh-huh. The kiva confections guys um if you want cannabis edibles you like edibles right uh-huh the kiva confection is the best edibles you've ever had yeah and they're just like they can customize them for you super potent plant-based no excuse not to try them right bro go on a ride yeah californians you can get 30 off your first order delivered straight to your door

go to kiva confections.com slash go deep and use code go deep. All right, let's start the show. I could do one. You want to try one? Yeah. Can I try one? Dude, fire it. You do the intro.

Fire it off. This is huge. This is his first time doing this. Put gizmo on my gonads and call it a bonanza. What's up, Stokers of Stoke Nation? This is JT Park coming at you hot. I got my compadre with me, Chad Kroger. What up?

And we are joined today. Oh, wait, sorry. Yeah. Boom clap. No, I like that you did your own we are joined today. Oh wait, sorry. Yeah. Boom clap. No, I like that you did your own spin, dude. That was sick, bro. That's your new tagline is what up. I guess that's always been kind of your tagline. Yeah, what up? Do you want to intro the guest? Are you intro the guest? Oh, so guys, we are so fortunate today. So stoked. We have our guest with us today. Sk phenomenon paul rodriguez

what up dude what up good man what's up guys i'm stoked to be here thanks for having me stoked to have you my pleasure big fan big fan oh same here appreciate that man i appreciate it yeah i was looking through i was i was listening to some interviews back and i was like i've been watching you skate oh you know but you you sort of you became pro around like 2000 right yeah 2002 when i turned pro yeah yeah i was on the scene in like 2000 yeah so i've been long ass time we've been watching yeah i've been watching you since i was a kid that's crazy yeah what does it mean what does it mean to like be on this scene be on the skate scene like you're like in videos now or you're sponsored yeah mean to be on the scene? Be on the skate scene? Like you're in videos now or you're sponsored?

Yeah. Yeah, basically to be on the scene would be if you – well, when I was coming, it was before internet. So it was like to be in a video that a company would put out and it would be in the skate shops or be in an actual magazine other than like your local skate shop. Nowadays to be on the scene might be like, if you get a video, maybe on Thrasher, if you just get a pretty big following on social media and, you know,

people start reposting and stuff like that. It's kind of more blurry these days, the lines of like, who's on the scene, who's not on the scene yeah because like it seems like some people are further on the scene than they actually are but they're still you know trying to get sponsors and like make a career out of it like some people have momentum and attention but haven't figured out how to like make a career out of it yet yeah it's true

of what we do too it's like you can get a lot of eyeballs but like it's crazy like i was looking at tick tock you get paid 15 bucks for 500 000 views on tick tock oh my god like if your video gets and i'm like in what other time in human history can 500 000 people watch your thing like it and you get 15 bucks yeah i mean it's it's the equivalent of just not getting the 15 bucks. It makes no difference. Yeah, it's like, you know. It makes you feel bad about the views when really you should be stoked. Yeah, yeah.

You're overwhelmed. You're like, oh, well, this is never going to go anywhere. Like, you know, it's good for the views, but like, I don't know. It's not very rewarding, at least financially, yet. but if you got the bigger picture you'll get somewhere for sure yeah it seems somewhere it seems like uh you got to be a little more kind of entrepreneurial and like self-generated these days like i remember with surfing uh because i love to surf so like i remember there was the surf videos and then it's like a bunch of surfers had their own websites like the the blogs and the now it's like clips on the it's like a bunch of surfers have their own websites, like the, the blogs and the, and now it's like clips on the,

it seems like the videos are, it's all just kind of clips on social media now is kind of what generates. Yeah. Fandom. Yeah, absolutely. So it's like, just got to learn how to work,

work in that flow, I guess. I don't know. Like I came from a generation that was before. Yeah. And so I had to like learn how to adjust into what it is now, which was a huge learning curve. But luckily, I stuck with it, and it's working.

It worked to my benefit because at least going into this social media age, I already, in skateboarding, had a name or whatnot. So going into the social media, I't have to like start from zero yeah like nobody knowing me at all so i kind of had a little bit of foundation going into it that kind of helped me but it took me a while to actually catch on what social media was and what it meant totally yeah who is your like or how did you first get into a video like how'd you get discovered in escape video um back then we would uh just send physical vhs copies into companies really and a friend of mine was sponsored uh by this company called status

skateboards and they were based out of carlsbad and um he was driving down to carlsbad one weekend uh to go you know pick up some product and just skate down there for the weekend so i was like hey man like mind taking my video with you and showing them? So he took it down. He showed the guys over there, and they had another company called DNA Skateboards. And he called me when he was down there. He's like, I gave it to them, man. They're really hyped on the video.

They want to meet you and hook you up with some stuff. And I just went crazy. I was like, all right, great. So the next weekend, him and I drove back down there. They gave me all kind of free boards. They told me they want to put me on the team and give me an ad in a magazine. And I was like, yeah, that was my dream come true. Just like that.

Yeah, it was crazy. Does that guy wear glasses now? No, not that I know of. For sure. Not that I know of. Neither of us do, thankfully. That's good. We're still holding it down.

He's got sharp vision. Yeah, you know, big vision. And then so when the video came out and you saw it in like the skate shops, were you just going like- Oh yeah, that was like- Were you showing it to people? Yeah, like all my friends, my mom. Nah, dude, I was too locked in.

I didn't care about ladies until much later. That's good. Yeah, I was way too like- You're just about to ride. I don't got time for nothing. I'm just about this. So yeah, I don't know. I was showing it was showing all my family all my friends and stuff like that but yeah just seeing the video and it was like probably the equivalent of like i don't know somebody like starring in marvel iron

man movie or something like that to me that was like just as big in my mind in my world yeah so you know it's all relative was that the the moment where you kind of realized you could turn it into a career or were you just riding the wave? Was there a definitive moment where you're like, I think I could go pro full time? Naively, you know, when that had happened, this story I was telling you, I was only 14. So, like, I didn't even understand what a career was. I didn't know the difference between a job and a career. I just knew that I loved it and I wanted to be in the videos and respected by all the guys I looked up to.

But when I, from the beginning, I knew like once I found out it was somebody's job that they could skate, I was like, no, no, I got to do this. This has to be my job. So I just went after it. But when it actually was starting to become a reality, would say it was about 15 16 years old i got on some bigger sponsors started paying me a little bit and i thought it was like so much money um and just getting more ads and more magazines and getting more momentum more people asked me to be in other big videos. And I just kind of kept going with it. Did you finish high school? No, I'm a dropout.

That's awesome. Yeah. We appreciate that. Were your parents like fully supportive because they could see the checks coming in, right? Yes and no. They were supportive, but they were definitely like skeptical. Right. They were like, but see, by the time i dropped out i dropped

out when i was 17 and um i was only in the 10th grade when i was 17 because i finally convinced my mom when i was going from ninth grade into 10th that summer i begged her all summer please let me go home school please let me go home school please please please i finally wore her down and annoyed her so much to finally all right yes you can have home school thank you mom i promise you won't regret this i'm gonna skate so many more hours a day i'm gonna get better faster i'm telling you yeah and i wasn't lying i was like dead serious on that um so i went when i was just before I turned 16, I got to homeschool. But as soon as I got into homestead, I basically did nothing. So by the time I was 17, I was still in the same grade.

Yeah. And I was just skating all day. But then I turned pro at 17. I was like taking care of my mom, taking care of the bills. So I was like, sorry, mom, I'm done with school. And like there was really no like, she could say, no, I don't want you to do that. But there was really no reper she could say no i don't want you to do that but there was really no repercussion if i listened or not you know so i said mom dad i'm uh i'm gonna go with this and

just be done with school altogether what did you because your dad's a comedian so what did he think was he just wait your dad is your dad paul rodriguez the comedian? Yeah. What? Yeah, my dad. What? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's Pops. Holy shit. Yeah. Yeah, man. Holy shit.

You got here quicker than it said. Yeah. Oh, they beat the time by nine minutes. Hey, Palm Coffee. I was telling these guys I was going to dip out to grab my coffee, and they beat the estimate by... By nine minutes. Nine minutes.

Dude, it's a great place. Dude, your dad's Paul Rodriguez the comedian? Yeah, that's my Pops. Unbelievable. Oh, so he gets it then. He's lived the itinerant lifestyle. He knows what Dude, it's a great place. Dude, your dad's Paul Rodriguez, the comedian? Yeah, he's my pops. Unbelievable. So he gets it then. He's lived the itinerant lifestyle. He knows what it means to be on the road. Well, yes and no.

I mean, he was, and to his credit, he was just doing his fatherly duty because he didn't know nothing about skateboarding and the fact that you can make a job out of it. He even did a routine about it, a stand-up routine about it. But long story short when i told him dad you know i want to be a pro skater and i want to drop out of school and pursue this he's like son you know i don't know if there's something you can do as a career i don't know you know it wasn't that he was against it he just wasn't sure about it any right and how many famous skateboarders are there how many people do you know that are making a living doing right yeah

so any parental figure will be like a little concerned but then I just said, Dad, like, you know, what did you tell your parents? Like, his parents are literally straight from Mexico.

He was born in Mexico, came here as a baby, grew up in Compton and they were dirt poor and his dream was to tell jokes. They had no idea what comedians were, you know what I mean?

Like, so like, I'm sure they were even more puzzled by his dream than my dream. So once I kind of put that into perspective for him, he was like, you got me. There's not really much I could say. I guess, you know, I'd be a hypocrite if I would tell you not to do this. So, all right.

He wasn't like, son, do you don't want to try stand-up? Nah, dude, that's just not where my gift is. Like here and there I could say something clever once in a while, but like he's really sharp like that all the time. Like my gifts are more physical. I guess I'm not comical, I wish. Yeah, what are the key like athletic attributes for a skateboarder? Like what are the things that you you like you got to have like

um what do they call like proprioception like you got to know how to flip and like how to feel your body in the air that spatial awareness definitely helps uh explosiveness will help if you know the higher you can jump the better um like what maybe certain acrobatic skills being able to tumble and roll and learn how to fall because that's pretty much what you do most of is falling so if you can fall more times without actually getting hurt then you can get up more times and try again so that's super helpful and i guess just like eye foot coordination or you know coordination i guess in general balance i i had a buddy named ricky ricky who was really

good at skating but he didn't know how to fall he'd go like rigor mortis stiff every time ended up he broke a bone every month jeez i'm senior year and he's got such a good name for it so he graduated we pushed him on one of his skateboards up to the diploma yeah oh man a full body cast like oh no something about mary like the dog yeah yeah no i i definitely know friends like that growing up who were like had more balls than skills um and i respect the hell out of them but like they would put it all on the line yeah they they aged themselves Pretty quickly Just with how much They would get beat down

And there's even guys Who made it to pro status Who are like that But You know After you hit a certain age Or you Break enough parts of your body

I'm sure It's gotta be taxing On like Again Another one Like getting back up Recovering from that Getting back

It's probably draining. Have you had many injuries? I've been really fortunate. I've had a lot of sprained ankles. I did, five years ago, blow out my right knee. Had full ACL. Yeah, full ACL, meniscus surgery. That took me out for almost two years until I was 100%.

Was that brutal to be laid up like that for a while? Yeah, mentally. It was mentally brutal. But I think it was actually in hindsight, not that I'd want to go through it again, God forbid. But in hindsight, I think it was actually a real big blessing. And I got lucky that it didn't happen to me until I was already in my 30s. So I had this whole long career and I was grateful

and was able to accomplish all the things I wanted to. So when it finally happened to me, yeah, it really messed with my head at first. But once I had all that time to sit and think and realize everything that I've been able to do in skateboarding, I felt a lot of gratitude. I was just so grateful that this was my career. And even the injury at the point that it happened, I was so grateful it happened then rather than in the middle of my prime. And then I realized how much I had kind of gotten to a point where I was almost taking things for granted without even realizing it. I wasn't challenging myself as much. I wasn't pushing myself as much.

I wasn't as dedicated as I once was. pushing myself as much i wasn't like as dedicated as i once was so it gave me time to reflect and like re-evaluate what i want from skateboarding and do i want to move forward and what my goals are so you know it had its value go ahead yeah that was like it like kind of forced to press pause on you like that's how covid was for me because i was like working so hard before covid and then when covid happened and i just had to sit there, and I couldn't be competitive about career, worried about the next thing. I just sat there, and I was like, oh, I'm actually pretty stoked on all this stuff I've been doing.

But had there not been that moment, I would have just kept kind of churning. Yeah, you're just running, and you're not really taking a step back and observing, which there's a time for both. So I guess that was just my turn to be forced to sit down. That's the first time in, you know, at that time I had been skating 21 years. And that's my first time in 21 years that I had not skated for anywhere longer than maybe three weeks, maybe a month if I had a bad sprained ankle. But I'd never, ever gone longer than a month

my whole life without skating. And how long exactly? Throughout the two years, did you not skate that whole time, or when did you start skating again? I got okayed by the doctor after, I think it was 14, 15 months after surgery. Oh, no, sorry.

After the actual injury, but I had to wait four months to get surgery right so then from the surgery date it was like a full year so it was somewhere around 15 months altogether to where he finally said all right i'm gonna okay you to go skate push around don't push it and uh so naturally i pushed it to a certain amount but then i kind of had a little bit of a scare so it like made me stop yeah and then uh it probably took almost another full year till i was fully confident and i like where i could skate without being mentally like distracted by it thinking like oh my god is this can i do this yet to where i was finally like didn't think about it anymore and just skated normal what's your

daily schedule like do you set aside like i'm gonna skate for like four hours or anything like that or do you just kind of whatever comes your way yeah it's kind of a feeling type thing i mean i have days where i generally will be like all right usually monday wednesday friday are like days that are pretty much flexible and open but those are the days i really skate a lot tuesday thursdays i work out with my trainer so sometimes depending on the workout if i'm not feeling if i'm feeling pretty worn out i won't maybe skate on those days sometimes i will uh and then weekends i kind of reserve for street skating to go out and film and stuff. Is that what you're primarily known for is your street skating?

Yeah, street skating. Yeah, filming video parts and stuff like that is really what built my career. I've done fairly well contest skating, but I think street skating is definitely the thing that's really been my foundation. Are you good at analyzing the street? When you look at it, can you visualize what the ride will be? Yeah, yeah. Probably most skaters, I would assume, are like that.

When you see a fire hydrant, what does that suggest? It makes me have to pee. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know. It just... I don't know. It just depends, man. If it has a nice curb cut next to it, then all right. That's cool. Yes. It might be a little something.

But yeah, I'll be driving and I'll be looking like, oh shit, you see that rail? Oh shit, there's... Look at that ledge. Or, you know, I'll see everything differently. You know, a skater will see stuff like just driving by the street like oh stop pull over i gotta check that out um so that's pretty cool seeing like the whole i guess every city is like a skate park potential skate park you know so how do you get inspired for new tricks like do you um do you are you skating and then you have like an idea of something you want to do

or is there something that you've seen that you want to maybe do but build on or a little bit of all that yeah um yeah sometimes like i have a a warehouse where i built my own little private skate park and i'll just be skating in there working on some normal things and maybe try a trick that I normally do but it'll accidentally do something different it'll give me an idea like that or I'll watch a video and be inspired by someone else be like hey I want to learn that trick too yeah um or I'll be laying in bed or something and trickle pop in my mind I'll just have it and remember to try it the next day. It's like all just varies.

And sometimes I'll go to different street spots that I've never been to, new spots, and I'll have an idea for that depending on how the obstacle is. And the obstacle can really dictate sometimes the tricks you might do because you might go to a spot that you've never been to, and there's not really a spot that you can mimic that like in a skate park, and it might just be something unique to that spot and you kind of make something off the fly at that spot so it's it's all different is the main evaluation when you're doing like um out in the world stuff just like the landing like figuring out how you're gonna

no i would say the takeoff too the takeoff because it depends what kind of wheels you ride and how rough the concrete is or whatever the surface is could be marble and that's the best ever and you're just in heaven marble is the best to take off of take off land grind slide it's like the smoothest best material we should petition the city council to make the whole city marble la oh yes that'd be amazing yeah man you know this is why the marvel jungle skaters will descend on this yes yes i love this well this is why how i became a big fan of you guys in the first place for all the the work you did for us borders you know what i mean you gotta protect them you gotta protect all the borders man and marble's beautiful so it's like you just can't put like lime juice on it.

Is that what it is? Yeah. Lime juice. Dude, yeah. My girl just redid her kitchen. I think if you get lime juice on marble, it fucks it up. Do you spill some lime juice on it? No, no.

Because we ended up going with another surface because I knew I would. Right. She's like, you won't spill lime juice on this thing. I was like, I will now. He's a big lime juice guy. Oh, who doesn't love lime? I put it in my hair so I can get that cool 90s frosted look. Yeah.

You know what that stuff called that you used to buy the spray? Hydrogen peroxide? No. Sun in. Sun in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Acid. Natural sun in.

Yeah. So marble's the best. What's the worst thing to take off of? Ah, just crusty ass old weathered concrete concrete because it's got like it's uneven and got like yeah or just do it just yeah or if you fall it's like a cheese grater and i'll just shred you up uh you know yeah it's just usually it's more old weathered surfaces um bricks i'm not a fan of right yeah bumpy yeah brick surfaces and stuff do you bomb hills not really no since i grew up around here like it wasn't really a thing that's not really yeah

sf is super known for that they got these dudes called gx1000 these guys just do these death defying hill bombs all day. It's real dangerous, right? It's super dangerous. Unfortunately, one guy, their crew passed away doing it. That's like the free soloing of skateboarding, right? Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. It's like one mistake. Yeah.

That and just skating. Like the rails that these guys are skating these days are just, I don't get it. I don't know how they can push themselves to this level of overcoming that fear like i'm not a dangerous skater like some of the big drops like i'll see them you know it'll be like 15 it looks like 15 20 feet i don't know how you're is it just absorbing it with your knee like how do you how do you land on a flat surface and not break your legs? I guess you build your strength gradually.

I was doing it since I was a young kid, and you start off from a two-stair or a three-stair, and you build up. And I guess naturally, just during that process, your legs grow stronger, your body's stronger. But now, I mean, just the stuff people are doing to me is like is unreal especially when it comes to these handrails the guys are skating it's it's it blows my mind i can't even relate to it yeah the length but it's not even that anymore it's like they'll do ones that are just kink rails down a whole bunch of sets or it'll curve crazy and you're just like like one like how do you not get smoked like i a lot of times like i'm more interested in seeing the attempts before the make like what did they do how did they avoid how did they avoid you

know what did they figure out getting hurt so that they can keep going um and sometimes they don't you know it's but it's it's I'll watch it I can't even relate to it I'm just like this is a new a total different world and what I who are your favorite do your hero is Eric Koston right yeah Costin's and so what are your favorite types of skaters to watch like technical or like big I guess like the Danny ways of like the big air kind of stuff. I would say it doesn't really matter what type of skating is done. It's more about how it's done. Like if a person is really fluid or really kind of just make it look really graceful

and it looks like they're really in control of the board, I'm more drawn to that type of skater. Sometimes there's guys who are really really good but it looks like it was just so difficult for them and it looks like that it was almost luck is usually what is not something I'm more drawn to and you're just kind of born with that

that's a style that's like a need to your body to a degree to a degree I mean maybe like some guys like for me when I was coming up I had the good fortune of having some older guys that mentored me and they would drilled it into my head like nah man you gotta you gotta work on your style like it's good to learn new tricks all the time but you gotta work on your style work on being smooth work on you know being graceful and and really that just comes

down to like being more focused on mastering a trick and getting really consistent at it before you move on you know that's kind of was always my right don't just do the trick and then be yeah some guys will like do it get a trick once or twice okay onto the next part of it onto the harder version and they'll do it and they'll progress but like in my opinion a lot of times it won't be as masterful i guess yeah it's not beautiful yeah that's in dog town too in the documentary they talk about guys who have like cockroach style and you always wanted to like yeah like look like a cool guy while you're doing it yeah i want to hang out with that guy yeah exactly exactly um

and i have this theory like where i i feel like you can kind of tell somebody's personality by how they skate right you could tell when somebody's like more of a like a spracked out kind of guy or like a tense kind of wound up guy you can tell when a guy like what's up dude how you doing like just by the way they skate like that's how we show you to audition people for frank group so i'm like can you bust a kickflip real quick yeah you could tell the small skaters are yeah i'm like i'm feeling a lot of tension in your shoulders that's how i work with those dude sounds like you're gonna over plan things and make sure we're all on time too much they say that about surfers too like rob machado he's just relaxed i find a lot too you know

it's in like sort of the your arms yeah if you if you have like a limp like cool wrist movements you know if you land a trick and you just fucking go like that you're flowing you're smooth you're flowing yeah yeah yeah yeah i keep that chill yeah that's just a theory i have though but i think i buy it yeah yeah have you have you do you i was gonna ask if you have an example of that i don't want to throw anybody under the bus so it's mostly negative it's mostly no uh okay yeah i'll say uh my my favorite guy coming up style wise was tom penny tom penny was a guy real big in the uh mid 90s early 2000s then he kind of disappeared and he had this whole mystical kind of legend thing about him where like he came onto the scene he blew everyone's mind by doing these incredible flip tricks and looking like he was asleep the dude

was like literally in a coma while he's skating just that's so sick just like it was nothing and then he disappeared and so before social media so it was like everybody had these theories like where'd he go what's he doing he kind of got off the scene and then he made a comeback and he appeared out of nowhere and it was like to me that whole vibe was so like i thought it was the coolest thing ever but just the way he dressed to his clothes they were a little bit baggier they would always match and it's like the guy never like seemed like he talked he's like this dude from england with the brew deep boys are you what's up mate like you just everything about him was just like so just legendary and it was just like

he didn't look like he talked much just stare around and stand up go do an incredible trick and then kind of sit down chill and you're like this is so incredible where did he disappear to did anyone ever figure it out what i heard he he was just in france chilling his mom had this property and there was like a a barn or a back house or something he built a like a little mini ramp in there and he was just skating it all the time, just kind of chilling. And then when he decided to pop back up on the scene, he kind of did. And even now to this day, he's around. And it's like when you see him, like I saw him this summer

when I was in Copenhagen, and I saw him riding a bike because in that city you ride bikes everywhere. And he called my name, and i heard the voice i was like i know that voice i looked over and he was like poe what's up oh i immediately turned into like a 14 year old kid like tom what's up dude i went over there hey man how you going like i'm trying to keep my cool but like i just turned into a kid and he just so like oh good to see you but like when you when you're at a skate event and he's there, it's like he's literally like the king holding court. Everybody's around him.

If he needs something, if he wants a joint, they just do this. Somebody hand him a joint, whatever, somebody hand him a drink. He's just like a king. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he has people who are just like, not even that he even brought the people.

It just naturally happens. So he so like mystical and mythical to me yeah don't be too available just show up once in a while and everyone goes bananas and then it's kind of pure because it's like he doesn't need the adulation or the scene and i feel like he's almost oblivious to how legendary he is which makes it no way dude i bet you he knows maybe if he does i'm cynical about that stuff if he if he does he's playing it off real good but it's almost like he just doesn't know or care or whatever and it just it makes it that much it works yeah yeah what's going through i had two questions yes what's going through your head when you're doing like a railer or something like that like are you self-talking are you like all right lean to the left are you like no um i am uh i'm pretty much just i'm not nothing's going through my head i'm

i'm feeling what's going to happen like i'm feeling the movement in my in my body and trying to like it's hard to explain actually it's uh and trying to like yeah that's what i'm making my body do what i feel it what i feel like it should do but it's not like active voice thoughts it's more just like intuition and no sometimes it'll be active voice thoughts just before like before i start the roll up you know i'll tell myself like give myself a little something like if it's a a rail trick i'll just be like all right just focus on getting your truck on you know if i'm saying i'm gonna do a front feeble okay just focus on getting that back truck focus on getting the back truck and

then i'll go and then it's like you go blank sometimes during the middle of a trick i've actually done the trick landed and then like almost like i've come like i came to like i don't remember the in-between part of doing the trick you just kind of almost like i've come like i came to like i don't remember the in-between part of doing the trick you just kind of ride away and you're like wow like i really don't even remember the middle half of that while i was actually in the midst oh that's gonna be a phenomenal feeling it's it's pretty crazy to like snap out of like vigilance and consciousness a little bit yeah you're like totally locked in that it's like your brain forgot to even record it as a memory or something. I don't know.

Right. You're in flow. And then you land. And yeah, you just flow. Yeah, flow. You're in flow state, dude. It happens. Yeah, it happens.

I wish I can do that on purpose. Like when you're just chilling? Just like right now? Well, I'd like to remember my life, but not to that extreme. But yeah, it'd be nice to be in a flow state non-stop do you do work to like try and be more relaxed or like prepare for those moments so you're more creative and loose yeah i mean i i definitely meditate regularly meditate pray regularly usually in the morning and then in the evening before i go to bed sorry looks like you got a boner oh yeah no it's just uh my baggy pants it'd be good if you

just that hype to see you guys no judgment if you did have wood dude no man uh you know at my age i'm glad i can even get one no i'm just kidding for real you know the key for me on getting hard it's just perverted thoughts as long as the the brain is active, my body can respond. That's right. What were we talking about? Well, being loose, which I think relates to getting a boner. Dude, I was loose right there when I said that. You were in flow state.

Dude, I was in flow. I forgot what I said. That was the first episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm right there. What happened there? Larry literally did a whole, the beginning of the episode was Larry with his pants like this, sitting on the couch next to his wife and like, his pants look like I got a boner. And then for some reason, his wife was busy one day and Larry wanted to go see a movie. So she's like, go with my friend so-and-so.

She wants to see that movie. Why don't you guys go together? Yeah. It's like, all right. So they go to the movie together and Larry's wife's friend looks over at Larry, sees his pants, thinks he got a boner. Yeah. He's like, no, no, no.

It was great. Are you a big comedy fan? Huge comedy fan. I mean, I grew up in it, you know? Right. So, would your dad take you to the clubs and stuff? Not necessarily to clubs, but when I was younger, when I was a kid, it was when he was at his height and he would do big, huge theaters and arenas and stuff,

so he would take me to those ones. But I didn't understand the jokes back then. They were too intricate for me. Do you watch back now? Oh, yeah. I watched back. I went and saw him a few weeks ago over at the Laugh Factory. He was hilarious.

I was like, my God, the guy's still got it. It was really cool watching. hilarious i was like my god like the guy still got it it was it was really cool watching i saw him at the haha oh yeah yeah yeah it was just like some random night i think he just like popped in yeah he was just hanging yeah on stage just hanging with the crowd it was like it was cool to watch that's pretty dope yeah i mean i'm sure as you guys know like comedy clubs like that are like what a skate park is for me i I go there to work out some tricks and take them to the streets, you know? Yeah. I was wondering because, you know, like the athletes kids are generally pretty good athletes. And I think part of it is that they've been in locker rooms their whole life and they've seen what it looks like to perform in front of those crowds.

Did seeing your dad do like theater shows and watching him perform while being spectated did that assist you at all and like not getting nervous when you're skating at competitions or for understanding like the uh the performance aspect of it um a little bit but what it really did for me was more so um when i when i was born all the way until you know i got i career, I seen this person who was living their dream and following their dream. So to me, from birth, it was like almost subconscious programming of, like I thought that's what was normal. Everyone does that. You pursue your dream.

You follow your dream and you succeed at it and that's what you do for your life. So that's what it did for me is like, oh, yeah. So every time I had a hobby as a kid whatever the hot when i was in karate class and i'm gonna be like van damme and bruce lee i'm gonna do the dopest karate movies ever yeah and then i would play baseball and i was gonna i love nolan ryan as a pitcher i'm gonna be the best pitcher ever so every hobby i did i did it as if like it was real like important so finally when skateboarding came along it was the same thing like oh let me find out oh Eric Gossin Tom Penny Andrew Reynolds oh

I'm gonna be just like them best dude ever and just work towards it and then luckily for me nothing else took my attention away from skateboarding yeah so I get I think watching my dad from from birth all the way up to my skateboarding career, it was really helpful in just already having such an optimistic mind of like, find something you love, and that's what you're going to do with your life. Right. I think that's really essential when you pursue things like this. Yeah.

Because you need that. Like when I got into comedy and stuff, you just need this naivete. like why not me you just dive into it yeah yeah and uh yeah i think that's well there's something else i was gonna say damn do you hang out with comics as a kid like other comics i i have and more so now i get more into it and i was i was just gonna say dude i actually think comedy is way scarier than skateboarding oh you, you do? No, no, no. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, dude, I've skated before. It's way scarier. Depends on how your body works.

I've seen a lot of comics. I've had the fortune of seeing them up close and stuff. But even just seeing my dad, the emotional rollercoaster he'll go on. If he feels like he bombed and he comes off stage he's gutted he's so bummed but then when he feels like he killed it it's like the biggest high in the world and it's like no one can take you off that off that high and like just just going up on stage with something you have in your mind that you think is funny but you're not really sure yet if anyone else will think it's like to me, to me, that's really terrifying.

Like, I don't actually have a problem with public speaking or going on stage and saying something. Like, if we were doing this interview on a stage and answering and responding to questions. But to go up with the responsibility of, like, all right, I put this stuff in my mind. Hopefully I remembered it right. I have all the material worked out. Let me just go roll the dice and see what happens. Like, that seems terrifying to me yeah do you uh there's something about what like when you're doing stand-up like before you go on stage i'll like think about it i'm like i'm just going up to talk to like it's insane there's just a microphone or like this is insane i was like

when you're are you effective when you're let's say you're doing a run at the x games are you were you able to transition into like contest mode easily yeah yeah for sure um i was definitely nervous all the time yeah there's no really way of getting around the nerves i guess i learned how to like work with the nerves or be friends with the nerves kind of. But that took a little while of, I would actually just watch interviews of other athletes, like a lot of Kobe interviews, a lot of like Muhammad Ali when he was talking back in the day. And I would try to like just like tap into the frequency that they were on,

like try to like get in that mindset that they were in and just try to teach myself how to like what mental toughness was or whatever and try to do that because in the early parts it would be like I would do I'd be in practice I'll land everything every single try but as soon as you get your name gets called you literally freeze up you literally your body just will not function your brain and body fall out of sync and they will not listen to each other yeah and if that happens when you're skateboarding yeah it sucks danger it's dangerous and it just you just feel like what the hell just like you

literally it's like you you you short circuit and your body just stops listening to what you want it to do so i really that's when i started like experimenting with like meditation and like breathing techniques and like just just also putting yourself in that situation over and over again to try and work through it um so that that was really the the hardest part of contest skating is really like you're your biggest problem if you can get out of your own way then you you'll probably end up doing pretty decent was there when you started to become famous for skating then you go like skate parks and you see people and they'd notice you was there was it tough to overcome like their expectations like

where did you get in your head about like oh they expect me to like perform at this level i've had moments like that i have had moments like that and thank god early on in my career you know especially when i was like really in my prime i felt so confident in my skating and and how much i skated how much i practiced that so confident in my skating and and how much i skated how much i practiced that it wasn't too big of a problem i would feel it i would sense it sometimes and i've found a way to kind of like let it go and just release it and allow myself just to skate how i would normally skate um would like one-eyed dudes like challenge you to a skate off yeah all the time every time you go to a demo in a different city,

there's always the local kid who's like, let me play a game of skate. Want to play a game of skate? And my philosophy was always, yes, I want to play a game of skate. Oh, you took it on. Always. Because I just told myself, even if I was nervous, even if I was like, damn, I don't want to get beat

by the hometown hero in front of all the kids. I told myself, well, this is all training for Conta. This is all training to get better. And you don't want to be owned by fear where you're backing down from challenges. That's not healthy. And so if you do get beat by this guy, okay, figure out what tricks you got beat on.

And now you got some homework to do. And now you'll learn new tricks and get a better repertoire or whatever. And you're doing a nice thing for that guy. It rarely you ever because if you do lose then he's like he gets to be around and be the guy like everyone knows it's the best thing it was like he'll hold on to that forever yeah it'll be like 20 years and he'll be like dude i beat him one time yeah there's a few only a few of those guys out there so hopefully they're still holding on to that so your record's like you're like 203 all right pretty damn good yeah yeah it's pretty damn good that's like gun slinging dude that's like coming into a town in the old west yeah like bro i'm faster than you

yeah the fastest gun for sure that's cool so i've been fortunate um yeah i don't know i just always looked at it as like just got to keep putting yourself in the fire keep putting yourself in the fire keep keep being comfortable there yeah and just there's a boxing trainer teddy atlas he has this great corner talk with tim bradley it always makes the rounds on social media where he's like we are firemen we are in the fire the fire lets us know we are home we control the fire and i watch and i'm like i don't know what i applied to with my i apply it to like because what i struggle with is like doing stuff around the house. So I'll watch that before I like clean dishes.

You want to apply it to comedy and anything you're doing? No, comedy is easier. I apply it to like doing stuff I don't want to do. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right. I see that. I see that.

So I'm just jacked up doing dishes. I'm in the fire. I'm just raw. Hey man, wherever you can find how to apply it that's when i need the inspo i love it what do you what do you prefer skate or tony hawk's pro skater whoa or do you play them i don't play them yeah i will admit i'm not much of a gamer at all i had the good fortune of being both of them um i was in the first game or the first skate and i was in tony hawk's underground mike was it tony hawk's underground you're a good bro

for knowing that yeah mike mike's uh yeah he's a skate historian over here oh nice um tony hawk underground was sick yeah it was pretty dope thug that what I remember. But I've never been a gamer. Not since way back when I used to play Mortal Kombat on my Super NES. Who'd you play as? I always played as... I can't even remember the... Sub-Zero? The Yellow Ninja.

Oh, Reptile? Reptile. Was it? No, Scorpion. Scorpion, there you go. Sub-Zzero was his like nemesis right you had the genus right i think yeah is he the one get over here is that yeah you hit little like a serpents that came out of his wrist yes which is it it was dope that was

a huge game oh that was my shit were you a button masher could you actually articulate it i got to a point where i could articulate it articulate it i got to a point where i could articulate it um i never got there i got where i knew how to do the get over here and then once i knew how to do that i would just get over here get over here get over here you can make someone go crazy that way oh for sure but then once they figure out how to also avoid it and then you didn't get your your other moves down and how to set them up with it i never got the setup strategies really good but um that's kind of where it faded out for me after that but when you were coming up in skating were most of your homies like older guys who were skaters like were you the young buck in the crew or did you have

like a yeah i was i was usually the young buck because even with kids in my own grade, I was always a year younger than everyone in my grade because for whatever reason, my birthday is the last day of the year, and I don't know what. You were the cutoff. Cutoff. So instead of holding me back that year, they put me up. So I was about a year younger than everyone already in my grade.

But then on top of that, when I started going to the actual skate shop and meeting the guys who worked there and then the other skaters who are friends with them so i would hang out with guys like four or five years older than me and learn to skate from them and it was really beneficial one because they were all way better than me and it really pushed me and then they would also make sure i knew what videos to watch like oh you never saw mouse video uh you gotta watch costan's part in this or you gotta watch andrew reynolds in this video and this so they would like like basically they were like skateboard professors and they would teach me um why was costin your favorite cost is my favorite

because he's literally especially in that era just the best he was the most innovated the most consistent had the most longevity um the most respect he really innovated a lot in in switch skating rail skating um nollie skating fakie skating um just technical skateboarding plus he was really well rounded he would kill it at contests as well he could skate like um lots of transitions like ramps and mini ramps and um quarter pipes and stuff like that really well he's really well rounded so like and he just made it look so good and he dressed so cool it was just did you ever compete against that thing yeah i have skated contests against him was that head trippy early on it was but i i was really fortunate i got to meet him. I was probably 15 when I first met him.

And he came with this photographer who's really well-known in skateboarding. His name is Atiba. And Atiba is known for, like, shooting all the famous skaters. And I was able to, like, get enough of a buzz to where I was linked up with Atiba. And he was shooting a photo for me and he brought costin with him on the session because he knew costin was my favorite skater but he didn't tell me and i almost froze up like i couldn't talk hi you know um but eventually um that happened more and more and so i got to know him more before I ever got to the point where I skated against him.

So by that time, it was a trip. But, like, I had already kind of had a relationship with him before that. So it wasn't like I just got thrown in the fire against those guys, like, ah, out of nowhere, like just some kid who came out of nowhere. Because that happens a lot now, especially because a lot of kids who get discovered say, you know, a kid grew up in Wyoming. And all of a sudden he gets an opportunity to come to L.A. and he gets thrown right in the mix. Like I was lucky. At least I was born right here. And I was able to rub shoulders with guys in the industry like gradually and kind of work into a comfort level.

But I imagine how scary it would be for some guys, especially if you're coming from another country or don't even speak the language and all of a sudden you're just here with everybody you saw I would I would have a nervous breakdown yeah is there a country that's like coming on the scene right now that was like previously not a skateboard country uh Japan Japan in the last five to seven years has really become like really dominant they're they're pumping out phenomenal skateboarders left and right i don't know what's going on over there they have a they have something seriously going on over there and before that and it's still happening now it was brazil brazilian skaters were just brazilians are good at everything yeah they rip it phenomenal volleyball surfing mma football mma yeah um dancing yeah they're uh they're bathing suits

oh yes yeah best yeah wait so food are are they are they allowed to street skate in japan i i mean it's probably the same as here it's probably you're not allowed but you do it you know i feel like they have this collectivist culture where if they were skating, they'd be like, hey, that's not good for the entire hive. Why don't you? Yeah, I'm not really sure. I've been there once or twice, actually. But the last time I was there, I was 19 years old.

It was so long ago. I would just assume it's similar. It's all good we all we all don't know stuff sometimes but i'm not sure though to be honest with you i think it's awesome do you party uh yeah i party you party i do party how do you party usually just with some some drinks you know i'm not really i'm not much of a drug guy. Yeah, I've been slowing down on that kick. I just smoke a little weed once a week now.

There you go. There you go. Yeah, I used to do that when I was much younger, but I couldn't handle it any longer. I started getting paranoid and anxiety. I have that too. I just like to have some drinks and get loose. You did some boomers on Saturday.

Yeah, we were in Palm Springs. Our buddy Strider's bachelor party was so fun. Oh, Strider, yeah. I fuck some Strider, man. I was in a jacuzzi on boomers. It was fun. Every morning after you wake up from boomers, you look like Doc Brown

was in a dust storm. Your hair is always up. It looks like you were in a wind tunnel. You just walk in with this fried look and you'll'm like, it looks like you were in like a wind tunnel. And you just walk in with this fried look and you'd be like, what up? I'm like,

this guy went on an adventure. It was cool. We were with Bertolino. The guy who runs this place. Yeah, our jacuzzi.

He looked like an alien. It was awesome. I was like, he was talking. I was like, make conversation. I'm like, wait,

stop. You're an alien right now. I love it. What was, oh, sorry. No, you go. I was like, make a conversation. I'm like, wait, stop. You're an alien right now. He's like, what? I love this. What was, oh, sorry. No, you go. Was there like a lot of temptations when you were coming up to, was that something you had to kind of fight off?

No. Lucky for me, I literally, I just loved what I was doing so much. And like, I did it as like, it was like, it felt super important to me. It felt like it was a mission. Yeah. And I was like was a mission. Yeah. And I was like on a mission to be the best I could possibly be and wanted to always be considered one of the best. Like a samurai. Yeah.

But so I didn't start becoming a pile until more recent years. You've allowed yourself to like kind of have. Yeah. I go through these phases. Like I'll go through these phases where I'm like, I still got so much more to prove. I got so much more to do I still got it I gotta get everything out of my system

and then I'll go through a phase where I'm like well I've kind of done everything I've intended on doing and more and I feel grateful about the legacy

I've been able to put in skateboarding I've earned the right to kick back a little bit you know so I'll go back and forth depending on how my body's feeling

and it's probably tough to say by yourself but what are like what do you feel like your contributions to like the skating legacy that's a good question um i don't know um i i'm just from my perspective i just took what all the guys I grew up watching skating, I just took what they had brought to the game and took the baton and kept running with that to evolve it a little further to where now the guys who came after me are doing that. So I just felt like, I feel like my contribution was just in my era to continue that progress of it. So it's hard for me to say i guess a lot of people give me credit for for skating switch um but it's not like i invented that it's not like i created that i just saw that other guys were doing it and i just was like wow i think that's really cool to be able to skate your opposite stance just as well as your regular stance. And I would just kind of was attracted to that

and really crafted it to make it my thing and help push it to this generation. Which must have opened up just a multitude of moves that a single rider could perform. Oh, yeah, it doubles it up, really. And especially when I was coming up to now, it was like, well, if I couldn't learn this really hard flip trick into grind or slide, I could learn the basic version of it, switch dance, and people would think of it just as crazy. So I'm like, oh, okay.

So I can learn. If I can't learn how to flip into a backside tail, I can at least just learn how to do a switch backside tail, and people will lose their minds. And they'll think that's just as impressive as if I could flip into it or flip out of it so like that was kind of my like my hack my loophole yeah i was like i'll just learn the simple version but switch yeah there's a i forget who the director was it might have been like jean lucard but he says you let your limitations become your style because it's like you can only do so many moves but then at a certain point that seems more like a choice than than like something that was uh like a reluctant decision right i mean you take the tools you're given and you use them to the best of your advantage like you know i wasn't the biggest

kid i wasn't the strongest i couldn't jump the highest or anything so i was like all right well at least if i could figure out how to get my rewire my brain to work opposite stance that might be my avenue to go you know because i'm not going to out jump this guy or i'm not going to like some guys have you know we were talking about earlier just huge balls and they're willing to try any death defying thing well i'm not going to out death defy that guy so you have to find your kind of zone and craft it while also expanding in other areas but like you know craft that thing are you getting more interested in like the business side of things because you have your own uh primitive yep i got my own my own skate brand skateboards apparels uh skateboarding apparel

um and it's it's really difficult uh in industry. Because there's so much competition? Not necessarily so much competition. It's more so, you know, skateboard culture is really, you know, a passionate culture. So it's hard sometimes to make healthy business decisions that don't conflict with, like, your philosophical decisions in skateboarding. You know what I mean? Like, okay, if we do this are we gonna get shit for the community um because it's not keeping it real but if we keep it real we're gonna go out of business so it's like it's a really fine line because you gotta appeal to like a more like casual person who might not know the diehard like values of skating but they'll buy stuff so the

company's profitable sure yeah yeah exactly more or less and that's or there's tough or there's things like bro just go for it don't worry about the skaters dude hey man we're here to protect the borders man chad this is like a small comparison but we hosted like a clip show for the world surf league and i'm i don't surf i don't really skate. I grew up at the beach, but that's it. And then we were doing the clip show, and Chad was like, surfers are going to roast us for this. And I was like, why?

Why would they be upset? And then every comment was like, these are the corniest motherfuckers I've ever seen. And I was like, dude, they're very protective over their world. Yeah, over their craft. And rightfully so you know me being on both sides of it you know i i feel that that tug of war going on inside so it's a it's a fine balance really hard yeah because you have the 16 year old in you who when you would see

like that mass brand trying to sell something skateboarding you were like come on dude i can call that out in a second but now being on the other side of it, I understand why certain moves were made because it's like, if you don't do certain things, then you're not going to make it to next week as far as being a brand. So, yes, I'm interested in business, but I probably won't do any more businesses in skateboarding. Right. This will be my business that I have, and it's already hard enough, but I'm going to probably go more, not even businesses, but just investment-wise. I'm going to do like real estate and a certain level of stock portfolio and that type of stuff where it's just cut and drive, make good healthy choices financially and it over time should do well or whatever. time should do well or whatever but um i don't think i'm cut out or have the heart to like keep making more brands and skateboarding stuff like that because like it takes a toll on you

man it's hard it's literally it's like it's a business of passion yeah and you've been are you still with nike yeah how many shoes do you have now i got 10 signature shoes with nike yeah that's amazing. Yeah, I'm stoked. You're one of four people to do that? Is that right? I don't know the exact number, but I think it's more than that. I want to say it's like seven or eight, but I'm the only non-basketball player to have

that many. Yeah, that's cool. Wow. I had some of your shoes. You did? Oh, yeah. I had some 2010, I think I had some. Nice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, that's incredible. Did you meet phil knight uh i haven't had a chance to meet phil knight um i met mark parker hung out with him a bunch of times he was the ceo for many years i think he's i could be tripping i want to say he's like ceo of like disney now or something he was some other big major corporation now um and uh sandy bodekker was another high high up he recently passed away a few years ago but he was the guy that originally signed me and he's the guy responsible for uh the success of nike sb um and before he he he put nike sb together he was responsible for taking um

the nike soccer program and building it up to what it is now. So he was like a big dog over there. So I got a chance to meet some of those guys. Are you excited to see Air? Yes, we were just talking about it on the way here in the car. That movie's going to rip, dude. It's getting good reviews. I'm so pumped. It's always going to be good. It's going to be really good.

I'm really looking forward to it. And did Matt Damon and Ben Affleck together? I mean, dude, they're the young Al Pacino and De Niro. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes there's those certain combos you got to always see together. Yeah, yeah. And I'm always rooting for Ben Affleck.

I love the way he's lived his life. Like, he just goes up. He's just a phoenix. He's always going up, crashing, coming back. People doubt him. You know, they make memes of him like smoking cigs and drinking dunkin donuts and i think he just he eats all that negative attention and he lets it fuel him i feel like eminem's like that too he has his best albums after he's coming

out of the most darkest places i feel like it's like that torture artist type of yeah situation i really admire because it's tough it's tough to be that person you have to kind of um you got to be okay suffering yeah uh that's yeah suffering sucks but it's kind of the best though too i mean maybe if you're a sicko i mean i love that i I hate it it's harsh so are you pretty like balanced day to day you keep it like the frequency in your head

is a smooth melodic series of waves crashing gently on the generally yes generally yes but you know

I've had definitely had my moments especially as I got older I had my moments, especially as I got older, had my moments of like just totally getting way thrown off and having to find your way back to that melodic, smooth vibes. But in general, yes. I think my demeanor is pretty like, pretty balanced, pretty calm.

I don't really get too high or too low. That's nice. Do you... Oh, fuck. What was I going to say? I forget. Here, I'll do the big... What's up?

No, nothing. Big Q. So border discrimination. Yes. Oh, yeah. Where do you think it's at right now? I think... I think it's at... I'm going to say seven.

It's still pretty high. It's still pretty high, but not at its peak because I think the Olympics really brought more attention to it and people might see it a little more differently. Did you compete in the Olympics? I did not, no. That was still during the recovery of my knee, but that's just my excuse. I was already not in fighting shape for these youngsters, so I didn't even bother.

But, yeah, I don't know. It's still pretty. Maybe seven was too high, but it's decently accepted but still still hated on i mean as far as public skating do you think that's kind of necessary to make it cool and like fun or like maybe not fun but like exciting you want to have that outsider cachet yeah where like the security guard comes in you're like yeah you gotta watch out for him nah i mean for me personally no like i'm i'm too old to care about that i just i personally think it's cooler if you could just skate in peace without getting interrupted and getting thrown out that's a good call um but that's what we found it does

it does you know give you a little like edge bad boy kind of vibe and i was never like a bad boy per se as a kid or anything so you know there has been some moments where that works in your favor yeah cuz the person who's the non-stop rebel I actually don't think that's that cool because it's like you're still defined by the system because you're always fighting against the right right I think the cooler person is the one who can be rebellious if they feel like it's the right moment right but isn't also afraid to be okay with the system if the system's correct in that moment you're you're smart man like yeah i just when you said that like the rebel would be nothing without the system

yeah they just like to fight against couldn't even be a rebel he's it's like that's like the joker and batman they would they would be nothing without each other the other day and i was like joker you're lame like all you do is go like nothing matters nothing matters i'm like you know it'd be cooler joker if he thought a couple things did matter then you'd be yeah then you and then you could still have that badass wild man in you but you'd be fighting for something at least yeah like the the line how he says like i'm like a dog chases in a car i wouldn't know what to do if i caught it. You're like, all right. I don't think I'd be afraid of the Joker because of that.

I'd be like, you don't stand for anything. I'd be like, you don't have a family. You don't have a belief. Well, guys with nothing to lose, in my opinion, could be the scariest. But I think someone with something to lose might be even scarier. Like something worth dying for. Something to protect. Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting. I like the philosophy. I like the border discrimination. Oh Something to protect. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I like the philosophy. I like the boarded discrimination. Oh, boarded discrimination. Yeah. So when you say it's a seven, what is that? So when you're thinking of the seven, it sounds like you're talking about relative to other

sports acceptance. I'm not talking about like as public acceptance. I guess I'm talking about like the kick-out factor. Like when I go street skating, like, you know, you might be trying something really incredible, but the security guard doesn't care who it is or the business owner or whoever it may be, the janitor throwing you out at the school or whatever. And also a lot of buildings now get built in a way that they're already become skate proofed oh yeah in the blueprints you know what i mean so that's the worst is there an architect we could like be mad at

i'm sure there is i'm not familiar there's a dude who knows how to build these things that they're all going to they put like the things in the rails now right skate stoppers knobs those are skate stop those that damn dude you know what's messed up is um early on uh in the internet days when it was starting or whatever um it was actually a skater a former skater who invented skatestopper.com and he made and patented these little knobs that people come by for their businesses or the houses or whatever and actually put on the ledges to stop you from skating dude he went states evidence yeah turncoat snitch totally totally yeah so that was sad that was our own yeah he probably made a killing off that yeah that's how it goes he's a billionaire

now yeah yeah he can't look himself in the mirror no dude Can't do it He's got that big Glass mirror In his huge mansion Can't even look at himself Soulless Taking a shit His reflection Doesn't even show up How'd you get so rich

I stopped skating Literally I stopped skating And then I stopped skating Yeah yeah In many ways Yeah that's sad That's yeah

It's not Well this is This is more good City council fodder Yes I like marble I love your guys That work at city council. You guys are my favorite activists.

Oh, thank you, man. Appreciate it. I'm Marvel. Who's your second favorite? My second favorite activist? MLK. He's up there. He's pretty good.

I would say Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali's the best, bro. Have you seen The Dock when we were kings? Yeah. That's one of my favorite movies of all time. Muhammad Ali is seriously, he's one of three people that when they passed, he's one of three people that I never met that I cried when they passed.

Right. Ali, Kobe, and John Wayne. I couldn't think of a third. Robin Williams. Oh, wow. Did you ever meet him? I did when i was real young real young my dad used to do uh this thing called comic relief every year and it was like a

big thing billy crystal whoopi goldberg robin williams i remember he took me when i was real little i got to meet all of them backstage and stuff yeah so i definitely cried on all three of those when they passed yeah Yeah, Robin Williams was phenomenal. So talented. Yeah. Interesting guy, too. The Ali thing, too, it's like, the movie with Will Smith, and I like Will Smith a lot. My dad actually is in that movie.

It's a funny story. Really? He's in that movie, and he was so excited when he got in that movie. He got the role of this guy named dr ferdy pacheco who was muhammad ali's like doctor and um the guy in real life the real ferdy pacheco ended up getting into a fight with the director or will smith or both of them or something and they got so pissed him that they cut as much of him out of the movie as they could really and so now you'll just see my dad in certain scenes.

You'll see if you look, he's in the corner in certain fights. And like all his life, everything pretty much was cut out. And he was devastated about that. Oh, that sucks. But anyway, sorry to interrupt. No, that was a great anecdote, dude. The real life dude. Jammed my dad up.

I know. Jammed him. him i was gonna say like i love will smith i mean we've talked about him a lot because he's you know he got he's will smith he's and he slapped chris rock at the oscars which was wild um trying to think yeah but uh it's when i watch it i'm like we have so much footage of ali that I'm like, dude, no one could play Ali. Like no one could live up to the charisma and like the purpose and the meaning that he gave to like every time he spoke and when he fought and stuff like that, he's just,

uh, I don't just, I, I'm, I'm deeply admiring of him too. He's such a unique beyond the athlete. Like I, I love,

I love boxing. I'm a huge boxing fan. Um, but he, I, i don't even like his boxing to me is something that i rarely even pay attention to i just out of the ring stuff yeah dude like especially in those times the the actual danger he was facing the actual hatred he received that just the the courage and heart to stand up for his beliefs for his people and to like deny going to to the war and having his career put on hold when he was not knowing

like in his prime heat of his prime not knowing if he was ever going to get back in the ring didn't have no way to make money between uh in those years not knowing if he was ever going to make money again just like the stress and all, and still be able to perform athletically at a high level. And just the charisma, of course, his amazing poems and his amazing charisma in his interviews and stuff like that. But just like the real trueness of standing for what he stood for in that era.

Man, like that takes a different kind of person, man. Yeah, he's a hero yeah legend the best for sure should we answer some questions yeah

what's up guys I'm interrupting this podcast so you know once again that we are on tour we are in

Sacramento tonight San Francisco tomorrow Portland on Friday two shows we got Arlington Virginia coming up Austin Texas coming up we got Cleveland

a bunch of Ohio dates we got a lot of shit. ChallengeAT.com to get your tickets. Check out the Reddit as well if you want to get some discussion going. Yeah, talk on the Reddit because I read it nonstop. So when there's not activity on there, bummed, bro. Makes us feel sad. Yeah, even if it's negative, it's still exciting.

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Back to the store. Back to the store. Back to the show. You got to be pumped that skating is like the ones, like one of the jobs that artificial intelligence can't displace oh that's huge oh good call yeah you'd never watch a robot skate no no way i wouldn't mind like having well i think the science needs to get better but artificial knees and ankles yeah dude if they could return us to like our 20 year old like

elasticity and like yeah recovery that'd be great. I'm doing it. Dude, if all skaters got transported back to their prime. Their prime bodies? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be crazy. Or any athlete in general? Yeah, it'd be wild.

But you got all your experience. Jordan will make a return. Yeah, dude, he'll chew everybody up. That crazy fuck, dude. He'll have a lot of built-up pissed off. Yeah. Brady will un-retire again, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they'll just play until they're 3,000 years old. Why not? Imagine how good you'll get. All right, this one's called Kimchi Erection. Interesting. Hey, guys. This is Sid Bolbeck from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. I was listening to the podcast yesterday,

and I heard that Chad said if you wanted to become fertile, that you had to make sunny-side up eggs, throw some kimchi on there. That's true. You had to cook it in ghee butter. I need a bunch of bacon. Now I did that, and I feel great. No, Mom, I'm on the phone with the doctors.

All right. Anyways, so I made that because I wanted a good breakfast. It felt great. And then later on that night, I got this massive erection, and it hasn't gone away. So I don't really know what to do, and I'm scared. So whatever you can do to offer to help me. If this has happened to you, I would be much appreciated if you could let me

know. Thank you. Bye. Dude, I don't think he has a boner. No? No. I think he made it up, dude. I don't know. Your boner judgment's been off on this show. You thought I had one and I didn't. You're right, dude.

Alright, I'll take it seriously. I appreciate you, dog. Dude, we are'll take it seriously. Good call. We are talking. Dude, I appreciate you, dog. Dude, we are talking ghee butter here. All right, fair enough, fair enough. What is ghee butter? I'm getting a butthead. It's a type of butter. What kind of butter is it?

It's a type of butter that has. From geese. Yeah, it's from geese. And it has no, the burning point is non-existent because geese don't burn. Yeah, you can't light a geese on fire. Yeah. Have you ever tried? Trust me. you can't light a geese on fire. Yeah. Have you ever tried? Trust me.

I can't say that I've tried, nor am I interested in finding out. No, I was going to say, go try it. You can shoot a geese out of a potato gun, though. Okay. But they don't fly like you think they would. Interesting. Interesting.

Maybe it's because the velocity is too fast that their feathers go off before they can expand their wings or something? Exactly. Ah, huge. Interesting. Good intrinsic understanding of aerodynamics. Appreciate it. All right, dude, if you got a wood and it won't go away even after you beat your guy, you know what, dude?

You just kind of suffer. You put two pairs of jeans on top of each other. what dude you just kind of kind of suffer you put two pairs of jeans on top of each other you stick it upwards strap it down with a belt and you go to your job at the factory and you do what you're supposed to put food on the table for your mama uh-huh i agree i mean you know that's probably a better problem to have than the opposite problems yeah yeah if you're impotent yeah man i mean just be happier on the other side of the fence yeah dude so you're saying be proud about it rock on yeah dude rock on yeah yeah enjoy what you have dude this is take some photos it's one of those good problems journal on it yeah on what it's like yeah yeah write about it yeah man, man. All right. Paint with it. Dude, huge.

Hang your towels. Dip your hard cock into some ink or onto some colored paint and then put that on a canvas and draw something completely unique and keep practicing. Treat it like a job. Get good at it. Yeah. And open a gallery. Maybe good at it. Yeah. And open a gallery.

Maybe make a mold of it. Yeah, make a mold of your dong and then give it to an ex. Say, you'll never have to miss me again, baby. What we're trying to say is take advantage of this moment. Assuming he still has one. Yeah, there's plenty of people out there who can't say that that's happening to them. That's so true, dude. What do you think?

Why is there a boner crisis in America right now? A lot of people say it's pornography. Oh, probably I'd say that's the case. It's like you have this overinflated, no pun intended, overinflated idea of what sex is is supposed to be like and then when you actually have like normal people sex and you're like you don't move this is not what i fantasized about you know yeah i feel myself boning a while ago long time ago and like my range of motion was basically nil oh wow and when you watch a porn star they're like it's a you know their hip range is a couple feet well mine's like two inches but i but i don't think that means it's bad sex not to be defensive it's fire it's fire right i

hear you i hear you you know well you know well it is but rubbin's racing wait one more time sorry rubbin's racing i'm not familiar here It's a quote from the movie Days of Thunder where Cole Trickle is rubbing his car up against Rusty Wallace's, I think. But I mean it like... Well, no, dude. You guys are still here representing for the Small Dong Movement.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, a little dicks, dude. Chad, you can't claim to be part of it now. Oh, shit, dude. Don't utter my dog, dude. so yeah yeah Chad you can't you can't claim to be part of it now he's got a Mandingo piece that's still my brother I felt your pain there thank you thank you I felt how how you know you wanted to represent for the cause so hard but how devastated you were when you found out you weren't part of the club man yeah I was wondering why I had to tape it up yeah it's not i i was feeling for you on that one thanks

dude have have girl skaters come a long way yeah they're killing it um they're they're like just as big or bigger than uh a lot of the guy skaters now there's a young girl from Brazil actually her name is Raisa Leal she's a little girl from I forget what city she's from in Brazil but I'm not sure probably not I'm not sure but she actually became viral she was a little girl she was probably like seven at the time and she went out skating and she was wearing a fairy suit little like blue fairy suit with wings and she heel flipped the time, and she went out skating, and she was wearing a fairy suit, a little blue fairy suit with wings. And she heel flipped a forester, and it went crazy viral. Right. But she actually ended up continuing skating, and now she got silver at the Olympics.

She's like the biggest name in female skating right now, won all the contests last year. I think she's only 14 now. Wow. And she's just on top of the world. And you have a daughter, right? I do. Is she skating? No.

She'll roll around here and there. She's not really, she hasn't found her thing yet. I'm kind of like open to letting her explore and find what her thing is and try not to push her into anything. That's good, yeah. But allow it to happen.

Yeah, because that must have been good too. I do feel like if you push a kid into something, it feels like a job. Whereas if they choose it, they'll always have passion that must have been good, too. I do feel like if you push a kid into something, it feels like a job. Whereas if they choose it, they'll always have passion for it because it was their choice. Exactly. And I've seen it happen the opposite way. But, yeah, I guess that's not my philosophy. It's like I want her just to be happy.

I hope she finds something, a passion that she falls deeply in love with that's constructive and healthy and whatever. Even if it's not something that you can make a huge career out of or whatever. I just personally, being fortunate enough to have lived my passion for my living, I just feel like it makes life so much more fulfilling every day. And she's part of it. Your dad is a great comic. You're an incredible skateboarder. It's like who knows dude yeah and you know i just was fortunate enough i guess i suppose it had to happen that way

for me to make it in skateboarding was like i had to find it young you know like um most people don't find their stuff until they're fully adults fully grown i mean you started when you were like 11 right like that even seems kind of late for that time it wasn't for now yeah now you see kids like but they also like a lot of these kids have their parents putting a minute early because their parents came from a generation where that's what they did yeah so like naturally they're gonna introduce their kid to it you know instead of like in my generation I was like whatever baseball football basketball is what you got introduced to when you're younger.

Yeah, because there's like skate coaches now. There are. Yeah, full-on coaches. Yeah. So it's really getting big. I want to be a skate coach. You'd be killer. You think so?

Like just your philosophy would, you know, skate mental, skate coach. I'd be like, not how do you skate, why do you skate? That's right. Maybe like, because it's fun. I'm like, define fun. Yeah. Purpose or no purpose. And then the kid would be like, what?

And I'd be like, well, think about it. Fucking think about that. All right, breakup ultimatum. Oh, here we go. What is up, legends? I have a question for you, and this is for the esteemed guests as well. So I have been dating this wonderful girl for the past six months or so. She's in the Coast Guard stationed here on the East Coast in Boston,

and she has been relocated to Charleston. Great time. Never been. And my question for you is, basically, I've been given an ultimatum. Either I go with her down to Charleston, where I've never been before, or we break up. And I know that if I don't go, I'll regret it. But I also am having a bad taste in my mouth with the ultimatum. Yeah. And it's sort of making me think like longer term when it comes to where we want to raise a family to different types of schools, you know, our future kids will go schools, you know, our future kids will go to, um, you know, things

like that, that an ultimatum will kind of be her method of getting her way. And so I guess I'm just curious on the stokers and esteemed guests thoughts. I love you guys. Thank you. Um, and I'm looking forward to hearing your advice. Dude, I zoned out there. So the ultimatum. This guy's got his head on straight. I like this guy. So I hear him. She's going to break up with him unless he goes down.

So she's getting relocated from Boston to Charleston. They've been together for a while. He's in love with her. He wants to be with her. But she was like, if you don't move to Charleston, we're done. And he wants wants to move with her but he doesn't like the tactics she's employing to get him to go yeah that's not cool but i will say this what movie took place in charleston i think the first movie the notebook dude i just started watching this for the first time really three nights ago it's a great flick but i started watching it late at night, so I only made about 15, 20 minutes.

Brother, take your time, man. No rush. It'll be there. But that was a badass move when he was hanging off the Ferris wheel. Yeah, one arm, dude. Dude, I wish I could be that kind of guy. You are that kind of guy. No, not like that, man.

I could feel it. That's some real shit. You would have fucking skated down the entire thing, dude, and like, ollied into her cart. Dude, I would have been too afraid to talk to her. She's a smoke, dude. Rachel McAdams. You could stall the gondola until it goes all the way down.

No, I could, but I wouldn't have, man. Dude, I always admire those type of dudes. Romantics. Yeah, they see what they want and they went after it, man. God bless them. I'm telling this dude, what would Noah do? Noah would go, and he would call her a pain in the ass and say, Hey, lady, I get it that you're a boss bitch, but I don't appreciate being talked to like that.

I don't like that it's always got to be your way or the highway. All that being said, I am moving. I love you to death. Let's make this happen. Right. I fuck with that. I love you to death let's make this happen right

I fuck with that and then once you get there maybe he needs to yeah just just not let it become a habit you know she's gonna be tough

it's gonna be a constant tension with her cause she likes to be in charge but it already kinda sounds like maybe he he kinda isn't wearing the pants in the situation

yeah I think he's gotta say I think he's gotta be like look I don't have to do this. I'm doing this just because I want to. Yeah. But she's only going to know that he moved.

So in her head, she's like, what about I won? Yeah. I won, I guess. Well, then maybe he should play it for a little bit being like, I'm not taking, like, the ultimate, I was going to do it,

but not the ultimatum. And just give her like five days of like. What's the commute time between, what did he say, Boston and Charleston? That's like, I'm going to say that's like a two hour flight made him and just give her like five days of like what's the uh the commute time between what do you say boston and charleston that's like uh i'm gonna say that's like a two-hour flight and like a 12 hour drive you know maybe he goes down there a week or two at a time he fills it out back and forth and you know because it's tough because he wants to go but he doesn't want to give her her way because of the way she went about trying to get it. No, I feel that.

I feel that. But at the same time, when you love someone, like you really love them, you feel good about them getting their way to a degree. I get when it becomes a problem when it's like now you're taking advantage. But like, you know, don't you want to give your woman what she wants? Let her win. That's a tough lesson to learn let her win you know because we're hardwired to be competitors to get out there and get the w but yeah you guys are on the same team but you don't but you know what it is too it's like the way

steve kerr talks about it he's like you played with tim duncan still win titles you played for michael jordan and then be like look you can be the the star of this team but be more like tim You played with Tim Duncan, still win titles. You played for Michael Jordan. And then be like, look, you can be the star of this team, but be more like Tim Duncan and let's be teammates. Don't be like Michael Jordan and be like a dictator. Let me be Dirk. Let me be Dirk. Yeah.

Seven footer, nice blonde hair, fadeaway jump shot, unblockable. Do you know what that means in dating terms? You do. I suppose. I kind of blanked out right there. Dude, I did too. The whole question out of my mind was elsewhere. I blanked out as well. But you went into flow state.

Someone had to talk. Yeah, you went into flow state right there. I was a little. We got to give this guy something concrete though what does he does he just talk i think i think he's i think he's got moved down but he's got to let her know that he knows listen yeah yeah like this ultimatum shit not good tell her look look you i'm doing this because i want to not because you're making me but now my antennas are up and i'm going to be

more sensitive to you telling me to do things because you were over the top in your demand here so if you want us to have a productive good relationship i can't feel look you're in the coast guard i'm not i can't feel like i'm taking orders here all right i'm not on your cutter boat dude i think give her an ultimatum in return and be like you have to do this or else i'm gonna break up with you what would what would this be fucking i hear you i feel like i feel like that opportunity will present itself at some point yeah you know where you need to like where he needs to man up yeah it's tough man i feel like she she she could have just avoided the whole thing by asking differently she could have just said i want you yeah yeah she

could have just said i really want you to come i want you to come with me and i'm afraid that you know our relationship might not work out as smooth or might you know run into some problems and tension if we're you know so far apart you know would you consider moving with yeah but just to throw a straight ultimatum i feel like that tells me she's already, this isn't the first time she's given him the law down. You could talk in Coast Guard terms. You could be like, look, I get that you want to be the captain, but I'm the gunner's mate. I'll fucking shoot.

You need me on your boat. You want me on your boat. I'm your boat. You want me on your boat. I'm your protection. Is it tough dating as a skater? I think it's just tough dating as a man. It is tough right now. Or as a boy man. We all are boy men.

I learn that every day. I'm humbled by it. Yeah, it's tough for sure i was in a couple long ass relationships um and when i got out of them the last one the last long one and i came into this world of dating and it was like my first time dating as a adult and uh yeah it took it took me a little bit to figure things out. I actually don't think I have them figured out, but it took me a while to adjust to the new. What do you mean?

Just, like, I didn't even know how to approach a woman or talk to a woman. My long-term relationship that I was in, we up in in 2000 during our 2020 during the pandemic and uh when i first got with her it wasn't like instagram was around but it wasn't like the way i was meeting anybody like i just any girl i had met i had met by happenstance at a function or something uh so i just started going out there and just sending hard emojis as soon as i was like i didn't know what to do i didn't know what to do uh it's not the worst course of action no surprisingly it worked well but then it was like back to that uh the joker line like when i was chasing a car i wouldn't know what to do if i caught one like i just was throwing it out there

someone i didn't know what to do when if they actually responded like oh shit like uh it's real yeah uh uh hi and i would just like be frozen so it took me a minute to finally like learn how to like okay just hold a conversation and i'm always i don't think anyone knows what's i'm always there's a couple guys who are like professional dick dealers who know what they're doing. Yeah. But they're, you know, a small percentage of the pop. But even like whenever like a, like, like when you see like Adam Levine's text messages

get released, you're like, this guy looks like an idiot and the way he's DMing these girls. And it's like, he has tons of women who like him. It doesn't seem like he'd be challenging. I just don't think any guy looks cool when they're chasing it, but you gotta, you gotta put, you gotta put feelers out there.

Right. But then again, no girl is going to respect a man who's not going to chase it. No, you gotta put it out there. Yeah. So yeah, who knows what's going on.

I wish I sounded cooler when I was like, you know, when I was dating and I was trying to get on a date with a girl. But there is a point where you just have to be like, do you want to go out with me? Yeah. Yeah, you got to face that. I haven't gotten comfortable with it. But I'll let you know if I ever get to that point of feeling real smooth.

I don't know. I'm still, my tactics are pretty juvenile i think it's probably better than probably being hard on yourself uh maybe i don't know it's it's it's not it's not that great to be honest but somehow somehow i get by i i have like text messages that i sent like from like three years ago that I'll just randomly remember while I'm driving and I'll just smack my forehead and be like, oh, yeah, I'm constantly having an embarrassing moment pop up in my mind at any given moment. And I'll respond out loud, even when I'm by myself, like, oh, my God. And it'll just it happens to me a few times a day at least it's a vulnerable thing dude yeah i've had some but you know what it's the man in the arena who counts that's right it's the guy

who's out there taking swings that's right you gotta do it that's where the bravery is the joker wouldn't do that he's too afraid of rejection i don't know if i agree with that you think he's chasing it i i i think he's chasing it? I think he's chasing it and not knowing what the hell he's going to do when he catches it. Right. I confused myself. He cares either way. Yeah, I don't know what the Joker's like with chicks.

Probably better than me. No way. You're a handsome guy. You see, but that doesn't work. Like, it only takes you so far. What does it mean to work? Like, that you bat a thousand and that no one ever says no? No, it's just like, okay, like.

Yeah, that was intense. I've said, like, I've had, you know, interesting times in the dating world. And, oh, no, but you're a handsome guy or a successful guy. And you're like, yeah, but then I have to talk at some point. And that's where it really goes downhill. You know what I mean? Have you ever seen a really gorgeous, wonderful woman and you're hanging out with her and she becomes less and less gorgeous and wonderful

the more she talks or doesn't talk? The reality of her versus the image of her i think charisma far outweighs uh looks or status i agree like someone who's a real substantial person like a real fucking person like knows who they are knows how they feel about things knows how to process things yeah it's a it's it's sexy yeah and like like what you said knows how to process things like i equate it back to like if i'm talking to a girl i'm interested in i equate it back to what we were talking to before we were talking about like the skate contest and i was telling you how like early on my brain and my

body wouldn't function together because you know i'd get all nervous and i'd short circuit it happens the same as like i'll know what i feel about on a certain subject or i'll know where i stand on it but in the moment i'll get asked and my brain will go blank and i'll just blurt something random out and i'll just damn it and then you know i'll walk away from the situation feeling like oh my gosh i should have said this or why did I say that or this and that. And I just put my foot in my mouth. I think you're being hard on yourself, man. Yeah, I think you're a charismatic guy.

Well, thank you, guys. I think you got a nice voice, I'll tell you. Yeah. Ah, thank you. You do. I think we put... You guys are building me up, man. When you're single, I did this too.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a certain guy that I thought would be good at being single. And it does work. But it's like we have this version of ourselves that we think we have to be to be effective in the dating world. That was another confusing thing. It's like after coming out of a super long relationship, I was not trying to get into another relationship. I was like I had been through two seven-year relationships almost back to back. So from 19 to 35, I was pretty much in a relationship so i hadn't been single since i was a teenager so i'm 35 i'm supposed to be a grown adult man and i'm out here clueless and then i'm thinking like well last thing i want to do is first girl i go on a date with now i'm right

back into a uh a really a relationship like i need to feel out the scene and see what i'm into what i like what i don't like or whatever and i didn't know how to do that like how to communicate that to someone yeah so like i would tell like hey look i got out of relationship but um you know i'm not really looking for much uh you know i'm down to hang out i think you're cool so like you know if you want to kick it cool if you don't okay and like I would just word it like over it's unique communicate that's now that's my problem because I thought I was being a good dude cuz I don't want to play with anyone's feelings I don't want to drag

you along but then the girls like well we went on one date and you're giving me like a whole essay I'm like where you're at yeah yeah no that's yeah it's tough to say that I I've I've said that before too. I remember one time I said it. This girl, she starts laughing. She goes, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah, but that's always the girl who's actually in love with you.

Oh, no. Yeah. And is like playing it cool. I think she was bummed. Yeah, but then you don't say it. Yes, and then you're a bad guy. And then they get under the impression that something's happening. And you have to then say it

after a while and then like so you're just wasting my time or yeah and you're just like you can't win so like how do these dudes out here like but but they do it because they practice it and then they become a bit calloused from it and actually yeah i got like for whatever my realm was i got pretty good at it, but I didn't like the person I was when I was – I didn't feel like myself. I think you're feeling like your authentic self is in conflict with the dating person that would be more effective at it, but I think that's a good thing.

To who, though? To your soul. Yeah, to my soul, you're right. I definitely don't have this fantasy or idea that I want to be a playboy or anything like that. But at the same point, I'm like, how do people go out there in the dating world and play the field and test out the scene and not be considered a womanizer or a playboy? They're just a person who's out here just kind of feeling out what they like. I don't know. I don't think they say much yeah i don't know i see this is i think it's i think it's cool though if it like if you're if

you're i think it's way cooler to be in that position yes to be someone who's who's successful has accomplished a lot in his in his field right and is just a nice genuine guy as opposed to someone who's really good at playing the dating shit does that make sense a hundred percent uh because but people who are really good at that a lot of times that's their whole life oh yeah they're hollow they're shallow they're ryan gosling and the other movie uh the opposite yeah crazy i used to look at those guys you know when i was gonna be like i'd be like, ah, I'd be like that. That's when I was a teen or whatever. But then you meet those guys, and you're just like, they're just off-putting.

Oh, yeah, they're hollow. Yeah. For sure. And they're typically not very – they're good at being removed. And to be good at something, you have to be the opposite of removed. You have to be immersed and passionate and vulnerable to it. And so I think being good at that comes at the expense of other things,

which is what makes you well-rounded. But I do want to ask your buddy, is he being hard on himself or is he... Oh, you got to talk to Mike. This guy will make you laugh. He's the funniest guy I know. He's literally like, he beats himself up, not like physically, but mentally.

Yeah, he's being too hard on himself, right? And I think that he just, like you said, he's got to look himself in the mirror and know who he is head to toe. I just feel like he doesn't give himself the right chance and opportunity to succeed at a solid relationship.

I just think he's just soul searching. Took a few swings and struck out heavy. That's all right. I don't like this anymore. It's a hard thing. It is LA too. Yeah.

I don't know where I was going. No, that was beautiful, man. That was great. You sound like a really good friend. You really spoke to his core. He's the best friend. I can tell you look out for him. That's beautiful.

He does. He does. Yeah, it's tough, man. And, you know, I say this a lot. Like, love is a full contact sport. Like like you're giving someone else permission to fuck you up and you don't know how true that is yeah how literal that is almost yeah it's like skating dude you take a big tumble off that rail yeah but you can get up you can get up he's laughing he knows why uh off camera off camera yeah oh well that was

i think that was nice yeah that was really fun dude thank you so much for coming dude you were amazing thank you so much you guys are amazing i'm just hyped to be here i'm stoked oh this is surreal for me i'm one of the stokers, so I'm out here just wanting to support my favorite activist. Let's go, dude. No, this is surreal for me. That means a lot to us. My favorite, what is it, a week or two weeks out of the year growing up, X Games. In the summer, watching that.

Summer X. Dude, I would get Taco Bell, be in the pool, watching X Games, Salma Sakela. So this is really surreal Taco Bell in the pool dude cool yeah dude you get some of those cinnamon toys you're sponsored by Mountain Dew I was cool but now we represent a shock yeah one of my favorite helmets from next games was the all-green Mountain Dew helmet I forget who wore it. It wasn't me. That's for sure.

It wasn't me. I'd see that. In the street skating, they didn't make us wear helmets, thank God. They only made the vert skaters wear helmets. Yeah. Which really probably did not boost their stoke. No one was cool in a helmet. No.

No. Don't wear helmets, kids. I think we should leave it there. Yeah, well yeah i'm sending mixed signals here this is starting to sound like my dating life here now i don't know what to say i'm gonna i should stop going on podcast i should just stop talking no dude you're compelled to be genuine that means a lot to me i feel very connected to you thank you yeah that means a lot and i think a lot of people who listen to it it'll mean a lot to them that we're talking about this stuff yeah yeah hey man well that's all part of being an activist all part of helping out yeah we got we're activating hearts minds and balls dude where are we at with the

public yachts bro that's that's the greatest yeah yeah we're close dude I mean we got Dennis and Yachts is on board. We just got to get actual yachts. Nice. And I worry so many people are going to, I've been really on this artificial intelligence kick and probably a bit too negatively obsessed with it. But I think especially if we're going into this era

of like automation and job displacement, where are you displacing us? We need a place to go that makes us feel good. What's better than a boat? A bunch of big fucking boats where we can chill and ruminate on what humans' new purpose in society, the world, the universe is. And that's what Sagan said our job is, dude, to contemplate things on yachts.

I like that. Dude, one thing I'm hoping with AI is that it can teach us how to do things like the Matrix. So I can learn how to skate really well. And then we can go for a sash. Please. Yeah. Please. Yeah, but then I'd be jealous if you were better than me now.

No. You do the AI. I was curious about that, the competitive Matrix skaters. I just want to be able to skate with you. I'm not trying to be. Well, you can skate with me anytime you want. Yeah. I mean, I want to hit a rail or something.

Well, I can't do that yet. As long as you sign a waiver, I'll let you try at my spot. Dude, we should. Look, no worries if you don't want to do it. And I know we're on camera right now, so it feels like it's kind of binding. I don't want you to feel obligated at all. Okay. Although I am putting you on the spot.

Okay. When we go to the city council and we ask them for marble, can you cruise? Oh, I'll be so scared. I don't know how you guys do that no but i'll give you an insight former pro skateboarder and one of my closest friends this whole world by the name of mikey taylor really well-known pro skater is now a councilman of thousand oaks city man if you guys go to the thousand oaks on a day when he day when they're in there, you might have a supporter in there. Dude.

This is huge. That's good intel. This is huge, dude. I can't claim that I'm going to show up there with you guys, but I'm going to contribute. I mean, I can show up maybe at that one, but in general, I'm scared. You guys, the courage you guys have for that, man, dude. Can we just say you support it? Oh, absolutely. the courage you guys have for that man dude can we just say you support it oh absolutely you can tell in that meeting you could say you know we got the endorsement of you know pardigas and

of us uh you know i'll say uh like spokesman for 10 different nike shoes yeah the council will have no choice dude what up council you know my esteemed colleagues, you know, get a good sunning session, perennial sunning session. Dude, that's a- Forehand, get your mind right. And we'll tell Mikey. We'll be like, Mikey, what's good, dude? Yeah. We know your heart is with us.

Now, can you cut through the bureaucratic BS of government rule and give the people what they need? The marble jungle. And that works for everybody. Yeah. Everyone loves marble. Yeah. And we'll mention the lime juice thing yeah yeah we'll be we'll be we'll still clear clear that that's it dude all right that's it thank you man i can leave you guys with that bit of help knowledge it's an absolute pleasure man so fun man thank you guys my pleasure yeah it was so fun. I'm standing out in front of these signs You're going deep You're going deep Let's go deep

I'm going deep I'm going deep