{"id":25405,"date":"2009-09-01T01:18:24","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T01:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=25405"},"modified":"2020-06-26T09:06:05","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T16:06:05","slug":"andy-kessler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/andy-kessler\/","title":{"rendered":"ANDY KESSLER"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANDY KESSLER<\/strong>
\ninterview and introduction by STEVE OLSON<\/strong><\/p>\n

As some say, and whoever they are,
\nthe history of skateboarding has no place in skateboarding.
\nWell, just to correct you, it does, and like most history,
\nthey never seem to learn from its history.
\nImagine that. Enough of that history.
\nNow for a history lesson of
\nNew York skateboarding\u2019s godfather, Andy Kessler.
\nWhen it wasn\u2019t the trendiest of trends,
\nAnd maybe a handful of cats were riding the streets of New York, Andy Kessler was right in the middle of the pack.
\nIf New York seems wild now, you should have been
\nthere then. You have no idea how wild, wild is.
\nBut that\u2019s history, isn\u2019t it?
\nNow for something completely different.
\nAndy Kessler is still riding the same streets that were vacant then, but not now, and I don\u2019t mean the lack of cars or people.
\nI mean the lack of skateboarders, and very few as mentioned
\nabove. Take it from someone that knows, cares and still tries and makes things happen for the better of skateboarding
\nin and around the city of Manhattan. Read on, and learn
\nsomething that you thought didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

Kessler.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>
\nWhat\u2019s up? What are you doing over there on the West Coast?<\/p>\n

Loving it. Let\u2019s do this interview.<\/strong>
\nHow are you going to do this?<\/p>\n

[Laughs] We\u2019re recording everything you say. I\u2019m going to ask you some questions and that\u2019s that.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Is it over?<\/p>\n

Say, \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/strong>
\nThanks.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] My first question of the day is, what is your name?<\/strong>
\nAndrew David Kessler.<\/p>\n

Where did you grow up?<\/strong>
\nNew York City.<\/p>\n

In Manhattan?<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] I grew up in Manhattan. It wasn\u2019t very exciting.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] That\u2019s one of the most boring places I\u2019ve ever been in my life. There\u2019s no action there. How do you stand to be in such a boring place?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s amazing that I\u2019m still alive.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] How are you still here?<\/strong>
\nI have no idea. I\u2019ve been trying to kill myself for years. You witnessed one of my attempts.<\/p>\n

You were lying in the bowl and we were yelling, \u201cGet up. You can move.\u201d<\/strong>
\nYou said, \u201cWe can fix that. We can put it back into place. Just pull on his leg.\u201d I think I said, \u201cDon\u2019t fucking touch me!\u201d<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Could you imagine that?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m just really glad that you guys didn\u2019t touch me. I was happy to be left alone.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll talk about that later. You grew up in Manhattan. When did you start skateboarding?<\/strong>
\nThe first time I saw a skateboard was in the \u201860s, during the first explosion of skateboarding all over the country. My dad and mom would take me to the playground and I saw these kids on skateboards going down this hill beside the playground. I must have been five or six then. The older kids let me ride their boards down the hill. I could only ride on my butt back then. When I was ten, I\u2019d found my first board in the basement of our building. It\u2019s been all downhill from that point.<\/p>\n

Literally.<\/strong>
\nMe and one other kid, Mark Danzig, shared that skateboard that I found in my basement. One of us would ride our bike with a rope attached to the sissy bar and we\u2019d tow each other around the park.<\/p>\n

What park?<\/strong>
\nCentral Park. I learned to skate riding hills in Central Park.<\/p>\n

Central Park is kind of rowdy, no?<\/strong>
\nIn the early \u201870s, Sheep\u2019s Meadow was a dust bowl. There were no fences or grass. People would go out there and shoot rockets, fly planes and kites. Not too far from there was the Bethesda Fountain. All of the hippies used to hang out there and sell LSD, weed and all sorts of shit. People were smoking weed and drinking in public places. No\u00a0\u00a0 problems.<\/p>\n

Okay. I have to tell you something. I skated because I surfed, but you didn\u2019t skateboard because you surfed, did you?<\/strong>
\nNo. The first time I saw surfing was when I met this kid Adam Dison that lived down the block. He was a surfer.<\/p>\n

Why skateboarding?<\/strong>
\nIt was something completely different. I liked the speed and the rush of rolling down hills. We didn\u2019t know anything about surfing. We were just riding our skateboard down hills and going as fast as we could and riding from place to place for transportation. I didn\u2019t relate it to surfing until \u201874, when I met my friend Adam. Adam\u2019s family had a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 summer home on the beach. Adam and a few of his buddies surfed and skated. There were five of us then that skated in New York City.<\/p>\n

But you didn\u2019t surf.<\/strong>
\nNo. I didn\u2019t get near a surfboard until I was 18. I had a humbling experience in Cape Hatteras and didn\u2019t get back on a surfboard until just a few years ago. Now I\u2019m hooked!<\/p>\n

You skated just because of skateboarding.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s true. I didn\u2019t relate skateboarding to anything else at first. We didn\u2019t go down hills and think we were dropping in on a wave. We were just skateboarding. There were all these pictures in Life magazine in \u201865 of kids skateboarding in New York City. They knew nothing of surfing then either. It\u2019s bizarre, because there are lots of kids today that are doing the same thing. They\u2019re growing up with skateboarding, but they don\u2019t relate it to surfing at all. Skateboarding is its own thing.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where I\u2019m going. The West Coast is more of a surf culture than Manhattan, but for you, Manhattan is a giant piece of riding surface. So your crew of five is skating around. Did you see any other cats skateboarding around the city?<\/strong>
\nNo, not until we got the magazine in late \u201875. You had skateboarders in the coastal areas, like Long Island and the Jersey shore before we had skaters in the city. Out there, the skaters connected skating to surfing. You couldn\u2019t even get a skateboard in New York City until \u201876. You\u2019d have to mail order it or call a surf shop. In \u201875, I had to break into the principal\u2019s office at school to call Grogg\u2019s Surf Palace in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, and order skateboards.<\/p>\n

Wow.<\/strong>
\nNot long after the magazines came out, a shop in New York City started selling boards. A stationary store called Blacker and Cooby\u2019s up on 88th Street and Madison was the very first place you could buy a skateboard.\u00a0 All of a sudden, it exploded and you started seeing kids all over the place riding skateboards.<\/p>\n

What about the normal pedestrians? What were they thinking of these kids riding around on skateboards?<\/strong>
\nBack then people would barely notice you. If they did, it was like, \u201cWhat are you doing pushing around on that thing?\u201d Sometimes people would ask, \u201cWhere do you get one of those?\u201d In \u201874, we didn\u2019t know where to get them, so I\u2019d say, \u201cI found it in my basement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201875, it started opening up more?<\/strong>
\nBy late \u201875, our crew had gotten pretty decent. We had our places where we\u2019d hang out and skate. For the most part, we didn\u2019t like a lot of other people coming around.<\/p>\n

It had already started to get territorial?<\/strong>
\nIt was territorial very early on.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] You were like the Gangs of New York?<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] It was like anywhere else. You had all these little rich kids on really nice skateboards.<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t that work to your advantage?<\/strong>
\nIt only worked to our advantage because we helped ourselves. We\u2019d take a kid\u2019s board and one of us would get the wheels, one would get the trucks and one would get the board. It was like a chop shop. This went on for years.<\/p>\n

So you were a bunch of hooligans.<\/strong>
\nYeah, but we were 13, 14, 15…<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no judgment here. I never stole a skateboard, but I stole a lot of other things.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Come on, Olson.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m lying. I\u2019m just trying to be the good guy in black.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] That\u2019s all right. I got my skateboard stolen once. Jamie Mosberg stole my skateboard.<\/p>\n

He stole your skateboard?<\/strong>
\nYeah, it was at this park on Long Island called the Northport Pipeline. It was the first time we went out there.<\/p>\n

Was that the one that had the fiberglass ramp?<\/strong>
\nNo, that was the FiberRider in Jersey. Northport Pipeline was a real shitty concrete park. It was horrible, all kinky and lumpy, but it was the best. We\u2019d all get together on weekends and hop on the Long Island Railroad, which was very different than it is now. They had smoking cars, so you could smoke cigarettes on the train. We\u2019d smoke weed in there. We\u2019d sit there with these cardboard lapboards they had to play cards on, dump out an ounce of weed and start rolling joints. The conductors would walk by, stop, look and just keep walking. They were like, \u201cYou guys are out of your minds.\u201d That\u2019s what it was like in the \u201870s. You could get away with so much. No one really cared.<\/p>\n

Who were you skating with in Northport?<\/strong>
\nAll of these kids were there from the Long Beach area like Chris Seymour and Kevin Cook, who ripped. There was a guy named Craig Etchen. Woodstock was there and a bunch of other guys. Mosberg was one of the younger dudes that hung out with that whole crew. He stole my board. I found this out years later at Cherry Hill. We all went out there for opening day and he told me.<\/p>\n

He told you that he stole your board?<\/strong>
\nYeah, we\u2019d become friends. We just kept showing up at Northport and skating it every weekend, but I didn\u2019t find out until years later that he took my board.<\/p>\n

Did that piss you off?<\/strong>
\nNo, I just helped myself to one of his.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re telling me that, at the time he stole your board, you weren\u2019t pissed off?<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] I was pissed. Someone had stolen the board that I had stolen out of a shop. I was devastated.<\/p>\n

Did you like riding in the bowls at the skatepark?<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s all it was: concrete bowls, a pool and a half pipe. You could ride the whole park and go from one thing into the next. They had pool contests, half pipe contests and cross-country races where you skated the whole park.<\/p>\n

They couldn\u2019t touch my lines.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]<\/p>\n

When we went to a skatepark for the first time, it was insanely amazing for me.<\/strong>
\nFor us, too. It was something we\u2019d only dreamed about. We saw some photos in magazines, and we had some banks in the city, but they weren\u2019t anything more than one hitters. To be able to hit something, come back down, hit something else and continue to cruise was the best. It was all we could have ever wanted. They were the worst parks you could imagine, but they were the best things that had ever happened for us.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Did you meet new friends at these skateparks that were popping up?<\/strong>
\nBy that time there was a crew of us. It was my buddies \u201cPaPo\u201d, Ricky, Jamie Affournado (aka \u201cPuppethead\u201d), and a few other guys that really started to develop as skaters. We were riding a lot of different terrain in the city. We were going up to Riverdale to ride pools in the Bronx. We were\u00a0 riding pools in Sheep\u2019s Head Bay. On weekends, we wanted to go to the skateparks and skate with our new friends. Luke Moore was going out there too. That boy killed it. The first skatepark was in Huntington, Long Island, then Farmingdale, Long Island. We had a fun indoor park out on Staten Island. We made friends that we liked to skate with everywhere we went.<\/p>\n

Did those cats inspire you?<\/strong>
\nAbsolutely. It brought more energy to the whole experience. We had our crew and it multiplied from three to six to ten, and then the energy of the session was so much greater.\u00a0 It was good times\u2026<\/p>\n

If you weren\u2019t skateboarding, you may never have met those people.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s right. I\u2019ve met my best friends skating.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the element of weather on the East Coast. It\u2019s colder. You have seasons. It\u2019s raining and it\u2019s snowing. It just seems like it\u2019s a more hardcore element.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Well, that\u2019s something that you might want to bring up with Jim Murphy. He\u2019d tell you that the East Coast is way more hardcore than California, and that you guys are a bunch of sissies out your way.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Great. Goodbye. I\u2019m trying to give you some props and you come back with that?<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Unbelievable.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] That\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n

No, but if you\u2019re into skating on the East Coast, it could be five degrees and snowing outside, right?<\/strong>
\nYeah, but when we were kids, it didn\u2019t matter. We were skating in zero degree temperatures. If there were snow on the ground, we\u2019d clear a path and skate our ramps in Riverside Park. We\u2019d skate them year-round. We\u2019d skate the pools up in Riverdale year-round. It didn\u2019t matter. We\u2019d still ride all year-round.<\/p>\n

Were there a lot of pools in Riverdale?<\/strong>
\nFrom early \u201877 through late \u201878, Riverdale was happening, but it only lasted a couple of years.<\/p>\n

How was the whole scene when Cherry Hill opened up?<\/strong>
\nIt was sick, but it was two hours away from New York City. None of us had cars. As easy as it was for us to hop on a train and get to Long Island, it was much more complicated to get out to Cherry Hill, NJ. I only made it there a handful of times. I got to see you skate there.<\/p>\n

Why did you have to bring that shit up?<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Bad memories?<\/p>\n

[Laughs] No.<\/strong>
\nI thought it was great. I got to see just about everyone skate there. I saw you, Shogo, TA, Jay, Stacy, the Haut team and the Sims team. There were a bunch of those guys that ripped.<\/p>\n

Kevin Reed ripped. Eric Halverson ripped.<\/strong>
\nWhen I saw you there, you were with Brad Bowman and Doug de Montmerencey. Those guys were killing it. They were snaking you all over the place that day.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] That\u2019s true because I was on Quaaludes that day.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Fuck. Here you go. This one\u2019s for you. Those guys were rolling in the egg bowl and you were like, \u201cFuck this.\u201d You went over the half pipe and rolled in. I saw the run you took and it\u2019s still etched in my mind. It was badass. It was different from the way I\u2019d seen anyone else skate that half pipe.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s okay.<\/strong>
\nIt was cool.<\/p>\n

I was still on Quaaludes.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] I was trying to give you some props.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s fine, but I don\u2019t want any props. I just want pills.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]<\/p>\n

Skateboarding still wasn\u2019t banging in Manhattan, but you guys were still going.<\/strong>
\nWell, that park opened up in 1978, so, no, it wasn\u2019t banging in Manhattan yet. After the explosion in \u201875, most of those kids stopped skateboarding, but there were a bunch of us that just kept going. That\u2019s how it\u2019s been over the years. You\u2019ve seen it. Back in \u201875, the majority of skateboarders were kooks. There were only a handful of guys in New York that were hardcore and kept skating. You still see the same thing. With every new generation, there\u2019s a ton of new skaters and then a few years later, it dwindles down.<\/p>\n

Now New York is happening. The kids truly dig skateboarding and Manhattan is a great place to go skateboarding.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s a great place to roll around, for sure.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my favorite place to have my skateboard. I\u2019d much rather have my skateboard in Manhattan than anything else.<\/strong>
\nYou can push down the streets through traffic, red lights and pedestrians. I don\u2019t know of anywhere else in the world that has the same surroundings and energy as New York City. Sometimes ripping through the streets is the best thing you can do on your skateboard. There\u2019s something really freeing about it. It makes you feel different from the rest of the world. You get a unique view on things.<\/p>\n

Also, when you\u2019re on your skateboard in New York, you\u2019re in the streets. You\u2019re part of the deal. You\u2019re a part of everything that\u2019s going on.<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s true. It\u2019s one of the most bizarre things to me now. I\u2019ll be skating down the street and come to an intersection and\u2026<\/p>\n

Someone will ask you for your autograph\u2026<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Go on.<\/strong>
\nWhen I come to an intersection, most of the time, I\u2019ll see another skater coming in the opposite direction. Then I\u2019ll skate a few more blocks and see another skater. It\u2019s insane the amount of skateboarders that are riding the streets in New York City now. I\u2019ve seen it go from no skateboards to almost everyone is riding a skateboard.<\/p>\n

Did you ever venture out to the West Coast?<\/strong>
\nWhen I was 13 years old, I wanted to go to California and be a pro skateboarder, but I didn\u2019t make it to California until I was 35.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] I love that. What is wrong with you?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m just a retard.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] I\u2019m kidding. How was it going from clay wheels to urethane?<\/strong>
\nIt was a whole other world, but it wasn\u2019t the same experience here that you hear everyone in California talking about like, \u201cIt allowed us to throw harder turns or go up walls.\u201d We didn\u2019t have the type of terrain the West Coast had back then. It just made the ride so much smoother. You didn\u2019t hit a pebble and go flying. It was still loose ball bearing wheels, so your bearings would still spill out, but it wasn\u2019t long before precision bearings came along.<\/p>\n

Loose ball bearings were a nightmare. You had to have some knowledge of maintenance.<\/strong>
\nThose were some of the best times I can remember.<\/p>\n

How sick would it be to bring back loose ball bearing wheels? Were they faster?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m not sure. Were they?<\/p>\n

Precision bearings made it easier to roll by and steal someone\u2019s purse, silent-like.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]<\/p>\n

When was the first time you saw Skateboarder magazine?<\/strong>
\n1975.<\/p>\n

Did that get you excited about the whole deal?<\/strong>
\nWhen the magazines came out, we were all stoked. I\u2019d never seen anything like that. I didn\u2019t know you could do all those things on skateboards. For us, that\u2019s what we wanted to do. We never saw anyone ride up the wall of a pool. We just saw it in the magazines, tried it and busted our ass until we could do it. We figured it out on our own, not from videos. In some kind of weird way, we developed our own style. I\u2019m sure it was the same with other skaters all over the country.<\/p>\n

When you were a kid, did you think you\u2019d be skating now?<\/strong>
\nI couldn\u2019t think past being 16 years old. I sometimes think about it now. When I was 16, everything was right in front of me. By the time I was 25, I already had a lot of crazy shit behind me. You turn 30 and you can\u2019t believe you\u2019re 30. When you turn 40, you\u2019re like, \u201cHow did that happen?\u201d Now I\u2019m 48. I never thought I\u2019d still be skating. It\u2019s been something that I\u2019ve loved since I was 13 years old and still love today.<\/p>\n

Do you still get the same gratification and sensation from it as you did when you were a kid?<\/strong>
\nI still get that. It depends on who I\u2019m skating with and where. You never know where or when it\u2019s going to hit you.<\/p>\n

That session I had with you and Jumonji was insane. I don\u2019t know what it was, but I had such an amazing time. I could have died and been completely satisfied with life.\u00a0<\/strong>I had an amazing time and I just want to thank you for being alive. Now I have to go kill myself.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] You\u2019re one of the few people I really like skating with, and I always have a good time skating with Jumonji. There are just a few people that bring it together for me. Then there are the times when I\u2019m skating through the streets by myself and I\u2019ll flash back to how it felt when I was 13. I\u2019m pushing down the street, weaving in and out of traffic and there\u2019s nothing better.<\/p>\n

Do people that do other activities have these same experiences? I don\u2019t think so. They don\u2019t get to return to that point of amazing sensation. I feel totally grateful that you get that in skateboarding.<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m so grateful and stoked for that, too. You saw me fall that day in the bowl on Crosby Street. There was a moment, when I was in the hospital and thought, \u201cIf I never skate again, I\u2019ll be all right.\u201d Later, I realized it was just the drugs talking.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] More drugs.<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m so glad that I can skate now. I have so much fun. It\u00a0 doesn\u2019t matter that I don\u2019t skate the same way I skated when I was 16. In some ways, I feel like I skate better now.<\/p>\n

What about how you don\u2019t have the pressure of having to prove yourself? You can really tune in to what it\u2019s really about.<\/strong>
\nMaybe. At the same time, I was really competitive. There were days that I\u2019d go to Central Park early, at like six in the morning, and skate because I really just wanted to be good. I wanted to be the best. There was a time when I really loved competition, too.<\/p>\n

Okay, let\u2019s go back. You\u2019re skateboarding all over Manhattan and it\u2019s obvious that you\u2019re a truly dedicated dude. You\u2019re subjected to so many wild, crazy things that are going on. Did that get you into shit that maybe you wouldn\u2019t have gotten into if you weren\u2019t on a skateboard?<\/strong>
\nIt might have, yeah. There were cats that I hung out with that were really hardcore skaters and then there were cats that were pretty good. Those cats were a little older than me and they were into all sorts of other things. That\u2019s the group I started hanging out with. They all sold weed and acid and dabbled with other types of drugs. Eventually, most of them got into other hardcore drugs. A lot of them died. A lot of them went to jail. I got into a lot of that shit, too, at a pretty young age. It\u2019s another one of those experiences that I feel lucky I got out of alive. I was either going to jail or someone was going to kill me for doing some stupid shit.<\/p>\n

But you managed to pull through that.<\/strong>
\nI got real lucky. I thought I\u2019d lost my family because I\u2019d been out of the house for a while. They had court orders of protection against me because, the way I saw it, everything that was in the house that wasn\u2019t nailed down was for sale, so they couldn\u2019t have me around.<\/p>\n

Do you think those choices interfered with your skateboarding?<\/strong>
\nYeah, I do. I couldn\u2019t hang on to a skateboard. I\u2019d get a skateboard and sell it for a hit. Then I\u2019d get another board and sell it. I skated through that whole period, but less and less. Those were the years between\u00a0 \u201882 and \u201886.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t meet you until much later, but I was in New York skating and I didn\u2019t see many other people skating. There were a couple of dudes like Ian and Harry. Then I skated that ramp at the night club area with \u201cPuppet\u201d and Henderson.<\/strong>
\nI missed that. Those guys wouldn\u2019t call me back then. That\u2019s when I was bottoming out on dope and crack or just getting cleaned up. During that time, none of those dudes would call me. I was out of my mind.<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m glad you made it. You\u2019re one of the longest standing skaters that still ride in Manhattan.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] That\u2019s about the only thing I\u2019ve still got going for me. Tha and $2.50 and I can get on the subway.<\/p>\n

Okay, settle down. I know you can\u2019t take that to the bank either.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] That\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n

After your drug phase, when did you pick back up your skateboarding trip?<\/strong>
\nIn \u201886, I could hold onto a skateboard again. At least I wasn\u2019t selling it. At that time, I still wasn\u2019t hanging out that much with Pup and Henderson and that whole crowd. I think my drug period really separated us all quite a bit, so it took some time to bring us back together. By the late \u201880s, we were going to different parks and ramps.<\/p>\n

When was the first time you skated the Brooklyn Banks?<\/strong>
\nThat was in \u201883 or \u201884, pre-Future Primitive. We rode it a handful of times before there were videos. I didn\u2019t think they were all that great back then. When I started finding out that guys were going there every day, I asked myself, \u201cWhy?\u201d It\u2019s good for a couple of laughs and then it\u2019s time to go. I couldn\u2019t see hanging out there all day.<\/p>\n

Which was the best of all the generations of skateboarders to come through New York City?<\/strong>
\nMy boys were the best. It\u2019s best when you\u2019re young. Those were the days.<\/p>\n

It seems like it\u2019s better now, though.<\/strong>
\nThere is a community of skaters today that are dedicated to skateboarding in New York, which is a good thing. Maybe today is better. Maybe these are the good ol\u2019 days.<\/p>\n

Can you say that again?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s better than it\u2019s ever been, in some ways.<\/p>\n

But now it\u2019s trendier than ever.<\/strong>
\nYeah. A skateboard is the most popular accessory in New York. Chicks have accessories.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] It all depends on how you accessorize, baby. Those shoes really don\u2019t go with that dress you\u2019re wearing. Okay. Let\u2019s talk about some things that piss you off.<\/strong>
\nOkay. When a group of people claim something as their own when they weren\u2019t really a part of it and they start making money from it – that pisses me off.<\/p>\n

Be more specific.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s about the Zoo York trip. They stole our name. The crew that I skated with in the \u201870s was \u201cZoo York.\u201d The guys that started the company were in diapers when we were skating pools. They were never part of our crew. They made money off our name and they never gave anything back to any of the original dudes. That pisses me off.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t sound like you\u2019re that pissed.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] I\u2019ve had a lot of time to review.<\/p>\n

I totally understand what you\u2019re talking about.<\/strong>
\nIf it had happened to anyone else, I don\u2019t know if they\u2019d shake it off that easily. It was part of who we were as skaters in New York City in the \u201870s. I don\u2019t want to sound like I\u2019m full of hate for those guys, because I\u2019m really not, but they didn\u2019t really do the right thing.<\/p>\n

Maybe I can help you on this. They don\u2019t show any respect.<\/strong>
\nNone.<\/p>\n

You know what? If you show me no respect, you get the truth.<\/strong>
\nThere you go.<\/p>\n

Not to quote A Few Good Men, but a lot of people \u201ccan\u2019t handle the truth.\u201d The truth is something they have no part of. You\u2019re just calling them out on their stunts.<\/strong>
\nWhen those cats look at me as being bitter, fuck them. If they had it done to them, they would feel the same way.<\/p>\n

We hear nothing but whining from them.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]<\/p>\n

I understand it. In this day and age, whether\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 people dig it or want to accept it or acknowledge it, we\u2019re almost 50 years old and we\u2019re still\u00a0\u00a0 skateboarding and fucking up the boundaries because we came from where we came from. They can say whatever they want, but they will never have the dedication and passion that we do because that comes from our soul and they\u2019re just a bunch of soulless kooks.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] That\u2019s why I love you, Olson. I really do.<\/p>\n

I could just be in my own little world, but I have a connection with you because of that.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s not always about the money. I\u2019m not making any money off of skating and I\u2019m still doing it.<\/p>\n

Do you make your own skateboards?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve been making them for friends and selling them here and there. I spray-paint them and make each one unique. I put a little bit of myself into every one.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve built some shit to skate around New York City.<\/strong>
\nYeah, I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to be a part of that. I\u2019ve built some ramps and bowls. I\u2019ve been lucky to be at the right place at the right time to make some things happen. That\u2019s been a real learning process for me, too. It\u2019s been some of the best experiences, too. It\u2019s like that park in Riverside. The making of that park was a beautiful thing.<\/p>\n

How did it go down?<\/strong>
\nIt was a project that was put together through Riverside Park, their administrator and an educational center called the Salvadori Institute. They got 20 kids together, and, over a six-week period, we took these kids to a skatepark in PA. Then we brought them up to City College over two weekends where they got to do drawings and clay models for the park. Then they met with engineers and surveyed the park, which was a derelict playground at the time. The parents wouldn\u2019t even bring their kids to the playground because it was full of crack addicts. Then we took the kids to this retreat for conflict resolution. I got to be a part of all this with them. Then we built a half pipe and a bank in six weeks at the park. And the kids got paid to work all summer building it too. It all started with an idea. The administrators had the foresight to put it together. At the time, I had a little bit of money and wanted to build a ramp somewhere in New York, but I was getting shut down all over the place. I finally got a hold of the administrator\u2019s office in Riverside Park, but the assistant administrator shut me down. Then the administrator called me a few weeks later and said, \u201cI have an idea.\u201d He put the whole thing together and we turned that derelict playground into a skatepark. It\u2019s still going on. The crazy thing is, that area is where we used to build our ramps in the \u201870s, so it\u2019s come full circle. It\u2019s a beautiful, landmark park in New York City, right on the Hudson River. It\u2019s also very close to a graffiti wall in New York that all my friends used to write on. It was the Soul Artists Wall, the hear of Zoo York. That\u2019s the wall where they did the Wildstyle piece, right there at 108th Street.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s dope. So through your whole deal of living in Manhattan, you saw the graffiti thing, the punk rock thing, the skate trip and the rap trip.<\/strong>
\nI was immersed in skateboarding. As for the graffiti thing, everyone I knew growing up wrote graffiti.<\/p>\n

Why did you write graffiti?<\/strong>
\nIt was about establishing yourself, just like skateboarding was. Everyone had a tag (name). My boy SE-3, later on, became Haze. There was WAR-1, SIE-1, LSD-3, Revolt and Zephyr. There were all these cool names. You wanted a name for yourself. I wrote AK1 back in \u201873, which was early. My buddy Chris started to write Bang 137, so I started to write Fang 171. Later, I got the name KESS. We were trying to make a name for ourselves, literally. That\u2019s what graffiti was about.<\/p>\n

Were those graffiti guys that you mentioned in the original Zoo York crew?<\/strong>
\nSome of them were. The guys in the original Zoo York crew were PaPo whose real name is Catalino Capiello and Ricky Mujica. Those were my boys. Those are the guys I consider Zoo York. They were the guys I wanted to skate with every day. My friend Marc Edmunds wrote Ali and started Soul Artists in \u201873. He\u2019s the guy that coined the phrase \u201cZoo York\u201d in \u201876. There\u2019s a myth that Zoo York was a graffiti crew, but it wasn\u2019t. It was just a reference to New York City. In \u201879, Marc started to regroup the Soul Artists to put out a \u2018zine called Zoo York Magazine. They did one issue, and it had a fake contest story about us taking on another crew. It was funny. The \u2018zine covered everything from politics and sports to community. He had his trippy art in there. Marc died in \u201895 from drug-related problems. He was in Arizona when he died. There are a bunch of guys here in New York who know the real deal, and there are a bunch of guys that came later that don\u2019t, and don\u2019t really give a shit. If you know, you know. If you don\u2019t, you don\u2019t. I know. I was there.<\/p>\n

That always happens, though. Let me ask you this. Do you think skateboarding gave you a life? Through your skateboard and your passion for it, do you think that turned you on to other things that might not have happened?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve met some incredible people and been a part of some things that I never thought would happen. It\u2019s brought me to different places, so I\u2019ve been able to travel. It\u2019s given me some memorable experiences. There was a time when I was just happy skateboarding, without all of the grandiose crap. I was just working for a living and skating. But to answer the question: yes. Skateboarding has given me a life and being clean has helped me to enjoy it.<\/p>\n

Why do you still skateboard?<\/strong>
\nFrom time to time, it still turns me on.<\/p>\n

You turn me on.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Okay, Olson.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] My bad. You were just starting to sound sexy over there.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Stop right there.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re skating that bowl down there on Crosby Street and having a blast when you took that slam. You slammed from the top onto your hip and your knee. I told you to stay off your knees and you didn\u2019t listen.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]<\/p>\n

So what happened?<\/strong>
\nWell, I had a bad knee to begin with, but I knew something was wrong when I couldn\u2019t move my leg. It turned out that I dislocated my femur and broke my kneecap from the impact. The dislocation broke the socket part of my pelvis. When they got me to the hospital, they thought it was really bad news. The doctors said, \u201cHow did you break your pelvis like that?\u201d I said, \u201cSkateboarding\u201d They said, \u201cThis is the kind of injury you\u2019d normally see in a head-on car crash.\u201d<\/p>\n

We were over there trying to pop it back in.<\/strong>
\nI remember that.<\/p>\n

You were lying there, yelling, \u201cI\u2019m so cold. \u201d I felt so bad for you. There was a part of me that wanted to get into water sports at that moment.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just kidding. Your recovery time blew my mind. You were skating six months later.<\/strong>
\nI was in the hospital for a week. I was on crutches for three months. I was surfing eleven days before I was supposed to get off my crutches. I was skating again a month or two after that. By six months later, I was really starting to skate again. Now I feel like I\u2019m back to where I was before. It\u2019s incredible. People still ask me when they see me, \u201cHow\u2019s your hip?\u201d And then I go for a grind. I had a lot of help from a lot of people, which got me through it all. I will be saying thank you for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

I think you skateboard because you\u2019re passionate about it and you really dig it. That\u2019s really inspiring to me. When I come to New York, I can\u2019t wait to meet up with you and just roll.<\/strong>
\nThanks, Steve.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s in your future?<\/strong>
\nRight now, I have a little gig doing some construction. I\u2019m going to save some money and go on a surf trip.<\/p>\n

Will you ever come to California to visit us?<\/strong>
\nNo, I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Well, that\u2019s great, because we don\u2019t want you here anyway. We have the bitter patrol covered here.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs]<\/p>\n

You should come and visit. You have a place to stay. It\u2019s \u201cgo time\u201d.<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ll be out there soon enough. Maybe I\u2019ll drive out there and make you drive down to Mexico with me for a surf trip.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m coming to New York soon, so I\u2019m going to\u00a0 kidnap you and make you drive back with me.<\/strong>
\nDo that.<\/p>\n

This was excellent. I\u2019m stoked that you\u2019re around. That\u2019s the way it is.<\/strong>
\nThanks, Olson.<\/p>\n

R.I.P. ANDY KESSLER.<\/strong>
\nJune 11, 1961- August 10, 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n

ORDER ISSUE #66 BY CLICKING HERE…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANDY KESSLER interview and introduction by STEVE OLSON As some say, and whoever they are, the history of skateboarding has no place in skateboarding. Well, just to correct you, it does, and like most history, they never seem to learn from its history. Imagine that. Enough of that history. Now for a history lesson of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4028,4041],"tags":[14462,5371,10459,10458,3818,14255,10461,14294,14299,10460,14262,29,10462,14362],"class_list":["post-25405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-skate-2","tag-andy-kessler","tag-brad-bowman","tag-catalino-capiello","tag-jamie-mosberg","tag-jim-murphy","tag-juice-magazine","tag-marc-edmunds","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-ricky-mujica","tag-skate","tag-skateboarding","tag-soul-artists","tag-steve-olson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/kessler1-2.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25405"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78855,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25405\/revisions\/78855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}