AVE WEEK DAY 2: Exclusive Interview

Welcome back to the latest installment of Vans Rider Week. This week we focus on one of the select few guys that have their names on shoes around here, your favorite skater’s favorite skater, Alien Workshop Pro for more than a decade and misunderstood bad ass/teddy bear, Anthony Van Engelen aka AVE.
Yesterday you got a refresher course on AVE with his past interviews. If you want to know how he got into skateboarding or the gruesome details of his addictions go back and read his two Transworld interview; heavy and enlightening stuff. Today is not about then but rather the now. In this exclusive interview we shoot the shit with Anthony on a number of topics from Dill to self-destruction to recovery to the taxing multi-year video projects he’s always embattled in to the Berrics to relearning how to smile and how much cigarettes suck.
So go and make a bag of popcorn and grab a cold one because this was an hour-long interview and it’s all here for your enjoyment.

ANTHONY VAN ENGELEN INTERVIEW

Your 2000 Transworld interview covered how you got started skating so we’ll skip that stuff but I was curious that your two big interviews were both in San Diego based Transworld. You’re from San Diego. Do you or did you feel an allegiance to that area?
I don’t feel any allegiance to San Diego, period. I was born there but I didn’t grow up there. As far as Transworld goes and being in that mag a lot is because those dudes have helped me out a lot, obviously. I remember around that time when I shot the first interview I shot with Atiba a lot and he was always in my mix and we were always together. Later on it was that way with O’Meally. It just always worked out that I ended up with a lot of stuff with Transworld photographers. It’s not really a conscious decision; it’s just what happened.

You shoot a lot now with Anthony Acosta? Can we expect a Skateboard Mag interview?
I don’t know, maybe.



It sounds like you’ve got a ton of stuff already for the Vans video so I assume you also have a ton of photos.
I wouldn’t go that far. No. I don’t know what I got.

I think I asked you this before but I heard after Mindfield you just kept going and have been stacking footage.
No, that’s not true. No, dude. I’ve been skating consistently but I certainly don’t want to put it out there that I’ve been filming non-stop since Mindfield. That’s not necessarily the case.

You did the DC video with Greg Hunt, Mindfield with Greg and now you’re working on the Vans video with him. Are you sick of working with Greg?
Ha. No. Not at all. It’s good to work with someone that you know and that you’ve been through all types of ups and downs with as far as the board is concerned and life I guess. But I know if I’m trying something Greg is going to film it well and I know the final product that I’m working towards, that all of us kill ourselves for, will be good. That worry is removed from my head and all I have to do is worry about myself. It’s nice to work with someone that talented and he’s my friend at the end of the day so I’m stoked.

I think he’s one of the best out there and you two have worked together for a long time. What is the work relationship like?
He just wants things to be good and I want things to be good too so we’re like-minded in that way so I don’t ever feel too much of a struggle working with him. Sometimes Greg does put it into overdrive on some trips to get the most out of us…it’s gnarly making videos. But for the most part I like to be put in the positions where I have to pull the most out of myself because that’s the only way I’m going to do it. But the work doesn’t interfere with our relationship.

Do you try and film with him exclusively?
There’s three people I really film with: I film with Greg, Cody Green who is a great filmer and I totally trust and Benny Maglinao, who works for The Workshop, he films and edits all our stuff now. Then Fat Bill on the east coast. But mostly it’s with Greg.



Tell me a little bit about Benny. He sort of came out of nowhere and now he’s filming all you Alien guys and he killed it with that Transworld part but was so humble he didn’t want his name on his Cinematographer part, he just called it the Alien Part. That’s a stand up move.
Yeah, Benny rips. I love Benny. He’s one of my favorite people to go out and skate with too. He’s really laid back and obviously from what we’ve already seen he’s going make the best thing possible. He’s from Arizona but he lives up in SF. He was down here for a while; he was working for Etnies, now he’s working for Alien. We call him the secret genius because he can do anything.

That Levis commercial he did with Omar Salazaar was absolutely beautiful.
Yeah, that thing was super-sick. He’s killing it. I think as we see a turn in skateboarding and how it’s viewed Benny is kind of answering that. Look at that Transworld part. There will always be a big project in the works but kids are just eating shit up and shitting it out so quick these days that you have to figure out how to showcase skating in a rad way still but with the new constant demand and I think Benny is doing rad.

What’s your take on that? You’re an established guy; you don’t have to worry about putting out a new web clip every three hours. Standing back and looking at it what’s your take on the non-stop consumption?
It is what it is. It’s where we’re at. It’s the times. For me to have some old school mentality and piss and moan isn’t going to happen. It’s crazy but I still have the mind of a skater that I’m only as good as the last thing anybody has seen. So to me I feel just as stressed out by it. I don’t think like, ‘I’ve been doing it forever, fuck it.’ To me stacking footage for three years is hardcore because the way the majority of skateboarding is now and how it’s portrayed where there’s a new something every day. I look at it like I’m not getting any younger and these dudes are ripping hard and by the time I put some shit out three years from now a million things are going to be done on some of those spots.

Then do you look at it like you should leak out a trick or a clip every few months?
Yeah. For me this could get me in hot water with certain people and their ideas of things but for me now I don’t give a fuck. If I shoot it, it’s coming out. Unless I know for fact that’s going in the video I don’t give a fuck anymore. I’m just skating and I want it to be seen. I’ve done big videos and I’m doing another one now for Vans but the times of holding tricks for three years and all that shit, for me, it’s not what I want. I liked doing the Workshop thing for Transworld. It only took us three months, a summer to do that. You put a collage together and it has a huge impact. But I look at small board companies like Workshop; they almost went out of business putting Mindfield out. Three years of working and traveling. Yeah, we got an awesome video in the end, it was sick but then you put out something in three months like that Transworld thing and it has a similar impact and costs far less.

When you say Alien almost went out of business just because they spent so much on travel and whatnot?
Yeah, it cost so much money to make that thing.

And they don’t recoup their money on the DVD sales because no one buys DVDs anymore.
Yeah, it kind of filters into an expense for promotion to get people to go out and buy the product. I definitely don’t think the DVDs end up paying for it. I wouldn’t say they were going to go out of business but man, they broke the bank, that’s for sure. Those things got to cost a million bucks to film over three years and travel; it’s psycho. When you look at it in the end it’s rad…even making it, it’s rad.

You’ve been a part of two groundbreaking videos in DC and Mindfield. Do you know when you’re making that it’s something special and do you feel that already with the Vans video?
I think sometimes when you’re in the heat of it all, and I’m just speaking for myself, it really depends where my head is at but I tend to feel like at the time I’m just skating. There’s ups and downs. Sometimes it’s so down that it’s frustrating and then there’s times it’s going well and you know you’re doing it. I know when we’re doing a Workshop video that it’s a Workshop video, it’s going to be insane. Just with all the visual shit and everything you can do with The Workshop and all the people involved; I knew that was going to be pretty rad. Towards the end is when you start to see it all. The last year or so of filming is when it comes together. The DC video I’m out street skating with Danny Way in Spain and you knew seeing that that this is something special. The Vans one, as far as street skating is concerned, the team that we got, I go out with these kids and it’s like…fuck! It’s gnarly. It will be heavy.

Who is going to crush it?
Chima is so fucking gnarly. You got Pfanner, Chima, and Elijah who almost died skating a month ago. I don’t even know what he was doing but he apparently almost had to have his kidney removed. These dudes are going nuts. I don’t want to leave people out; the team is pretty big. All these dudes are psycho and this is going to be a big deal for those dudes, the younger dudes.

How about you? What are your expectations? You laid it down in Mindfield. Do you need to top that? Or will you be happy with just doing you?
Oh man. I don’t know. I don’t know what they are. Of course I always want to do the best but it’s a bad time for me to talk about this. I’ve been in the gnarliest slump lately. I’m just trying to do me but I’m out there skating every day so it will be what it will be within the confines of that and where I am at with my board these days. I don’t want to sound negative but that’s what keeps me on my toes.

15 years ago you said in your Big Brother AM interview you said you quit for a while. Now you’re clean, you’re sober, healthy, skating every day; can you imagine your life without skateboarding?
No. I ask myself that often. I don’t try and envision that but I think about that a lot. I’ve been around for a minute and it’s not like it’s something that doesn’t cross my mind like, “What’s life after the board? Or after being pro?” I’ll always skate and be a skater; I’ve tried to get away from it and I can’t. Not even consciously but I’ve tried to fuck things up as much as I can and it never works out.

“Every time you try to get out it pulls you back in.”
Pretty much.

I don’t have the level of sobriety that you do but I’m clean of drugs and we both shitbagged it pretty hard for pretty long and I know now if I don’t have skating as my release, if I don’t have that physical exertion I’d be a fat pile on my couch.
Oh yeah, that’s for sure. Regardless whether I’m 55 years old I need to find shit to do and be physically exhausted to be happy. Not every day but a few times a week so I’ll never stop. I’ll go insane if I don’t do something for a week, I start to go crazy.



I’ve seen you get a lot of pool footage in the last year or so with that Vans commercial and then this Friday’s Acosta’s Angles has some great pool shots of you. You see Arto has the pool in his backyard and he’s kind of transitioned into that. Is that a route you see yourself going down one day?
I don’t know. I like skating pools but being a straight pool guy I don’t think so. I like to carve and slash and shit but I’m not going to pretend like I’m a pool dude. I’m a street skater. I’ll skate them though; I like it.





Also in that Big Brother interview you said your dad was about to start testing pregnant women’s pee. Anything ever come of that?
God, that’s so funny. I don’t know if that ever happened. It’s such a long story but long story short he was involved with some dude that was a doctor/scientist ad they were dong studies on healing effects of urine on the human body. Everyone knows if you cut your foot you can pee on it and it helps but they were taking it a bit further. I know he was working on it for a while but I don’t know if it ever happened.

That was during his time living in Russia. What was your fondest memory of Russia, if you even have one?
I think it’s how I felt when I came back. I don’t mean that to be funny. The experience I had there and being there at that time, being a kid from Southern California and then coming back it really helped me get my shit together. I think about the whole experience and it was kind of rugged. It wasn’t like I have fond memories of it but I think back to it I’m like, “Thank God that happened,” for a number of reasons.

While you were there you were a bartender at a whorehouse at age 17.
Well, it wasn’t a whorehouse, it was a nightclub but all the women in there were working girls. It was like a mafia nightclub with a lot of prostitution.

Any of the girls ever chuck you one because you were a young kid?
No, not those chicks but some other chicks.

In the past interview you said you were bartending but you didn’t get paid?
No, I wasn’t getting paid. That was another thing my step-dad was doing. He was trying to open up a restaurant out there so the idea was I work there and learn how to work in the bar and then I manage the bar at the restaurant him and his friend were opening. It was kind of a training situation, I guess, but I went there 4 or 5 nights a week. It started to piss me off. I was pretty annoyed. Even if I would have been making money it’s slavery there. People don’t tip there, there’s no money to be made.

Ever been back to Russia?
I went back but I didn’t go back to St. Petersburg, I went to Moscow. It was a long time ago, I was really drunk, I can’t really remember what that was like. Russia is Russia.

You came back from Russia and then started wildin’ out again?
No, I skated. I was stoked on skating again. At a young age I got kind of burnt out, you know how kids do, you start discovering chicks and partying. I never expected anything of my ability. I didn’t see myself as pro caliber, I saw myself as just good enough to get some free shit. But being over there and thinking about skateboarding when I couldn’t skate made me really want to do it and when I came back that’s all I did for a couple years. I wasn’t partying or anything for those years. That came back in the picture later after moving to LA.



Eventually Dill got you on 23. How did you meet Dill?
I’d seen Dill here and there around Orange County growing up since he was on Black Label but we didn’t really know each other. I think I got on 23 around 1996 because I got on The Workshop in ’97. Somewhere around there I ran into Dill and he was riding for 23 already and we skated together for the first time since early 101 days and that’s when we became friends and really started calling each other to go out and skate all the time.



What has kept you two such good friends over the years since you two are a bit of the odd couple?
No, totally. Totally odd couple. It’s funny. For a lot of years our lives took a lot different turns. People always think of us as a pair but for 6, 8, 9 months, a year at a time we didn’t talk to each other. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a time I didn’t see Dill for a year and a half with him living in New York. But at the end of the day whether it be a tour or skating that brought us back together…I don’t know what it is necessarily but it works. He’s my boy. He’s funny. But it is definitely the odd couple for sure.

He’s hilarious but you’ve also got a good sense of humor yet most people are scared shitless of you.
Why?

You have this persona, this stone cold look. Acosta’s exact words were you, “Look like a man who has done time.”
Oh god. I don’t know, dude. I’ve talked about that type of shit with other friends of mine that have similar retarded problems as I do and I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why people think that of me. I think I’m just totally freaked out and it keeps people away from me. Seriously.

I think you just have a stern face and that intimidates people.
Well I think some life experiences too have been beat into that thing but for the record I’m soft.



Acosta gave me a photo of you smiling and said, “I have thousands of photos of Anthony but this is the only one where he’s smiling.”
I don’t like having a photo taken of me. I hate it. I all of sudden, immediately feel awkward. Immediately awkward and weird when someone is pointing a camera at me. I don’t think I like any attention on me, period. It freaks me out almost to the point where it’s too much. Where I’m thinking about myself too much and I need to give myself a break.

Kids will trip out when they read that because you have this persona of Joe Cool.
No, no, not cool at all. Totally, totally freaked out. I think it has a lot to do with why I liked drugs and alcohol so much.

But for the record you’re a teddy bear?
Yeah, definitely.

Gonz used to live in New Brunswick, NJ in the early 90s and we saw him skating this bank under a bridge and we were like, “Hey! It’s the Gonz.” As soon as we said it he picked up his board and sprinted off. Not skated away, but hauled ass running. My question is, now that kids now you’re a teddy bear, when kids see you should they approach you? Or are you going to run away?
Fuck no! I’m always stoked to talk to other skaters. I feel like dudes come up to me and I’m always cool. Fuck. I need to work on that. I need to work on smiling. Maybe I’ll practice that in the mirror today.

Back to Dill, who went sober first?
I did. I was struggling with it way before Dill. Dill was always like, “I’m an alcoholic, so what?” It didn’t ever get him into trouble, that was the thing. He was functioning in his world whereas me, I’d run into trouble really quickly and bad shit starts happening really quick and it became apparent.

Did you help him out getting clean?
He pretty much does his own thing. When he first came to terms with having to get clean he called me and I showed him what I did. And we talked about how the hell you live life without it and what you do. People call me because I’ve been sober for a second and they think I might know some things but I really don’t know shit. They’re like, “Should we have an intervention?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” I got clean because I wanted to finally. Finally I ran out of roads to take and things to try and it just wasn’t working for me anymore. It wore itself out. I kind of gotten beaten into submission where I had to take a hard look at some things and make some different decisions. Some sort of moment of clarity. And for me I find when people hit bottom is when they start making decisions. Life is the best teacher in people learning their lesson. So I don’t have any advice really. I know a way, the way I did it. But that only works if someone wants it.

I know that if I didn’t pull the brake on it that I’d be dead. Do you feel the same way?
Yeah, for sure. Because of the things that would happen when I did it and the things I liked to do. People that do that stuff die or go to places they don’t want to go like jail. If that’s what I would’ve continued to do that’s what my life would’ve looked like. Dead or in prison, guaranteed.



How did you end up with Jason on your doorstep and then living with you?
He already had about a year clean and he was going through the steps of figuring out what to do in the first year; it’s strange. He’s like, “I get up, I get coffee and then fuck, what do I do?” I think he broke up with his chick and ended up out here in LA with a cruiser board with roller skate wheels on it. I don’t think he even had a regular set up for a year. He brought that to the skatepark the first night we went and skated and I was like, “Dude! We got to get you a board.” He wanted to ride that, I was like, “No, we need to get you a real skateboarding set up.” So we put a board together for him and went to the park and that was that. He figured it out that night. I don’t think he skated since Mindfield. When he got her last year Mindfield had been over for two years. He was staying at his friend’s house and I was going through shit with my chick and I was like, “Why don’t you just stay at my house?” And he ended up staying here for a year. We skated every damn night and fell asleep watching skate videos; it was pretty funny. I felt like a kid again. No matter how sore we were we’d skate every day.

How stoked are you now that aside from Alien trips, Jason is traveling with you on Vans trips?
Oh, it’s sick. I’m super-stoked. I’m just stoked how everything worked out. It was February of 2011 when we were doing this New Zealand trip. Dill had just started staying with me and I was like, “Can we bring Jason? Maybe Workshop can pay for it.” Somehow we finagled it to where Dill got on the trip with us and it was from that point that it worked to him being on Vans. I forced it on Dill. I was like, “I’m gonna get you on this New Zealand trip.” He was all freaked out because he was removed from skateboarding for that long so he was freaked out by the big international trip, the first time for that in a long time for him. It was rad that he went on that trip because I think that’s where it started.

Him and I don’t travel well. We need the Molotov cocktail. Even now I have to take something to put me out. Does he still have to take the Molotov cocktail?
On the planes? You’d have to ask him that. It ain’t what it used to be, that’s for sure. It used to be like 13 of ‘em. I was like, “Why? Why, dude? Two does the same as 13! Why?” Knocked out is knocked out. I remember going on a trip to Australia once and I walked by his row. And not to be calling anybody’s shit out, we all partied, we ran into Nathan Fletcher, he surfs for Vans and is epic. We ran into him on the plane and him and Dill somehow ended up sitting next to each other. I took two to where if you had to take a piss your body wakes you and you go to the bathroom. I walk by and it’s those two with their heads bonked together, asleep, drooling. And Dill has the pill bottle in his hand with it open and there’s probably 50 pills splayed across both their laps and on the ground. It was like he had a bag of popcorn and spilled it all over their laps. It was amazing. But I think he only takes like 1 or 2 now.



There’s been character after character on Alien over it’s long and storied history. Freddy comes to mind. Dyrdek comes to mind. You. Dill. How would you describe Alien Workshop, what it was, is and will be?
The way I’ve always described it is, everyone who rides a skateboard is pretty crazy, but at the time with me, Freddy and Dill, it was three psychos going full-bore at once. And I feel like that’s always been the scene on The Workshop. I wasn’t there for the Bo Turner and Conklin years and all that but I heard it was pretty hectic. Then it was our generation with me and Dill and Freddy and even Dyrdek and it was always crazy. That’s a good question for [Chris] Carter. I know recently Carter said, “I never had a team at this point we’re at now that is so together. You got your shit together, you’re good role models to young kids and the young kids aren’t crazy. We have a team of dudes that actually just skate.” All the young kids on the team don’t even drink; it’s fucking weird.

How does it feel to be the president of Alien Workshop?
I think I’m the V.P., Dill might be the president. When Dyrdek bought The Workshop he said he was going to make Dill the Vice President. Dyrdek is the president.

How did you find out Dyrdek was buying The Workshop?
I heard it form Dill because he was talking to Dyrdek a lot. I was stoked. What better story than the dude who has been riding for a company for 20 years and his first check was for $2 and then he turns around and buys the thing 20 years later. And Dyrdek is epic. It’s not owned by Burton or anybody else, it’s owned by Dyrdek.

Has anything changed?
No, I think the name on the check is different. I don’t even see my checks so I don’t know what it says. It might say Dyrdek Enterprises. Maybe it says Fantasy Factory on the check.

Were you there when he didn’t know who Gilbert Crockett was?
I was there. It was some art show on Fairfax and I was talking to Dyrdek and Gilbert came up and shook his hand and said, “I’m Gilbert” and Dyrdek just kept talking to me. I was like, “Dyrdek! This is Gilbert.” And he’s like, “Yeah, ok.” And we had to explain to him who Gilbert was.

You’d think the company owner would know these kinds of things.
I know Carter knows who Gilbert is. Carter and Hill know who Gilbert is. And Dyrdek knows now. But Dyrdek didn’t own the company at that point so maybe now he knows exactly what’s going on.

What’s your take on Gilbert? Because he’s a piece of work.
Gilbert should never drink because he’s already an alcoholic in the making. My god it’s good he’s sober. He’s a trip.

Did you see his Five Favorites video he made with his friends?
No, I haven’t seen it yet. I’m so bad at watching shit on the Internet. I only get my information from the magazines. I don’t go on websites. I don’t do it.



Was your TF meant to be the anti-Berrics?
No. To be perfectly honest I skated The Berrics a lot before it was The Berrics. I’m really grateful that I was able to do that and have that place to skate. I wasn’t ever like, “Fuck you! Fuck The Berrics.” I skated there a lot. It helped me out. Street skating is a nightmare. Why we got that place was because as Berra’s vision of The Berrics come together it was just too hectic to go there and skate. It started to interfere with his business there. People would come into session and there’s a full team in there, its shut down, lights are on. And that’s his spot and that’s what his vision was and I think for me, Guy and the guys that skated The Berrics it got hard for us to skate once again so we were like, “We got to get our own spot.” That’s why we did that.



You mentioned earlier you’re thinking of putting out more web clips, why don’t yous guys put out dicking around footage at your TF?
We have kind of. There’s been a lot of little commercial things. Guy has done stuff in there. Biebel does his stuff with the cellphone cameras. We did a little Workshop thing last year. Stuff has come out of there but a lot of times its just nice to go and skate and not have a camera in front of you. That’s why those places are rad. Sometimes out in the street I’m not going to get a session. All I’m going to get is a six-hour drive around and a bunch of shit spots and I might come home without even have skated. To be able to have that park and be able to go there and guaranteed to skate for two hours straight is awesome.



How did it all happen with you leaving DC and getting on Vans?
It’s funny and weird…that was about two years after the DC video had come out and through those two years I really wasn’t skating. I was off doing a bunch of shit. I think when I started skating again at the end of that two-years just at parks by my house I was wearing Vans. I was wearing Vans all the time when I wasn’t skating forever but I always wanted to skate in Vans. I was like, “I’m not skating in these bulky ass DCs.” I haven’t skated in a long time, I’m skating a park, I’m skating Vans because I want to. Then I ended up actually cutting the stripes off the shoes and actually started shooting photos in Vans. I had an Analog ad, a sequence, and I cut the stripes off of Old Skools and spray painted them and was like, “Well, they look like a black shoe. That’s fine.” It’s funny how things worked out because Quy (Nguyen) was the team manager for Analog and he called me and asked me what I thought about riding for Vans because Steve Luther had called him and I was like, “Totally, I’ll do it! I don’t give a fuck!” They gave me a nice deal, that’s for sure, but I didn’t care about the money. I needed the change and I wanted to ride what felt good. It worked out. That Analog ad came out and I called Ken Block and I was like, “I think I want to ride for Vans.” And he’s like, “Well, I see you’re wearing them in that new Analog ad.” But I called him to say thanks. I certainly wasn’t bitter at them. For me personally I think they had a hard time working with me. I used to bring Vans in there like, “Can we make this?” This is before the whole vulcanized craze before everyone was doing it and they were like, “No, that’s a Vans. That’s what they do, we do what we do.” They had a hard time with me when it came down to that stuff. DC is a more technical brand. Eventually, they made a lot of vulcanized shoes.

How do you come up with your genius shoe designs for Vans?
Ha. I’m really not trying to reinvent the wheel. I might move the stripe around or do this or that but at the end of the day that’s what works and feels best for skateboarding. I mean, people have tried to make titanium and carbon fiber boards and shit but at the end of the day we all want to ride a wood board. Bushings and wheels are still made form urethane. It ain’t some new space age shit. It’s the same shit we were riding in the 70s. Vans is the brand. That’s it.

You got a brand new shoe that just came out, The Native. You got any sales pitch for it?
Fuck no. If you like Vans you’ll love it. Just like the rest of them.



Ok, let’s wrap this up. Aside from video stuff what else are you working on?
That’s it. Just video shit. I don’t know. I’m trying to get a goddamn trick on film. It’s Sunday. I need to go out and try and do that because I need to feel what that’s like again; it’s been a while.

You go through those patches? Where it’s all or nothing? Getting shit ton and then just getting skunked?
Oh yeah, I’ve been in a patch right now that’s just gloomy. I was talking to Greg about it the other day and he was like, “Ave, I been here with you ten years ago. You’ll get through it.” And he’s right. It is what it is. Sometimes everything is happening and sometimes for a long time nothing is happening. And then stuff starts happening again.

But is that a pressure that you put on yourself? Like you could get something but it’s below the standards you’re putting on yourself?
Yeah, of course. I put way too much pressure on myself. It absolutely works against you versus when you’re mellow and confident and not worried but how do you stay there? I guess some dudes live there. Me? I’m a fucking psychopath. Sometimes I can stay in there for a little while and everything is great and then other times I have a hard time getting back there. But I think for most it’s like that.



Do you look at a DC Video and wonder how you did some of those tricks?
I don’t know. I haven’t watched that video in 10 years. Yeah, there’s some things I think back to like, “That’s what I was doing then.” But I wasn’t doing what I do now either. It’s got to change to keep it interesting. I have no interest in going out and trying to switch frontside crooks fakie flip out on something these days. I want to do other things. I’d rather go skate a pool or something.

My last question is, your last word in that Big Brother interview were, “Whatever you do, don’t live your life like me. Don’t be like me.” Still feel that way?
No. I guess there’s somethings we all have to go out there and experience but I was such an idiot in that Big Brother interview. I wasn’t even doing anything that was bad then really. I don’t know what I thought I was doing. Later on it got to where that might have really made some sense. Whatever, man. Just be careful. That’s my last words now. Do everything but don’t smoke cigarettes. Those things are stupid. I quit those. September will be a year. I’ve done a lot of shit and I can see why I did it but cigarettes I can’t look back in the history of my life and see where those things made a bit of sense. Those things are stupid. I see every kid smoking cigarettes, thinking it’s cool; I did the same thing. They’re stupid. They don’t even get you high! Nothing but kill you. At least the other shit that was going to kill me I had some awesome times. That shit made sense but cigarettes? No. So don’t smoke and be careful. That’s all I have to say.