JASON DILL WEEK DAY 2: ALIEN WORKSHOP AD ARCHIVE

Jason Dill Week continues. If you missed Day 1’s collection of old Dill interviews you should definitely go back and check those out first. For Day 2 Alien Workshop was good enough to send us all 23 of Dill's past ads to discuss and despite the serious toll Jason has put on his mind over the past decade or so his recollection is sharp as a whip. When we emailed him the 21 ads Alien sent over he instantly called us back and said, "You're missing the switch 180 manual back three ad and the backside 5-0 on The West Side Highway. I was wearing a red hat and a metal belt." He remembers these ads like they were yesterday and they mean a lot to him.
As you already know Dill doesn’t walk a straight line nor does he have linear thoughts, he marches to the beat of his own drum and so these ads are in no particular chronological order they simply exist, like Dill, for us to enjoy and appreciate.

DILL WEEK DAY 2: ALIEN WORKSHOP AD ARCHIVE

I believe this was shot by Mike O’Meally on one of those days that I really didn’t want to go skate judging by my attire and my hair which tells me I just got out of bed. This is probably 2002. I was wearing Supreme shorts that I used to wear around the house. I’m looking at my board wondering, ‘What the fuck am I doing out?’ It’s so hot in the summer out there…but we got an ad. Ha!
This is the first ad of Don Pendelton copying my signature and turning it into weird things.



I did this grind in Australia and it was actually scary because what I’m grinding is a set of stairs that was once up against a wall so that when you’re grinding what you’re looking at is stairs. It’s sketchy because if you fall into the stairs you’re going to get fucked up. What I thought was so sick was that accidental cruicifix right there. I remember Alien asking if I had anything and I was like, “I have this 30 frame sequence,” and Mike Hill was like, “Oh, I want to look at it.” And like everything Hill does it’s fantastic. He takes frame #1 and makes it big, makes the last one big and writes, “Long Train Home.” I love that ad. I thought it was funny because it’s just a 50-50 and it’s silly but it was actually hard.



This Free Range Dill is older than the last one. This was a trip to Miami in my Lacoste shirt period, post Mosaic. Maybe pre-Mosiac. You can see a young, thin, very John Frusciante-looking Bill Stroebeck filming. Once again it has the Dennis McGrath photo of the old brother boxing the meat in the meat packing district in New York. Then you have the one and only time Bill has shot a photo of me that ended up in a Workshop ad; me with the Air Jordan shirt and the weird sunglasses. I’m standing out in front of Joe Castrucci’s old house in the Clifton neighborhood of Cincinnati.
That’s a 5-0 to fakie at that super-hood spot outside of Miami. There was a little black kid that lived behind there named Bobo and god, he was rad. This was the only day we skated and we were in Miami for two weeks. Bill, Poppalardo and I were leaving this pool hall, all pretty drunk. If you’re familiar with Miami at all there’s Jerry’s Famous Deli on the right from the pool hall and if you went left it’s Collins Ave and it’s still there, I was just back there. You know those roll down security gates in front of stores and they have a metal shoebox on the wall for the gate well there’s one that’s particularly low and Poppalardo walked right into it, square, dead in his forehead and it’s the most blood I’ve ever seen come out of a human being. He was covered in blood. Just like not taking my Polaroid with me to Ground Zero on 9-11 I also kick myself for not having a camera on me when Poppalardo was covered in blood.
If you can see my ride away on this 5-0 to fakie you can tell how surprised I am I landed a trick.



That was a funny period of life for AVE and I. You don’t get crazier than that. That’s top of the food chain crazy. We were so nuts at that point. I don’t think we’d seen each other in a long time, I don’t think we skateboarded much in a long time. I have no idea who took that photo. But that person you see there next to AVE, that form of somebody I once was, is totally responsible for the insanity that I deal with on a day to day basis now. It was that guy’s fault. Whatever I was thinking or going through at that point I was so married to it. I felt that point in my life was the tipping point for me where I didn’t give a fuck, fuck everything, I’m outta of here. It was the height of PCP and everything. Give it all to me and I’ll put in my face and I’ll run around and try to end up back at square one. AVE and I...street walking cheetahs with hearts full of napalm.



That was a spot that Grant Taylor had in Atlanta that he took us to. That’s where AVE did that brillant switch front crooks to come out forward; it was so sick. I’ll never forget this night. I was trying the trick and just fucking around. I was trying wallride 50-50 on this thing and the spot was so sick. Then I started getting into the wallride feeble by accident and it started grinding but I was over it. And it was the first time ever, and I don’t know if he said this out of a compliment or just wanting me to land a trick already, but Hearth Kirchart goes, “No! Get the lights out! Dill, film that!” He’s never said anything like that to me before. It’s one of the main reasons I made myself do this because Heath Kirchart actually told me to do it.
The photo of me standing there I have cigarettes in my hand and a bottle of wine, middle of the day, coming into the end of the day in Lyon, France and I am wasted. We drove from there back to Paris and I don’t remember anything. Atlanta and Lyon.



I love how we’re doing this completely out of chronological order. It’s making me very schizophrenic.
It’s funny because it’s just a 50-50 but I hadn’t been on a board in a while, you can tell by my gear, that was me running around in very non-skate gear and I was living a certain life and I had been hospitalized in New York for drugs and alcohol. I got out of the hospital after a gastric hemorage brought upon by myself with jaundice. This was the first tour I went on in years and this was the first time I was taking a photo in ages and I really liked the way the pawn shop place looked. That thing is in Texas. You would think I could slappie backsmith it or slappie 5-0 it but it’s really wide with a weird edge to it where you could grind on the inside of it. It’s hard to explain. Maybe if I went back there now maybe I could I could do it switchstance but I just thought it looked cool, like I’m surfing.
At this point I was buying Authentics just because Authentics have always been my go to when I was off the board and back on the board, which happened a lot. Also I’d wear them when I was riding for other companies and I hated everything they made. This is definitely me attempting to put my toes back in the water of the skateboard world after a long hiatus.



Look at my all blue outfit. This photo is particularly funny because this is, once again, like the ad before, I hadn’t really gotten anything in a long time. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was living with my off and on girlfriend at the time and she had to move back to London. I wasn’t really skating but I brought with me a Grant Taylor shape, his first pro model was this really odd shape with a fish tail and I had cruiser wheels on it. This is 2010. I thought I was going to start skating again but I wasn’t sure. This weird little zone I found was around the corner from my girlfriend’s house and I asked Sam Ashley to come take a photo. I thought I could prop up this piece of concrete and ollie this gap. I thought it might look cool. I felt like I could maybe take a photo of me skateboarding again and see what it looked like. I was very insecure and unsure of myself at the time. My girlfriend was so pissed at me that day. I went out with that girl for eight years and she never ever saw me skate. It’s just a thing that I do; my girlfriends don’t see me skate. I remember asking her, “You want to come around the corner and see me jump this thing?” She was like, “Fuck no! Go do your job and come back later.”
The only thing that sucks about the transfer from film to digital cameras is that I force myself to do things like this, even though it’s just an ollie, again and again. I always think I’m not in a good position and make the photographers shoot things over and over. They’ll be like, “It’s really good,” and I’ll be like, “No, it sucks.” I just did to Burnett a couple weeks ago in Rotterdam.
It was fun but the approach to this thing was downhill and I had to keep making the bump steeper and steeper and it’s just a stack of bricks so it wasn’t solid. This is in London. Look at the ground. What do you want me to do? Ollie impossible this? I really didn’t even know what was going on. I thought to myself, “Wow. You did an ollie. You’re really making the move into the old pro realm.”



This is the CBS ledge in New York City. Still there, still skatable, there’s planters in the way now. That photo in the circle of the very young me, pre-Photosynthesis, I’d been on The Workshop for maybe a year, that was a postcard I had made of these gay cowboys. I believe that’s Bill Stroebeck’s VX-1000. Actually, that looks too nice to be. That’s probably Joe Castrucci’s. This was an ad for Photosynthesis but you don’t really know because all it says is, “The hour is near.” Like I’ve said before, that video just sort of came about. It wasn’t really planned. I’m wearing a Workshop shirt with a blue shirt under it. That backside noseblunt slide I will admit I did land, rode to the end of the sidewalk and fell off because there’s cars there. It was just me and Reda out on the streets at night. I kind of miss those days. That was one of my favorite things about being in New York at a younger age, just going out and shooting with someone and no one else. But I did land that, I did, I swear I did. I didn’t land it that well but I did ride away.



Let’s X that logo out; I don’t represent that shit!
This is ’97 going into ’98. I wasn’t on Workshop when this sequence was shot. I was in between a lot of stuff. I was just about to maybe ride for DC but I called them back and said, “Hey. Sal Barbier and I are going to make a skateboard shoe company so I can’t do it.” Kelly Bird didn’t take it very well but I love him for it. He thought I was insane which I was and am. If I got that DC money back then I’d be dead right now for sure. So good thing I didn’t.
This is shot by Gabe Morford, one of the greatest skateboard photographers ever, ever, ever and this is my first pro Workshop ad with my first pro Workshop model. I was really happy. Super-stoked. Look at how big those blue jeans are, wow. Wu Tang. I believe they call this the abduction ad.



That is a backsmith in an indoor skateboard park. The photo of me is in Paris in a subway station. Do you see up top there’s the four businessmen? And like they were always doing with me at the time, which was quite appropriate, they’d put pill shapes all over my ads because I was on pills most of the time. I’m not bragging it was just a certain way of living back then. Being young and dealing with all this stuff and having like-minded teammates like Freddy Gall you live and run around and swallow some stuff and keep moving. But it says, “Businessman, businessman,” because a long, long, long time ago I said “Businessman, businessman, businessman,” out of the window of the old Workshop RV with a megaphone as we followed this businessman down the street in Houston, Texas. And Carter and Hill got such a kick out of it that they kept the, “Businessman, businessman,” thing running for years.



I’m wearing my girlfriend’s Averex jacket and god, I hated those jeans with the signature on the pocket. It’s the only thing Workshop ever made, the only, only, only Workshop product that I was like, “What the hell? Why?” Those jeans with the signature on the butt I was like, “Who wants to wear that?”
This was Bill and mine’s trip to Miami. We were filming for a video. We usually didn’t run around with photographers but we got that photo that day in 2004. Wallie frontblunt. It was in this shoe company video. What’s funny is it says, “Alien Workshop full-length video in the works,” and I have no idea what that means.



Now we’re going back! This is making my brain insane going back to all these weird, old memories. But it’s fun. I believe that’s a McGrath photo with the mannequin on the phone in the corner. I could be wrong. This is right after Keenan Milton passed away. And yeah, that’s me lipsliding down a barricade at The Banks. I usually didn’t do stuff like that and I thought it was fun. Not fun actually, it sucked.
Fun fact: this was shot by Patrick O’Dell and it’s one of the last photos I ever shot with him. A couple years later I went back there right before 9-11 with Keith Hufnagel and Ari Marcopoulos. I remember Huf went back and reshot this ollie he’d shot with Ari in the early 90s. Huf had made mention that I lipslid this thing and Ari was like, “Well, let’s do it again.” I didn’t want to do it again. I told him I already shot it and he said, “Well, you didn’t shoot it with me.” So I went back and shot it again with Ari. The thing is I met Ari when I was 16 and he still treats me like I’m 16.



I don’t remember this photo being taken whatsoever.



This is one of many ads which I love with AVE being in my ads. I somehow have had, I don’t know how many, ads with AVE standing there. I love it. And he’s kind of always standing in the same position in each ad. That was that old spot on National. I would come out to visit from New York and me and him would just huck each other over and over trying tricks over those stupid trash cans. Yeah, that’s when I kickflipped the two cans in Photosyntheis. It’s a good ad.



Those are the Chinatown Piss Hubbas. Fucking hell that place is fucked. I have Helmut Lang pants on and a Supreme top; that’s all I can remember. I don’t remember that day at all. What was I doing in Helmut Lang pants? I was out of my mind. That’s a very young man, right there.



Yes! This is the ad with Ray Barbee and I in it! Ray Barbee is in my ad because I ran into him on the street when I was with Greg Hunt. And I love Ray Barbee! Love, love, love. He’s one of my favorite people ever! Greg Hunt shot these photos and Patrick O’Dell shot the front board 270; that was the last time I shot with Patrick. What’s funny is I’m showing the camera a burn on my arm and Ray Barbee looks like he’s typing something on a phone but it’s pre-texting so I don’t know what Ray is doing. That’s what’s so sick about The Workshop; they just put Ray Barbee in my ad without even saying anything because they know me so well and boy, oh, boy was I touched when I saw it in a magazine.



Switch frontside crooked grind on Hubba Hideout. Once again, I did it. I did. I swear I did it. I just didn’t do it good enough for video. That happened back then. You landed something and you went, “Well, the photo is good.” If you rode away from it without your hands or feet dragging on the ground you used the photo. I wish I would have…I wish I would have…actually, I don’t give a fuck. I did it.
I’m riding a Danny Way Workshop board, by the way, in that photo.



Backside 50-50 off the bump down the thing. San Francisco. Lance Dawes photo. I believe it’s a Jon McGrath photo of the train conductor in New York. Burgandy Nike Dunks with Swooshes cut off. The very next day I shot a photo with Gabe Morford at the same spot doing a different trick that ended up on the cover of Slap and cost me $4000. I was docked $4000 pay due to the footwear I was wearing. The shoe company I was working with at the time did not appreciate it. I got docked. I didn’t like them; I never liked them.



Ah! Another example of Anthony Van Engelen in my ad! Look at him! You see him? You can’t miss him! Anthony wearing a Supreme hat in 2000, maybe 2002. That’s not a Supreme hat! That’s a Stussy hat back when Anthony rode for Stussy. This is in Australia. We weren’t really planning on skating. I think we were just going to go to the beach and we got there and I was like, “Fuck it! I’ll try to ollie this rail.” I think I landed and imploded four times and then did one and we left and went to the beach. Those were good times. That’s a very quick glimpse of two dudes traveling the world and not remembering anything about what they were doing.



I was living in Brooklyn and I found this spot from just walking around in the wintertime. I realized that you could take the rail off the hook. There’s a hook that’s just to the right of that pole. The thing is that when you take the rail off the hook and make it meet up with the ground, because that’s what that trick is, you go off that little curb cut onto the rail and then you go all the way to the ground, it reminds me of some Savannah Slamma obstacle or something. I took my shirt off not out of vanity but I took it off and wrapped it around that metal hook that held the bar up because if I were to hit that I would’ve ripped open my flesh. That’s another one that I need to go back and refilm better. That’s a good spot. I like that spot.
I don’t write the stuff that’s in The Workshop’s ads, just so the kids know. That would be insane.



Is this it? My whole career? My whole trajectory? Oh, we have a couple more? I thought I did a little more. That’s the Do The Right Thing shirt. 2002. That’s O’Meally. O’Meally shot a portrait and it just so happened that I’m wearing the same exact clothes in the backsmith photo. I used to do that a lot. I used to wear one outfit until I was done with it…ha, used to…I still do.



Switch 180 manual back three. I hated my switch 180 manual back three at the end of my part in Mindfield. Greg Hunt did a beautiful job in that video. That video is hard for me to watch because a lot of fucked up shit happened to me at that time. I’m not making an excuse, I was just fucked up, depressed and going though a lot of stuff. That video is so beautiful and I feel like I contributed the least to it, well besides Berra. I didn’t like my part in that video but Greg did such a good job with the small amount I gave him. I made myself a promise, “You’re going to go to Los Angeles, you’re going to start skating, you’re going to get good at skating again and you’re going to fucking do this trick over again the way it’s supposed to be done!” So that’s why I forced myself to do it. For anyone that’s like, “Well, he already did that,” I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder so go fuck yourself.
This was from 2011, 13 years on Alien, now it’s almost 15 years and you know what that means? It means that Dyrdek has to listen to every word that comes out of my mouth. That’s not fair to Rob, is it? But I’ve stacked all this time so now he has to listen to everything I have to say. I feel sorry for Rob. You combine the years AVE and I have, 30 separate, combined years on The Workshop. How long has Workshop been around? 22 years? We’re 22! Workshop is still hip! We’re even younger than Dylan Reider! We’re so hip!



Back 5-0 on The West Side Highway shot by O’Meally. Boy, that kid is young and sparky and boy! He is full of life and he doesn’t know a fucking thing. Look how young that kid is! Jesus Christ! I definitely feel like I’m the father of the child in the photo. Look how young, dumb, on drugs, having so much fun he’s having.
If I could go back and say anything to that kid, in this photo, wearing the red hat I’d say, “Nice outfit, kid! You’re looking good. A, #1.”
No, but really I’d say, and I’m not joking around, because this comes from a very serious part of my mind and heart, I’d say to that kid, “What are you in such a fucking hurry for?”
It’s weird, when you’re younger a couple weeks is forever. You get a bit older and it flies by, two weeks passed while I’ve been talking about these ads. I have no more time left. Where’s all my time? What happened to all my time? I mean, how many summers do I really have left? Where did all the time go?
Yeah, I’d say, “What are you in such a fucking hurry for, kid?”