John Cardiel Week Day 4: Patrick O'Dell Interview

Welcome back to John Cardiel Week. If you missed Day 1’s collection of old Cards interviews or Day 2's Anti Hero & Spitfire ad archive or Day 3's Waffle When-sday with John's cover and video gallery you should definitely go back and check those out first.
For Day 4 we revisit Cardiel's amazing story as told by Patrick O'Dell in Vice Magazine's Epicly Later'd and then we sit down with O'Dell to discuss the making of the Cardiel episodes and get a little behind the scenes insight from Patrick's perspective.

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Part 4:


O'Dell Interview:
What were your expectations going into the filming of Cardiel’s Epicly Later’d?
He was so major that I would have taken whatever I could have gotten. I didn’t know it was going to end up being almost like a fleshed out documentary in a way. I didn’t go into it thinking it would be that way. I just thought it would be a regular episode and talk about whatever he wanted to talk about. I didn’t know him that well beforehand so I wasn’t sure if he’d be comfortable talking about his injury.

What did he mean to you before you did the episodes?
I’ve been a big fan of Anti Hero from when it first started but he is similar to what I imagined I just didn’t know the extent of how Rasta he is. But I’ve always been a big fan of his so I can’t remember what my preconceived ideas of him were. He’s always been one of my favorite skaters. When Anti Hero started it didn’t sell very well. Not as many people were into it and I feel like it’s when you like a band before they were cool. I always feel like with Anti Hero that they were the band I liked before any of my friends or anyone I knew and it’s funny now because I feel like they’re probably one of the biggest brands at Deluxe and in skateboarding as a whole. The fact that it’s carried at Supreme as almost a street wear brand is funny to me. But me loving Anti Hero from the start and John being the stand out dude on that team in his own way; he was the skater that carried on what Eric Dressen or Thrasher Magazine was all about. He was sort of out of favor at the time, early on. People are into that kind of skating now but back then there was this whole anti-80s thing in the 90s and he kind of had an 80s vibe.

Even when that type of skating wasn’t in fashion I feel like everyone was always a Cardiel fan. Even the techiest of guys in the 90s loved him. What got him that pass?
I think he’s such a cool guy you can’t help but respect him but I think people in general respect people that just be themselves. John is true to himself. You’d have to be a really lame, dickish, jaded person to not respect Cardiel. I think some of the things from the 80s that the early 90s rebelled against make sense; some of that stuff was cheesy. But he took all the good aspects of the 80s and applied it to modern skating.

Do you look at Cardiel's Epicly Later’d as your Deer Hunter?
Yeah, definitely. When I meet someone new and I have to tell them about the show that’s the episode that I point them to. That’s my best one. Which sucks because I wish I worked a little harder on it. There’s a trailer for it that we made and in the teaser I’m fucking with the white balance while he’s talking. He’s telling me a story and you see the white balance goes yellow then white and then back to yellow while he’s talking (1:00).

Because when I started my show I just grabbed a camera and tried to figure it out. I didn’t have a lot of experience doing video. I look back and think, ‘If I knew this was going to be so popular I would have worked harder.’ But maybe that’s part of what’s good about it but I watch it back and I think, ‘Man! I should have worked a little harder.’ I should have put more effort in trying to make the shots look good because it’s all in one sitting. His interview is all in one day. He’s wearing the same shirt for the whole episode. I interviewed him for 4 or 5 hours. I was at his house all day and he’s so charismatic that he doesn’t need to say anything twice. Everything he says is gold so I didn’t need much more.

Is there anything you feel you missed?
I guess if I was going to make it a more intense documentary I should have interviewed his mom. But maybe if I went that route and had a lot of music it wouldn’t have had that Anti Hero vibe. I try to keep my show really skate by not having a lot of music or having it be any more than it is, a webisode. We just film them and put them on the internet for free. It’s not like we’re trying to take it to SXSW or sell it for $45. Yeah, there’s a part of me that wishes it was a little more thorough but then there’s a part of me that thinks it is really rad just how it is.

Is there anything that you didn’t put in that was left on the cutting room floor? Or did everything go in?
There were definitely stories that you had to choose between. A lot of people talked about ollieing over the bar at Fort Miley and you have to choose between that and the Burnside drop in. He just has so many skate tales and because of time we had to stick to a couple. I had to make it watchable in one sitting. I know the online version has a little bit more about fix gear bikes which had to be cut to make it shorter for the DVD. And then there’s some personal stuff that he’d tell me, details about the recovery like for example and this is kind of a bummer but his recovery is harder than he lets on. He’s had almost like relapses in not being able to walk but he’s not a complainer and he’s badass so he doesn’t tell people. There were times where he was back in the wheelchair or back on crutches and he’s not hiding it but it’s a way harder trajectory than getting hurt and getting better and skating again then he tells people. There’s been so many bumps in the road for him.



Knowing that, how did you feel when you saw that Arto photo in Thrasher?
Oh, I loved it! It’s crazy because when he skates there’s a lot he can’t do. He can’t run out of a trick. It’s make or slam; there’s no toying with a trick. When he does a grind like that and if he misses he’s just eating shit. Knowing that anything he’s doing he’s giving it his all. It’s not as easy as it looks.

You mentioned he has a lot of skate tales. For you, what is the defining one?
The Gold Rail in SF I thought was so amazing. I lived there and I’d always looked at it thinking someone could do it but then it’s just sitting there waiting for someone to do it. But he’s the only one that did it. The Gold Rail to me was the awesomest thing he did.

Do you think somebody else will step to that rail?
I’m sure somebody could do something but I don’t give a fuck what anyone else does, Cardiel did it. He thought of it. Pro skaters do something and it becomes their move and then some other buster comes to do something and yeah, sure, you did a cool trick on it but that other guy had to first think that it was even possible to do a trick on it. If someone smith grinds that Gold Rail I’m just going to look at it like, “You’re not Cardiel.”


Ha! Perfect. Let’s end it there.
Cool. I just want to say I do a lot of these shows and I interview a lot of ex-pros, people that got kicked off or feel like they didn’t get a fair shake and they’re grouchy and bitter. They don’t look at how lucky they were to go to Europe or do whatever and you leave with this feeling of, ‘Man. I wouldn’t really trade places with that dude.’ And then John got totally robbed, as robbed as you can get, from his skate career by getting run over but you know what? I left his house jealous of him. I was thinking, ‘I wish I was more like Cardiel.’ Just the way he was so stoked on his time in skating and the adventure he got to have and the people he got to skate with; his whole vibe was so inspiring. He has every reason in the world to be bitter and he’s not. I try to use him as my inspiration of things outside of skating but with skating too like one time I skated Supreme and I slammed really hard and it was one of those things where you want to cry and quit skateboarding. I hung up and fell and I was lying there and I had to channel Cardiel. I was telling myself, ‘Cardiel would not lay on this flat bottom and whine or cry. Get your ass up.’

Be sure to watch Patrick's latest epic opus on Eric Dressen.

And don't forget to check out the latest Cardiel Pack (a Sk8-mid Pro & Era 46 Pro).