An Interview With Alex Olson

December 10th, 2010 | 2:35 pm | Features & Interviews | 29 Comments

Quartersnacks has been an established advocate of handsome socialite skateboarders for quite some time, as evidenced by our constant coverage of Dylan Reider, and other, less prominent, but still notable personalities. We recently spent some time to conversing with the second most handsome skateboarder, who has taken up extended (but temporary) residence in the distraction capital of the world these past few years. Aside from the obvious nightlife beef issues, we discuss important details like being billed second next to his competition, dealing with distractions, and being known as “Alex Olson the skater” to people who don’t exactly skateboard.

+++++++

To get the pressing question on everyone’s mind out of the way, can you please explain your nightlife beef with Dylan Reider?

That’s Bill [Strobeck] running his mouth. There was never “nightlife beef.” There was one night where we went out — I remember the night — this guy will walk up to the place and there will be three girls, that’ll definitely be like “Hey Dylan! What’s going on? How are you?” And I’ll be standing right next to him, like “Oh. What’s up.”

So why did it take him three minutes to explain it?

Because Bill doesn’t have any good stories.

Really?

He needs to talk about something, you know?

So they were probably just making shit up, like you know how in biopics they embellish everything?

Well, it’s like one of those stories where it wasn’t really a story, but if you add some stuff to it, it’ll maybe become a story.

Seeing as how you are often billed as the other, young handsome skateboarder, have you taken you taken any steps to make yourself more fabulous in light of Dylan Reider’s recent skyrocketing in popularity?

Uhh…start skating harder, I guess? Actually, no. He wins.

So you’re just outright admitting defeat?

I can’t top him, he’s too handsome and too good at skating. I’ll settle for second best.

I remember one occasion when I was with you and some other people at a bar, and some gay dude tried to hit on you by using your Fully Flared part as his pick-up material, is this sort of thing frequent with you?

I have definitely got hit on a couple other times, they’ll say, “You’re Alex Olson the skater, right?” I remember sitting down by myself at my friend’s restaurant, having dinner, and it was empty with plenty of seats. This guy sat down next to me and asked if he could buy me a drink. I was literally about to leave, and said “No, thanks though.” He said, “Well, you’re Alex Olson the skater, keep doing what you’re doing.” And it was real awkward and weird, because this dude definitely did not skateboard.

How do you think they know about you?

I have no idea.

Do you think there’s a cult of gay dudes who hunt down cute skaters?

No, but I’m sure that’s a “look” though. There are definitely gay dudes that are like, “What kind of guys do you like?” “Skater boys.” And I fall into that category.

Why have you been spending so much time in New York these past few years?

All my friends that I grew up with went to college out here. I actually do like skateboarding out here more than in LA. I like pushing, I don’t like driving. There are more things to do. The quality of life is better for a younger person.

Do you actually manage to get things done out here, skating-wise?

Sometimes. There is only like, one photographer, and since everyone has now switched over to using HD cameras, there is only one filmer. So it’s kind of hard to get these people to film you, or you’re just not close with them or whatever. Bill still only films on a VX. I definitely skate more when people are in town though.

An Interview with Josh Kalis

November 12th, 2010 | 10:50 am | Features & Interviews | 41 Comments

Kalis is one of those dudes that has been around for many of the ups and downs of real, old-fashioned, straightforward street skating these past two decades. The Pier, The Banks, Love Park, the Barcelona exodus, hiding out in Chicago instead of a schoolyard somewhere, etc. Since this is the sort of thing we tend to try and keep going over here with QS, as much as the park/plaza climate of today seems to push us all in different directions, it seemed only natural to sit down for an interview with someone who has been through more than a handful of eras in street skating.

+++++++

To start it off, what have you been up to this past summer up until now?

I moved from Michigan to southern California.

Any particular reason you moved out to California?

Quite frankly, I was just tired of flying out here so often. I’ve been flying out here twice a month to be involved with stuff. Everything’s a little bit different now, because the internet now has videos and web blasts, and all this shit is happening so fast that they want you out here. And I couldn’t be so instant living in the Midwest, just trying to skate and film.

Is it because skate media and all that has changed so much recently, that you have avoided doing it up until now? It’s like, everyone moves out to southern California but it seems like you’ve been everywhere but there.

When I first got put on, I moved out here, just to see and I couldn’t deal with it. But it wasn’t really necessary for me, because I was trying to take care of my business elsewhere and I didn’t really have to be in this mix. But now, you still don’t have to move out here to be in the circle of pro skaters or whatever you want to call it, but it’s just to be as relevant as you can be, you have to produce five times more than you used to. Before it was like, do your thing, shoot your photos, film you video part, and it gets released at whatever date it comes out. Now it’s just like… you got warehouses, podcasts… It’s just like non-stop now.

What’s it like to finally be on a team with Stevie after you guys have been associated with one another for pretty much all his career, but a large portion of your career as well?

It’s the illest thing ever. It’s no sweat, no people breathing down necks, its just homie shit. “What do you want to do for this thing?” And you just have a little pow-wow and boom, it’s done. It’s so easy to brainstorm because we’re on such the same level, in terms of what we think about, what we want to do, and the future and direction that we hope to see skateboarding go. It’s just some back in the day shit, like it was growing up.

Do you guys still get a chance to skate together out there?

We haven’t much because he spends most of his time in Atlanta, and I’m out here, but now when we talk on the phone, we get to talk about shit that we’re both involved in, even though he’s doing his thing there and I’m doing my thing wherever I’m doing it. Even though I live in southern California, all my street skating stuff happens elsewhere. We got this new warehouse cracking in Atlanta, so we will be [skating] soon.

Is there truth to the fact that he was supposed to have got on Alien way back, like in the mid-nineties?

Oh yeah. There’s a lot of truth to that.

“All that shit I said when I was crazy is exactly what we did in the last five years.”

October 21st, 2010 | 12:56 pm | Daily News | 2 Comments

Even though several questions in this interview revolve around “the craziest story” — whether it be about New York, the Gonz, or Harold — everyone in New York has a Billy story. Or twenty of them. And they’re not crazy in the sense that they stem from substance abuse or whatever else has fueled some of skateboarding’s memorable characters over the years, but notable for the fact that this is a sober person calling me at 11 AM and telling me he wants to set up the up the rainbow rail from 12th and A off the Courthouse Drop. Or to meet him at Astor Place at eight in the morning on three hours of sleep because he has a box of granola bars, a case of Vita Coco, and we’re driving to Pennsylvania with the Muska in a black Denali.

The headline for this post summarizes a lot of what Billy has accomplished this past half-decade. The prospect of a skateboarding class in an East Village school sounded as insane as a skatepark on the roof of a high school a few years ago, and both of them happened. Just like getting federal emblems printed on skateboards (with permission), skating flat in front of the White House, or filming a clip in a ninja costume or a 5XL white tee (wow, 2003 was a really long time ago) is equally absurd, just on the completely opposite end of the spectrum.

This interview is a good watch, and contextualizes a lot of this dude’s career of crazy claims that eventually turned into full-fledged realities.

If you need further evidence of Billy’s lifelong commitment to never allowing New York skateboarding to have a dull moment, a few relevant selections are embedded below.

Alex Corporan Interview

September 7th, 2010 | 6:07 pm | Features & Interviews | 2 Comments

On top of putting together Full Bleed, and being one of the nicest, most approachable dudes in New York skateboarding, Alex Corporan is responsible for Matt Mooney being able to kickflip.

Full Bleed: New York City Skateboard Photography gets an official, wide release today. Even though the book has experienced a fairly wide media blitz this past summer (well, at least as far as it can go for a skateboarding photography book, but even then, a GQ feature for a skateboard book is pretty crazy), and you have seen maybe three or four links to interviews related to the book on here, we felt that we should do something different.

This was originally supposed to be used for Banks week back in July, but wound up sitting around. The interview has absolutely nothing to do with Full Bleed whatsoever, and is more about skateboarding in New York from around 1986 to the late-nineties. It was conducted four years ago, on August 27, 2006, by Ted Barrow. Hopefully, it provides some context on the man largely responsible for the book for those who may not know him. Plus, olden day New York City content never focusses on people from Washington Heights in the same way it covers people from Downtown Manhattan or Brooklyn, so maybe it’ll serve as a bit of a change of pace.

The book is currently $23 bucks (retails for $35) on Amazon.com, so you can buy it there if a nearby store doesn’t sell it.

And yes, Alex and several other Dominican individuals are wholly responsible for Matthew’s kickflip abilities.

Brooklyn Banks Week: Ian Reid Interview

July 18th, 2010 | 11:25 am | Features & Interviews | 7 Comments

I’m ending this thing off with Ian because he was the first dude I ever met who was getting coverage in videos when I was growing up and first started going to the Banks. A common question throughout all these interviews has been, “Who would you see?” The best things about spots like the Banks when you’re a kid is that you get to see people you’ve been watching in videos (it wears off pretty quickly, I know.) Nowadays, you might bump into someone trying a line downtown for some shitty web clip, but it’s not the same as showing up to the Banks in August and seeing Dill, Muska, and Jamie Thomas occupy the same spot simultaneously.

In Ian’s case, he was always around, he was always recognizable, and if you were a little kid, he was by far the most approachable dude out of any older skaters you might’ve run across when you were younger. So while a lot of these stories might make the people who frequented Banks sound really stand-offish, there were exceptions to the rule.

Hopefully, everyone enjoyed these interviews. Thanks again to Ted and The Chrome Ball Incident.

Interview by Ted Barrow on September 30, 2006

+++++++

I benihana’d that shit. That was my claim to fame — a benihaha over that shit. Yeah, dope.

When was that?

It was ’93, baby. Yeah, that’s when I first – Brian used to do benihanas and I thought it was sick.

Did you skate both the Banks and Love?

I’ve been to two out of four, and I was there when two out of four monumental events occurred. The Banks, I was here, I’m from New York. Love, I was there, my man BW put it down. Pulaski, I never fucked with. When I was in DC, I wasn’t skatin’. I was on some other shit. And EMB, I just wasn’t into Frisco. I missed the EMB shit. I saw the new one. I wasn’t into the old one. I wished I did, I wanted to see it.

[gnats buzz around our bench by the dirt]

This place is insane, that we’re sittin’ at. I don’t know what they are, but they’re annoying. I suggest we move. We have to get out of here. [Looks around the empty park, full of dirt and gnats.]

Yo this is so wack, what they did, I can’t even believe it. I’ve been skating this shit for over 15 years, and the only motherfuckers who ever sat back he — actually there was never no seats here — the only motherfuckers who was back here was skaters and homeless motherfuckers more or less. That was before it was all terrorist-crazy and all that, so you know. Motherfuckers used to have their little shop set-up back there in the corner. And they would just sleep and chill. Like now they got all these stupid-ass benches and shit over here. Nobody even sits on these things. Look at us, we’re the only ones here. They got a fuckin’ chess table. This shit is… just stupid, like who the fuck plays chess like this? Out in the open in the city? It’s just weeds and shit. You’ll probably get like West Nile and shit when it’s raining from the mosquitoes.

When did you first start coming here?

Oh, shit. Damn, like ‘88 maybe. Late eighties. When I first started skating, it was like these dudes on my block used to write graffiti, and they used to skate, and the name of their crew was Twisted Skates, and that shit was dope. That shit was hard to me when I was little. And they used to have these graffiti stencils on their boards. I was like damn, I wanted to write graffiti. So they used to skate around and write graffiti, I started writing graffiti and skating around.

Probably like ‘89, that was the first time I ever came to Manhattan. I came here by myself; I saw all these people skating. I just live over the bridge and shit, so I just walked over the bridge, and you used to be able to just walk down them steps and you’d be at the Banks. So motherfuckers are skating here and shit, I just seen it, I was like “Oh shit, skating!” and I just like started skating. I would come here like, not every day because I was still young, but I would come on the weekends and shit when it would be crowded. And it was just wild, skating that shit.