FREEZE! You Have The Right To Remain Still

The Writer:


1. In two sentences or less...what do you do?

I’m a father that likes to write stories, take pictures and push the skateboard around from time to time.


2. What came first photography, skateboarding, or writing?

Skateboarding, writing, then photography. Skateboarding was/is the catalyst for the other two interests.

3. From moving to San Francisco with $500 in your pocket to the San Francisco Chronicle featuring "No Comply" as a cover story, how do you begin to wrap your mind around the success?

I’ve never really thought about, to be honest. Sadly, I don’t make much money from writing or photography…not enough to live comfortably off anyway. Selling books, stories and photos is like pushing your skateboard uphill. I have an 8:30a.m.-5:30p.m. gig at a law firm downtown. That’s my bread and butter. In the end, the money I make from writing and photography just makes my taxes a nightmare every year.

The Photographer:

1. Several of your photos are of unknown individuals, what is it about these individuals such as the man in "He Love Her Madly" that draws your attention

I look for the beauty in all things and do my best to capture it with my camera.

2. Five things to pack when moving from Milwaukee to San Francisco?

If you skate and can weather a winter in Wisco, then you can handle anything. Actually, you guys have Cream City Skatepark now, so that’s not a good analogy, but you know what I mean.

It’s definitely much easier to move out here now than it was 13 years ago when I did. Back in ’97, during the peak of the dotcom boom, there was less than 2% vacancy here, so even finding space one someone’s dirty bathroom floor was challenging. I was so hard up those first two years I lived here that I would have sacrificed a finger or toe for a place to live…well, maybe not that far.

3. What inspires you to pick up your camera?

It’s an addiction more than anything. I like hearing the shutter release. 

The Skater: 

1. Describe to our readers the feelings/ creative stimulation derived from laying your head in the hotbed of the skateboard culture?

You mean, what’s it like living in San Francisco? When it comes to skateboarding, music, art, photography or what have you, this is hands down the best city in the world. I’ll probably live here, or at least in the Bay Area, for the rest of my life. There’s so much talent and happenings out here that it’s ridiculous.

2. I feel like introducing skateboarding to the youth in the inner city can be valuable because it of offers the importance of acknowledging the others around you, it teaches balance and other techniques that can keep the mind busy on a mental level. What do you believe skateboarding can do for a troubled soul?

This is going to sound like a cliché, but speaking for myself, skateboarding truly saved my life. I don’t know where I’d be without it. I wasn’t raised in the inner-city, far from it actually, but I was definitely a troubled youth. Skateboarding kept me focused, gave me something to do. I had a lot of friends growing up that just didn’t do anything, which lead to trouble and worse.


3. What do you ride? For some, skateboards are all the same though the artwork is different. Do you think it's disrespectful to ride blank decks?

I ride, wear and support the product that my friends create. Big ups to 4Fifteen Clothing, Benny Gold, DWNTWN Skate Supply, Solitary Arts, Western Edition, FTC and Cream City for helping me out throughout the years!

About riding blanks, I say ride whatever you can afford or have access to.

4. On a good day you land_______?

These are my flatground go to tricks: fakie tres, switch frontside shuvits, kickflips, fakie heels, varial flips.


5. Skaters you enjoying watching?

In no particular order: Lavar McBride, Marcus McBride, Jason Wussler, Al Partanen, Sam Hitz, Bill Kaschner, Henry Sanchez and OG Brian Tucci.

Any last words for the next generation of skaters?

Yeah…kids, stop being so goddamned robotic and just be yourself! Skateboarding nowadays seems too rehearsed and dramatic to me, which is probably why I’m never too stoked or caught up on checking out the new videos. The skating just doesn’t look natural to me. I’ll take the Plan B “Questionable,” (1992) or Blind’s “Tim and Henry’s Pack of Lies” (also 1992) any day over some of the new releases. Call me an early ‘90s casualty, I guess.

 Jason Wussler, Switch Frontside Nosegrind, San Francisco

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