gorilla flicks

good night, and good luck

It was never my intent to become a writer or be allowed to have the luxury to play Legos with words. I was, first and foremost, a "professional artist" in the Romper Room refuge of the skateboard industry. Then Jeff Tremaine came along in 1992. He'd just taken over the reins of the fledgling Big Brother skateboard magazine as its new "Art/Editorial Director," and encouraged me to start contributing to the magazine in a writing sense. I mean, no one else was really around to help out aside from Earl Parker and Marc McKee, so he had to find someone to help fill the pages.

Up until that point all I'd ever written were letters to friends—a fun, creative diversion to my solitary life on the drawing table. I started out with a few amateurish (read: embarrassing) contributions to the magazine, but was swiftly shouldered with the responsibility of maintaining the "News" section because of my "skate nerd" inclinations. Then, as Earl Parker became increasingly MIA, I took on beefier assignments, my favorite being the travelogue writings that accompanied our various road trips and tours, documenting all the daily inanities and absurdities of our staff. I wasn't much of a drinker then, nor particularly social, so it was easy to sit back, disappear into the background, and take mental notes and photos of what everyone else of considerably bolder stock was doing. Then, every night before bed—as we were all traveling on the cheap and often crowded 6–8 people into a single hotel room [see Exhibit A above], I'd jot everything down to not forget. So, in short, I was simultaneously respected and loathed by both my friends and the skaters who dared travel with us then, because not everyone wanted a scrupulous laundry list of their nightly debaucheries aired in the pages of a magazine. Oh well!

By the time Big Brother was bought by Larry Flynt in 1997, I'd grown a lot more confident in my writing (or as confident as anyone can be holding a full house of insecurities in their head), perhaps overly so, because it was (and still is) too verbose for my own stylistic good.* Regardless, Marc McKee had abdicated the position of Editor and I got sucked up into his void and was suddenly at the helm of a skateboard magazine, or rather a co-pilot, I should say, as I was Tremaine's right-hand man for the next three years. Still, I never felt entirely suited to the position as I just didn't have the strength of personality, character, and charisma that our Managing Editor, Dave Carnie, did in fact have. So I was, quite honestly, relieved to remove myself from the position in 2000—allowing Dave to fully take charge and make his indelible mark on the Big Brother legacy—and tag along with Tremaine and Johnny Knoxville into the unknown on what would become jackass.

It didn't take long to find my niche within the production crew. Besides taking photos and documenting this new journey into even more absurd territory, I was responsible for compiling all the ideas and writing them into "treatments" for the various skits and stunts. These documents were run through the MTV gauntlet, which consisted of Development, Legal, Standards & Practices, and Safety, but I was emboldened by the leadership of Knoxville, Tremaine, and Spike Jonze, and treated the treatments with the exact same silliness and irreverence fostered at Big Brother. So again, nothing ever felt like real work, it was all just a circus of our own devise, and any writing that needed to be done, from DVD/CD box liner notes to cast and crew bios, was dished onto my plate making me the de facto "voice" of jackass—strictly in the written sense, of course, because all I was really doing was springboarding off the plethora of colorful personalities surrounding me.

Things really reached a ridiculous peak, though, when I became an "author" with the published pop-culture poop stain, The Official Jackass the Movie Companion Book, in 2002. Of course this disappeared into obscurity as soon as it rolled off the printing press, but the experience prompted me to finally step-up and really put my heart into a labor of love project chronicling the history of skateboard art with a subsequent Disposable follow-up years later.

In 2007, Dave Carnie and I were briefly reunited to captain the interweb vessel jackassworld.com, but this was a ship doomed before it even left the harbor to set out to sea. It's unfortunate—or maybe it is fortunate?—that no one thought to capture this disaster as it unfolded in reality television form, because it was indeed our very own "Hearts of Darkness" fiasco. However, it did get us up to the third dimension in 2010, whereupon I was somehow able to connive my way into doing yet another book, this one celebrating our "10 Years of Stupid." Maybe you have a copy, maybe you don't—yet again it slipped out like a church pew creeper from MTV Books, but it is without a doubt a damn treat for anyone to discover on a coffee table or toilet tank.

Since that time, I'd taken over all the social media and bloggier aspects of jackass, Dickhouse, and Gorilla Flicks, keeping the spirit and grammar alive along with the ebb and flow of various projects. The jig is finally up, however, so in short—ha! you long-winded motherfucker!—I'll forever be indebted to Tremaine and Knoxville for all the opportunities presented to me over the past two decades. It was the ultimate accidental tourist trip, and I couldn't have found a better dysfunctional family in which to thrive and continue to thwart the realities of adulthood. That said, it's been a distinct honor to serve in what has become an increasingly foreign legion of the absurd, and I look forward to one day being called back up out of the reserves to frolic in further dumb fields of folly should they appear on the horizon. Until then, I leave you with these three simple yet enduring words to live by in a world going more and more madly serious by the day: "Lighten up, Francis." —Sean Cliver

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* Consider this concise critical selection by Michael Dirda, wherein he tacks my tics and fawning, slack, vacuous ass to the wall:

"Writers generally hope that their sentences smoothly interlock, and that any reader's eyes pass swiftly down the page without effort. To assist in creating this frictionless continuity, we sometimes turn to words like naturally or phrases like of course, in fact, and that said. These usually appear at the start of a sentence, simultaneously announcing new material while subtly or overtly harking back to earlier content. The occasional use of these locutions to promote continuity is fine, but all too often they merely signal slack writing. In themselves such words don't actually carry any meaning; they are simply syntactic grace notes—and employed too often they grow into verbal tics. As much as possible, cast out these fawning connectives and make your thinking the dynamic that sweeps the reader along. Prefer concision to clutter, the meaningful to the vacuous."

(Photo by Dimitry Elyashkevich; 1998)

the dimitry elyashkevich photo show interview!

Stop the presses! A phrase that is now as outdated as rollerblades, I suppose, but I bring you great tidings of joy: Dimitry Elyashkevich is having a "grand re-opening" of his photo show at the Door Gallery (next door to the world famous Burgundy Room) in Hollywood, California. So, if you read the review earlier this week (unlikely) then here's a bonus interview with Dimitry on what exactly constitutes a "grand re-opening," as conducted by Rick Kosick, who, incidentally and technically, was Dimitry's boss while the two worked at Big Brother skateboard magazine back in the way back (or at least until Dimitry came up with his own job title: Executive Director of Photography). So come along… and enjoy! —Sean Cliver

Kosick: What made you want to do a photography show?

Dimitry: I’ve got a lot of stuff, and people always bug me about it. I have photos that no one has seen or someone has only seen once. What’s the point of taking a photo if you can’t share it?

Is this your first show?

This is my first show ever.

How many years have you been a photographer?

Well, I got my first camera back in 1989 or something… I think I was 14. I had one before that, but I broke it. I ran with a SLR, tripped, and smashed the camera. Then my cousin’s husband gave me a camera and I started taking pictures of my friends skating. I just followed them around on my 10-speed bike. Then I started skating and put the camera down. I wasn’t good enough to go any further on my board, but it was fun and I liked it so much that I still wanted to be a part of it, so I started shooting photos again.

When did your photography really start to take off for you?

They had a contest at the Brooklyn Banks in 1993. All the pros from LA came out. I didn’t know how it worked back then, so I shot a bunch of photos, printed them at school, and wrote “proof “ on the contact sheet with a Sharpie. I sent it toSlap, TransWorld, and Thrasher. I never heard shit from anyone then a couple months later an article comes out in Thrasherand there’s a photo that I shot of Tim Brauch—rest in peace—doing an inward heel-flip and it’s got Adam Wallacavage’s name on it. I was like, “What the fuck?! I know that’s my photo, I have the negatives.” I thought they scanned the photo and removed the word “proof” in Photoshop. But when I started getting my photos back, if you just rubbed your thumb across it would come right off. So I wrote a two-page letter to Bryce [Kanights], and sure enough, the next issue there was a little paragraph with an apology. I was like, “Damn, I’m the shit!” because I thought they jacked my photos. So that was the moment I realized I could make a living and see the best skateboarding and travel the world on someone else’s dime.

Did you have more fun taking pictures of the skating or the lifestyle that revolves around it?

It’s all one, dude. Skating is a lifestyle. But everyone has seen my skate photos. Everyone has seen the Peter Bici ollie at the World Trade Center… the Joey Alvarez switch heel at the banks. Everyone has seen that shit, but no one has seen these [in the show].

So lets talk about your show.

It opened last Friday. It’s connected to the Burgundy Room in Hollywood, which is a bar. The show is running every day until the end of the month from 8pm–2am. This Friday—because I’m still finding photos—there’s going to be a grand re-opening with at least a hundred more point-and-shoots. All of these photos are just prints that I already have, because I’d already committed to doing a show there and it was a matter of convenience. At first I was trying to figure out what to do and I was picking negatives thinking, “Oh, I’m going to get this printed and this printed… ,” like every other show, which is cool, you know, to see a print that’s big, but that’s expensive. Plus the show was supposed to be up the Friday before it opened, but I just couldn’t figure out what to do. So I was said, “Will, you have to push it.” Poor guy had taken down all of the art from the previous show and had to put it all back up—sorry, Will. I love you. Anyway, so I’m going through the point-and-shoots and I was like, “These are hilarious, they’re already printed, and there’s thousands of them. I can cut this down and put them on the wall with Sharpies hanging next to them and people can leave an Insta-comment.

So what were some of the comments that people left that you really liked?

There were a lot of good ones. Then there was some when people got mean, I would take it down. I’m pretty sure Mike Kassak is responsible for a lot of them. But there was one with Johnny Knoxville in a picture with Avril Lavigne from a time when all of us were in Miami for some MTV awards. Someone wrote, “He was a skater boy, blah blah blah, a skater boy, but oh, he doesn’t skate.” And there was one with Pontius as an old man smoking cigarette. Someone wrote, “Best man at my first wedding, solid dude.”

I had to take down a bunch of other stuff, because the first night it was open I had a spread of—and I’m not going to say his name—but it was like six photos of his dick. Some girls were like, “That’s too much dick,” and I was like, “You know what, you’re right.” So the show keeps changing and evolving.

So why do you keep changing your show?

Because I keep finding new shit. I’m still going through my shit.

But I feel like you’re still adding things during your show.

So what? Am I not allowed to do that? I’m trying to make it the best show possible. There’s more shit. I have ten-times the amount of shit that’s already up on the wall now, so why not? Do you want to see the best shit or what I was just rushing to put up? So it’s up until the end of June. If you don’t what me to do that then I won’t. Rick doesn’t want me to make the show better, everybody! Well, I don’t care. I’m making it better. So everyone come through this Friday for the grand re-opening and it’ll keep changing so you can come by and check it out any night.

Have thought about putting a book together?

For what?

So your friends can buy it.

My friends can go to the show.

But what if they want a nice coffee table book?

Well, they can print the photos and make their own damn book.

Don’t you think it would be cool to have a photography book, though?

Maybe later, but right now, what I really want is to hit up some of these corporate skate companies. This show would be so fun to take around the world to see what skaters in New York think of it, or London, or Brazil, or Australia, and have new mounting boards put up at each show so people can leave comments in their native language. It would be so sick!

So you’re seeing a vision of taking this show around the world to different countries?

Yeah, what up Nike, what up Adidas, what up corporate skate America?

Wouldn’t it be fun to do the show in Russia?

Yeah, everywhere. Tokyo, Russia, everywhere. I would rather do it in Minsk… that’s where I was born. I just went there for the first time since I left when I was 4-and-a-half-years-old. For me it was awesome. Shit was cheap, it was super clean, there were no fat people. There’s a bunch of shit to skate. If a book happens, it happens. I’m not worried about that. Right now, I’m just dealing with point-and-shoot film, but I also have slides. I want to do a show with slides, and then I have digital shit, like all of the Wildboyz shit is digital. Plus, there’s video for years that nobody has seen that’s in the vault because it’s incriminating. It’s endless.

So this is basically “Dimitry’s Last Call”?

What do you mean?

Like how we did in Big Brother magazine, the “Last Call” section, but this is “Dimitry’s Last Call.”

No, they’re art photos, and this is definitely not my last call.

(Portrait of the artist by Rick Kosick; 2018)

the great dimitry elyashkevich photo show

Be it my lowly Wisconsin origins or an unfortunately shallow embankment of brain cells, I'm certainly not above a little journalistic Cheez Whiz. So it's without much care or concern that I make the widely clichéd Warhol-attributed reference, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes," because anyone, really, could have a 15-minute photo show nowadays. Once upon a time, no lie, it used to be a real pain in the ass to be a photographer: dealing with all that pesky film stuff, the inherent frame limitations to a roll, not knowing what the hell you got or if you even got it until all that tedious developing and processing crap... let's just say it wasn't for everyone. Obviously, that's not anywhere near the current case, and it would probably be quite the mind-blowing statistic to know how many photos are taken the whole world over in the period of just one single second. Boom! Even in the act of pondering there went the last of my synapses for the day. One or two more vaguely constructed paragraphs like this and I'll need to shut down and recharge my neural capacitors to deal with tomorrow's daily struggle.

Left to right: Tremaine on what could have been any night in the mid-late ‘90s; Rick Kosick and Chris Pontius, full metal ninja turtles; Kosick and a gold lamé Dave Carnie, post-Russian strip club destruction on the eve of yet another ill-fated Big Brother-sanctioned event.

But there existed a window of time in the '90s, just prior to the digital age of chaos, when the consumer-grade point 'n' shoot film camera reached the apex of its soon-to-be-meteored evolution with the Yashica T4. It was a magical pocket device indeed, and both professional photographers and commoners alike snatched them up at a very affordable price. This was especially so in the world of skateboarding, where it serendipitously coincided with the height of decadence right before the industry's li'l butt pucker was ruptured by the mainstream and all the booby-traps and pitfalls that came along with the unholy coupling (once the term "athletes" was heard and used in all seriousness, it was Crystal Clear with Capital Corporate Cs that the end was nigh and the doomsday clock was two minutes to midnight for the fuck-all-show-it-like-it-is rag that was then Big Brother skateboard magazine). For a few priceless years, though, it wasn't uncommon to see everyone out in the bar with a beer in one hand and a T4 in the other.

 

Left to right: Mike Crum was a darling of the "Last Call" parade of party photos in Big Brother, all thanks to the omnipresent lens of Dimitry; Scott Johnston, Jeff Tremaine, Dimitry, and Sean Cliver—all cleaned up and ready for the post-Y2K world at a respectable, no-nonsense Chocolate premiere at the DGA theater on Sunset Blvd.

I only embark on such tangents, because the late great photo show of Dimitry Elyashkevich this past weekend at the Door Gallery in Hollywood not only embraced and celebrated this slaphappy snapshot period in skateboarding, but embodied it in spirit as well. If I heard correctly, the show was to open at 9pm, yet by 7:30 that night there was still nothing on the walls?! I walked in at 9pm, at which point the sweat was pouring and the first words—as well as probably the next 20 or 30 or so—to come out of Dimitry's mouth to me were, "NO PHOTOS. NO PHOTOS. SERIOUSLY, NO PHOTOS." Apparently, no one was supposed to take any photos of the photos on display, because there were indeed some that may not have even been run in the pages of Big Brother when they were taken at the time. And that's saying a fuck lot. It's not like anything was that incriminating, but 20 years have since passed and everyone within the swath of Dimitry's lens back then is now a legitimate grown-up with families and respectable jobs—none of which was the responsible case in the ridiculous span of globe-trotting and partying years showcased in his buckshot blast of 4 x 6 prints taped up on the wall with Sharpies hanging beside them for anyone and everyone to add descriptions, word bubbles, and random comments in general. On a hypothetical comfort level scale of 1–10, it's safe to say this one went to 11 (but probably could have gone to 13, knowing what he has in his vaults).

Left to right: The El Rey Theatre, circa 1997, hours before all sorts of shit hit the fan before, during, and after the premiere of the Big Brother video number two; Faces in the crowd of aforementioned premiere.

So yeah. You're not seeing any of the really hot shit photos here; just the few that Dimitry let us take to share a few innocuous looks at the way we were before everything else transpired in life. —Sean Cliver

This last one, of course, is more of an inside joke than anything, but if you happen to be a stickler for skate trash lore then you know at one point in 1993 I found myself on the wrong hand of the legendary Sean Sheffey—and not entirely by my own doing. The truth would have been exposed in the dumb Big Brother documentary on HULU, where in a previous rough cut there was a section talking about the more "physical repercussions" to occur with the magazine staff, the crown jewel of which being my face-palming incident with Sheffey over a caption that had been blamed on me (a situation akin to being sentenced to death for a crime you didn't commit). Anyway, at the end of it all, Tremaine admitted that he was in fact the one who wrote the caption and then stood silently by as I brushed with death, but the segment was cutting room-floored after a note from HULU that it seemed like an unnecessarily negative side street to go down and detracted from the zany chase of the story arc. However, please let the record show for all of Interweb eternity that I was in fact innocent in the matter—case fucking closed. Oh, this photo, incidentally, was taken years after the OG confrontation, maybe 5–6, give or take a drink or two, at one of those great gala DC/Droors holiday affairs of the late ‘90s.

i survived action point: a photographer's tale

Half the fun of wondering if you swing to and fro on the mentally unstable side of life is to pit yourself in a one-on-one, right brain vs. left brain interview, which I'm about to self-indulge in now. The topic of discussion will, mostly, be about my experiences while working on Johnny Knoxville's newly released flick, Action Point, which, if you haven't already heard it about 369-odd times, is based on the old "less-than-lethal" amusement park, Action Park, once found in Vernon, New Jersey, back when rules were really just suggestions—not the legalese letter of the law they are today.

That said, let us begin.

Sean Cliver: Who are you and what do you do that warranted your involvement on a major motion picture?

Sean Cliver: My name is Sean Cliver. Years ago, 18 to be precise, I started shooting photos on the "set" of jackass during its formative MTV years. We'd all segued into Hollywood out of the pages of Big Brother skateboard magazine, so that's how our initial "crew" began—all of which can be seen in the documentary Dumb: The Story of Big Brother Magazine, but only if you have access to Hulu.

Anyway, the joke was then that we were all now considered to be "professionals," and we even had T-shirts printed up that stated so in lowercase Helvetica Bold. That's how I magically became a Co-Producer/Still Photographer of IMDB acclaim, despite my real profession being that of a lowly skateboard graphic artist. It's a crazy world.

Someone oughta sell tickets.

Sure, I'd buy one.

So go on. Skip the boring history shit and get on with it already.

Okay, so yeah, last year Knoxville contacted me while they were wading into production on the movie and said he wanted me to come down to Cape Town, South Africa to shoot some of the cockamamie stunts he was concocting. I guess he thought I'd done a decent job of catching him in some of his brighter moments on jackass--

Excuse me, but why exactly do you think that is, why you?

Honestly, I don't know… I guess it's because we were all so accustomed to working with one another in crazy scenarios—there's a comfort level in that—and I'd always had a pretty zen attitude about everything. And by zen I mean I just go to a cartoon universe while looking through the lens of my camera and reality goes slip-sliding away. That may actually be clinically diagnosed as a dissociative psychological disorder, but fuck, dude, when you've got throw-up, poo-poo, and pee-pee flying around you, what do you expect?

Alright, settle down. Back to Action Point.

Whatever. So they'd started shooting near the end of March or beginning of April in 2017, but I didn't end up going there until the beginning of May. Actually, my primary assignment on the trip was to shoot all the gallery photos of the cast, as well as groupings of them for possible promotional usage, e.g. movie poster, billboards, and all that crap, but I'm really not that kind of photographer. And I tried telling them so. But [Paramount] promised I'd be in good company and that there'd be a couple representatives from the marketing agency to assist me on the day of the formal photo shoot.

Still, I was nervous as a shithouse mouse, and couldn't wait for that day to be over so I could just kick back and relax on-set, waiting for Knoxville to fling himself off, into, or onto things. Well, other than that and any other scenes being filmed, the majority of my days were also spent hoofing it up and down the mountain to shoot the various park structures and rides from dawn to dusk, because if you know anything about movie posters it's that there's a whole heck of a lot of compositing that goes on in Photoshop. I first learned this on the jackass movie in 2002, when they combined two of my photos for the primary shopping cart image of the cast and then cobbled in all sorts of fancy background explosions and shit for the final poster.

So that was your first official movie poster?

Yeah, which is funny, because way back when I was a starry-eyed Wisconsin teenager, I had grandiose dreams of one day doing a movie poster—I was a big fan of Drew Struzan, who did all the kickass posters back in the '80s, and I loved the artwork on the schlockier, B-grade horror and sci-fi posters you'd find tacked up on the walls of video rental stores—but I'd always envisioned my doing so as an illustrator, you know? Not a photographer.

A friend of mine recently quipped that for an illustrator I have "more movie poster photography than most photographers." Again, crazy world, and I've really just been an accidental tourist stumbling through it all. Good times!

Tell me a bit about the set used for Action Point. Was that a pre-existing park?

No. Fuck no. Not at all. From what I know it was just a bare hillside prior to them coming in and erecting the whole damn thing, which really gave it that extra oomph in the backwoods-slash-jackassy department. Most of it, I believe, was constructed by the South African production company, but Knoxville had our longtime shady prop master JxPx Blackmon and his assistant Scott Manning shipped in to help design, build, and oversee everything for that authentic American feel. You'd be surprised what cultural differences can slip by, even down to the simplest of signage details. But it was pretty crazy to first set foot on the mountain… and that's not even because there were zebras and springbok roaming about the adjacent hillsides.

The other fun thing of note about my arrival was that it coincided with the onset of winter in South Africa. That really threw me for a damn loop, because I'd been told to prepare for 110-degree temperatures. So on my first early morning call time at 6:30am, I found myself in the pitch black, freezing my ass off, because the sun didn't rise until well after 7am, at which time I could still see the frosty exhalation of my breath. Total Southern California ass that I am, I'd only packed shorts and T-shirts for the entire trip, so off to the Cape Town mall I went to spend my per diem on a whole new working winter wardrobe. Fortunately the Rand to USD ratio was on par with Monopoly money.

That's nice, but you do know that we're talking about world currency and the weather now, right? Let's get back to the photos, like how would you describe your shooting style?

My shooting style? The fuck you talking about? I have a Canon Mark III 5d, if that's what you mean, and I have a remedial grasp of apertures, shutter speeds, and ISO—whatever an ISO is? Look, if you really want to tack a name on my "shooting style," I'd best describe it as "click 'n' wish." You know, just hope for the best and let god sort 'em out.

If anyone is actually reading this, they'd probably get the impression you have no idea what you're doing.

Yeah, well, first impressions are everything. Look, can we talk about the penguins instead? I was really stoked to see the jackass penguins waddling about Boulders Beach.

Save it for your Wildboyz fantasies. What was the wackiest thing you watched Knoxville do stunt-wise on Action Point?

Unfortunately I'd missed the power washer, where they blasted him down the water slide, but I got a real good giggle when Paramount gave me a sneak peek of that daily prior to my trip. The catapult—or trebuchet, sorry—was impressive, if only because we'd never managed to build a successful one on jackass and he went through the side of a barn with just a nick and a shave to his scalp. And of course I knew he was going to eat a mouthful of dusty shit on the alpine slide… he had a lot of physics on his side for that one and the whole eyeball-popping aftermath was just a surprise cherry on top.

The one that stood out the most to me was the "branch too far," where he jumped out of a tree and smack-landed on the roof of a shed. I already suspected that was going to be a tough one for him, because it's not like most of the stunts he prefers where things are just happening to him and he doesn't really have a choice in the matter. This one was different in that he alone had to instigate the jump—it's not like anyone pushed him or the branch broke. So commitment-wise that's a pretty big mental hurdle to clear. What was most difficult for me, though—because this is all about me, right?—was not bursting into laughter when he bounced off the roof—and he really did bounce!—because, you know, it's a real movie set and you're not supposed to make any noise, whereas crew laughter was always just another necessary ingredient of the jackass soundtrack. So I really had to rein in that natural impulse and stifle my braying.

Biggest regret?

What, like in life?

No, on the picture, dumbass. We're not here to hear your goddamn life story.

Oh, okay. Well, I guess it would be that by the time I'd arrived, Chris Pontius had already filmed the majority of his Benny the Lifeguard scenes. That was a bummer, because I could listen to Chris improvise lines all the live long day. I did luck out, though, because they had to do a later reshoot on this one particularly sexy scene of his where he finds himself trapped in a newsroom studio. The long and the short of it is that he gets cummed on, so I had the wonderful opportunity to relive that moment in time—again and again and again and again, because to know Chris is to love Chris. He's the undisputed scene-stealer of the movie.

How long were you in Cape Town?

At some point it felt like an eternity, but I was really only there for just over three weeks, whereas a lot of the other actors had been there since March and already created a castaway family of sorts. Luckily I was able to slip in to their circle on the coattails of Knoxville and Pontius, so I had a good time hanging out with all the Shitbirds.

Oh, the one funny thing about Cape Town was that both Knoxville and Pontius texted me soon after my arrival with the warning to not leave the hotel after sundown. It was a great hotel, but it was located on the periphery of a rather sketchy area—mostly because it's a tourist zone and they're easy pickins for ne'er-do-well individuals. I did have a beautiful view of Table Mountain from my hotel room, though, and it spoke volumes to my inner nature nerd.

On the nature tip, where exactly do you find a brown bear in Africa?

The simplest answer is you don't. From what I heard it was a very complex process and something not likely to ever happen again.

That's all I've really got to ask unless you have anything else you'd care to blather on about.

Well, I don't think it entirely came across on the screen, but like three entire days were spent filming the destruction of the park and it was nothing short of unmitigated chaos—and this is coming from someone whose career has mostly revolved around chaotic film sets. The director, Tim Kirkby, would yell action, and it was basically just a fucking free for all with hundreds of extras going total apeshit. The tennis ball-firing tanks were the real wildcard of these scenes, and as a crew member it was exceptionally thrilling, like you were "in the shit" documenting a real life war or rebel political coup. Actually, I don't know why I'm even talking about this, because looking back at my photos even they couldn't convey what it was like being in the middle of all that… I often fantasized that the footage would be quite beautiful if all played out in slow motion and edited to the tune of David Bowie's "Life On Mars."

Okay. Clearly it's time to end this, because I have no idea what you're going on about. I do know you're a shameless self-promoter, though, so you might as well get on with any last whore-ish sentiments you'd like to tack on for anyone left reading this.

Now that you mention it, I do have my hands in a new skateboard company that's about to launch called StrangeLove Skateboards. The timing isn't great, because the website's not entirely ready yet, so consider it a sneak peek of things to come… because they will come, and I don't mean that in an "on-the-hand" way.

(All photos by Sean Cliver—except the photo of Sean Cliver, as that was taken by Donna Stack Cliver; 2017)

the official chris pontius "action point" interview

Rick Kosick: So how does it feel to be in a movie with Johnny Knoxville again?

Chris Pontius: It felt great. I was so stoked that he asked me to be in it, because it’s the biggest role I’ve ever had in a scripted movie and just filming with any of the jackass guys is like the funnest thing in the world to do. If I could do it constantly I would. We got to go and film in South Africa and that added to the adventure of it. Being in Africa reminded of filming with the Wildboyz… you know, some exotic place, and there’s nothing better in the whole world. 

What’s the character you play in the movie?

I play Benny the Lifeguard. I’m like this really irresponsible lifeguard, and the main character, DC, who’s played by Knoxville, is his best friend. I’m just totally irresponsible and reckless, but without trying to be. I’m just a nice guy and always getting into trouble. I was really stoked ’cause I don’t have a lot of people asking me to be in their movies, because I haven’t proved myself that I can act. They just think I jump off buildings and run around naked. I’m so thankful to have someone believe in me and have faith that I can do a good job.

When you were on set shooting, would you stick to the script or improvise?

Knoxville encouraged me to improvise. He said we would use the script as a guideline. I do my best when I’m thinking of stuff on the spot.  Sometimes, when there are lines and you actually speak them, it looks right on paper but sounds different when you speak it. So I like it when they allow you to not stick to the script. Sometimes stuff falls from the sky and I get lucky and I think of great stuff on the spot.

What’s the backstory of your character in the movie?

The backstory is that you assume that Benny and DC have been friends forever. They’re pretty much brothers. In the movie, DC’s daughter comes to visit and stay with him. He hasn’t seen her in a few years and Benny has known her throughout her whole life. He’s like an uncle to her and part of their family. There’s a lot of heavy stuff in the movie and my character does a lot of the silly stuff.  I’m not saying it’s a heavy drama movie, but it definitely has a lot of heart—it’s not just madness.

How was it filming this movie in South Africa?

Being in Africa was just awesome, like it’s a wild place. I love how Africa is still untamed. I went to Malawi during our break, and it was the most primitive country I’ve ever been to out of all of my travels. When you walk into an airport, you can tell how a country and their modernization is and it was hard to even get a rental car there.  We visited Lake Malawi, a giant lake where the water is crystal clear and you can snorkel like in the ocean, and there was barely anyone there. To me it’s fun being somewhere you’re not around a bunch of white people, like I enjoy being the only white person in the country. It’s cool. I like going outside of my familiar places to see what happens and have adventure.

Were you close enough to go on a safari where you were filming?  

A lot of the movie was filmed on this land 45-minutes outside of Cape Town. Like we would be filming and all of the sudden there would be zebras in frame in the background or an antelope jumping through the shot and someone would be like, “Cut!” because it just wouldn’t make sense. How awesome is that? It was wild enough that there were zebras running around where you’re shooting. There wasn’t like worries of lions mauling anybody on set out of nowhere, but there were a few instances where people almost stepped on a pit viper, which is a gnarly-like rattle snake and I think they have long fangs. So you had to watch out for them.

Did you interact with many of the other cast members?

In the downtime when we weren’t filming, the whole cast got really close. The characters who are called the Shitbirds—the young kids who are employees of Action Point and kind of like DC’s kids in the movie—they were all like in their twenties. So we all became really close and were like a little family because we were away from home.

Which one was your favorite?

I loved them all. One day we made a teepee near base camp, so in the downtime we’d hang out in there and make spears. Johnny Pemberton and I became really good friends. Josh [Hoover] was awesome and Conner [McVicker], a total trippy kid but so great. Brigette Lundy-Paine was so good. She’s on the show Atypical. She was such a good character on the movie and just an awesome person and a badass chick. There’s also this kid from England named Eric Manaka. I don’t know how Knoxville found him, but he’s this awesome 17-year-old skater kid. He found out I was friends with Andy Roy and he got really stoked because he loves Andy. He was just a badass kid to hang out with. We would all run around Cape Town together, and it was a really good group. While we were making the movie, you know it’s going to come out good if it feels good while you’re making it and having fun. I can’t wait to see it.

You haven’t seen the film yet?

No, I haven’t. I’ve only seen the little parts I had to do ADR voiceover stuff on. I have no idea what the movie looks like. I’m excited to see it, but I’m nervous. I just get nervous watching myself.

Explain what happened to Scott Manning.

The sun is really powerful in the southern hemisphere and Scott has pretty light skin. He’s not responsible about wearing sunscreen and he got burned super bad and basically had an allergic reaction to the ultraviolet light. He had to cover himself from head-to-toe where you could only see his eyes. He was also on steroids to help fight the sun infection, so that made him kind of aggro. The Assistant Director called him the Angel of Death. Yeah, that was kind of hard on Scott. You have to be careful in the sun when you’re down there; even black dudes cover themselves up because the ozone is so thin.

What’s Cape Town like once the sun sets?

It’s awesome. It’s one of the funnest cities I’ve ever been to with the best food out of anywhere—and its cheap. If you go to Nobu Sushi, you can eat a lavish meal for like 200 dollars, where if you where in London you would spend like 2000—it’s that much cheaper. But you had to watch your back if you went outside. There’s a lot of people who will jack you if you’re not careful. Nothing bad happened other than a few of the cast members getting mugged, but they were asking for it by walking around in a neighborhood by themselves where they shouldn’t have. Sometimes the girls would want Kentucky Fried Chicken at three in the morning after a night of being out, and I would volunteer to go and get food for them. I would walk and I was the only white dude from miles around. I always enjoyed it, because it’s an adventure, and I always have weapons—an axe or a knife or my expandable baton—so if I had gotten into trouble, I was ready for it. I think something about that gets me off, too.

Did Knoxville beat himself up pretty good making this movie?

Yeah, he got two of three concussions at least, and his eyeball popped out of its socket after the final concussion. He was filming this thing on the alpine sled where he goes flying off it and it was a pretty big jump. I think he was going to try and run out of it, but the first step he took he went right to his face, knocked himself out. We ran over to him and he didn’t know where he was. He asked if we were in California. He got a CAT scan, but he was okay. When we got back to the hotel, he sent me a text that said: “I sneezed and my eyeball popped halfway out, and I pushed it back in.” A few days later, we were walking back from dinner and I made him laugh and his eyeball popped out again. It was so awkward. But the stunts are awesome. There’s this one thing where he jumps out of a tree and lands on a shed, and the catapult was gnarly. The catapult stunt was something Knoxville wanted to do all through jackass, but we could never get a catapult or there was always some issue. But the guys built one and it was gnarly. It was powered by hydraulics and sent him into a barn. It was one of those stunts where it could be really bad—you know, the night before you are nervous just thinking about it. Luckily he was all right, but god, it was gnarly. It was up there with the rocket in jackass number two. When you make a machine to send your body hurling unnaturally… it’s just fucking gnarly.

Do you think he craves that kind of abuse?

I don’t think any of us on jackass are like adrenaline junky-types. It’s more like testing yourself, where maybe you’re scared but you do it anyway. That’s what it’s about.  It’s not like we’re going, “Yeah! We’re so gnarly!” It’s more like, “I’m scared as hell, but I’m going to do it anyway.” I think a lot of what this movie is about is going back to the era like when we were kids, when our parents would probably let us do stuff that they would be frowned at today with everyone so concerned about safety. It was so much more reckless back then. There wasn’t as much entertainment. Kids didn’t have iPhones and a bunch of video games or other things to keep them busy, and when you’ve got nothing to do, that’s what got us all into skateboarding growing up. Being bored and not wanting to play football and finding something else to do with your energy. That’s what skateboarding and punk rock music was all about, and I think that is what’s missing in our society today. Everyone is so concerned about wanting to be safe, but really it's just an illusion… it’s more like people are into feeling like they’re safe. Or it’s about money—someone stubs their toe on a crack on the sidewalk and they sue the city. Just like when we were filming jackass the TV show. They started censoring us so much, because some mom blamed us for her son getting hurt doing something silly, saying he copied us, when really it’s just what kids do and have always done. I think people miss that a lot, and I think there’s something inside us that wants to go back to things being a little bit wild. That’s why all of these survival shows are popular on TV. At the end of the day, you take away all of our computers and phones and put us on a mountain—we’re going to go tribal really quick, and in a matter of hours we can go primitive, because we’re animals. So the spirit of the movie is all about that, going back to that time of not so many rules.

When does Action Point hit the theaters?

The movie comes out June 1^st. You can buy tickets at your local ticket seller or you can contact me directly at ticketsfromchris.com.

(All photos by Sean Cliver; 2017)

johnny knoxville and his upcoming flick "action point"

You may have heard the rumors. You may have seen the eyepatch. Now hear it all from the man himself, Johnny Knoxville, who once again put his ass on the line for all your giggling enjoyment when Action Point opens in theaters this summer. So, without further ado, here's Rick Kosick to kick out the queries…

Rick Kosick: So what inspired you to make Action Point?

Johnny Knoxville: Well, I was sitting in my office one day, minding my own business like I normally do, and Derek Freda sent me an email but I was in a middle of a bunch of things. Derek is pretty laid back, so about 30 minutes goes by and he said, “Did you get my email?” I said, “I saw it, but I haven’t looked at it yet.” He goes, “You need to look at it right now.” I said, “Okay,” and it was a 14-minute documentary for Action Park, the theme park in New Jersey—and it’s amazing. There was this really dangerous theme park back in the ‘70s and ‘80s owned by the genius Gene Mulvihill. It was almost as if me and the guys had made a theme park—it was that dangerous. So that’s where the idea came from. We didn’t focus on their stories—the Mulvihill family—we focused on having a theme park like that and why it had to go away… and it was kind of the same reason for the downfall of the jackass TV show. Washington came down on MTV, then lawyers got involved and started ruining everything and it took away the fun.  So that’s where we went with it.

How long did it take for you to get this movie off the ground and into production?  

Three-to-four years. I can tell you right now. You want me to go through emails?

You don’t have to go through your emails, but it seems like you’ve been working on it for quite a while.

Yeah, it has been quite a while, since… what year is it?

It’s 2018.

So, yeah… I got an email from a conversation from me to John Altschuler, Dave Krinsky, Mike Judge, and Derek back in April of 2014, when it was us just kicking things around.

What’s the overall premise of the movie? 

It’s about my character, DC, trying to save his failing, hyper-dangerous theme park, and also salvage his relationship with his 14-year-old daughter in one summer—in 1979, basically, with the advent of class action lawsuits and the lawyers digging their heels into everything. It was kind of the last summer of fun before all that was taken away from us.

Did you hire a big-time Hollywood scriptwriter to do the story?

We did get some big-time scriptwriters. We had a number of writers. We started out with John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky who are great, and then we were lucky enough to get Robert Smigel to write a draft. He’s an absolute genius. Eventually I wrote the last four or five drafts, so it was a team effort.

Did you recreate any of the rides from the original theme park?

I think we had the power slide and the alpine slide, but most of them parks had an alpine slide back then. I think the one that was unique to Action Park was the battle tanks that shot tennis balls, but all the rest of the rides in the movie were found in any theme park back then.   

How was it working with Chris Pontius on this movie, did he deliver the goods?

Pontius steals the movie, he’s hilarious. I mean, you know Pontius, he’s just as funny between takes. He’s amazing. You know how much he loves hatchets, right? So he plays the lifeguard in the movie, so of course the lifeguard has a hatchet because Pontius always carries around a hatchet—at least one or probably two. In between takes he was constantly making different type of weapons, like spears and things for people on-set like the makeup ladies, like they were dying to get a six-foot long spear. But he would hand it to them and put so much time and energy and love into it that they were very touched to receive a spear. But he’s so funny in the movie, and I just kind of let him go. I tried to write in his voice, but most of the time you give him his lines and whatever he says is going to be better than what I wrote for him. And oh my god, you should see his outfits. You will absolutely love them. He was a scantily clad lifeguard. A lot of midriffs, tight shorts, and you know how is butt wiggles when he walks—it’s a sight to behold.

So I heard you got injured a few times during the filming process, what exactly happened to you?

Yeah, you can say I got injured a few times during the filming process.  Jesus Christ, I got injured on this more than any of the jackass movies—not combined, but just any one of them. I had four concussions, a broken right hand, a busted left knee, whiplash, and stiches on my head, lost two teeth, broke my orbital lambda bone in my face, and then I had a blow fracture in my left eye, so when I blew my nose my eye popped out of the socket. I think there’s some other stuff, but I can’t remember.

Were you able to do all the stunts you wanted to do or did you leave any on the table?

After doing the alpine slide where I got that terrible concussion and broke my face, there was another one I was supposed to do the next filming week but there was no way I could do that because I could have lost my eye. So we waited until I got back to Los Angeles to do it, because I still wanted to do it. Then we started editing the movie and realized we didn’t need another stunt, but we might need to do something else. So when we did some reshoots with me as the old DC character, I got my fourth concussion in the film and lost some teeth doing a chin-up on a bar that broke and came down and hit me in the mouth. Meanwhile, I landed on my head AGAIN.

You just love hurting yourself don’t you?

It’s not that I love it, I just want good footage and to get good footage certain things need to happen. And you know those things.

Why did you choose to film this movie in such a faraway place like South Africa?

We wanted to save a lot of money, and by doing this we saved a ton of money and built a theme park. We found a hillside in South Africa that had a nice bottom where you could put a bunch of rides, and the hill was perfect for the slide we built. When we got down there, we wanted to make South Africa look like New Jersey, but we didn’t have enough money. Then somebody said, “Hey, how about Los Angeles?” Now there you go! We can make it look as dry as it was. And just about the stunts, I asked the stuntmen to do them like I did them, like no cutting on the action and no pads. They were actually excited, because they never get to do that and it provided a great energy down there.

What was it like living in Cape Town for three months?

It was almost like four months. I don’t like being away from the family anymore. It was fun, I just don’t like being away from my kids that long. I think I am almost over that kind of travel for that length of time.

So who are the Shitbirds?

They are a group of juvenile delinquent kids I hired to work at Action Point. Basically they’re outcasts from the high schools they go to, and the only kind of place they fit in is at Action Point. We got a really great group of actors to play the Shitbirds.

Are you talking about some of the co-stars of the movie?

Yeah, Eleanor Worthington Cox plays my daughter Boogie in the movie and she’s wonderful. Johnny Pemberton, who’s great, plays a pre-vert named Ziffel. Bridgette Lundy-Paine plays Four Finger Annie and she’s fantastic. Josh Hoover plays a guy named Hot Head Pete. Dan Bakkedahl plays the bad guy and he is goddamn terrific. Matt Shulze is in it, too, and he basically plays himself: a gnarly dude who loves to fight. He loves it! And Eric Manaka plays Rodney, the voice of reason. I’d asked the casting director in London to go around to different skate parks to find someone who would fit the part of Rodney, and she found Eric. He was 16- or 17-years-old and he’d already been making his own films. He came in for an audition and was great. It was his first film he ever did and he was fantastic. I like giving someone that chance and they deliver.

So you brought JxPx Blackmon on as the shady prop master, but how would you rate his acting skills?

Haha… JxPx did an awesome job, as did Scott Manning and Charlie Grisham who was the stunt coordinator. Sean Cliver came down to shoot pictures for a while and he got some great shots for us. But JxPx as an actor? He was amazing! He played the shady janitor and Scott Manning and Charlie Grisham played cops since we were down in South Africa where most of the people had accents. They all did great, and it was so funny to have Scott as a cop because he’s so not a cop. He actually got sunburned really badly down there and I think his arm got infected or he’s allergic to the sun? So he would walk on set with his face covered and full sleeves and it was hot as hell. Poor guy. He worked his ass off though. Everyone did. Did I bring anyone else from our group down there?

No, you didn’t! And I don’t have any more questions for you, so when does the movie come out?

Friday, June 1^st, and I hope everyone comes out to see it. If you like to see me get broke off, you’ll like this movie.

(Top photo and sequence by Sean Cliver; Water hose photo by Coco Van Oppens; ©2018 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

ed templeton and his hairdos of defiance

Our longtime friend Ed Templeton has yet another photo book in his published quiver: Hairdos of Defiance, a showing of which was recently built around its release at the Roberts Projects gallery in Los Angeles (currently on display through April 21st). Rick Kosick was on the opening scene to document Ed in his natural habitat, whereas I, Sean Cliver, lazily emailed Ed a few silly questions. These are those questions, all graciously answered by Ed, who was most likely sitting at his desk in the nude—or at least that's how I pictured him, and I say that with no regrets whatsoever.

What’s the gist of your new photo book, like give me the infamous artist’s conceptual perspective.

The gist of it is photographs of people with mohawks and other "hairdos of defiance." I'd been shooting kids with mohawks over the years and ramped it up over the last few to the point that if I saw a mohawk that looked interesting I would chase the person down and ask for a portrait. So it's one of my typology collections.

 

Did you always have the title in mind or were there others you tossed around in the working stages?

 

It was always going to be Hairdos of Defiance, although I did toss around "Emblems of Non-Conformity" a bit. The title came from an old conversation with Mike Burnett. I thought he coined it, he says it was me, but I think he's just being nice. Ever since that conversation every time I saw a punk hairdo I thought "Hairdo of defiance" in my head.

 

Do you set about with this grand idea, like, “I’m going to document hairdos!” or do you suddenly look around at everything you’ve amassed and realize, “Holy shit! i’ve got the makings of a book about the hairdos of Huntington!” Please, set the creative stage for me.

 

You described it perfectly. I suddenly look around at everything I’ve amassed and realize, “Holy shit! I’ve got the makings of a book." There's always the first one or two, then after ten years go by you sort of realize subconsciously that you have in fact been working on a series. That's when I ramped it up and started shooting them more aggressively. But always under the idea it would just be a fun zine.

 

What’s the most defiant hairdo that you’ve ever sported?

 

I'm the ultimate wuss when it comes to hairstyles. I've only ever had four styles in my whole life: the little boy bowl cut, the skater bangs, a shaved head, and then slicked-back hair. I tried to grow my hair out once, but couldn't even get it to my shoulders before wimping out. I had a mohawk for a few hours one time when I shaved my head. I think my conservatism with my own hair is what draws me to the kind of people that can sport a hairdo of defiance in public.

 

Have you considered doing a sequel, you know, something like “Hairdont’s of Compliance”? What does that even mean?

 

As much fun as that would be, it was hard enough to ask people for their portrait when you had a good reason, i.e., they have a photogenic hairstyle. I couldn't imagine stopping people in the streets with a mullet or some other hair-don't and trying to explain why I want a portrait of them. "Excuse me, sir, your hair is horrendous, may I take a portrait of you so that we can make fun of you later?" Having said that, I have not searched my archive for bad hair… maybe I have enough already!

 

Once upon a time, tattoos and piercings were considered to be an act of defiance. Now, however, they’ve pretty much become standard operational procedure for people across the board from all mainstream walks of life. So, from your anthropological studies, where do you see the next youthful act of defiance coming from?

 

I'm not sure in the internet age if anything will be able to make a splash like mohawks, tattoos, and piercings. The "stretched ears" thing came along and was adopted by mainstream copycats immediately. I have asked multiple ear stretchers why they did it and it always boiled to down to "My favorite band does it" or "It looks cool." I think kids need to up the ante and do the bottom lip stretching to the point where they can put a giant plate in there, or the neck rings until they look like a giraffe. Maybe that will shock people.

 

 

Wouldn’t it be neat if one day far off in the future you were memorialized as a statue on the Huntington Beach pier with your camera clutched in hand?

 

Ha! As much as that would be neat, I highly doubt my particular brand of documenting the HB pier is going to gain widespread acceptance by the city. It's already crazy that I did an exhibition at the Huntington Beach Art Center, but I guess you never know what could happen. I could turn into the "HB pier greeter." Have you ever heard of the guy in Laguna Beach who just waved at people driving by on PCH every day for decades? He has a statue. They won't even build a skatepark on the beach, so it's unlikely that they would celebrate a person who looks at HB with a critical eye.

 

One of the hashtags you frequently use on your Instagram account is #photobookjousting. Have you ever thought of staging a tournament where you stand at one end of a field with your new book in hand while Nan Goldin stands at the opposing end of the field with one of her books in hand and then Deanna blows a trumpet and you and Nan run at each other screaming and start bashing each other with your books? i guess what I’m awkwardly trying to get to is this: who would win in this book bashing duel, you or Nan?

 

Although she does have a formidable icy stare, I think it goes without saying that I would destroy frail old Nan—no quarter.

 

 

(Photos by Rick Kosick; 2018)

earl parker update: the 2018 edition

If you managed to catch the romcomdocudrama Dumb: The Story of Big Brother Magazine on Hulu then there is absolutely no doubt in the world you were fascinated with one of the staff's most enigmatic characters: Earl Parker. Rick Kosick caught up with him recently at his place in Hollywood and this is a transcript of the ensuing conversation (and that's a fancy ass way of saying interview).

Kosick: What’s been going on with you lately?

Earl: Not really that much.

Why is that?

I do top secret stuff and I can’t talk about it.

You can’t give a little indication was to what you’ve been doing?

No, I can’t tell anybody.

So, what, just like roaming the streets taking photos, being a detective?

Ah, different types of stuff. Actually, I was taking a lot more photos in the past, and I would show them to people in the building and this old lady. I would just show her some pictures of random girls and stuff and this old lady asked me if I was looking for somebody.

How would you describe your photography style?

I haven’t been doing that lately.

Yes you have.

Not with my camera. Just with my phone.

So how would you describe your style of shooting with your iPhone?

I don’t know if there is one. I don’t really have much of a following with that kind of stuff… you would have to talk to somebody else.

Follow Earl, aka Alex, aka Thomas, on Instagram at @sheesh_capeesh.

I think you have a following. People just need to know more about you and what you are doing. Do you consider it to be like abstract or street life?

I guess so. It’s pretty boring and I don’t go many places. It’s just like around LA and stuff.

What other kind of cameras do you have?

I have two rangefinder cameras and a digital camera. I’m kind of losing interest in photography. There are so many cameras available that I just get tired of looking at pictures of them. I’ve been reading about cameras for a long time and I’m happy with what I have. I have everything all figured out, but then people have objections to what I’m into because everybody has a different idea of stuff. If you hang out with people they tell you to buy like a new camera and stuff and it goes on forever and I just don’t really care anymore. I’m just trying to give up on being interested in stuff like that.

With all the photography and writing you’ve done, do you have any heroes or someone you look up to?

Not really. I’m not that interested in America anymore. I want to go to some different countries and experience different types of cultures. I used to go over to Mexico. That’s really fun, but it can be kind of dangerous.

How’s Mexico dangerous?

I don’t think it is, but they say it is on the news. They were having drug wars for a while and people said don’t go there.

If you went to Mexico, what would you see yourself getting into?

I would just probably take pictures, eat tacos, and drink beer. Go to the bars in the afternoon with all the crazy drunks.

Maybe visit a brothel or two?

Ah, maybe, but I don’t go there for that reason. I’ve met people who are into that kind of stuff, but I would mainly go further into Mexico just to get out of places that have McDonalds everywhere. You have to go into central Mexico where it starts to get more exotic with different types of murals on the walls.

What’s the furthest you’ve traveled into Mexico?

I once sold an article to TransWorld publications and jumped on a bus through Texas all the way down the east coast of Mexico to Veracruz. It took two days and then I came up through the middle of the country and stopped at various cities and ended up in Tijuana with 600 dollars and I still had money when I came back. And then one time I didn’t have a place to crash, so I jumped on a bus and went to Calexico, California, which is straight east. You can walk over a bridge into Mexicali, which is the capital of Baja California. Pretty wild. The border towns are kind of sketchy. Groups of frat guys walk by and yell at you.

Have you every gone to Juarez?

I would never go to that place. You’re not supposed to go there. It’s not a nice place. But Cancun has problems too. I sit around and read the news all the time and I hear that people are getting sick at the resorts in Cancun and Cabo San Lucas. Recently there’s something about the beer that is making people sick, which is kind of strange, because the only reason I go there is to get one dollar beers. I don’t know… the more I read the news the less interested I get in traveling. I used to be more into it and then terrorism has been getting really big and I felt like I wasn’t missing as much anymore.

Have you written anything good lately?

No, writing isn’t going very well, but I’m going to start making my own homemade magazine as a solution. If you have to rely on other people it isn’t always that fun.

Do you see yourself as being famous?

I don’t really feel like I live the lifestyle of a famous person. I guess the answer is no. I don’t feel I have a lifestyle of anything.

People know who you are. You’ve contributed to something that’s been recognized.

Well, I just think there should be more of a lifestyle with convertible cars. And they hang out with pretty women and go to movie screenings.

But you see yourself as a creative type.

Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know how rewarding it is.

But you have fun in the process of doing it, right?

It has its moments.

Do you still have an infatuation about Hollywood and what this town has to offer?

Somebody recently said to me that they thought I was fascinated with Hollywood. I guess I kind of am, I live around here because it has cheap rent. But that’s kind of an interesting question… I don’t know how much I’m into that type of stuff. Maybe it would appear that way because of the pictures I take of the Hollywood stars on the Boulevard. I’m sure there are scenesters that are more interested. You would think that’s what it would be—the stuff about the actors in Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe or something—but other people don’t see it that way and have different ideas about what they think of this place. Like some of them don’t care about the Hollywood type stuff. It’s kind of like the people who work at the liquor store down the street don’t seem like they realize their store is in Hollywood.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve come across while walking around the streets of Los Angeles taking photos?

I was walking down Vine Street past the Arclight theatre and there was a small curtain blocking the view from the street, but I was walking next to it and I saw a couple having sex behind the curtain. Yeah, homeless people have sex in the streets. I always hear stories about it.

Do you think people understand your sense of humor or where you’re coming from?

Yeah, that can be a tricky thing with the writing. Like some peoples’ writings have their own style. They can either turn out great and the people love it, or their own particular style they have makes it a less desirable thing where people don’t understand where they’re coming from and they don’t like it. It’s not to say it’s badly written, they just don’t get the idea of it because of the person’s writing style. I’m really tired of all that stuff. I’m just going to start doing it for myself again.

That’s what you should be doing in the first place. I’m doing this interview because I like you and I have history with you. You’re interesting. I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks, because I think you’re cool and I want to share that with people. I think you should do the same with your writing and the pictures you take. That’s from the heart. That’s what matters most. Did you like how the Big Brother documentary turned out?

Yeah, I liked it. I thought it was pretty cool. Some people right afterwards had some thoughts about it, but I don’t really see myself as one of them critic types.

Did you have a lot of people come up and say they saw you in that documentary?

No, I kind of stay home a lot and I don’t really get out as much as I should.

So the building you live in, it’s a historical landmark?

Yeah, it’s been here a hundred years. The Black Dahlia, that girl who had a famous death, lived here for a few months.

Do you see yourself as a free spirited kind of guy?

I used to be more like that, I don’t know as much anymore. I’m kind of integrated with everything now. I’m more into theories and talking to people and listening to what people have to say.

Do you have any closing thoughts?

I’m hoping there isn’t a bad earthquake. I think one is definitely coming. That’s what everybody says. The last big one, the Northridge in 1994, I was out of town so I missed it. And when I came back to LA I saw the devastation from it and it was pretty crazy.

crazy legs: rock steady for life and puerto rican relief

There's a long story and a short story, but let's just simply say that through an old friend of ours (hello, Joselle!) we know Rich "Crazy Legs" Colon, an original member—and current President—of the Rock Steady Crew. We're talking some serious breakdancing roots from the heart of the Bronx in NYC (the overall illustrious gist of which you can learn more about here), but for now we're more concerned about spotlighting the phenomenal relief work he's been doing for Puerto Rico in the wake of destruction left by Hurricane Maria last year. Take it away, Rick!

Rick Kosick: When did your family migrate to America?

Crazy Legs: My father migrated sometime in the ‘50s from Puerto Rico. A lot of my uncles and my grandfather migrated at the same time. My mother was actually born in New York City, but she’s also of Puerto Rican descent.

Do you still have any family members living in Puerto Rico?

I have an uncle that goes back and forth. He has property there but also lives stateside. One of my great uncles was a two-term governor of Puerto Rico.

How did you feel when you heard the news about the destruction to Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria?

During the time Hurricane Irma happened, I was supposed to come down here to do some preliminary work on my upcoming festival happening this year. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do it during that time, but I was still scheduled to come out here so I figured I’d go and do some relief efforts to try and support the community. But then Hurricane Maria came in right behind Irma, so I had to postpone my trip because there was no way I was going to be able to fly in at that point. I had another event I was doing in Holland, though, and while I was on that trip I was realizing the amount of destruction going on in Puerto Rico and losing contact with my friends. I was having people come up and ask for autographs and pictures, but my mind was all over the place and I wasn’t able to focus because I was seriously concerned about what was going on in Puerto Rico. Eventually it got to the point where I had to leave the event and go back to the hotel, where I was literally crying while looking at my computer.

So I reached out to Red Bull and basically said, “Hey, you guys are my most powerful ally and the only people I can go to with confidence. Can you please help out my people and what can we do?” And Red Bull—recognizing that I’ve been with them for a very long time, they know my heart is in Puerto Rico and a lot of their employees like to come to Puerto Rico to surf—Jeff Regis was like, “We need to help Crazy Legs and do our part to support him on this mission.” So they immediately set me up with Waves For Water, whom they’d recently done a documentary with. It was a big education for me, because I had no idea who Waves For Water was or what they did, but Red Bull had them teach me how to work these water filtration systems and then teach other people to use them so when I got on there we’d be ready to hit the ground running. And that’s exactly what we did. Since that point, whether it be water filtration systems from Waves For Water, Luci lights with MPOWER, or fundraising in general, we’ve been able to do a lot work more than I ever would have imagined I could make happen by one simple letter to Red Bull. I guess the authenticity and the emotion behind what I had to say resonated with them. It’s been an amazing ride.

Had you ever done humanitarian assistance before helping out with this situation?

Yeah, I’ve done things where Red Bull sent me out to Uganda, and before that just on my own in New York City, where I’ve done food drives and volunteer work, but nothing to this magnitude—not even close.

How did it feel to witness the destruction in person?

It looked like the whole island had been set on fire. Everything was brown. You’re used to coming to Puerto Rico and seeing everything looking lush—even when there’s a drought—but it looked like winter all over the island with a lot of heartache and pain… people feeling a sense of desperation because they didn’t know how to reach family members, they didn’t know what was happening with their lives or with their jobs. They weren’t able to access money from their bank and they were not able to get food or gas in a proper manner. People were going into survival mode and self-preservation. There was some crime, like there would be anywhere else, so there was an element of danger because people were getting desperate while waiting for supplies and someone to come help out—like the United States government or the FEMA system that taxpayers pay into over there—and it was nowhere to be found. People felt like, “Oh my god, I’m just keeping myself alive… I’m going to survive somehow even if I need to get a little grimy.”

So that was happening, and I was kind of concerned, too. I’m used to coming out here, they’re my people, but I felt like, “Wow, do I have to worry about my own safety?” But it was all good. We didn’t really need to worry. Red Bull chartered a flight and sent me down there with supplies and a camera crew to see what was going on and help with the situation. When we arrived, I found one of my good buddies at his home, where he was counting out the rest of his change on a table—they were gathering up change to survive. Since then, I’ve been back four times and it’s made a huge difference. From not knowing anything about what to do, I’ve learned about sustainable farming, the importance of how the deaf community has to be cared for, and a whole load of other things with the funding that we’ve done. We’ve donated over 20,000 dollars to independent farmers, because a lot of them are just waiting for help due to all the red tape and other things to be completed from other organizations that give them money. So we’re learning a lot and trying to make sure the moves that we make have a layered sustainable effect. It’s not just like, “Here’s a bottle of water and I feel good about helping and bye.”

Since the hurricane, do you think the people of Puerto Rico are getting the aid relief from America and other countries that they should be getting?

Puerto Rico, from the beginning, has never gotten what it was rightfully entitled to, and when it did arrive it wasn’t effective or enough. They weren’t moving swiftly to make a difference, and there was corruption on the United States and Puerto Rican sides, you now, government stuff.

For me, personally, I felt like I first came to Puerto Rico as a Puerto Rican concerned about his people, but based on the situation and when I left after my first trip, I felt like I went there as a Puerto Rican but I left as a human being. Because it’s greater than just being Puerto Rican—it’s about human lives. The politics of religion, no matter what your agenda is, should be put aside in a situation like this. So as humanity, how do we handle this?

I’ve read that Elon Musk’s company, Tesla, was going to send batteries and solar panels to install in the homes. Did you hear or see anything if they followed through on that?

Yes, we were actually doing an implementation of water filtration in Puerto Rico at this pump that was servicing about a thousand people, and Tesla was there to test one of their batteries on that specific pump because FEMA had dropped off a generator there that was too huge for a pump from the 1970s—it was decrepit, rusty, and seriously loud. So Tesla was going to replace it with something that was not only smaller but more effective and solar-powered.

 

"After my first trip, I felt like I went there as a Puerto Rican

but I left as a human being."

 

I’m happy to hear that Tesla followed though with their commitment.

Yeah, when they said they were going to do something, they did it. I think that’s a slap in the face to the US government for not being able to get their shit together in a timely matter.

You know there’s going to more hurricanes coming through the Caribbean in the future. How can the people of Puerto Rico learn from this disaster?

Number one—fight for an upgrade of the infrastructure, which was pretty bad prior to that, but you also need to be in a more powerful situation in order to do that. For this country to really be effective it needs to have laws like the Jones Act removed. The country needs to stop getting double-taxed on products. For instance, let’s say Tylenol is made here but it’s packaged in the United States. So when it leaves Puerto Rico, Tylenol gets an export tax from Puerto Rico. When It comes back after getting packaged, it gets taxed again because you are importing a packaged product. It’s crazy. And when it comes to produce, this country needs a self-sustaining agriculture, because Puerto Rico imports about 90-percent of its produce. There are so many things, but the United States has their foot on this country’s neck. They’re not able to thrive in those areas, because if you want to become a farmer they’ll put a tax on resale and try to discourage the farmers. Honestly, it’s one big cluster fuck of bullshit going on in Puerto Rico with the corruption going on with the United States and the locals over there. It makes it seriously hard for Puerto Rico to lift itself up.

If someone wants to make a donation and help out the people of Puerto Rico, how can they do that?

Just to be clear, there’s more than just Puerto Ricans here. There are expats, people from the United States that live here now and are not Puerto Rican but also affected. We help anyone, it doesn’t matter who you are. We use Go Fund Me—Rock Steady For Life. You can also reach out with a tax-deductible donation or reach out direct on Instagram at @CrazyLegsBx. I’ll respond immediately and help you out with how to make a donation. We’ve done a lot and the donation money goes right to the hands of the people over here. This is like no bullshit, no red tape. We are making an immediate impact.

(All photos courtesy of Red Bull Media House)

the ten year anniversary of knoxville's urethra

Unlike pigs, time does fly; or, unlike Travis Pastrana, Johnny Knoxville does not backflip. Yes, unbelievable though it may seem, 10 years ago, maybe not to the day but close enough for idiomatic horseshoes and hand grenades purposes, our fearless leader rose to the Evel Knievel occasion and, well, fell considerably short, you could say. But not only did he fall short, a motorbike basically fell on his crotch in the stunt gone rightly wrong process. Typically this would be considered gold—at least in the footage sense—but it also resulted in a lot of blood as well. Not just any blood, mind you, but dick blood! Jesus. What a horrifying thing to type, much less happen for real, but happen it did and thus did Knoxville supply the closer to an oddball release that supplemented the kick-off of the unfortunately short-lived "jackassworld" site in 2008.

If you're unfamiliar with anything I'm talking about, it all began in very late 2007, when BMX legend Mat Hoffman pitched the idea of a “Tribute to Evel Knievel,” where a bunch of guys came together to break all sorts of hairball records with daredevil panache. Since this couldn’t be done live in New York City during the coordinated 24-hours-of-bad-ideas-on-MTV launch of jackassworld.com, a separate production company was hired to film a pre-taped special all unto its own on location in Oklahoma with Mat, Travis Pastrana, Trigger Gumm, Allen Cooke, Scott Palmer, Midget Mike, Mini-bike Spike, and a few others hell bent for bike leathers.

Of course Knoxville is never one to sit idly by on the sidelines of fun, so it wasn't long before he was getting a crash course on how to backflip a motorbike. The one thing Pastrana sternly advised him NOT to do under any circumstances, though, was to let go of the bike. But that’s exactly what Knoxville did once he finally made it to the dirt jump. Up, up, up the bike went, and then down, down, down it came straight onto his pee-pee. One pair of scary bloody long johns later, he was taken to the hospital with a torn urethra and rewarded with his very own piss-bag and catheter combo. And boy oh boy did he have lots of fun with that in the weeks (and years!) to follow, perhaps more fun than one man with an injured penis ever could… or should? Anyway, it was from this fateful accident that the wheels were set in motion for what would eventually become Nitro Circus, or at least the Dickhouse-partnered version that would leave one hell of a carbon footprint on MTV throughout 2009.

Want to know more? Buy the book! Or for pennies on the dollar you can own the DVD.