Aug 23, 2018
EPISODE 1: About The Snowboard
Project
THE SNOWBOARD PROJECT EPISODE1.mp3
Download the "THE SNOWBOARD PROJECT EPISODE1.mp3" audio file directly from here. It was automatically transcribed by Sonix.ai below:: Man like Mark Sullivan warrior self, stay tuned for the chilling episode.
: A positive mental attitude and clearly all obstacles which stand between you and your image your purpose in life.
This is the Snowboard Project featuring Mark Sullivan and the Beav. The Snowboard Project. The Snowboard Project.
: Welcome to the snowboard project. MARK SULLIVAN I'm the Beav and this is the new snowboarding podcasts that we're putting together.
: It's pretty exciting. This is this is show number one kind of talk to me what is The Snowboard Project?
: Well The Snowboard Project is is a little bit of a different take than traditional media to snowboarding and the goal is basically self-improvement through snowboarding like the snowboard has been my vehicle to travel the world to meet driven fascinating people and to have all these crazy life experiences and it wasn't just the tricks that I was doing it was through the people I met and the places I got to visit. And so you know to me the some of the more fascinating stories in the sport are with the pro riders but with the people who've dedicated a piece of themselves to the sport of snowboarding so those could be you know anything from the pro riders but also people who were sales reps people who are graphic designers people who who were there for the beginning of the sport right and were part of the genesis of snowboarding and so those are the stories that I find interesting and I want to cover with the snowboard project now.
: There are a few other podcasts out there. There are some action sports podcast from snowboard podcasts. What's really going to set us apart what's really going to be the difference.
: Well hopefully you know I can drill down into some real useful advice that these people have some of the lessons they've learned some of the mistakes they made and how they've learned from them and and really you know maybe take a piece of that to your own life beyond snowboarding.
: So who are some of the people that we're going to be kind of like covering through this through this season of the summer project.
: Well there's all sorts of people I mean I've I've talked to some of the legends like Mike Chantry and Bob Klein guys like Dave Seoane guys like Mike Basich and Ricky Bower the coach or the halfpipe team for the United States. So all sorts of different people Pat Bridges Aaron Draplin. I mean the list goes on and on.
: Let me ask you this personally what do you hope to kind of extract from these interviews that can not only be shared with your audience but do you feel like you might actually be gaining some some great advice just for your own self that you didn't actually know about beforehand.
: Yeah you know the funny thing is I kind of walked into this thinking that I knew a lot about snowboarding you know I was like I got this figured out just do a podcast I've been an announcer and been involved with media. That's a natural fit. And what I realized is that like every single interview I've actually learned something about the snowboarding by just listening to different people's perspectives and how they approach the sport differently than I did.
: And so with every interview I actually learned something about the sport and it has driven me to want to do more and more and more podcasts. We're going to start out with three shows a week. We're going to go to five shows a week in about a month. You know right now I'm actually just building shows on the side doing interviews with different fascinating people. But I will start with three shows a week and then go to five shows a week because snowboarding is such a rich sport. There's so many different characters and people involved with it. I think that it deserves to have a different kind of in-depth media than just like here the pros here the tricks or the edits. Right. And so this is supposed to give you something more to listen to.
: Yeah kind of talk me just a little bit about that. Why. Why do you feel like there's a need for this kind of media in our current state of snowboarding.
: Well you know the media has kind of taken a shift recently with with social media kind of becoming a dominant form of as a media outlet. And so you know when you look at what you get from the media now it's been boiled down to a single image or a single video clip and you really don't get those in-depth interviews you don't get those in-depth stories and you don't really you know have access to kind of the stories behind the stories and so that's really what I'd like to share.
: How do you feel like this is really good. It's like differentiate from kind of our current snowboard media I guess.
: Well I'd say this is going to be a completely different number one it's audio. So there's I mean normally like snowboarding is you know very visual in terms of the media portrayal of the sport. And so that's videos that's pages and magazines traditionally maybe not as much anymore but you know this is definitely not a visual medium so I'll try to tell stories that hopefully paint a picture in your head. And the interesting thing is that like when you're listening to this you have to actually use your mind to create kind of the image of your head of what was happening and so I think that's kind of a little bit different than actually being kind of force fed visuals the entire time.
: Now there's kind of been this like I guess classic structure on how like you know the media or magazines or movies would make would make money. Just tell me just a little bit about how you plan to fund something like that.
: Ok well this is pretty interesting and for the first time ever in my career this is going to be an advertising free model. Maybe I'll accept advertising from your company I'm not sure but that's a different story right that's totally different. But note no endemic advertisers is going to be no Bourton ads it's going to be no never summer ads. This is not to play favorites this is actually just to tell the real truth behind snowboarding as I see it. Right. And this is my own impression of the sport based on my 30 years experience with it. So anyhow I'm using what's called patriae on and you go to patriae on dot com slash the snowboard project and you can donate money to this podcast and so you know you can donate two dollars you can donate you know up to a hundred dollars to become an associate producer and have a monthly consult consultation with with us and we'll tell you about you know if you want to win a gold medal or where to go in January we'll talk to you every month. You know about snowboarding or over the phone. So anyhow there's different levels. Go to patriae on dot com slash the snowboard project and donate because this is actually the first time ever in my experience that this is a media outlet that is not reliant on advertising and not beholden to those advertisers to tell those stories so we can just tell the real truth.
: Don't forget to support advertising free snowboarding media Patreon.com/thesnowboardproject and possibly slow boat projects.
: Let's just rewind just a little bit let's go let's go into kind of the history of you and media and why you know why you feel like you're someone that it has the I guess ability to tell these stories just tell me just a little about your history of snowboarding.
: Ok well I started snowboarding when I was 14 years old and I was like one of the fairly early adopters. Let's say I was on a ski vacation in Jackson Hole first time out west and I broke my skis and I was like do I Telemark or do I snowboard. And I walked into a shop and there was Chris Pappas and he rented me a board and got me set up and and gave me a lesson. And so literally from that very first day though I was like This is what I want to do with my life and I've never looked back actually like you know 32 33 years later it's like I've never actually looked back and so you know roll that forward I was a sponsored athlete for a number of years and trying to follow the stream of professional snowboarding and then I got my hands on a Transworld media kit when I was like 18 living in Breckenridge and it was like you know three or four thousand dollars in ad breakdown and I added up all the ads and a copy of Transworld and I was like they're bringing in like a half million dollars in a shoe.
: Whoa.
: Yeah that was just the advertising they had subscribers and newsstand sales I mean they were bringing in a lot of money. I was like you know what. If they can bring in this kind of money and yet the story of what we were doing we were like jibbing and doing night. We had a little bit different style than was portrayed in the magazine. So I was like you know this voice maybe has a place in snowboarding media and so I started a Xeen based on working. I lived in a two bedroom apartment with 11 dudes and two pitbulls paid about seventy five dollars a month in rent for a bed. It was like a hostel.
: And and.
: And so of like I gathered together my roommate's big brother had just come out Big Brother Magazine Issue 1 had just come out and to maybe had just come out they were looking at issue one though. And that was kind of the inspiration was to do something like Big Brother. And and so you know my roommates were all kind of sponsored athletes and we kind of gathered round I was like myself. And T.J. Liese and Chad Schnacky and a guy named I believe Joe W. was involved as well. And Pat Abramson and so those were the guys kind of contributing to. We also had you know I also live with like Rowan Rogers and Dale Rehberg and that whole crew. Nate Cole and those guys were on the road though they were already kind of famous and we were trying. We're knocking on their door basically trying to become pro riders. And so we decide we're all pretty much led the charge. But like the idea was like let's tell the story of what's going on here with these kids in Breckenridge. That is a little bit less glossy and than the traditional media that was out there.
: Sure. Now so that was the start of Player Magazine Player Magazine magazine. Tell me. OK so you took that and he took that idea and model and you went out to like what.
: Yes. We made like a thousand copies. And you know I sold ads I was like the ad sales guy as well as kind of one of the editors of one of the four editors and and we came up about I don't know. Four hundred dollars short. So we had to kick in a hundred bucks to get the thing printed and we brought to Esai a thousand copies of the magazine. And you know we had it on the cover of the first mag was Stephanie Seymour she had just been in Playboy she was like the hottest girl in the world. Totally buck naked on the cover just naked girl on the cover of the magazine. And so literally I distributed like 1000 magazines in four hours and everywhere you looked at this trade show there were people reading the magazine and it was like a hit and people were like Man you got to do more of this and so that kind of like gave me my start in the media and gave me this direction. And so I made a second copy a player and like that. The thing is though I didn't know anything about graphic design didn't know anything about printing. All I knew about was snowboarding and my raw desire to kind of like tell our story from from our perspective which was different than what was happening in the traditional media. And so that was kind of the birth of my career in media and that was like 90 to maybe something like 92 93. Yeah.
: How was it. How was it walking into. Into SIA I did you have like where you were you scared about the outcome or were you like hey this is what I'm doing and I'm gonna kick ass and you know I don't know if we really had you know I think it was probably more like how we're going to sneak in.
: Right. So it's more like worried about like how we're going to get into SIA like guess snowboarder.
: Yeah you know and like I mean we were pretty raw I had sponsors at the time still and and so you know figured out we all figured our individual path and then brought boxes of magazines or at backpacks of magazines and to start handing them out. And and you know from the first reaction I mean everyone just loved the cover. What's not to love about a naked girl on the cover of a magazine when you are 18. Right. And so. So yeah immediately like people were like the immediate reaction from the first person who saw it was like wow that's that's something different. You know and that was kind of you know an unintentional success I guess. I mean I mean the print quality the typos everything with I look back on that and it was so bad from like a you know from a professional perspective. But yet it had this raw message that was different than what was out there real cool.
: So you took that experience and you then went back to college you decided hey this is going to be my my life path. Talking about college talking about the start of East infection and what that was all about.
: Ok well I made a second issue a player and I decided to go all color because it was always about improvement. Like just like snowboarding you know you want to get better and better and better so I was like OK how do you go from a black and white Color you make a color one so I made a color one printed on an offset press I remember you know printing and the idea distribution models and shops for free. Get them out there printed 10000 of them. And and I go to pick up the magazine and the guy who's the rep from the printer is like here's the magazine man.
: Looks like you guys are having a wild time up there in the mountains and I was like yeah yeah we are totally.
: And he's like so how do you do your color correction anyway. And I was like What's color correction.
: Right because everything like every photo is just like super dark. It was like literally flat bed scanned of prints basically and photos that we took of screengrab the forehead VCR and we like pause the the VCR and take photos of the TV screen to do video grabs. We were pretty ghetto. Right we just figured out how to make it happen.
: But that's when I realized that like OK there's more to this than than just like making it happen. It's not just about the idea it's about doing it as professionally as you can. And so then I was like OK well I should probably go back to college and learn more about this you know. And I was already I already done a couple of semesters in the fall in the summer at UVM and so I went back and and switched my major from environmental studies to marketing business and I figured I'd learn the business side of magazines and I could find the people who knew about color correction and about graphic design and all the while I was like graphic designing and doing all these jobs I did basically every job at some point for the magazine. And so then I had a friend Pat Bridges who I grew up competing with. And so I talked to him about hey I you know I'm back here and going to college full time I'm going to finish this thing out and I'm going to start a Xeen here to represent East Coast snowboarding and so he came up with the name yeast infection which captured the infectious spirit of snowboarding on the East Coast at the time.
: Sounds like it. Yeah. Oh man.
: And so you know but I liked it because it was kind of like you know little bit outsider and really and like snowboarder and Transworld at that time there was no coverage of these cause you might get like four or five photos a year of like someone on the East Coast snowboarding and yet here's this vibrant scene going on every weekend every day that we could go to the mountain we were doing it and and so that's kind of the birth of East infection and then so you know my strategy with the first issue the first one was 24 pages and it was like I wanted to put as many people in that first issue as I could so I put like 130 different riders in that first issue.
: Yeah the photos were small then it was like hey you're in the magazine hey you're in the magazine hey you're in the magazine. So all the sponsored riders kind of got a little piece of that.
: And so that kind of snowballed for three years got better and better and better for three years and I learned a world about publishing and about you know about how magazines were made and also just from you know a DIY perspective as well. There was no one kind of helping us do it. We got to the point where where we had a house that we rented for the staff and so that was like Pat Bridges and Evan Rose who's like now the creative director. Burn this guy Chaka. Michael Gardzina he'll be one of my interviews as well. And so all these guys all ended up sticking with snowboarding or skateboarding and like George CavalLA was my first followed Twitter. He's at 686 today. And Herb George with my ad sales guy and and he's OSiris shoes he like runs those Cyrus. And so I see how all these people had just had this genuine passion. It was our way of like going to college and learning but also doing what we loved. And you know and really that's what this podcast is about is like taking something you love and then pouring something of yourself into it. And so that's what these stories really in this podcast are about people who can can dedicate themselves and their passion their time and their work towards their passion. So they get a little bit maybe more satisfaction out doing something you love share.
: So you were able to snowball this thing to the point where you guys had enough capital to go out and rent to rent a space where you actually did this help put you through college.
: No I mean basically they paid the rent and we had a party every Tuesday night like a keg party every Tuesday night and there are some wild stories from those parties but so the keg party funded like the magazine know the Keg Party is funded itself. But we just wanted to have a good time we were snowboarders we were still competing we were all kind of want to be sponsored riders at the time but also had the drive to do something more with snowboarding than just ride. And so it was just quite an adventure you know to have a house and all your friends and just to be able to dedicate yourself and your spare time and that's kind of when I started working these crazy hours shows going to school and getting A's and B's in school full time and also making a magazine full time. And I was doing the sales I was doing the graphic design. I was writing a little bit of the stories. Bridges was really the writer. It came naturally to him it did not come naturally to me at that time. And so really and you know it was just this like trial by fire.
: So we would make mistakes we would make big mistakes you know and then we learn from those mistakes and tried not to make them again. Right. And so then you know after I graduated college it was kind of like OK I think I have done the East Coast justice as far as like I've made three years of magazines Time to go out west because I knew that like my experiences in Colorado that it's like softer snow bigger mountains for a variety of reasons I wanted to go out west. So I actually had like job offers from both snowboarder and from Transworld and snowboarder was like Do you want to be in sales or do you want to be an editorial. And I was like well what's the difference. And they were like well the sales people make a lot more money and the editorial people get to travel everywhere. And I was like I'll be an editor. And so that's how I kind of landed in California. You know as associate editor you know packed up the the Nissan pickup truck and dragged the U-Haul trailer across the country and showed up there just totally green.
: Now to me this kind of sounds a little crazy like you're like 24 25 26 right around there. Yeah kind of just keeps coming out of school. How was it that snowboarder and Trans World and all these magazines out West had this kind of bead on you basically and said look we want Mark Sullivan to come out here. We want him to come.
: Well I mean the magazine that we are make we were going to the trade show. Bridges and I would go to the trade show and try to sell ads to potential advertisers.
: And you know we did print you know 10000 copies of each issue so they were getting out there people saw and we sent them to snowboard shops. We had a handful of subscribers you know. And so it was kind of a known quantity. And I think that maybe they recognized the fact the desire to do this you know to be a part of this industry and to you know just be a part of snowboarding at a bigger level and so you know I remember it was kind of heartbreaking that like when I got out there like like on my first day of work my boss was like Hey man you can't be sponsored anymore that's a conflict of interest so I just drop all my sponsors and I was like Oh man that's this is going to help my sponsorship opportunities and now I can become a pro somehow.
: Like I still had that dream kind of in the back of my head that I'd be a pro but it made me like really come to that decision like no you're going to be working in the industry and not a writer right. Not that I ever gave up on writing or progression and writing but like that that was going to be my path.
: Basically from then on.
: Talk to me about day one. You walked in there. Were you scared or did you walk in there with all the confidence in the world that you were just going to change this magazine.
: I was scared shitless. I mean this is like let me paint a picture for you.
: This is like an old airplane hangar divided up into cubicles with a few offices. It's the home of Surfer magazine which is like just a legendary publication that started in 1964 basically to define surf culture. And there were like all these old surfboards around and really was like a you know like where the culture of surfing live while snowboarding was just like a stepchild basically to Surfer magazine everything was a stepchild the Surfer magazine. And so you know I got in there and you know the guys from Surfer magazine were really confident and I was a guy who just literally landed in California the week before. Couple of days before and was just out of my element in every sense of the word. But I was just like you know I'm just going to try to do college try and give it my all. And so that's what I did and like. And I was an editor and I never found writing easy but I was like I'll do it so like you know I was like this guy who would like write stories like four and five times from scratch I'd write at once and then like rip it up and like you know write it from scratch again and just do that over and over and over again until the point came seven or eight years later when I could actually just pick up a pen or typewriter or whatever keyboard and write you know. But it was hard fought really to do that but I knew that my voice was legitimate as far as like I was a snowboarder and I was one of the only people who defined them. I was the only person to define themself as a snowboarder. Like at that time like that's who I was I was a snowboarder just like the surfers that Surfer magazine they were surfers and then they got into media as a byproduct of that snow.
: So snow when it was kind of being run by people that snowboarding but not necessarily snowboarders.
: Yeah I mean they were competent. They snowboarded for sure. But it's like they didn't grow up like defining themselves as snowboarders and so they you know. Good job great people. But it's like they didn't just they didn't live and die by snow. To me snowboarding mattered more than magazines right. For them it was like hey I got this great job being you know working at a magazine or whatever. And so you know and they were great people they did a good job they tried to tell these authentic stories of the pros and the people who were out there doing it.
: But it was like I came from this other place which was just like I define myself by this and if I do a good job it's a byproduct of that of that determination.
: Now you came in as an associate editor basically how you kind of work your way up and how did you get to the point where you were like You know I guess calling the shots steering the ship.
: Well it's funny. You know I almost it was almost a really short term gig. I started at 24 grand a year which is actually like so my 24 grand and like what ninety three this is like 97 when I was seven 97 I started a snowboarder. And so Neal my six month review came and I was like Man this is like a dream job I get to work with people I like could just focus on snowboarding and I kind of kind of carte blanche as far as like just going and you know being a snowboarder I can go to all these different cool places I've always dreamed about going and. And so I go in for my six month review and my boss is like OK you've done an awesome job. You know we want to promote you to senior editor and I'm like patting myself on the back like I've made it right. And so then it comes time to negotiate the salary that he offered me 26 grand. Like a two thousand dollar a year raise to take that new job title I was like look here's all my bills I actually add them up ahead of time and and actually it cost me 27 five to live here in California. It's just that cheap the rent isn't cheap.
: You know whatever. And he was like you know hey look you can take this or leave it. There's a hundred people waiting for this position. And so I literally I took a couple minutes you know to think about it but finally I was like OK OK I'll do it I'll stay on you know and basically I had to call my parents to ask them to pay for my car insurance you know because I couldn't afford car insurance. Sure. You know and so and so you know and that kind of gave me the mettle to like to be like OK I'm here for snowboarding this isn't about the money. This isn't about you know about you know rising to the top or whatever this is about the sport of snowboarding and doing a good job for it. So then the dot com boom came and. And so they're all of a sudden was like you know a land rush for people who knew media. And so I was one of those people so we're like a lot of people and so actually the bosses at snowboarder ended up going and starting their own kind of new media company that was Internet. And I don't know whatever they had like a bunch of different facets to and they tried to get me you know to go with them and I was like well wait a minute I'm the last man standing here.
: That makes me by default I hope anyway the boss and so sure enough I stayed. Everyone else left and I had this Leicht negotiation which was like based on my prior experience with negotiation and wasn't going to get run over. Sure. And I became the editor in chief of snowboarder magazine at that point and really had completely staffed the whole magazine. We didn't have an art director we didn't have a photo editor we didn't have a managing editor. We didn't have any of the people that we had to rely on. So really it was like I got to redefine the magazine. At that point and that's when Bridges kind of came out I tapped him on the shoulder you know and he came out as a senior editor and and then I hired Jeff Baker and then took a while but I found Aaron grappling because I really had this passion for design and being authentic to design and that into working out. In fact funny story about that is I actually put my job on the line to hire Aaron Draplin right.
: It's like his first job he was in college and he was just about to graduate from MCAD in Minneapolis which is like a great design school. But you know the head sales guy publisher guy was like guy you know there's just no way that a guy from college can handle. So anyhow I'm just like look back and you can fire me if this doesn't work because I was also driven like I was I saw like a piece of me in him which was like he was driven to snowboard. He was driven to great design and that's something I didn't have the great design or the background design but I knew that he wouldn't let let us down you know because he loves snowboarding enough where it's like he didn't owe it for the job he owed it for the sport and man that really that first year it kind of I would say kind of redefined magazines as far as like the look the feel the content all of it because we just had all the sudden we went from having people who snowboarded to being exclusively people who are snowboarders running the magazine. And I think that was like the first time that that really had happened as far as I know I could be wrong but as far as I know that was really like the first time that had happened and like within a couple months like we were being copied by every other publication. Most notably Transworld but it's like we made waves. You know we had a good time doing it too by the way we got the snowboard all over the place.
: Yeah really quickly just rewind a little bit. Drapin when he has just just talk a little bit about who he is and how his what his influence has been one of those guys behind the scenes that we wouldn't normally hear about but his influence has been pretty huge I guess in snowboarding.
: I would say because you know snowboarding media and snowboarding in general such a visual thing that being a great graphic designer. I mean Draplin could like literally render drawings like he could sit here and draw a picture of you that looked more or less photorealistic when he was like in fourth grade. Right. Right. So he was a prodigy of art. I would say. And then he went kind of chased his snowboard dreams in Bend Oregon and then he was like OK similar to me is like I got to get an education get some Mike backbone behind all this passion that I have. And so he went to one of the top design schools in the country. And so anyhow he became the art director of snowboarder and you know on the side he would do stuff like design boards for it or other stuff. Oh yeah. He designed the shirt and custom and I remember you know we were really jealous because he got paid 13 grand to do a single graphic.
: That's unfair. You know that's half my salary I know that so. But anyhow. But he deserved it.
: You know the thing is it's like he had a real passion and like and a background in design that would allow him to be authentic with his artwork and so he went on to do graphics for basically most of the great companies of snowboarding. And you know he was actually the art director for snowboard magazine when he started. And then he's gone on to like these great things he does speaking engagements all over the world now. Like where he talks about design he's just he's done work for Apple from Microsoft for Ford for you know Nike. I mean he's really like at the absolute top of the game right now.
: You were able to hire all your friends hire the people you wanted to excuse me hire all the people that you wanted to hire and then you know you have this crew of people just like ready to kick ass for you talking about some of those days some of those days where you guys were kind of on top of the world and on top of I guess the media world.
: Well the thing is it's like we never saw ourselves on top of the world and really it was just like a hard fought battle we all had so much passion for snowboarding it was about the ideas and so we would get into like big arguments about like what was it. Make a good cover. And we tried to take the frame of like OK this is what works on the news stand or whatever but then we would have these you know arguments that would last into the night basically about what would make good content who's a good interview and all these different kind of aspects of snowboarding and you know we put in really long hours we didn't really actually have lives outside of you know showing up at that office and none of us really wanted to I mean we were in so cal we were snowboarders by definition which is like snowboarders at the beach right. And you know we all tried to learn to surf I would say but right with you know just so so results and so basically we poured all of our effort and energy into making that magazine.
: And you're saying yeah. Ok rewind a little beg me gimme gimme like a great story one time with all those guys. You guys were you know. Give me some give me some meat.
: Ok. Something to something to think about. Let's see. Let's see. Maybe the buyer's guide that was an interesting one. So we did. You know I'd I'd basically talk to our bosses into being able to being able to go to Whistler for the season we got Whistler to donate a house to us because I was like well we got to go to the mountains right in the winter. You're not publishing magazines. You finish in like December and then that issue finished in December comes out in like February March at the end of the season. So I was like so we had like the whole winter to develop content. So instead of traveling out of SoCal we went to Whistler and our whole crew our whole staff went to Whistler sounds like heaven.
: It was heavy actually. And so we had the south we had a bunch of pros staying there instead of telling you the buyer's guide story I'll tell you. I actually made my first snowmobile story yeah. Tell me the first snowmobiles is actually a much more interesting story. Maybe so anyhow. I also talked a Yamaha into giving us some sleds to demo for the season and like that was kind of like the beginning of like the snowboarding scene. And so I was like Yamaha we'll do like a feature in our British Columbia issue that we're going to do next year and we'll do a feature on snowboarding prominently featuring Yamaha snowmobiles and so they ended up giving us like the first two Yamaha Mountain max 6 and 7 hundreds in the country of Canada. And so we go and pick them up and grapple ends up there and I'm up there. And Boston Castaic Justin Hostynek is staying with us. And you know so we're going to go out on our inaugural mission Hossan it's got his own Polaris RMK 700 with a 136 track that was like State of the art back then. And so we go out to I forgot the name of the zone. But anyhow we have to go up this thing called the S Shoot we ride out through this trail through the woods. Draplin. No problem. He's from the Midwest. He's been on sleds from MI been on sleds like around fields and stuff. We get to the bottom of this thing called the chute and friend. Yeah I mean literally it's like like a thousand vertical foot or 5 700 foot vertical foot run and then a dogleg turn in the middle of it.
: And at Hostynek it kind of looks at Me and is like you and sleds before right. And I'm like yeah totally. And like in my mind I'm like yeah I've been sleds in Vermont around fields or whatever area I've ridden snowmobiles go stop. Yeah. So he just takes off and I take off behind him maybe like 100 yards back just to kind of gauge the speed and basically just wide open pinned straight up this thing right. And literally I make it to the top my first try which is like probably miraculous in and of itself. But then we get to the top and it's like and we turn around like where's Draplin. Oh he didn't make it so Hostynek let go. Don't go get them. And I was like OK. And so I really don't know what I'm doing. And so I basically you know I go to drop in back down the chute the way I came up. And the thing like rolls away. So you're just looking at the Valley for you can't really see the issue until you're actually in. And so right when I see the slope there's strapline capsized in the middle of the run. And so I ended up just basically grabbing a fistful of break the sled goes sideways. I get pitched one way it goes the other and it just rag dolls. Bing bang bang bang bang like 700 800 vertical feet and over ass over teakettle whatever. I mean just all the way down to just pieces of plastic flying everywhere and this is a brand new like six miles on the sled slope.
: Oh yes although by the time I got down to the speedometer it was brocaded like I picked up the speedometer was pick it up. The plant didn't want to litter I had this environmental studies background Yeah. So picking up all the pieces of plastic windshield hood all the way down. And you know I pick up the speedometer or whatever and you know locked on the speedometer 15 kilometers. So I had 15 kilometers on it before I total that. And how does it break in the news Yamaha about that one. We ended up paying for the sleds we had an insurance policy and we actually ended up using them but scrapped together I think Dan Hudson like artists who's going to be on the podcast. But he actually like to work or whatever. And those Yamaha's are bulletproof bulletproof that. They were like bulletproof because after this like ass over teakettle ride just breaking off pieces of plastic in every direction. You know it still worked. So interesting though that was my first snowmobile adventure and so that's like you know part of everything it's like OK learn from your mistakes don't do that again. You know and so I never threw a sled down a hill like that ever again. But I also kind of have never really lived that but I'll own it too. You know it's like you know it's like you learn from your mistakes. And so hopefully I won't be doing that too. Now a fifteen thousand dollar sled that I actually have to pay for. Right. So that was in 2000 or 2001. We did.
: So now some of the things you were at that snowboarder those years there were some pretty fun things that kind of happened between like super parks and talk to me just about kind of some of those ideas some of those kind of innovative things that you guys ended up coming up with just as you know your crew or did you come up with those are you know I came up with a bunch of the ideas I was always a person who had to sell the ideas to the management we wanted to do something different it was up to me to be like this is what we're doing and they'd be like No.
: That takes more work for me and then be like this is what we're doing this is what's right for snowboarding and I would just like fight tooth and nail to do what I thought was like good reason why I probably wasn't an easy person to have as an employee because I was like I was just really determined to do what was right in my mind for snowboarding based on my prior experience and mistakes I had made prior to that. So you know we but we came up with theme issues we had columns for guys like Peter line and Todd Richards and you know then those were just based on influences from other magazines I was always a magazine person. So like Racer X was a motocross Mango's into motocross and they would have a column by a racer and I was like we should have columns by pro snowboarders. And so you know that was something that we did. And you know the buyer's guide as well it's like we used to go out and shoot the buyer's guide at the trade show. We'd like literally go ten miles a day back and forth pulling boards and boots and bindings and photos shooting them in a photo studio and then we came up with it well basically I came up with this idea to basically take the influences like the Japanese buyers guides that were going on and apply it to America and so it turned and my boss once again was like No you can't do that. That's like that's going to take way more work for me and I was like we're going to do it this way or you could find someone else to do it. And there's the you know not being agreeable partner. So anyhow it turned like eighty thousand dollar cost into a four hundred thousand dollar a year gain in fact they still do that same buyers guide to this day. They've made millions of dollars on a single idea. I put my job on the line to do.
: Hey how crazy is that. But if you are a product and in the buyer's guide you know that's the way it's done sell.
: Now you are a snowboarder living in so cow it's kind of weighing in on you a little bit right. Talk to me just a little bit about kind of the decision maybe too. I mean it had to have been a hard decision. At the same time to just say like leave snowboarder Magazine.
: Yeah I mean it was a couple of factors really in that. So bridges had a blown out knee and he wasn't getting it fixed. And so I basically put a carrot on a stick form which is like bridges you get your knee fixed and you can like start really progressing your riding again gangs. We grew up riding competing against each other and all this stuff and he wasn't. He was still riding but not really like progressing right. And so that was kind of in a holding pattern. And so I was like you know Bridges if you get your knee fixed I'll go find a job in the mountains because I don't like so cow I don't want to be here and I'll go find a job in the Malon so it took about a year and he got his knee fixed it was the right carrot on a stick I suppose. And and so I found a job in Sun Valley Idaho or Ketchum Idaho as the international marketing director Prisca.
: And that was a great job for me because at least the first because it's like blended my two passions which were motocross and snowboarding skiing I could tolerate. But you know it just took my two passions and allowed me to kind of progress into a marketing role and I became like the international marketing director and I go to Switzerland like once a month and you know and then we started doing bikes and I wasn't like a bike guy per se and so you know it was cool to have like a tour de France team riding your bikes or whatever as the marketing guy. But it's like it just wasn't my thing. So. So you know at a certain point I decide to start snowboard magazine to get back into the snowboarding media. Did you ever get to go to the Tour de France really quick. No no no. I had actually no interest in the bike at that time. I smoke cigarettes right. And so like literally I go to these bike events and like I get up at like six thirty in the morning for like an 8 call time let's say I go smoke like three cigarettes in a row behind the dumpster and then I jump in the shower clean up like not smell like smoke. Do that until like 9 or 10 at night. Right over till like the company dinner wrapped up and then go sneak out to the dumpster and smoke five more cigarettes and go to bed. Right. And like that was like that. I mean I was addicted to nicotine right. And so like that was something that was like Man this is really interfering with my lifestyle you know and I don't want to be I wanted to be politically correct and smelling like cigarettes at a big bike event. Actually it doesn't cut it. Sure. Right. And so. So that was kind of one of the things like the addiction to cigarettes was more powerful than the addiction to my job. OK that tells you house how you know how powerful they are you know.
: And it's been hard to quit but I have so that's a good thing.
: So in turn you decided then to OK I'm going to go and start snowboarder or exceeding snowboard magazine and and talk to me just about the idea behind that and maybe just the different model of how that came about and how you structured it I guess it was different than most everywhere else.
: Well you know being a marketing person it was like I wanted to be like three different approaches in marketing you can be the leader low cost provider are differentiated. And so for me it was like we're going to be different on every level. And that doesn't mean just the content. That means that paper stock the distribution method the way we sell our ads will be different. Everything was to be different. Right. And so it also was like the first family friendly magazine as far as like we didn't print swear words you know and then we took a different focus on product and that was kind of the editorial vision was to integrate product a little bit more and I remember this phone call I had some of the best business advice I actually ever got was from Ken Block when I was trying to sell him spreads in every issue you know and it's just like I put together the team drap Blinn and Jeff Baker I had as the editor and and just put together a team of people who who were trustworthy in the industry known quantities right. So we weren't just like like kids in college making a zeen. And you know Ken Block who started D.C. She was like well what's the magazine. What's the mag about. And I gave him this.
: You know it's going to be dead.
: And I like went on for like two minutes about how radical and game changing it would be. And he was like That's great. Now say that in five words. And I was like oh shit hog and let me get back to you. And he's like OK. So I call him back two weeks later and I was like snowboard magazine products places and personalities he's like sold. And he bought spreads in every issue from that. Yeah it was like a big contract and we got good advertising you know. I mean basically like went from like zero to one point three million dollars in sales in a single year. Wow. You know so it was like a runaway success because of that idea of being differentiated in every way you know the distribution model. We sent the magazines to to shops right to support their culture and the culture of snowboarding at the grassroots level so it was like I'm not going to deal with your traditional return model where you have one person sitting there counting how many magazines got returned every month instead. You keep the magazines give me away for free with someone who purchases something or or sell them for the cover price if someone wants to buy it. And you keep all the money. Right. And so I figured you know I'd sent 40 copies per magazine to every shop in the country and I figured Zumiez got actually more in way more. But but I figured hey you can't make 40 sales in a month than than what are you doing in business though right. So anyhow that was like the the distribution model and that was different you know and then drew aplan had like a really clean take on design we upgrade the paper stock. I mean like a snowboarder it was always about like just getting away with the cheapest dentist this paper that we could get away with. So I was like Let's go the opposite direction and make it on the nicest paper we can afford. Sure. Right. So that was that was a pretty crazy time.
: I would say now you guys weren't just sitting in an abandoned aircraft hangar.
: No you guys were where were you guys when you were doing this. We were actually all over the country basically Draplin was in Portland. Baker was in Seattle I was in Sun Valley or catch him still and and then we would come together. We'd all kind of do our separate parts.
: We had a sales guy in Southern California Gary and that was kind of the initial team and so then we do our separate things and be on the phone every single day with everybody and then we came together to put that magazine together the first issue it Dragonlance house. And so we all kind of our pieces together and and then put together that first issue and then that was kind of our model is like we'd go our separate ways and then gather you know in the fall for a week a month or took a week to lay it out or whatever and then we'd all gather and put the magazine together.
: Now what was it what was the first issue about what was the big thing you were I mean you were I guess the splash into the back into into a magazine.
: You know I think it was just like the fact that it was differentiated at every level and I could look someone straight in the eye and be like not only does it look better in his eyes like this authentic voice or whatever but it covers products proxy you have you know that you're trying to sell and so like because I was an editor and a salesperson you know it was like really about kind of breaking down this thing of like church and state which I was always going to be authentic to snowboarding but to idea that the editorial and the advertising weren't related it was something I threw out the window at that point in time because it was like well we can do both. It's like in our photo gallery it's like we'd have captions that listed every product in the photo and the price of that product. So you can be like oh here's a shot of like Peter Line doing a jump and he's on the Division 23 Peter Line for ninety nine and he's got 32 boots.
: And so like it was just like this idea that like we could not it wasn't selling out to me at all to do it that way. To me it was just being giving more information in a different kind of information to the actual consumers you know.
: Now what was the reaction from from the consumers what was the reaction I guess from shops that kind of stuff maybe in comparison to other magazines that they had.
: Well based on those sales that we that I talked about it was a hit immediately right. You know and it was just different and it was quality and I just had a totally new voice compared to like Trans World and snowboarded were so close in terms of design terms of content in terms of direction. But this was something totally different you know. And so I think that it immediately got a place and then you know because of our distribution model I was able to go sell ads at the trade show and be like to any advertiser just like ask any shop in the world what their favorite magazine is. And it was always Armagh because I was giving them magazines for free and they were selling them keeping the money right. And so I think we put it like about a million dollars a year into retail. Like a million dollars a year directly into snowboard shops pockets of time. So yeah it was I felt pretty good about that
: Don't forget to support advertising for snowboarding media ads http://Patreon.com/thesnowboardproject the snowboard project the solid gold project.
: Let me just shift a little bit let me ask you a little bit about your I guess career as an announcer as someone that I always kind of did events. Talk to me just a little bit about how you first got into it and maybe kind of some of those early years doing events.
: Well I became an announcer kind of by accident. I would say I was at a event. I think this was even prior to working at Snowboarder. I was at an event and the guy who was announcing the event was like the father of one of the kids and he was like oh and Jimmy and Johnny they like going now on Saturday night.
: And he was just telling these personal stories had nothing to do with the the writing that was going on in the contest. And so basically I snatched the mike out of his hand was like that's a five 40. That is a make twist twist. Right. And I just started calling Trex because they weren't you know calling the tricks and I was like sponsored snowboarder at that time. And you know I was like that was what was important to me was just being able to call the tricks. And so I did that and then and then I guess that went well enough that I got tapped on the shoulder by this guy Jeremy forester who was kind of coordinating the Grand Prix series and basically my second announcing gig was like announcing the grand prix series and I've done it ever since.
: So about 20 years of announcing Grand Prix just based on just being pissed off at this announcer you know just not calling trick or not knowing even what the tricks were you know. And yeah. And so then I got to announce the Olympics. That was quite a rush. And now I've also gotten into doing TV stuff I've done this past Olympics I worked for Euro Sport and interviewed all the medalists right after they won their medals which was really rewarding at least as far as like I learned a lot.
: And I mean you're interviewing people that rate at the pinnacle of their lives they're going to look back on that 30 50 years from now and be like that was the best day ever. You know and there I am getting ready to ask them questions I did after like 60 different people. I did for free skiing and snowboarding and so you know I've learned that free skiing and snowboarding are are they have the same blood sweat and tears that go into both pursuits and sort of win a gold medal and free skiing or snowboarding takes the same kind of dedication and effort. So I have an appreciation for that for sure. Did you get did you get Ester Ledeka. Oh I did. Oh yeah I got it carried an interview with her. I'll actually posted behind our patriae on firewall. Yeah. Because I have like little behind the scenes stuff videos and stuff that I post behind the scenes so people who actually donate to the podcast make it happen will get unique content and things you wouldn't actually get as part of a free podcast. I'm also going to give away like I have a whole ton of snowboard historical items that I'm sick of carting around just about through the rearview mirror or out the window a while ago and I'm sick carding so I'll say you're going to give away everything that's in your apartment. Just like slowly over time. Oh more than that to my apartment. I'm probably about a hundred boards I'm going to give away and I'm just going to and I have like a trophy from the U.S. Open. And Danny Cas's original avalanche beacon all sorts of weird random stuff. You know that I've collected over the years and then carted around for 30 years and it's like you know what I don't need to live in the past young and live in the future. And so you know with Alaska it's like I'm still progressing. I still have my Alaska thing going on and so that to me is like the future. And so all I'll just look forward instead of back.
: Sure. Let's take it back a little bit. Talk to me just about like a in the announcing side of things. You know what is. What have you found have been the real keys to being I guess a successful announcer.
: At first it was just getting over the nervousness like I mean the first time you pick up a mike and you're sitting there and there's a crowd of people here and you hear your voice kind of squeak through the speakers or whatever people like on a crane their neck and turn around to see who's talking right. It's really you feel like the spotlight really burning through you and that was always for years. That was like the hardest thing was like the first minute of announcing every event I would kind of dread that first minute just like and then it just got to the point where I was comfortable with it and I could just just pick up the mike and talk you know to an audience or a crowd or whatever and then speak with confidence you know. And then beyond that have insights and then beyond that not only have like unique insights but also make those insights relatable to people who didn't necessarily understand what was happening as far as the tricks go in trying to explain things that a more basic level you know. And so you know it's always been this idea of progression not to SWID like magazines media or snowboarding but also with announcing so I've tried to you know develop tonality and and the ability to build a story to completion. And right now I'm doing well I'm not going to tell you what I do now because I have this whole thing that that I can now create a storyline that ties together from the beginning to the end of an event. Sure. Right. And so that's got a beginning a middle and an end. Whether they know the writers are doing it or not like I can create that beginning middle and end just by announcing. Sure. So those are some of the things that I'm always trying to push forward. You know.
: Yeah and you also do your homework. You go to that you go to the half pipe and you watch them all you know.
: Yeah that's like one of the most important things is just studying and knowing what's going to happen before it happens or having a good idea you don't know exactly what's going to happen if someone's going to crash or if someone's going to land that trick or they're even going to try the track. But there's a narrative that you can build before the event even begins. And so now these days anyway I've gotten to the point where I'm taking notes and studying and I'm writing intros for the beginning of the show and stuff like that where it's like I'd really try to make a genuine effort to to just make it a better experience for the people standing there watching and not just calling tricks I mean I did that for years like 15 years or 10 years of just calling Trick Trick Trick Trick Trick Trick.
: Wow great Ron Vrain you know. Or will that be enough. Will it be enough. You know it's like the story now is much deeper than that.
: Sure. Announcer Cher Yeah it's it's it's difficult being up there right and and like missing like a trick or announcing the wrong thing.
: Yeah. And you know it's like I've done that for years I've announced wrong things and I've been called out on it and occasionally you can't really pay attention to everything that's going on at once. I mean you got one set of eyes you got to start list and that's about it. And a microphone. And so you know in your notes and so like if you look down and then you forget the writer's regular goofy and then they're going backwards across the flat bottom not forwards to a different track and so you can call it wrong very easily just by like a simple lapse of concentration as far as those tricks go. And so yeah you're not going to always get it right and it's in Italian or you don't see something you know. I'll just try to say something that gives people a general appreciation for the effort that it takes to do something like that like I didn't see the trick. You'll see that I don't like try to call it or make it up or whatever else I'll try to give some people an appreciation of like how they departed Dilip where the tail came down at the landing and how they built their speed for the next hit or whatever you know and so when I get general it's because I'm not like really focused on the detail of the trick.
: It's hard you know.
: Have you ever been just like lambasted at the bottom of the hill by a bias no one had thought while you could you're calling of that track really cost them something not by writers I mean the thing is when I first started announcing I was like really raw and probably one of my best learning experiences actually happened announcing a Grand Prix was probably my first year.
: I know it's probably my second year announcing grand prize I was working at snowboarder and so I was just like I feel like I pretty much was on top of the world or whatever I knew what I was talking about anyway they validated it through giving me a job in the media and this girl drops and this was pretty early in the progression of women's writing not like it is today but this girl drops in and she double frontside hits like that meaning that she goes up she isn't even clear lit by the way she goes up knows like a turn inside the transition that goes and does like a turn topside turn on the flat bottom. She doesn't even attempt backside and that does another turn on the transition or whatever and so I just tore her apart. I was like oh accosts your dad like you know 150 dollars for the entry fee and 200 dollars for hotel rooms and the cost of gas to get here was 200 dollars and so what you're telling me is you just your dad just spent like 50 dollars a second for you to compete in this event. And she broke down crying. I just tore her apart and so my boss who probably should've fired me at the time but didn't then instead he goes you know I always respect him for this he took me aside just like that girl over there.
: Yeah Yassir is like that's the girl you just announced that like I know I know I saw our high announced it and he was like see what she's doing right now and I'm like take a good look oh she's crying he's like how does that make you feel. And I was like not very good actually right.
: And so then from then on I was able to kind of try to find positive and everyone's writing share right even if they were riding while I would find something positive to say about them. And you know sometimes you could tell the superficiality of the positive Nasserite I mean if I give you some really dumb compliment it's probably because it's not that impressive you know. But but now nowadays it's like at the Grand Prix level those riders all rip. No one's really rain like doesn't deserve to be there but to me anyway that girl didn't deserve to be in a quote unquote world class competition. She should cut her teeth in like a regional event first instead of trying to make the Olympic team with a bottom turn share. You know so. So anyhow though it's like a learning experience all along the way I've had these learning experiences through snowboarding and snowboarding has been that vehicle I guess that's the purpose of this podcast really is like to share some of the lessons learned through people's experiences in the sport. And so I've had a lot of experience.
: I thought I knew a lot about snowboarding but really interviewing the different people that I've been interviewing has really been an eye opening experience as far as like they all have different perspectives and different experiences and also you know talking to a sales manager or you know or like a guy who who is there in the beginning of the sport it's like they have different lessons they've taken different things away from the sport of snowboarding and yet it's all this one thing. And so you know to me it's not just about what is marketable like if you buy an ad page you are worth talking about in the magazine or something along those lines. To me those aren't the stories that are actually the most compelling ones in the sport. So hopefully this podcast can can kind of illuminates some of that stuff and hopefully it's good enough that you're going to want to support it through our patriae on page patriarch Dom slash the snowboard project. Please support this effort. I'd love to continue doing this I'm learning so much and enjoying sharing it with everyone.
: Suli I just want to ask you like let's talk about Alaska and why Alaska is why Alaska is important to you. And they may be kind of the early days of tailgate.
: Ok well Alaska is the most important thing to me in snowboarding today because when I first got there it's like 1998 99. It was basically like from the very first run the best run I had ever done by far hands down. Nothing even came close. And everyone got better and better from that very first run. And so it was like just mind melting right. The quality of the powder or the open terrain you know and the challenge that you felt like you know I was always built up in those TV movies like you could die you know and so it's like you have this fear and then all of a sudden soon as you drop in you know it goes. It transforms to elation. You know the incredible powder and whatever and so the pendulum swing from fear to elation happens in Alaska like nowhere else for me. And so you know I went back to Alaska a number times I was the editor snowboarder at the time so I could assign myself whatever stories I wanted to so I happened to write the Alaska stories because I wanted to keep going back and you know and then when I sold snowboard magazine built that up and then sold it.
: I wanted to do something nice I you know I had some money but it wasn't like you know the few money that some people get when they sell a company I just had like a little bit of money to throw around. So was I going to go on the best snowboard vacation of my life and so I went on a weeklong healthy trip with my buddy who was like the deejay of like all the snowboarding events I was announcing like the U.S. Open.
: And I was sitting there at the U.S. Open is like hey I'm going to go to Alaska. I sold them and going to Alaska is like I'd go. Oh perfect that I will go by myself. And I didn't think he was going to do it but he ended up like call me up weekly or like OK what's the deal with Alaska let's do this.
: So we ended up going to Alaska and we spent like a week helli boarding at this place called a B.A. and it's actually like where tailgate started and. And so it was basically like the whole scene in Alaska was about 20 people at that time. It's like away 070 and and it was just the Mack dog crew.
: A handful of French guys and then me and my buddy and we were like the only ones there who were like vacationing the French guys were like making a movie. MacDawg crew is like DCP and Yussi Oksanen and Andreas Wiig and those guys were filming the Mack dog movie. And so we would just hang out and all the downtimes.
: Right. And so I'm driving back from from that trip. And on the drive between you know baldies in Anchorage I was like Man I got to figure out a way to share this with more people. And that's where tailgate Alaska was born. So really it was just this thing where it was like the idea of sharing Alaska with more people and promoting that ultimate experience and you know getting people to slay their own personal dragons of fear to face your fear and overcome it. And I think everyone has that experience whether you're a pro or whether you're a guy from the east coast who's never ridden too much powder. It's like you can have that experience where you will face your fear. You don't have a choice. You're going to be scared and you have to face and overcome that to ride Alaska and so to me it's like this anybody can go there and ride.
: First of all it's only so challenging having the perfect conditions. You know you're not challenging yourself with difficult conditions you're challenging yourself with perfect conditions and the terrain is the challenger and the mountains are as big as challenging as you want to be and so you start at one level and just every run you can step up a little bit more and so that to me still happens I still challenge myself every year. And you know in the last decade it's kind of transformed from helicopter access to snowmobile access and that's just a natural progression with the technology of snowmobiles. Sure and but man every single year I'm in my 40s now I get better every year as a snowboarder I never gave up on this dream of progression in snowboarding and in the rest of my life and so snowboarding as it were are. Alaska is where that happens still you know.
: Yeah. So I was I was lucky enough to go with you on year number one how when we just hopped in the van and we went up there kind of what were the. You know like you were saying like only Mac dog were there and a handful of small people and I remember excuse me a small handful of people and then they were very like wealthy skiers. You know that's kind of what I remember being there. Yeah.
: That was the first that was a year after year after year thing my dog thing right. And that was a year after but yeah I mean basically it would cost. You know I don't know like a more than a thousand dollars a day to go skiing and so really not everyone can afford to go five or seven or 10 days the skiing you know. And so the idea would tailgate was to make like this Alec carte menu of options where people it could be affordable for people so you can sled you can skin you can you can take the helicopter for a day. You can just try all these different experiences in the ultimate mountains in ultimate snow conditions. And that is kind of the idea.
: Who were the people that were and that ended up showing up at these things and were the people you intended to attract.
: Well you know I mean I didn't know who I was just trying to share it with more people and really my friend network. It was like the idea was like to bring my friends and share those experiences with them that I had you know at first there a lot of pros who would come and and also my personal friends I grew up riding with people who had dedicated themselves to the sport.
: And then you know it evolved to this thing just through marketing and putting it out there that it was basically a majority of recreational people just average Joes from everywhere around the world. I mean 25 countries we've had people from a tailgate.
: And so you know everything from from Croatia you know the lot of Australians Japanese all over Europe you know Scandinavia you know and like upstate New York New York City you know we have people from the East Coast from the Midwest from the West Coast we got a guy from Chicago a couple of guys from Chicago come. And so it really you know the idea is is that anybody can ride those mounds and it's like you see what they show in the movies is like the most challenging stuff like the stuff that's like death defying. Right. But the thing is it's like 70 percent of the brain is intermediate. So anyone can write it it's just like intermediate train with perfect conditions. I mean you wrote what was your experience riding in Alaska like.
: I mean I was scared to death on a number of occasions I think year one. I think I you know I'm the son of a pastor. I probably hadn't been to church in like 10 years and I was like praying every time I got on the snowmobile that I wasn't going to die. But you know I didn't I didn't. You know. And there were definitely times where I was afraid when we were hiking up to the top of kind of like saddles to shoot something or you know like and different instances but mostly it was really fun like I you know I was perfectly fine. And I didn't think the actual terrain was all that challenging. But then again I've been snowboarding like as long as I could remember you know. And so it's like it wasn't it wasn't terribly hard but yes always always exciting always fun being there. Yeah there is always this level of like I guess being fearful of what might happen. And then I was always very happy when I would leave and I wouldn't I shouldn't say I would. I was happy when I left I was just happy to be in one piece when left because it kind of always held that like fear I guess for me you know but it was a great experience being a tailgate. I think the people that you met in the parking lot and the people that you ended up in the car with are you know taking a Halle lap with doubling up with all became really fast friends and definitely people that I still keep in touch with. Yeah.
: To this day you know so you know and the thing is it's like you're going to this like remote location you're out there and basically because everyone has to look out for everyone else's life hey if someone gets in an avalanche you're the one with the Beacon who's going to go find them right and probe and all that stuff. And so the idea is this is like basically you become instant friends because it's like hey I'm looking out for your life you're looking out for my life so we might as well be friends you know. And so here's to that and so you know it's going to continue. And luckily I made it through more than ten years of tailgates and it's going to continue I'm not going to run any more because it just like honestly it was probably a little bit too much stress. I have 500 people who could all Tench them like the barrier to entry is like you have to be willing to die doing what you love. Right. And so to have 500 people on your watch every year or close to that amount. And every year is different. But it's like it's actually kind of stressful. And and so I feel like this whole new lease on life not having that stress. And you know and also I have a lot of respect for Dustin Dustin James who's running it now a guy who basically sat on my couch for a year to learn all the ins and outs of tailgate and you know forced mentorship but he's running it now and it's in good hands and so it will continue until people will still be able to have that experience in Alaska and really you know the ultimate snowboarding experience for me.
: Sure. So sleeping on your couch basically leads to great things like bridges became the editor of snowboarder snowboarder and Justin took over tailgate. So can I come sleep on your couch.
: I'm trying to live by myself.
: Try to get that figured out. Anyway OK so I tailgate that kind of thing. Now we're on it now we're onto this. You know. Yeah. And then it's kind of like this new this new thing for a kind of what what where do you foresee this kind of going and why why and why this why now. You know.
: Well I mean I think that you know just the really it's because the existing me isn't telling the story of snowboarding to me it's not connecting with me anymore I'm still a snowboarder still to find myself that way. It's just that the conventional media doesn't fill that need in me for knowledge about the sport. And so I really got to the point where I was like OK I'm going to have to leave snowboarding and do something else and then I came back across this idea of like you know using snowboarding as a vehicle to to improve your own life outside of snowboarding and to have these experiences and to really use it as a tool of self-improvement. And then I was like OK that actually is something that I could you know spend a lot of time doing because there actually are some really interesting stories you know. And honestly the more I dig into it the more people I have to talk to the more curiosity I have about what I didn't know about snowboarding and. And so I think that there's basically an unlimited amount of people who've really dedicated some of their passion to the sport. So it's going to be told without advertising as an influence by the way it's like that's one of the most important things to me. For the first time ever I've created a new kind of media in that I'm not going to be looking over my shoulder to see what the advertisers thought of my last product. It's like I don't care what you think this is what I see snowboarding to be. You're welcome to make your own podcast if you disagree. I'm going to do this and put the story out there and hopefully people like it share.
: So we're going to hear things we're going to we're going to just really dive deep into the dirt and hear about you know all kinds of I guess things.
: Yeah. I mean nothing's off limits really. That's the thing. It's like there's I've already done a bunch of interviews for this and you know people talk about drug addiction with snowboarders and they talk about the ups and downs and like you know and people who got passed over and then also people who have had just like amazing success all the way across the boards with snowboarding. And so it's kind of like this whole you know I mean snowboarding is like life. It's like there's upstairs downstairs unexpected turns. There's cliffs we didn't expect to encounter below you you have to Landen. And so yeah I mean snowboarding to me is life and so I'm trying to connect those dots.
: All right. So again just let us know how how how do we support this kind of I guess open media the year that you are creating here.
Ok so basically we're doing it through patreon.com/thesnowboardproject you go there. There's like different levels that you can contribute to starting with I believe at the lowest level will be two dollars a month. Right. And that will get you you know that will allow us to make 20 shows a month 20 shows this isn't like a once a week thing I'm talking about five days a week. There's that many stories.
So we start out and there's like eight people like five shows on the course like 16 bucks.
You know it actually costs much more than investing in this stuff. I think it's a worthy endeavor you know and honestly it's like yeah I'm going into the hole to make this. But it's worth it because it's like I haven't heard these stories I'm progressing myself and you know and the thing is like OK Michel right there there's the barrier to entry to support it but then there's all different levels. You know and they'll also be a firewall so you do contribute that will be unique content behind this firewall and then I'm going to be giving away a bunch of snowboarding history stuff as well to those people who support on patriarchy. So patreon.com/thesnowboardproject you can find us also on Instagram. The snowboard project Twitter the snowboard project we're going have a Facebook page a snowboard project. It's all kind of slash the snowboard project. We kind of got a corner on all that. It's actually a domain I've owned for like 12 years. And and it's is the right time to turn the key.
: Well anything else we should leave the the listening audience with I guess before we take off.
: Well we're going to start out with the three shows a week right. That's just to build our initial audience actually we could do five shows right out of the gate. But it's like if there's five people listening to I want to spend all this money and all this effort on just cranking out these shows so there will be five shows a week from Monday through Friday and this will be all long form unedited more or less. You know just to try to tell these these whole stories instead of having this really well put together thing hopefully our audio is OK and it will improve. You'll you'll hear some bad audio and some of the interviews we're working on that. Trust me. You know there's always room for improvement but the ideas is out. We're going to tell the stories behind the stories you know. So get ready. All right. Strap in and get ready. Drop the next. Announcer. All right. So anyhow this will be a lot of fun though. We're going to and here's the thing that I hope that everyone will learn something by this and maybe take a little piece of it to their own lives outside of the snow.
: All right. Well I'm excited to hear what we have next. And yeah. I do want to end these things. What do we do
: Like take action. All right. Signing off from the snow wear project episode one said ever. Why are we going to have a lot of episodes coming up here.
: On behalf of Mark and the Beav. Thanks for listening to the snowboarder remember right fast take charge and take action. And for God's sake don't forget to support advertising for snowboarding media at patreon.com/thesnowboardproject
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