How long have you been building skate parks for?

Professionally I’ve been building parks since 2014. But I’ve been building ramps literally since I started skating, in my driveway, in my basement, and throughout the streets. But the first time I got paid to build ramps was in 2014, going on 6 years.

What was the first thing you ever made to skate ?

I started skating in 2001, and the first ramps I ever built were probably within the first year of skating. I made ramps in my Moms driveway. I had a full setup in my driveway. That was the first thing I ever built and that was all out wood, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing at all. Just going off intuition. I was just screwing shit together. The first concrete I ever poured, probably some shit back in Jersey. We had a little ditch in Ewing, NJ. That OG ditch that was skated for a couple generations before I ever touched it. Me and the boys built a little quarter pipe extension in the ditch. There was this other little foundation spot around the way where we built a little ledge and kicker ramp at. My homie Bobby kickflip back tailed the ledge, first try ever. I won’t ever forget that.

You seem to have a thing for concrete? Why is that your favorite material to work with?

For sure. I’m addicted. It’s my strongest addiction. I want to mix it up any second, anywhere, for any application. I like it because it’s malleable like clay. You can make shapes that you can’t even compute with math. I love how it’s a time sensitive material. Whether your mixing up bags or  concrete from a truck, there’s a chemical reaction happening. You get one shot to do it and you gotta be on it. There’s no time to take a lunch break, and think about it. You can’t say ‘I’m over it we’re gonna pick up where we left off and do it tomorrow’. It’s a pretty exhilarating thing. You got one shot to do it and you gotta make it the best you can every time you do it. And that’s what we do. 

Most common way to blow it making a DIY spot?

Not doing it. It doesn’t really take too much brain power or effort to build a DIY spot you just have to do it. You just have to go and do it. That’s the beauty of building DIY or anything really, you gotta think of something you want, you gotta go out there and do it. You gotta realize there’s gonna be a lot shit that’s gonna get in the way. You gotta go to Home Depot, you gotta get the concrete. You might have to go to Home Depot three times in a day round tripping just to get all the concrete cause you can’t put it all in your Ford Ranger at once. Then you gotta get all the water… You can’t really blow it at making a DIY besides just talking about it. Say less, do more. Everything’s fun to skate. Anything is fun to skate. But it ain’t fun to skate if you’re just talking about it. You gotta get out there, you get that water, get that concrete, bring a couple shovels whatever. You just gotta do it.

Have you made more skate spots or skate parks?

Definitely skate parks. I’ve always wanted to keep an ongoing list of how many parks I’ve built but it’s tough because what do you define building a park? I’ve worked on projects where I came in and I worked on it for three days, or two weeks, or the entire thing from start to finish.

I know Uzi is keeping track, he’s trying to hit 100.

If I had to make a genuine guess as to how many parks I’ve helped work on, because that kinda encompasses it all. I would say I’m probably on my way to fifty.

One thing you’ve learned from Rez?

I’d say one thing I’ve learned is that when people love you, you can then you can love everything and you can love everything about life. This dog is lucky, he came from nothing literally and he’s just got so much love and he’s reciprocated every ounce of love that he’s got. I watch my dog get so much love from people and then he’ll give that love right back to the people loving him. But if he wasn’t getting all that love from people maybe he wouldn’t be this super awesome loving dog. You give people love and they can reciprocate that love back through the world.

How does building skate parks affect how you think about skating, and how much you do it?

I feel like skating and your relationship with skating is ever changing. Everyone’s different. But as a young kid all I wanted to do was skate. I overlooked many things other kids were concerned with just to skate. Just so fucking infatuated with skating. All I wanted to do was skate, get clips, and get photos. I think about this a lot because skating no matter how you want to think about it, is in a way a selfish activity. Only one human can stand on a skateboard. When your standing on a skateboard it’s all about you, and that’s the way it should be. Of course you’re out there with your homies and that’s the communal aspect of it. But when you really break it down it’s kind of self centered activity in a way compared to a sports team where everyone’s contributing towards the same goal. So right out the gate, starting to build parks that totally flipped my thoughts about skating cause I feel like I finally found a way to make skating very much a communal thing or a community based thing. So as a kid I was more concerned with skateboarding for myself, but to me that’s kind of a closed minded way to look at skating. I want to grow skateboarding everywhere and give everyone a chance to do it. So through the parks that’s the best way I can do it. I just want to spread skating through these parks. As far as how it affects your skating or how much you skate, it’s like anything. You can’t skate if you’re not standing on a board, and building parks doesn’t always involve standing on a board. Yea, you can skate the park when your done, but its manual labor. We build parks and skate em when we’re done, or as soon as they are skateable, the first quarter pipe with some flat to carve, or skate the bowl with no flat. But honestly I feel like I skate everyday, even though that’s not the case. Now days skating is more about what you contribute to it as a whole, to me. I finally found something in my life where the feeling is equal, or more compared to actually riding the board. It’s transferable. When I’m on the job site pounding a stake into the ground to build a skatepark that’s me landing the dopest trick. All I do every single fuckin day is skating. Every last thing in my life on a daily basis is for skating, or skateparks. There’s nothing I do that’s not about skating.