What’s going on Tyler, what’re you doing today?

Just early morning hype, watching a few skate videos. I got work at 4pm so probably gonna do a little lurking and a little skating before then. 

Nice, so how old are you and where are you?

I am 33, and I live in San Diego, California. I was born and raised here. 

Tell me about your work.

Yeah, I work at Hodad’s, a burger joint in Ocean Beach and it’s been around for at least thirty years now. It’s mom and pop owned and they’ve always been down with the skate scene and skateboarders. Some pretty epic skaters have worked there back in the day including Neil Heddings. A lot of skaters always roll through. I wanna say like 80% of the people that work there can do a treflip or a kickflip.

So what is it about pools?

The adventure, the lurking, the unknown, just all of it. When I was younger and I first got introduced to it, I was just blown away. Anybody can go to your average skatepark, which is sick, I love that, but just having to put in so much more work for your spot makes you enjoy it that much more. And when you’re there with just you and your homies it’s that much more gratifying. I’m also into the new aspect of it. I’m always trying to skate new things. I also feel like that keeps your fire lit, the fact that every pool you find is completely unique, even if they’re the same shape they can be so different. 

Are you super knowledgeable of all the different types and names for them and stuff like that?

Yeah, there are names. I guess you could say I’m knowledgeable at this point. I’ve just kinda learned from all my predecessors. Texas Dan is an old legend that kind of came up with names for coping back in the day. Like pool deck, and lady finger, so yeah there’s always weird terminology that’s specific to the pool skating niche. 

How long have you been hopping fences?

Since my early twenties at this point. I’ve been doing it for a little over ten years. I came onto it a little later in the game than a lot of my homies. A lot of my homies stumbled upon their first pool when they were a teenager but pool skating is a little bit different. You either have to be introduced to it or stumble upon it organically. It’s a little different than going to your skatepark and figuring out how to skate. 

Does your crew ever skate street?

Oh absolutely. I love street, that’s fucking roots ya know. I’ll skate anything, I love slappies, hill bombs, fucking huck it down a stair set still. But in reality, if I had the choice laid out in front of me I’d be like, oh shit let’s go to this new pool. 

How do you find new pools? What techniques do you usually use?

Pretty much every scenario in existence has applied to finding pools. Obviously with technology these days like Google Maps and stuff, that’s made it a lot easier. But some of the best stories I have about finding pools are I’m on my way to the grocery store or I’m just cruising down a street. Just in that moment I’m like oh shit and see through the crack in the fence an empty pool, or “That house looks abandoned right there. Oh dang there’s a pool back there!” And always through word of mouth. The pool skating scene is a crazy underground network. Your homie finds a pool in the next county over and hits you up about it and you do the same thing when you find your pool.

And, that’s offline right? Like you’re not blowing up spots on Instragram and stuff? 

Yeah, I mean like I said the internet has changed it a little bit more these days and online networking definitely exists. And I’m grateful for that. I’ve met some fucking rad people on the internet that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Like homies in New York, and completely random other places that I wouldn’t have expected there to be pools. We network and get shit going. But more or less it’s like a secret society of a sort. 

Have you ever gotten into really sketchy situations?

Hell yeah. We all have some really good stories. Luckily we have never been taken to court or anything but we’ve definitely had some close calls with homeowners, and police, involving guns, bats, fucking car chases. Yeah dude there’s been some wild scenarios. 

I heard you found a dead body one time...

Oh yeah, apparently someone was murdered in the house during the time we were skating it cause it had been sitting there abandoned. So the police had installed cameras and caught us skating and busted us. They were like “You guys know somebody was killed in this house?”

Damn you should have tried to get the surveillance footy.  

Dude, I know! We’re like where’s the clips?

What cameras are you using right now?

Right now for video, I shoot on my VX2000, and then I have a Super 8 that I mess around with. And then for stills, I’ve been shooting on a Canon EOS 5D. I’ve also been hyped on film lately. I’ve been shooting on a Holga 120 and a Canon AE-1 Program. I’ve got a camera problem. I’m also coming out with a full VHS vid soon that I’ve been shooting on this VHS palm camera. So I don’t know. Like another addiction to coincide with skateboarding. Photography and film. 

Let’s talk about Cemental. When did the first issue come out?

The first issue came out in 2015. I’ve been making zines for ten years before that probably all sorts of little ones for fun. Kinda like informative ones or like punk rock anarchist ones. Never really any ones revolving around skateboarding. I kind of did a mocking one towards skateboarding before then called Get Off the Wall which is kind adjust a little joke between the homies. But then Vans saw that I was using their slogan and they sent me a cease and desist. I thought that was fucking hilarious. So we came up with Cemental, kind of like a combination of mental with cement. And then we just ran with it from there.   

You said “we” does anyone help you out? Or is it really just you?

I definitely do 95% of the work but it wouldn’t be the mag without my homies and everybody involved in it. I view it as a collective. I never want it to be just my shit either, I try to get other people to write stuff and throw in some of their photos and experiences. 

Do you get a lot of other people’s zines too? Like zine swaps and stuff?

Yeah I’m super into that, so if anyone out there is into trading zines definitely hit me up. Another obsession I have to go with film and skateboarding would be zine collecting. I have a couple of full sized totes just stacked full of zines from the past fifteen years. Kevin at Lookback Library is usually pretty good at keeping me up to date on the Skate Jawns. I love what he’s doing.

Can we just take a moment to acknowledge Kevin Marks? That dude is a saint.

Yeah fucking holding it down for print media. I’m lucky enough to be able to see it first hand in San Diego.

How many copies are you making per issue?

Around 500 usually. Each one is hand folded still.

Do you make everything at home?

Yep, pretty much my living room is my office. The lady hates that, but I got silk screening setups, light boards, and my camera area. It’s all just right here in my living room.