Magic City Truck Academy
a podcast about truck company operations on the fire ground
Magic City Truck Academy
From Ollies To Halligans
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Skateboarding taught us something the fire service sometimes forgets: you don’t get good by looking good, you get good by slamming, laughing, adjusting, and trying again. For the first Magic City Truck Academy podcast, we sit down with OJ, Billy Knight, and guest Gary Lang to trace a surprising through-line from skate spots to station life. It starts with backgrounds, first decks, Navy stories, and the feeling that hooks you when a board finally does what you asked it to do.
From there, we dig into the real overlap: repetition and skill acquisition, calculated risk, and the “flow state” that shows up when a crew is dialed in. We talk about why skateboarding builds a kind of mental toughness that translates to ladders, forcible entry, and search, and how small details matter once the easy margin for error disappears. We also get honest about ego, leadership, and the way firefighter social media can punish people for posting imperfect reps, even though those reps are exactly where learning happens.
We close with the practical stuff that every working firefighter feels sooner or later: injury risk, aging, the toll of the job, and how to keep training without pretending you’re bulletproof. If you care about firefighter training, fire service culture, and getting better at the basics, you’ll hear yourself in this conversation. Subscribe, share it with your crew, and leave a review with the best lesson skateboarding ever taught you.
Welcome To The New Podcast
SPEAKER_02All right. Welcome everybody to our first episode of Magic City Truck Academy's podcast. Today I have co-host Dr. Billy Knight and our guests, no other than Gary Lang. Take it away.
SPEAKER_04Uh yeah, so um I'm gonna kind of lead in the conversation here a little bit. Uh I think normally OJ, this is his baby, and uh I would let him, but given the nature of uh the the two people we have with me here, uh OJ and Gary, I'm just gonna throw some questions at both of them and uh we'll see where the conversation goes. So uh none of them are like trick questions or anything like that. It's all designed to have uh some some good, interesting conversation. And so yeah, we'll just start
OJ’s Chicago Roots And Fire Career
SPEAKER_04out. OJ, uh we'll throw it to you first since it's since it's yours and you're the boss. Uh just tell us a little bit about your your background, your bio, tell us where you grew up and uh how long you've been in the fire service.
SPEAKER_02I grew up in the city of Chicago, uh born and raised there. Learning this new technology. I was born and raised in the city of Chicago. Uh yeah, my parents divorced when I was young. My mother came down to Alabama. I came down here to kind of reconcile with it. Um but growing up up there, I discovered I had a goofy talent to write a skateboard. So I was actually pretty decent at writing one. Uh it took me to a couple of sponsors. But how skateboarding kind of got me into the fire service was I got hurt and so I need to figure out something to do. I always wanted to be a policeman, but I ended up taking a fire insist and I got hired. Total 30 years now, total. I did 26 years at Birmingham and just retired, and uh I just got hired at my new department, uh Calva Valley, which is just a suburb of Birmingham. So yeah, it's a little bit about me.
SPEAKER_04Well, you skipped over a part of your life that's not insignificant. Uh
Navy Years And Skateboarding Worldwide
SPEAKER_04you in addition to coming out of the skating culture and stuff like that, you went into another career before the fire service.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was in the Navy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I did the Navy part and uh yeah, uh, we had our own little skateboarding thing there. Believe it or not, we had a little skateboarding group. So everywhere we went, we did like a world tour. Um so we skated in like Philippines, Australia, Singapore, uh, Hong Kong. I mean, we had our own little world tour. It was pretty neat.
SPEAKER_04Nice, awesome. Um, so you've kind of skipped ahead a little bit uh into some of the discussion and and kind of uh introducing the topic, which is um uh gonna be the the connection between skating and the fire service. And OJ, having been a professional skater, right? Were you a pro? Or were you just sponsored?
SPEAKER_02Just sponsored. Yeah, I never got paid. I only got I only got uh uh decks and stuff, so no money.
SPEAKER_04Hey, I got I got nothing but bruises uh and and sprains. So uh and then Gary also uh has a has a history of skateboarding and injuries and things like that. I don't think you were ever sponsored, were you, Gary?
SPEAKER_00Uh no, I got a got a couple boards flowed to me.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Yeah. All right. So uh
Gary’s Path From Ohio To Firehouse
SPEAKER_04Gary, give us the same same info, your your background, your uh little short bio, and uh and I guess uh how how you got into the fire service.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I grew up in Ohio. Uh I'm actually in the the fire department I'm on is the town I grew up in. And um that's the the Kent, where Kent State University is at. Um if anybody's familiar with that, it's like northeast Ohio. So uh I've been on the fire department here for 23 years, um, full-time here in the city of Kent. And then um actually started in '97, like doing all the volunteer and part-time uh stuff. Uh but I actually started out in Colorado with that out of like dumb luck, pretty much. So I was actually just out there snowboarding and skateboarding and mountain biking a bit, because pretty much after I graduated high school, I moved like, I mean, like 92, like two weeks after I graduated in 92 from high school, we were in Southern California living in Huntington Beach and just skateboarding every day. That's all all I ever wanted to do. So, but uh yeah, anyway, fast forward through you know four knee surgeries and I don't know, 48 sprained ankles and some broken other stuff, you know, here we are. So just cruising right along.
First Boards And Skate Addiction
SPEAKER_04All right. So um for both of you, I'll I'll throw it out there and you guys can just answer and just start talking. Uh, how did you get into skating? Like what was there a moment? Was there a thing? Was it just something that was around? How did how did you get into skating and how to become such a big thing for you?
SPEAKER_02Uh for for me, I had a friend that had a skateboard, and uh I asked him to try it one day, and you know, just like everybody else, you you don't know how to ride it, you push Mongo, and uh he stopped me and he's like, Let me show you how to push. So he showed me, but still didn't have any balance, and then he showed me to take the board and put it in it, the wheels in the craft, and he showed me how to olive. And uh, I got an Ollie in like three or four tries. I was like, Wow, uh that's pretty pretty neat. So uh he let me borrow it for a few days, and I just kept getting higher and higher and higher with the Ollie, and uh then I finally bought my first one, my first deck was a Jason Jesse. So that that dating myself. Uh but yeah, once I got that the board, I got indie trucks and T-bone wheels, and I was off, man. It was an addiction to you're breaking up a little bit, OJ. I loved it. Uh it was fantastic. Uh the adrenaline that I got off of it uh was the best rush I've ever got. Uh so yeah, once once you get hooked, uh you're you're in it. You're in it. We're in by that skateboards, they understand what I'm talking about. You you just can't you just can't beat that rush.
SPEAKER_04What about you, Gary?
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, first off, let me just make one thing clear. I never pushed Mongo. Sorry, thank you.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. I've literally never pushed a single push Mongo in my life. It didn't work. I did.
SPEAKER_00I did sorry to sorry about your luck. Uh hey, uh OJ, let me uh what what Jason Jesse graphic was your first one?
SPEAKER_02It was the under the sea type King Neptune.
SPEAKER_01Oh that is it, right?
SPEAKER_04So guys, if you're if you're listening here, uh you're gonna have to you're gonna have to Google the Jason Jesse graphic because I'm sure it may come up. But um Gary just pulled up his right sleeve and has at least a half sleeve that is that graphic down his sleeve. That is amazing.
SPEAKER_00Look got to look a little closer though at the uh serpent head. Can you see it? No, not so much. I can't really see it. No. Well, it's describe it for us. So uh on the uh course OJ will know this if you don't. Well, the original graphic has uh basically, you know, like the Neptune holding a trident, yeah, and coming around him is uh a sea serpent, and then the sea serpent uh it's got his name, you know, where it says Jason Jesse. Of course you remember that. Well, I got it instead of his name, it's got Andy's ambassadors in it, and the end of the serpents, instead of like the dragon serpent head, it's a smooth board nozzle. So it wraps and then instead of holding um instead of holding a uh trident, he's holding a hook, actually a Lockwood hook, uh made by John Lockwood or designed by John Lockwood out of Florida uh years ago, and then he actually got it to get produced now, um, which is super cool. But I actually that's actually the the hook he's holding in the photo.
SPEAKER_04That's awesome, dude.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I can't I can't see the detail right now, but the next time I see you, you're gonna have to show me that.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh anyway, I didn't I didn't have as cool of a first deck, I'll just tell you that. I had uh so I started in like fourth grade. Um and I don't have any idea why, other than maybe, you know, in in 1984 or whatever whatever year I would have been in fourth grade, probably 84, 83, or 84. Um maybe everybody was getting skateboards. I don't I don't know how I got it. And then uh it was like a um roller derby was the name of the brand. Super cheap, super crappy. I mean, the thing probably, you know, at the time probably cost 20, 20 bucks. I don't, I don't know. Uh, but I pushed around on that thing for probably over a year in the driveway, and then um got you know, got made fun of eventually as I met other people. One because I sucked at it, even though I didn't push Mongo, I still sucked. And then um the the skateboard itself was just like super lame. So, of course, right away, you know, you're getting made fun of. And um, I saved up money and and uh ended up getting a Mark Gonzalez when he was uh you know back one of the first or second vision boards that he had out. So that would have been my first real skateboard, and that probably would have been in maybe maybe like 85, 1985, or 86.
SPEAKER_04That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I think my first exposure to skating, I had a next door neighbor that had a Nash, and it was dude, it it it it was big, it was heavy, you know, just the old fishtail classic shape, and it, you know, it had had the rails on it and all that. And I I didn't I wrote it a little bit here and there, but our our street was really rough asphalt, and we didn't have any curbs or anything. I didn't know what skating was at the time. Um so that was that was probably elementary school. And then when I got to middle school, that's when people were really skating. This would have been in the 90s, mid-90s, probably, late 90s at the at the latest. Um so I think around seventh grade. Might have been earlier than that. Uh, but uh basically enough of my friends were skating, and the skate culture at the time for kids was for me, that was the peak of skate culture. You guys, y'all are older, so your peak was maybe in a different time. But you know, I came through when um you know uh CSS was or CCS was the only way you could get stuff by catalog. Um, you know, Trance World and Thrasher, uh, those were the only two skate magazines that were out there. And you know, we were just starting to get DVDs and stuff like that and videos that uh that you could actually like take around and go watch at at people's houses and weren't just like bootlegged VHS and stuff like that. So that's that's when I came in. And I think my first board was a vision, but I don't remember the graphic on it. It was probably really simple black and white, something uh nothing special with the trucks and wheels, they were all pretty boring. But yeah, that was that was how I got in.
SPEAKER_00I love it.
SPEAKER_04I just wanted to, I the worst thing in the world when I came in was to be called a poser in seventh grade, you know. If you had if you had air walks, uh you were you were a poser. If you had uh anything but like a name brand board, that's that's all the seventh grade kids cared about. And me, I had I had all of that. I was I was I didn't really care. I just wanted to skate, and I never got any good at it ever. I'm still not good at it. Uh I just liked riding around, man, and I fell a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I started uh in eighth grade. So going into my freshman year, uh in in my school at the time, there were a bunch of metalheads, I mean, all over the place. So, you know, here I am, like looking like blind video days, walking in, and one of the metal heads called me a poser. I didn't even know what it meant. I thought he was complimenting me. It's like, man, I appreciate it. Had no idea, no idea he was making fun of me. But I thought, all right, man, whatever.
SPEAKER_04Uh all right, so um that's how you got into skating,
What The Fire Service Gives You
SPEAKER_04kind of how you got into the fire service. Um, we're gonna switch back to the fire service here. So what has the fire service done for you personally? Not professionally, but personally. What has the fire service done for you? What has it meant for you in the course of your career and your life? What has the fire service been for you? Either one of you, just pick it up.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you're young. Uh oh. All right. I'll I'll go. I'll go. Well, hang on. There we go. Technical difficulty. Uh for me, it was structure. Uh personally, it gave me discipline uh at a time when I really needed it. Um, you know, growing up in the city, you don't really I didn't really have much structure. The Navy did give it to me, and I I loved it. I loved the discipline from it. Uh then you get out and you kind of lose that structure and that discipline, and you're just kind of free floating out there. Uh, but when I got hired, there was there's still Vietnam vets on the fire department here in Birmingham. And uh they treated me like like they're kid, you know, uh very harsh, not harsh discipline, but when you made a mistake, they told they let you know about the mistakes you made. You know, they disciplined you. Um, and that I really needed at that young age coming into the fire service. And with that discipline getting older, it helped it helped raise my kids.
SPEAKER_04Uh was that similar to the kind of environment that you had in in the Navy as far as that that kind of strict, swift, harsh, you know, correction, that kind of thing. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah. And that's what I was used to in the military. And I found it again in the fire department. And what you know, what I loved about it was just like the military, when you had your uniform on and you were an officer, it's time to you, it's time to work. You know what I mean? You're you're a lieutenant, you're a captain, whatever. And just like in the in the military, when you put your uniform on, you're you're rank, right? But as soon as that uniform comes off, then you can kind of be buddies. You know, that's where for me, that's where the brotherhood really came from uh was discipline, but then it was also the outside stuff that we used to do. You know, a lot of family oriented stuff, everybody got together, uh, and it just it just showed both of the discipline and the family can can actually work. So yeah, that's that's my biggest thing I took away from it.
SPEAKER_03Awesome.
SPEAKER_00Um I mine's probably not gonna be as deep, I guess. OJ. Uh one I got, I just I I fell into the fire department. So by pure dumb luck, I had no idea what I was getting into. I literally thought I was signing up to make them coffee. Uh, I didn't know I was actually gonna be given a helmet and a uniform. So super uh, you know, just I mean, literally, there's not a dumber person that found their way onto a fire department than probably uh by chance than than myself. So um, but I would what I would tell you, uh William, to your question, uh, what's it done for me personally uh to to bridge the gap between uh skateboarding and kind of like punk music and just the way I grew up. I will tell you what the fire department did for me personally was it gave me a place to continue uh my rage, uh my hatred towards a system. Um it gave me it gave me a direction to like vent and just be like, you know, like fuck it. Um I don't I don't care. The everything we do is crazy. So there's the adrenaline rush, which of course skateboarding and and and snowboarding and and mountain biking, how I grew up, uh had. And so it was just a different avenue to have all that expression, I guess, of this energy that I didn't know what to do with. Um, I did not have I gotta I'll try and be careful how I say this. At times I didn't have the best um mentors and examples and leadership. Uh now I've also been doing this almost 30 years on multiple types of departments in two different states, so I'm not gonna name any names. But I would tell you um what what it what it gave me was literally just a place to like like when you see the um kitchen, what's what's the thing fuel fueled by caffeine and hate?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I would tell you that's probably sums up my fire service career uh to this day, unfortunately for some of the guys I work with. Um, but it it definitely personally gave me an outlet that I you know, I'm just I'm not just like swinging hammers at people's faces when I walk in the door. Um, but it definitely gives me an outlet for some of my physical energy and my mental energy that I I don't know what else I would have done. Not that would have gotten me a paycheck, at least.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Do you think it also fuels that? Like is it a source of uh because I know there's tons of frustration that comes with this job and administrations and all of the other craft that's always seems like it's in the way of doing your job. Oh, 100%, yeah. So so it's it's a cycle. It it gives you both a fuel source and an outlet.
SPEAKER_00Oh, oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. I uh I've never been happier, I've never been more stressed than like in the same shift, yeah. Um, with just highs and lows, and you know, like you could equate it to like go it, you know, to skateboarding and your topic tonight. Um, not I don't I don't mean to jump ahead if this is where we're going with it, but I would tell you just to ride the wave uh of just skateboarding with your friends, and and you guys could relate that one minute you're like just doing your own thing and you're just pumped that you and and a couple of your buddies are are at whatever the spot is. Somebody does their thing, this, that, and then now here comes somebody wearing a suit and a tie out of some you know commercial building, and because they're 10 years older than you, they think they're gonna point their finger and and give you the business, and you're just like, dude, watch this, we'll just run away. And like, like, and then so now you're bombed that this guy had to rain on your parade because you and your guys were having fun and motivating each other, learning from each other, bonding with each other, and then some jackass has to come in and be like, Well, you're oh, you're scratching the paint on the curb, and you're like, bro, one, you didn't even know these curves existed prior to seeing us out your window. So get get out of here. Well, fast forward, you you know, you get chased by the cops, now you're busted by the cops. Now I've got a very sour opinion of authority. I've got a sour opinion of how adults treat kids. And by kids, I mean, dude, I when I got on the fire department, this is ironic. I got on the fire department uh um in Kent when I got my full-time job. One of the first cops, remember, I grew up in this city, um, Kent State University. I mean, dude, it's it's a with with the school in full swing, it's about 50,000 people.
Reps, Flow State, And Improvisation
SPEAKER_00Not some metropolis like Birmingham or the Atlanta metro area, but like it's a small town with a university, tons of skate spots. Of course, how many times we ran from the cops, got busted by the cops, and you remember people's names sometimes because you'd have a nickname for them, or they were just like an Uber dick when they caught you. Well, fast forward, I'm on now, I'm on the fire department. And I'm I'm seeing this cop, I see his name, and I'm like, man, we're That from and I remembered it, and this one particular cop was like well known in our circle as like the douche of all douches, and now it's just the irony that I'm working across the parking lot at our one firehouse and dealing with him on calls, and I just always had this in the back of my mind, and um it just like you you come full circle and like you know how much that like one guy with who who knows how many others, but the like one guy with one interaction just bred into me at an early age so much distrust and you know at times just like bitterness and hatred towards authority. And then dude, fast forward, like the same our paychecks read the same at the top, you know what, his just goes to one different address than mine. I mean, just crazy uh to come full circle with with some things like that. But I mean, to this day, the highs and lows um from the fire department, uh, I mean, they totally I I try to um I guess guard myself emotionally sometimes, but they totally get you. Just again, it's a roller coaster ride, uh, just like skateboarding would be.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Gary, would you agree though with skateboarding and the fire service? Skateboarding taught you a little bit of patience because you you're constantly trying to get that one trick down. It could take a hundred times to do it, and then you finally get it and you're ecstatic. That's that's another thing skateboarding taught me was was patience. Uh, I don't know if it did the same for you.
SPEAKER_00So I I don't think anybody that I work with would accuse me of being the most patient person. Uh I w I wish so, Jay. It's definitely uh it's one of the things I actually say to myself, uh, not really a mantra, but uh I like to literally tell my kids uh probably almost every day, uh try be kind, be patient, and try to work as a team. And uh um I would tell you I I know what you're saying about learning tricks and the patience. I think what I what I really took away from it would maybe be almost like a like a like a a shootoff or a subcategory of patience, but it basically it was like embracing repetition and there's there's no end. And and I could think of so many things um on the fire department, and I've said this to to anybody that would would listen to me with when these two things are combined, like it to to um what's a good example? Um forcible entry, probably a great example, or or throwing a ladders as you guys probably have done once or twice. Like let's say the Halligan at forcing a door, and I'll I'll equate it to um you know, learning to Ollie, but that you talked about OJ. Okay, well, like my kids could force a door just like I could learn to Ollie in one, you know, one weekend, and and you know, get get a little rough rough Ollie going. But that's not the thousands of repetitions to smooth out the skill, to dial in the little nuances. So awling in the driveway with a like a uh a stick holding your wheel so you don't roll anywhere, awling on carpet. Well, that's not the same as a guy trying to hit a double set or clear a large gap or so, let alone with any style. Um, uh, and add in skateboarding, add a anyone that's a skateboarder listening to this, add a rough run-up or an off some off-camber or off-shoot run-up to anything that has a handrail, a stare, a gap, or anything, any of it. There are so many little things that just I mean, you like a little pebble, curb crack, like to do just anything. And it totally throws you off. And sometimes you want that trick so bad, like you'll you'll you'll get it, you'll deep you'll learn to deal with the the sidewalk crack that bumps you off balance. You'll actually learn to deal with being off balance to get back on balance to then do the the end goal, which is let's just use your imagination, let's say kickflip. But it's so wildly different than trying to learn a kickflip um in your garage on a piece of carpet. And if you were forcing a door and the very first time you pop the door, you feel like such uh just like on top of the world, dude. I got news for you, man. There's a door out there waiting for you, even in my district, which is not it's not like some case harden ghetto uh area that I work in. We have our moments. Um, my city's actually it's pretty mellow. Uh I, you know, it's not a fire factory, unfortunately. But like we we have our moments. And if you've only practiced your kick flip on carpet, you know, if you've only swung the halligan um on a on a blue door prop, which was a great prop, but you only know the prop and you are only good at it one way, and the very next time you're at work, you know, there's all these little rough run-ups, if you will, uh to do your trick. And I would tell you, man, like I I think the to try and go back to your thing, OJ, I like patience, maybe for you. I looked at it as I really enjoyed just the um bull-headed, stubborn repetition, knowing, like, in the case of like let's say popping a door, like, well, that that that was okay. The door, but I I want it to feel like this. I want I know it can feel that way. When I say hit and the rhythm is right, and the guy hitting has solid hits, and I'm like, the bar is moving, like, dude, there is just like you're like, you know, it's a feeling.
SPEAKER_03It's a flow state.
SPEAKER_00It is, and it is right back to the skateboarding example.
SPEAKER_04So we've we've managed to skip ahead a couple of questions and really hit the meat of this, which is the connection between skateboarding and and the fire service. Uh, because I think there's deep connections for a lot of us that that have grown up in both, and some people still stay connected to to both at the same time. Uh right now I'm watching, I'm following a guy on social media that is currently trying to set a new record for the longest grind on a round rail. Yeah, so he's he's constructed a, I don't know, 400 and something foot long rail that's basically in the woods and had to make his own run-up, again, in the woods, and uh, and it curves. It goes down this this gradual grade, and he he is documenting his his progression every day. He goes every day for like two hours. It's all the time he's got, he's got to set up to film, he's got to do all this stuff, and he gets, you know, so many, so many attempts, and then he's done for the day. So he's got to maximize, it's kind of like us in training. We got to maximize our time and our reps so that we get the most out of it. And ultimately, you know, you got to come back the next day and try again, and then the next day and try again. And at some point, you get that thing, you get the thing that you're working on, or you perfect the thing that you're working on. And so watching him go through that is so similar to your experience, you know, learning stuff both as a as a skater, as a new fireman, as an old fireman, like just hammering out those little details day after day after day until they start to flow so easily that the crack in the sidewalk isn't a problem anymore. That that you're able to adapt to the and basically you you become able to improvise like a jazz musician almost. Like somebody throws a weird note in there and you're like, I can roll with that, and it and it comes out smooth on the other end.
SPEAKER_00Well William, so let me when when you say the the these um things that you have to improvise with, I don't know, I I would imagine you guys have um know who Rodney Mullen is and follow the guy. Dude, it of course he get anyone that doesn't know he the the guy's been around forever. He has the credit pretty much for inventing like probably the majority of tricks that people do. At some point no one had ever done them. They they no one had invented it. And here he is just horsing around. And some of them, because I've listened to several of his things and following love how um open he is about things, uh some of them came about because he made mistakes trying to learn something else, and then when the mistake happened, he recognized like, oh, that could be something a whole nother thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the old Bob Ross effect, little happy accidents.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Oh, love it.
SPEAKER_02Love
Ego, Posers, And Comment Culture
SPEAKER_02it. Yeah, what I what I'm really liking right now, I like social media and I hate social media at the same time. But what I I'm really liking right now with with social media and it correlates with skateboarding, is you see these people coming out putting their little videos out of them training, of them like throwing ladders or forcing doors or whatever. And that reminds me of the days of making and videos and sending them to sponsors to try to get you know picked up somewhere. So that that's what I really like seeing right now is people going out there and showing their mistakes, you know, and that's and going back to what uh Gary is saying, like with Rodney Mullen, you know, somebody's out here tossing a ladder and they see, okay, I messed up here, but now I can see where I could throw it a little bit better, aim for this spot, you know.
SPEAKER_04Uh let me jump in there real quick on the mistake thing. That's that's something that doesn't have the same parallel in the fire service, because when people make mistakes in skating, I don't think that there's a bunch of people out there cutting them down, telling them how bad they're doing, how wrong they're doing it. I mean, I never saw it. And maybe maybe there are, but but I've never experienced it myself. Um, I've never seen it as a comment. Well, yeah, that poser.
SPEAKER_05There it is.
SPEAKER_04That that's there. That's a little different though. Like if you post a video, if if somebody's trying to to nail a gap and they and they they slam like 15 times and then they finally nail it, nobody talks trash about the 15 times that they didn't land it. Nobody talks about the broken boards that they had because they landed wrong. Nobody nobody does that, but it still gets posted. Every single skate video has essentially the outtakes as somebody. Yeah, right. But but it's part of the content. It's a major feature of it. And part of it is so that you see the effort that went into it. Like it's it's not just like, oh, this was they make it look easy on the one they made. And so that parallel doesn't seem to come through currently. Maybe it's a a a factor of social media, maybe it's just the fire service and the nature of what it is. But people post their failed attempts or their less efficient attempts, or basically their their learning process, and they get ate up in the comments.
SPEAKER_00Uh I would I would tell you, sorry to uh interrupt you, William.
SPEAKER_04No, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00What uh a couple things. One every skate video forever uh had a slam section. We we as skaters, you embraced like that danger. You were proud of like your knees and palms are all jacked up, and like like it would it was a point of pride was making mistakes because your goal was like your friends were cheering you on, maybe a little word of advice on hey, place your foot like this, or not don't don't do it like and blah blah blah. Okay, well the in within that there's not a lot of ego involved. Okay, and also and and this is my thing, is like there's nowhere to hide. You be poser, like, dude, you want to talk about the biggest fear of being a skateboarder? You you already said it, you know, walking into middle school, uh uh uh uh and being called poser because your shoes, you know, you had some nice new airwalks on or vans or whatever you had, and you you weren't the you know, you didn't have an ollie hole scuffed in just yet, you know. And when I was young, dude, I mean I literally had like sandpaper trying to sand an ollie hole on a brand new pair of shoe. I didn't even know how to ollie. I think I probably put it on like the wrong side of my shoe. I had no idea. So, but granted, I was also like 10 years old, but the fire service equivalent of that is all ego for for a lot of folks, not everybody, but there is a lot of ego, and you're trying to hide your slams as if you didn't put in hours or or or I mean sometimes years of work to dial in something. Like it shouldn't be embarrassing. And I think firemen are um many of us are are pretty fragile and weren't brought up. Um, you know, skateboarding's a a tough, a tough culture. And I I would say they're you know, you depending on the circle um and and where you travel, where you skated, who was around, um there was definitely some dog eat dog commentary about oh, this guy's got some wax style, he pushes bongo, um whatever. Um his you know, come into the to the 90s, and if your wheels weren't small enough and your pants weren't big enough, you were gonna get ripped on. And you're like, dude, there was no there was nowhere to hide though. Uh your your fashion trend uh can't hide your your ability to push and roll through something and go to a ledge and and do whatever or or ramp or whatever you were into. Um there's just nowhere to hide. And I think with the fire department, there are so many places to hide, especially, and I've even I've even joked about it about myself, especially inside a fire where it's zero viz. Yeah, thank God half people can't see what I'm doing in there half the time because I'm lost, I'm bumbling around, I'm tripping over stuff, um, whatever. Um, but I at least I I admit it, I try and learn from it, but a lot of people don't. Yeah, they they they will very much sweep them some things under the rug. Well, why didn't you force that door? Oh uh something I didn't have uh I only had a hook. Oh, okay. I guess I guess you got away with it. Hey, why why didn't we vent the roof? Oh, the officer didn't tell me to. Oh, okay, I guess we got away with it. Like, dude, it and again, back to my what did I learn personally from the fire department? This was a lot of posers. And uh, and not that you have to go to a lot of fires, and this would be my opinion. I'm not saying you have to to work in Baltimore or or you know, uh some Chicago, uh a neighborhood in Chicago that just burns every night, um, or or Cleveland, Ohio, or so you know, some of these places like they're literally still going to fires every day. Um and I don't think you need to work in one of those places to just be open and honest about how you learned, what you've learned, how good you are at it, and and just embrace that, you know, again for me, the repetition, like it just doesn't end. Um and I I mean, of course, I would like to do all of my stuff with fire rolling over my head. That would be that would be wonderful. Um, but you know, there's a lot of a lot of great skateboarders that aren't very good at riding a ramp. You know, but they're amazing in the street and and and vice versa. And I just again I think there's just so many ways to go around, but it at some point you're you're either hiding from the truth or you're or you're making you're you're allowing yourself to be out in the spotlight and be open about the truth. And the to to OJ's point, um about the videos, I think I think the videos are great. Um, I think seeing some people do some wacky stuff is totally fine. Um you know, I I don't know how to get longer than a 60-second video on Instagram, so I I I wish I could post like more stuff. Um But uh again to the skateboarding thing, like they they were proud of how much effort it took. Like literally being cheered on. Watch any video. Um and actually, William, I'll have you look up one thrasher uh has a series, or at least they did, um, called My War. And it would be like basically just this battle of one guy going to one spot to hit one trick. And I actually used this video, uh, it's been a long time ago um now, but uh Jamie Thomas had a my war um section where he was basically trying to do an all impossible onto this hub allege, a clipper school ledge. And um, I mean, this is like multiple trips from Southern California to drive to Northern California to get out of the car to not get the trick, you know, and then taking these big slams to get back in a car, failed to drive home eight hours. Yeah, I did and he did this multiple times until it sounds familiar.
SPEAKER_04Like either either I've seen you talk about it or present it or or I've seen it. It sounds so familiar.
SPEAKER_02It's a popular video. Okay.
SPEAKER_04I've probably seen it or a clip from it or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, beyond skateboarders know what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_04So I want to ask both of you, do you think so, like with the kind of the crabs in a bucket approach to to um criticism and and the fire service, do you uh what do you think the percentage is of those people that leave those sorts of comments and have that sort of approach to um to viewing somebody making mistakes or doing things a different way? Uh how many of those people do you think grew up skateboarding?
SPEAKER_02Probably not many. Um a lot of those people that make comments on someone doing something, uh almost uh I don't want to say insecure, but a lot of it is they just don't understand it.
SPEAKER_04So they don't make any attempt to understand it. That's the big thing. Like no. So they don't. I would wager that because their instinct and their approach to something that's different or out of their ordinary or looks wrong to them, because their their instinct is to immediately criticize negatively and harshly, uh, without asking questions, without investigating, without trying to figure out what they're looking at, not getting any deeper than the surface level, I bet that they never put in time on a skateboard. The most of them, or anything else that that is that hard, that difficult, and takes that amount of like work, just pure work, uh, that is, like you said, is on display and raw with with failure for everyone to see over and over and over again. I bet none of them had that experience, or very few of them, because if they had, I just don't think they would I don't think they would go at other people in a public open forum like that with that kind of approach.
SPEAKER_02But it's also, you know, if you think about it, you're you're safe behind the keyboard.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So when when when you're skateboarding, you know, you have your friends around, even if like in Chicago, there were groups uh uh didn't like each other, right? For whatever reason. But if you're at the same spot and you're trying to do something like big and gnarly, those guys that don't even like you, they're gonna root for you. Yeah. They're just like what Gary was saying, they're gonna give you little pointers that they're seeing. Now, when you land it, they're gonna hate you again.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, but at least in the meantime, it's collaborative and supportive, and you're all on the same team, go in the same direction, even if even if you're playing different positions or you're you're rowing the boat at different speeds or whatever, you got a different style, uh, you look different, whatever. But it's it's still you're not in competition with each other uh in in the same way that people seem to be in competition with each other, because you're in competition in a creative aspect, but not in like uh if if this guy succeeds, I lose. something kind of way, which is that's almost the way that it seems like that's why I say crabs in a bucket. Like that everybody just pulls each other down instead of instead of cheering each other on or saying, hey, that's uh great effort. Explain to me why you did it that way or tell me what you think you know happened here. That kind of thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think uh sorry. Uh it's I don't know. Uh you you both know we we put videos out all the time and we get heavily criticized.
SPEAKER_04Oh I love it. It's a sport for me. I want you to put more videos out. It's I I love it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and what you know what's funny is I don't look these people up you know and I don't really comment back to them like really I'll read them and every once in a while I'll put a little snar remark but you know think about it like on a skateboarding type thing. If you were doing something and you were to criticize me and I just slammed guess what's probably going to happen you're probably gonna get slapped in the mouth you know because I don't see you trying you know I'm saying I don't see you trying uh getting the bloody elbows the sprain ankles you know you like Gary said you are the poser yeah you're hanging out here but I don't see you trying anything nothing but yet you have these kids out here that are trying that are putting out their videos of force entry stretch lines or whatever and they're just getting hammered and it's like these kids are getting deflated to a point you know so so yeah yeah I will tell you I uh I don't think skateboarders are perfect.
SPEAKER_00Let me just put that because there is always going to be that one guy you know I several over my life that I could think of there's always a guy who shows up to the spot who's you know one one circle of friends away from your main circle and always has the reputation that he's trying to one up you and you're trying to do something and he just scoots right in there and all of a sudden total dick move tries the same thing lands at first and you're just like and again like those people get it it's very apparent what they what what they're doing they're not humble at all it it's just almost like a showboat ego thing um and here's the thing though like to their credit you'll just be like God what a dick but man was that cool yeah it like it it's almost like it it like geez like I want so much to just hate this guy right now yeah but damn that was still cool yeah and and yeah the the attitude and maybe the the way they went about doing it in in the the skateboarding example not cool uh not cool at all uh uh it's definitely more of a um uh I don't want to say brotherhood but there's definitely more of a of a feeling to your circle of friends that you're that you're around and and even rolling into a strange place. I mean I tell you right now like I rolled into uh went down to a uh skate park in Daytona and I rolled into uh the one bowl and I didn't even know this had happened some dude spit on me because I was just from out an out of towner and um is it the one that's right by the beach uh well it was um it was uh oh god there's several in Daytona I've been to but there's one that's like Stone Edge um there's one that's like within view of the beach uh this first off William you gotta back up this is like decades ago never mind so yeah um but my my point is like there's always gonna be the one guy in the crowd whether it's in uh you know skateboarding or or in the fire service there's always the one guy who just can't get it that the vibe is not his like he doesn't understand like like you see what we got going on here you're welcome to be part of it but you can't actually function in this environment because all these guys are just cool they're chill they're they're they're they're not egotistical they they want to you know go to Taco Bell drink Mountain Dew get chased by the cops go hit some curb and then go watch you know Raiders of the Lost Ark tonight and and call it a day you're not part of it because you just can't understand that this is a good time and you can't drop your ego and I think the fire department shits on a lot of people because one of you guys said it like they they they they don't even understand it. They can't understand what they're looking at. So a kid that comes in and is trying to um get get better at how to use a nozzle and of course they immediately want to just shut shut you down and my my personal opinion is because they haven't been humbled they haven't they haven't had any consequences to their crappy use of a nozzle which I can go down a whole nother road um this could be a nine hour podcast I've been down a whole a whole nother road uh you know um it I I would speak to you know my my I'm uh uh in a college town very typical Russ Belt northeast ohio college town two and a half balloon frames um everything's got a basement uh blah blah whatever but again it's not ghetto I'm I'm just gonna tell you man like we have a wide margin for error at some of the stuff we do and if you don't know how wide that margin for error is and you just think you're a badass I got news for you you're all the way at one end but like barely surviving but you have no idea because the thing we've gone to goes well once again because we're the luckiest people on the face of the planet we do everything wrong and no one gets hurt or killed the house doesn't burn down the fire goes out everyone buys us cookies and you're just like as a skateboarder first and a fireman second I'm gonna tell you like once you recognize it I can shoot holes in this all day long because the margin for error in trying to learn a handrail for the very first time like the margin for error is like it's it's real small. Okay and the margin for not being able to effectively put out a room a single room of fire dude I'm telling you I I'm not trying to get anyone I'm not trying to be cavalier in my attitude I'm not I don't want people to get hurt thinking they can just go in there with like 40 gallons of water and a high pressure fog nozzle and whip it around and everyone's going to be happy well or what if you could what if you could do that you know what I mean and it was successful and then all of a sudden you promote and decades go by especially on a on a place like mine I'd pick on my department some suburban department I got Cleveland Akron and Youngstown kind of in this Bermuda triangle and then we're kind of in between that well these are cities that actually go to fires and if you had some guy walk in and do some wild thing they're still going to get away with it and maybe someone's smart enough to spot it maybe not but at least they're gonna go to more fires and maybe catch it sooner whereas a suburb place I mean dude I mean I mean it's embarrassing sometimes how long it's been since I've had a nozzle in my hand.
SPEAKER_04I mean like it's downright embarrassing to to not be first due to a fire and and it goes days weeks months possibly and you know we're still going to stuff but to not be first due on the tip and it was rocking and it like well that's a lot of boxes to check right and in these circumstances there's very little wiggle room for error but the previous hundred you got away with it and I truly believe that some of these people that are probably spouting off on on the internet uh
Margin For Error On The Fireground
SPEAKER_04making comments and real real shitty commentary they're not building anybody up they're not digging um in into the reasons or the background they they don't even care they went to one fire one time spun a high uh a wide pattern fog around everything went out and it was fine and you I would I would bet that some of these guys because we're getting we're seeing OJ and I we're seeing guys from much bigger departments like huge departments bigger than we both worked for combined um very very institutionalized uh very insular departments come you know exercise their keyboard turrets and I bet that they have a huge wide margin of error as well because of the operational capabilities that their departments are throw at every fire right so if you have that many people and that many resources going to every fire then yeah you can get away with a lot you might have a very structured way to deal with it and that structured way might work every single time for like 90 to 95% of your fires it works all the time and then you you encounter something that's outside of what you guys go to or you encounter somebody else's fire or somebody else's training video that's set up for a context of circumstances that is so far outside of your very wide margin that you don't even know what you're looking at.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and I I do think like like a lot of fires have a wide room for margin not even the departments or the people yeah but like literally like some of these fires at least you know I've been doing this for a few years like I've seen some fires I'm like like I I could have come in here and pissed 70 gallons a minute on this and just like lobbed it in and accomplished the same thing that that 160 gallons or 150 or 185 or whatever. Well we we didn't need to yes we just searched well dude like we got away with it again I guess I like I don't know what to tell you but that shouldn't be your gauge for thinking that you're all this and that and I think skateboarders have pretty typical immediate consequences I mean rolling out the front door and you're not paying attention and you hit a little tiny pebble that happened to be kicked up on the sidewalk in a on on a path you've taken a thousand times boom off you go there's your hand skinned and all you didn't even do anything you just rolled out the front door um the little little crack got you a little uh wood chip or something a piece of mulch got you off you go and at times like I I mean that it's just like amazing I I actually it's really amazing how many people skateboard and get zero compensation and they just keep going for it it's it's actually crazy to me because the consequences are severe um I mean like that says something about what people get out of skateboarding.
SPEAKER_04That says a lot about because think about everybody that's not sponsored up until the point they get sponsored or everybody that's just amateur their whole career never like you've you've busted your body down all kinds of stuff and not been paid for it and you still do it. And that's pretty wild. Uh that does say a lot about what it is.
SPEAKER_02That's dedication.
SPEAKER_04Yeah it it is but but you can be dedicated to a lot of things and and most of them are aren't they don't carry the same physical risk of and so that's that's a big part of skateboarding and there's a draw to that the physical I mean there's people that skydive and they pay money to skydive and it's a huge risk and it's a huge uh payoff for them I guess for that that rush uh skateboarding is just one of those where yeah you have immediate feedback over and over and over again whether you did good bad indifferent whatever it it's immediate um and it hurts a lot often yeah um well let me try and get us back to some of the questions I've had because uh we've we've got some more of them so in line with some of the discussion um but a little more pointed what has skating done for you professionally like for your for your fire service career you've you've kind of touched on a couple of these things but I think I think there's some deeper stuff for each of you individually uh maybe some things that are the same and I bet a lot of these are connections that other skaters in the fire service are also they make these same connections so well OJ why don't you take that one what has skating done for you professionally in the fire service well going back to one well one patience especially now in today's fire service I guess you could say you you definitely have to have patience with these uh new firefighters that are coming in and it's just because they learn differently you know if you you can
Professional Benefits Of Skating Mindset
SPEAKER_04take even like a skateboarder today and take them back to when me and uh Gary was learning to skateboard you know it's it's it's the basic right so for me being patient with these kids that are coming in skateboarding brought it uh big time but also what skateboarding has brought is taking a risk and that's what you know that's what the fire service is you're you're taking a risk but it's calculated the same with skateboarding uh over time you learn to fall so you don't get hurt and people are they see that or they hear it and they're like there's no way but you do you learn to fall so you don't get hurt and it's a calculated risk.
SPEAKER_02You're calculating okay if I land this way which way do I roll or if I land this way which way do my my hands or whatever right it's the same with with fire service it's a calculated risk.
SPEAKER_00Uh you know if you you roll up on these houses and you got heavy smoke showing you know that thing's got to be vented okay what's the calculated risk I got to do here what tools do I need what what ladders am I going to throw am I going throw a roof ladder am I going to catch a pitch am I going to do whatever so that skateboarding taking a calculator risk correlate correlates with the fire service you know uh you go out there with skateboarding you don't intend on getting hurt you don't but you know the risk is there same with the fire service you don't intend on getting hurt but the risk is there and if you start taking some of that thought process of calculated risk away then you're going to start getting hurt because you're not thinking of that one rock that may be there and you hit it and then you fall well now you've got the same thing here in the fire service if I start taking these calculated risks away from uh making a judgment and then all of a sudden you hit the checkbox that you didn't have on your little sheet then you're just you're you're up to check creep you know so yeah that that for me those two things patience and calculated risk uh correlated big for me in the fire service nice what you got Gary I don't know I mean ri say it to me again um what has skateboarding done for you professionally like the connection to the job and and how how has it benefited your fire service career or affected your your fire service career it may not be a benefit it it could be a negative I guess I I probably already hit all that with my other yeah ramble I I would I would agree with what OJ is saying uh between the patience thing or what I kind of referred to as just like repetit enjoying the rep uh embracing the repetition yeah um and the calculated risk I do like that he says that um sounds like he was a little better at falling than I was though um so I I definitely didn't calculate some of the risk as well as maybe he has um I I really like everything that he kind of brought up and I could you know just reiterate all my my rage and and teenage angst carried over into adulthood yeah um but honestly the I think it is that if I could if I I honestly now that I've rambled for a second I I I gather my thoughts there William it is that repetition but it's it is um it is that repetition but it's the mindset that I like I'm I'm not done learning I'm not done trying to get better um and that just like it like it doesn't end. And what the fire the fire department of course like well dude maybe I I gotta I really feel like I'm dialed in on where staircases would be located in a a two and a half cut up balloon frame house well there's there's always another option that I haven't seen yet and um uh you know I had full fire fire travels this way well most of the time yeah you know and so there it's like there's always these things to be trying to pay attention to and to to learn and of course when you're interested in it same as if you're interested in skateboarding you want to get better because it's fun well the more you're interested in the fire service and the more you learn and the more you try to get good at the the basic things the more fun it is I dare I say fun. I know everyone says it's it's dangerous. I don't want to die I don't have a death wish but I will tell you like it is fun. Yeah it's fun it is fun like oh you're gonna uh you're gonna you're gonna go up uh um you you've been assigned a search you know the company's got a hose line over this way you've been assigned to search and now you're just fumbling around in the dark you don't know what you're doing like it's scary but at times also like it's it's like um you get to test the these things that you think you've been practicing and what's great is at a real fire you can shoot all sorts of holes in your theories yeah about what you think may or may not be working or how how you practice um at at you know whatever your your training center or we don't we don't even have a training center at all but you know uh if it's in the bay or or or at a at a class you take um dude there's all sorts of wild stuff that works at a class I mean it's great.
SPEAKER_04Would you differentiate this um what you're describing with the uh the repetition and and getting used to doing the would you differentiate that from work ethic or is that a kind of a a variation of work ethic uh I think I'm lucky that the two parallel each other.
SPEAKER_00Yeah just like uh um I I I actually I make uh this is a good I'm so I make this joke sometimes um the the citizens of my district that that I I work in they're lucky that all of my selfishness in in the things I want to do exactly parallels what they think firemen are doing all day but it it's not because it's a work ethic that was bred into me by anything really other than it probably is work ethic that was bred into me by skateboarding I just don't call it worth work ethic because it's fun yeah and it was like playtime with your friends.
SPEAKER_04Yeah so it's less it's less of a labor so it's it where I a lot of times we use the analogy of sisyphus right where the work never really ends. You you get to one in one one spot you you roll the rock up the mountain and then it rolls right back down the other side and then tomorrow you got to roll the rock back up the mountain and stuff and so that feels like labor like like a negative thing right you know that feels almost like like torture it feels like punishment but to me there's something about that where if you look at it from a different perspective a different mindset a different attitude that's just work ethic where you know that the job has to get done and the job in our case is part of it is to continue to work at being better.
SPEAKER_00So what William what what if you what if you have Happen to be at the bottom of the hill on the thousandth repetition where Sisyphus has the rock roll all the way back down. He starts over. What if you happen to be down there hanging out? And you're like, bro, and secretly he reaches down before he starts back up, pushing that rock, cracks a cold beer, takes a pull, hands it to you, and just goes, Bro, I love this.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I love it.
SPEAKER_00But that's it's and so that's what it is for the beer one more time and say, hands it back to you, says, I'll see you in an hour, dude. And just like, dude, it it if you think about that, you're like, dude, is it fucking crazy? You fucking crazy. Who wants to go hook ceiling with my my back is cramped up just sitting here talking to you, let alone throwing an air pack? Dude, I would literally pay money to go right now and go hook ceiling in a in a ship fucking lathing plaster and chicken wire. I would pay money to go do that, even though it sucks balls. Like, I would love to do that because it's everything about it is just like this sucks so bad right now. But the second that I take a break, I'm just smiling inside. Like I'm so happy to be there. And and it and of course, when you're with the right crew, um, just like skateboarding thing, like, dude, it doesn't matter how bad it sucks. Like that that attitude, like it just takes like one dude, like when you you make eye contact and you just know everyone's hurting.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you make eye contact and they make some, you know, they they pull out their blue steel fucking magnum, you know, facial expression. I got that kid that I work with now. Instantly, fuck it, let's we're ready to go. But like we're my show, I can't, I literally don't even have the strength to pop through playing drywall right now. I don't care. I'll I'll just keep going.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There is no work ethic. It it's like it's just fun at that point. And it maybe you're just mentally I'm a little off, but yeah, there is.
SPEAKER_04I don't I don't think everybody has that. I don't think everybody in the that works in the fire service has that. So I think we're lucky we're lucky in in the fact that we have that, that that is a uh it's so enjoyable. It it really is. There's there's two things that stand out in my my entire life that are more fun than anything else. And and uh one of them is the fire service. That's number one, like going to fires, like being inside or topside at a at a just good classic working fire, most fun I've ever had in my life. Uh the next one is playing in a band on stage. Right? That's that's the other one. It's also has some parallels with the instant feedback. You you're good or you're bad.
SPEAKER_00Uh take point, take point, come to Akron, take point, live on stage if you could stay up, late enough.
SPEAKER_04No, uh those days are long behind me. Uh I was never good at that either. Um, but it was so much fun uh while it lasted. Um but yeah, those those things they're so much fun that you just work at it. That's why people just work at playing guitar. That's so much fun. You might suck and suck and suck forever. And then one day you get something that you've been trying to get, and you're like, oh man, I hit I hit this this one riff, or I learned a song that was so hard that I've been working on for like years, or whatever. It's the same kind of thing. You might be by yourself. No one else ever hears it. It's just for you. It's the same with skateboarding. And so that brings me to something else I wanted to run by you guys, which is uh the mental toughness, the also the physical toughness, the the just toughness in general of body of mind. Um I think that's one of the biggest things. I think that might be the biggest thing that skaters get that then they bring to the fire service. Uh so if people came from a background of skateboarding for any amount of time where they they had to fall and get back up a bunch of times,
Toughness, Wear And Tear, Longevity
SPEAKER_04I think that builds a different kind of toughness than a lot of other experiences people have in their youth. Um, a lot of different sports that people play. Uh the other one that I think of a lot of is wrestling. Because even though you're on a team, you have a coach, you got other wrestlers around you, it's really just you. It's it's all you, it's your performance. And you you have an opponent there, where for skating, I think you're you are your own opponent. Maybe, maybe the obstacle, uh, you know, the environment is part of that, but but really you're battling yourself every time you go skate. That creates a certain kind of mental toughness. And when you fall, that creates a certain kind of physical toughness that not a lot else develops in people. Uh is that something you guys see? Do you have do you do y'all work around other skaters where you've seen that?
SPEAKER_02Uh I've had a couple on Birmingham that and they were great firemen. Um yeah, so they were they were great firemen. It's uh their mental toughness is it was there, their work ethic was fantastic. And talking about the mental toughness, you you almost become mentally ill because it's like, how many more times am I gonna do this to my body? How many more times am I just gonna keep slinging myself down? And it's the same, same thing with the fire service. You know, everybody wants to work at that busy station, and it's like, how many more times am I gonna put my body through this? You know, and they call it a young man's job and doing it for almost 30 years, you you do just like with skateboarding, you start feeling it oh over a little bit, and you know recently retired, it's like now my body's starting to feel all those late nights of you know doing that going into those or a search or you know, whatever, and it's it's it's takes a toll. And if it wasn't for skateboarding with the mental toughness lasting this long, uh I don't think I would have. Uh just just because of the amount of calls that we endure here, you know, and yet to go back to a quick point, what Gary was saying about going to a bunch of fires. Yeah, you go to a bunch of fires and you get sloppy after a while because you go to so many and you cut corners. So, you know, and it's just uh yeah, it takes a toll on your body for sure.
SPEAKER_04Uh so that brings me to another question
Injury Risk And Changing The Approach
SPEAKER_04perfectly. Um, how do you deal with injury risk and injury occurrence uh both mentally and practically? Like how do you deal with it on the psychological side, dealing with the potential risk while skating um and and still maintaining a career and a family and everything else? And then practically, do you do anything different? Like, do you actually change your behavior or uh take some sort of action or do something different because of that? So just talk about injury risk with skating and still working.
SPEAKER_02Uh so I don't do anything outrageous. You know, uh thing is real mellow. I what for me right now, what I like is the feel of the board under my feet. I like to feel the the asphalt or we got a little park across the street from my house. I just like the the the movement. Uh you know, it's you can almost uh relate it to a soul surfer. Uh I just I just feel free. I don't worry about injury uh while riding. Uh and same with the fire service. Uh I I don't worry about getting hurt because I think if you start worrying about that, if I do this, I'm going to get hurt, then you're going second guess yourself, and you're going second guess what you're doing, and you will get hurt. So for me, on both ends, I don't worry about getting hurt right now riding skateboard, and in the fire service, I definitely don't worry about it at at all.
SPEAKER_04Well, you, Gary, because you've you've definitely suffered some injuries and still kept doing it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so now I sound like a giant pussy accord corner OJ. Like, dude, uh, so I when I go skateboarding now, which is like a minimal amount, um, it is so on my mind about getting hurt because my my last injury really um it was from something real stupid and the the time off from work. I mean, I was out like seven months or something and coming back to work, this this would have happened in 2016. I am not right, my my one knee is not right to this day, and I've even had a follow-up surgery to try and get it a little bit better, which did help. Um, it is it's always on my mind, and not like I'm having like you know, anxiety attacks in the middle of the night thinking about, you know, I hear a skateboard going down the street and I I pee my pants a little bit. It's not like that, but like when I I I roll around or or want to go, um that well, there's a couple things on my mind. One is I'm I'm not as good as I used to be, and I'm real mad about it. Uh, and I'm not like a I don't at least I don't think I'm a super competitive person. Um but I I want to be good enough at something to to um have fun and do the things I want to do. And and you know, maybe that's like right here, and for a good friend of mine that I grew up with, um, you know, he's he's not a fireman, but skateboarder, uh dirt bike, motorcycle guy, just a you know, phenomenal dude. But for him to have fun, it's gotta be here. And that would always cause us a little tension because I'm like, I'm good. He's like, nah, we're I'm not good. And especially with like dirt biking and motorcycling, um, he's just on another level than I was. But but with skateboarding in the um thought or of the risk uh uh of injury, I I would tell you, like it's given me pretty much everything I've ever had, as far as uh friends and and family and uh traveling and and again, like you called it work ethic. Maybe that's probably is the word for it. It gave me everything, including work ethic. Um, so now when I go, I just kind of like OJ said, not gonna do anything crazy. Um mine is so minimal. Uh uh, I just went the other day and it'd been a little bit since I went. I mean, and of course, oh you guys know this, like when you haven't gone in a while, that pushing feels a little off balance. Like, dude, it was such yeah, it is such a shot to your ego, and you're like, literally, if one mom shows up with a four-year-old on a scooter, I'm leaving because I'm so embarrassed right now.
SPEAKER_04Oh brother, I took up skateboarding again as an adult. Yeah, I because I I had a board through high school, and at some point in high school, it it broke, and I had other things, and I just kind of I never bought another one. I never I never bought another deck. No, and uh and it just kind of faded away. And then I got kids and I got an itch. It came back, and I was like, I they're at the age now, and there was a skate shop that we happened to be near, and I was like, we're we're gonna go have dinner over this place, and then we're gonna go over to the skate shop. And we went over there, and the three of us, me and my two boys, we all got fitted basically for boards, and um and so I just started up again. And this was man, this would have been I don't know how many years ago. It doesn't matter, it is several several years back. Um, so I started out of the blue, had to kind of relearn, not kinda, had to relearn everything, the balance, the movement, and everything. Uh so yes, I know exactly what you mean about uh having a layoff and and trying to jump back in and how awkward it feels.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. But but let me let me hit the second part of that about the what you know the the risk to injury um at at the fire department. And this is I again I uh uh I well I would hope the guys I work with would back me up on this. I don't I don't have a death wish. I'm not trying to do stupid stuff just because it looks cool, or I'm not trying to get people hurt. Um but I I I to to to a certain point I don't think at all about that because I'm on duty and it's gonna be covered by workers comp. Like, like I literally and I've had some work injuries, and um I know that's probably jacked up, and I and I don't mean to make light of it. Um I'm not trying to play down uh the dangers. Um, I don't I don't want to fall off a roof. I don't I don't want to have you know something blow up on me and and and and you know I don't I don't want any of that uh uh for me or or the guys I work with. But I definitely think so much less about the fallout of the injury that it it doesn't really factor in other than like obvious things. Um we up on a metal roof uh a few weeks ago, um the angle was just just steep enough you could still walk it, and now there's some sawdust and some debris, and now there's some water, and all of a sudden you're like, dude, we're in a real pickle up here. You know what I mean? That's when it crosses my mind. Um, but I also am like, well, up, you know, up to a certain height, I could probably slide this, fall off, and look like an idiot, and I'm probably gonna, you know, hurt some vertebrae in my back and blow a hip out when I hit the ground, but at least it's gonna be covered under worker's gum. Um and I, you know, we have we have good insurance at my at my work, uh, and I save up a lot of sick leave because I'm real careful about, and even my wife knows, um unfortunately for her, like sick leave is for being sick, um, not because I want to extend my Kelly day because the weather's beautiful. Um and and again, I if if guys need to do that, more power to them. But at the end of the day, I've been a guy that had to burn a thousand hours of sick leave and it was gone, you know, and uh that's in my mind now. So, you know, when I'm off duty, um the things that I want to do are definitely not as extreme as when I was a kid, which is wild because I had no insurance as a you know a 20-year-old, and I was getting after it. You know, I mean, I mean, the the time I I dumped a wheelie in the street, my bike goes skidding away. Um that was one case to jump at a dirt bike motocross track. That was and I'm like, dude, I'm I might have to tone it down a little bit. Like, I don't even because I didn't at that time I didn't have a full-time job yet. But it was like I was in a different mind of just like, oh, this is what you do, you just go for it, and like you're gonna get hurt and it totally sucks. Um, but really, honestly, William, it wasn't until my last one uh 10 10 years ago actually, um, that really caused me to like take a big step back away from skateboarding.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, I actually started going harder at the fire department, which is actually it might have been like like I gotta make up for this almost like I'm I'm uh um probably an ego thing, but like I don't feel like as much of a man uh anymore because I didn't have this this one thing that I could do in my life. And again, it's not like I was some good skateboarder, like top end of mediocre would be described, you know.
SPEAKER_04You lost something because it whether you whether you want it whether you want to or not, you you do have other you have responsibilities, you have a job and a career and and family. And yeah, so yeah, once once that happens to you once or twice, you're like, okay, maybe I gotta tone this down a little bit, which means that you've lost something. And while it was a choice you made that you lost it, you you gave it up, uh yeah, when you lose something, sometimes you make up for that and compensate in other areas. So that's yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh so um a couple of just uh personal questions here. Do you do you guys on a scale of poser to like Andy Anderson,
Gear Nerds And Skill Nerds
SPEAKER_04where are you with uh like how nerdy you get on skating? Like I know how how you guys are with the fire service. Is it the same way with skating, or is it more laid back like like I just I use whatever, I I don't care about the wheels, I don't care about barrier, or do you guys get into the little itty bitty things with different different hardware, uh with technique, with with any of that stuff? How how nerd level do y'all take it?
SPEAKER_02I got I got uh O C D with it. Yeah. So uh deck size, you know, type of there's different types of wood. I'd get into the the the type of wood that I was dealing with, uh the hardware, the bearings, uh wheels, the wheels and the bearings had to it it got so what derometer, what derometer were your wheels? Yes, it got it got to a point like I would go to the shop and they're like, you know, you've been here for an hour and a half. Yeah, you you here's what we got, you know what I'm saying? And you need to you need to make decisions and get out of here, basically. You know, where some some guys are just happy to have a board or whatever. And you know, just even when it came to the grip tape, like if the way that I rode my grip, uh at the very end, I had a very small slit. Um and if the slit wasn't perfect, the entire grip came off. Uh, because in my head, that slit I can see when I go to catch. And if it's just off, it's like the whole board is is it's off. Uh another thing that would bug me really bad, like going down the street, uh, your hardware would become loose and it would rattle. And I'd have a tool in my pocket for like kids or whoever I was riding with, and their hardware would rattle. I was like, man, you need to stop. You need to, you know, tighter you need to tighten your hardware.
SPEAKER_03You were the hardware police.
SPEAKER_02And these these dudes are like, you know, we're we're all grown at that time. They're like, I'm a grown man. Why are you doing this? I'm like, well, here's the reason why, because if it's not properly tightened, what's gonna happen is you're gonna get this stress crack at the bottom of the base of your truck. And once that stress crack starts getting wide, then you start losing the deck the integrity of the base of the truck to the board, and it's gonna shift different when you land. And they're just looking like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, just just let me, just let me tighten this for you, please. Or uh my wheel, when I would tighten my bolt down on my wheel, if it didn't spin to like the second I'm looking for, um, I would have to adjust it and I would be there for forever. It was it was for people that have OCD, that was my OCD. If it wasn't set up right and it just didn't feel right, um uh I'd yeah, it was a bad day.
SPEAKER_04Are you still that way?
SPEAKER_02Um with the board, no, no, I'm not. Now with the fire service, I am, yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_04But uh, well, to some point I am with that in the fire service, and and William would not not when we're teaching, not when we're teaching at all. There are zero cares.
SPEAKER_02There are none. So, like right now, like teaching, it's like uh we're just gonna let it flow. I don't have anything written down, I don't have a plan, I don't, you know, but it's so stressful for me.
SPEAKER_04He'll walk in, it'll walk in like we just uh like like the way that uh a busker would set up in a subway. Like you just flip open his guitar case and uh you just toss money in it and he'll just play whatever comes to mind. That's that's OJ's approach to teaching at times. We're just gonna run it.
SPEAKER_02It works. It works sometimes, but to the skateboarding side, I would have never done that. Like I would have a list for the day of the spots that I wanted to hit. And it it got so obnoxious to uh if the wind was blowing different. And in my head, it'd be like, okay, the wind's blowing a certain direction. So the way this is gonna flip, it's not gonna flip a certain way. And it just got to the point, it's like, man, just go. You know, just just and people will be waiting. And I'll ride up to it like three or four times, like, all right, I feel it this way. And they're finally like, we're gonna go. I'm like, no, I got it, I got it. But fire service somewhat I am teaching, absolutely not. I just shoot you in the head.
SPEAKER_03What about you, Gary?
SPEAKER_00I got nothing. Oh my god. Uh God bless you, OJ. Uh dude, I I might have I might have had a phase like that that lasted like a month, uh, where I changed my grip tape. Uh, but uh no, dude, I I must have such a so much of a lower standard than you. Um I you know, I have little preferences, uh, but not not to the degree that he just described. Uh I definitely have uh pretty pretty low expectations and low standards when it comes to what about on technique?
SPEAKER_04Because I've I've watched your videos from from years back when you first started posting videos of you doing just simple hose stretches, V splits, stuff like that. Um and working on the little itty bitty details that make that just a smidge better each time. That that repetition that we were talking about earlier. Are you the same way with technique and and skating?
SPEAKER_00So when I make the joke about the low standards and expectations, that is skating that I'm referring to, and I would tell you on the fire department, uh, the the fire department side, I uh uh not to maybe the degree that OJ described, but I definitely at times have gotten to the weeds on these details that mean nothing to anybody. Um, you know, the the you know the barometer of your wheel, great, uh, great, great one. Uh it's like nobody knows the difference between like 92 and 95 and 97. Well, these are 94. Like, dude, good good luck. Like, it really takes somebody a little bit to be that into it. And they typically what you would see is you, oh, I like this thing. That's what I like. You're like you you probably actually probably don't even know. You know, maybe maybe if the wheel was a little harder, you would recognize that it it slid um uh you know, but in some little power slide or something a little bit better. But in the fire service, there's so many nuanced little details that you can easily go down that rabbit hole and just really overanalyze. Um, and if guys don't agree with that, call Dennis Legier one time and you'll understand what I'm talking about. Um but to to that, I definitely have gone off the deep end many, many times on on some things, whether uh, you know, pose nozzle stuff. Um I I mean I could I could just think of a million things. I mean, at one point arguing with people about the the you're you're gonna ruin a halligan. This is my favorite. You're gonna ruin a halligan. I this was verbatim said to me in the middle of a class. So there's there's 20 firemen standing in front of a forceful entry door, and I'm going through our little spiel, and I've got all our own tools set up and and different things to do. And some battalion chief or assistant chief, I don't even know what the guy was. It's a department here in Ohio. We they're they're a good distance from me, so we thank God we don't even go mutual aid together. But he I you know happened to just, of course, he walks in, doesn't hear anything, there's no context to it. And uh all he hears is angle grinder and uh you know the halgen, and he immediately entered, he's looking we won't be doing that. And I was like, well, one, I'm not recommending you do it, you can do whatever you want, I can give a shit. But and then he followed it up with you're you're gonna ruin the temper at the molecular level. And I just go, bro, and I don't have the best temperament with chiefs um more than once. Uh I've had a a shovel and just immediately start digging my own grave um when it comes to talking to like officers and chiefs. Um and I was just like, bro, you you can do whatever you want. I go, but this bar right here that we're about to use for the class has probably forced thousands of doors, door props and real doors in some of the vacants that we had over the years. This single halligan, I personally rub mustard on it at some point to see if it would patina it. And I I have ground it with an angle grinder. I can tell you the disc that I use, the place, like if there's anybody between the two of us that knows what this tool can or can't do, I got news for you. It ain't you. And I mean, like, I I mean that's not verbatim what I said to the dude, but like the comment was not pleasant that I had to return to him, and then he basically just scuffled off into the corner, and that was the end of that. It's like, don't come back, don't come back. Like, I don't I don't come into your office and tell you the the molecular weight of the black ink versus the blue ink as you do your your fucking report. Like, get the fuck out of here, dude. These guys are trying to learn. I'm not here to bullshit anybody. I'm gonna tell you about the angle grinder in the case of the halligan because some guys might have just popped off because they used an angle grinder for the first time that week. At this point, I think I had probably been using one on a halligan for like over a decade. And it's like I'm seeing no issues. I'm telling you, and and I even psycho, this tool could break today. It's probably not gonna be because of the angle grinder, and I got news for you at 200 bucks and 10,000 repetitions, I got news for you. You know, even a good S-wing hammer will break at some point. Like, dude, get out of here. But that that mindset of like you know, like how nerdy do you want to be? Well, that was me at full throttle, William. Back back to my big margin for error uh thing that I alluded to. I it it's real easy to see people's eyes roll in the back of their head when you start talking about, you know, uh, you know, 30 to 1 and 15 to 1 or 2 or 3. Like I don't even know what the mechanical advantages are now. I would literally have to check like my notes to remember how to hit those talking points. Because what I realized was most people just don't care. And so if we want to get nerdy, then I I need to be with the nerd group.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if I'm gonna spend my time doing some of these things, then the the um the the the juice needs to be worth the squeeze, if you will. And maybe that's just being older. Um, but I would tell you, I I I mean, I I I I'll give you this example and then I and then I'll shut up. I'll tell you how maybe not to OJ's level of some OCD shit he's got going on, like, oh, did I tap the light three times or was it five? Like uh, you know, but I will tell you, I got caught with my pants down um in how I came off the truck and what I did or didn't do at a fire, and I was like, that will never happen to me again. And I literally got back, and over several shifts, I practiced getting out of a seat and walking to the rear and opening the ladder compartment, and I would start to pull the ladder, I'd shove it back in, I'd close the compartment, I'd go back, I'd sit in the seat, and I'd close the door and I would do it again. And I wanted to basically like you know, build the oh, here we go, big word. I'm gonna build this new neural pathway. Oh, Mr. Science. But what I wanted was when that assignment dropped in my lap again, I didn't want to fumble it. And the pr all the previous times I had gone and done something different, and then this one time I've had to switch it up, and I just it's like I I I only ever rode goofy foot, I only ever hit a handrail front side, and now you want me to try and do it uh uh backside, like which which one is it again? And I wasn't gonna do that as a fireman. Um uh and so without a doubt, I've I've been pretty nerdy about some fire stuff. Um but to a point I've actually backed off and again lowered lowered my standard of what's acceptable. Uh um, you know, I'm trying to do the right thing, I think. But uh there's just such a wild gap that you have room to work within. And so when someone maybe back to the comment, um OJ talking about the video stuff and and just getting eaten alive in the comment section, I I think sometimes people are just so hung up on on the little details because they've just become an uber nerd about gallons per minute and and and the amount of BTUs that a hundred and you know, well, a hundred and fifty gallons a minute will will uh evaporate 22,600 BTUs per second. And that's a you're like, dude, just shut up. Just shut up. When the door opens and you open the nozzle, does the fire darken down or not? When you shut the nozzle down, is it immediately hot and coming on you again? Well, then you're probably just hitting gas, move in a little bit, past the door threshold, hit right and left, rock it for another extra 10, 20 seconds before you shut down again. And when you shut down again, you'll get some feedback and you know what you're doing. Well, that's not extremely nerdy. But if a guy goes super nerdy and starts telling me, oh, well, the bail oper like, dude, stop. Well, the nozzle, stop. We have wiggle room here to to work with. And I think sometimes if if you're too nerdy, maybe to OJ's thing, the guy's like, hey, dude, like, let's go. Like, like you've been here long enough. How many run-ups to the ledge are you gonna do? Like, let's go. Well, in the fire department, it's like you there's there's almost like a similar crowd because they they are maybe they are going to a lot of fires more more than me. I assume everybody goes to more fires than me. Um, but at times you you do need to respect, and and maybe that's where the fire department's kind of lacking, is a little bit of respect for the people that have uh dove into the you know deep into the the skill uh or the equipment to a level that's totally different. And they just don't respect that because they haven't had to use it. And again, when when you have a wide margin for all these sloppy skills to just that they they just work out, well, that's why when it comes to forceful entry, guys like, well, just kick the door. I go, I go, it well, that's gonna work like fucking you know, nine times out of ten, you're probably right. You're probably right, kick the door. I'm not taking that away from you. But you need to respect the Halligan for when the boot doesn't work, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And and I think there's a I think no, I think what you're getting at is you're you're if you it's balance. There's a balance between the two. There's there's obsessive over minutia that may or may not matter, but other people aren't going to care about. Um, and then there's not caring about any details, and somewhere in the middle there's a balance.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04In particular when you're when you're in the learning or teaching portion of this. In the context of of skills acquisition and training and drill and really honing the craft, uh, there's a balance in there. Uh I tend to nerd out on anything that's even remotely interesting to me. Like that's I have picked up new hobbies and new things because they were an opportunity to nerd out on stuff. I don't nerd out on everything. Like, I don't nerd out on skateboarding hardware and stuff, but I might nerd out if somebody does a video on a nerd level analysis of a trick. That kind of stuff, like like we were talking about, the guy detailing the little things that are derailing his longest grind attempt, that kind of stuff I can nerd out on. Um in the fire service, it's the same thing. I'll nerd out on the things that are interesting to me and the other things I don't care about, like engine stuff. Uh I'll nerd out on it because it's something else I can, but I'm on a I'm on a tiller truck that has no have five gallons of water, ten if you count the the cooler. Right. So I it doesn't have practical application for my job. And so if you start coming at me with that kind of stuff in the context of like skills acquisition, it doesn't do anything for me. I need I need your level, I need the grunt level approach to information delivery on engine stuff. But then when we get to truck stuff, I want the and Andrew Pristac level like I I want the physics of forcible entry to a level that like I'm jealous of Jason Joanitas and his physics degree and and Sammy Hittle and his physics uh like formal education. I'm jealous of that because I want to know at that level and understand at that level what is happening, and uh I'm willing to put in the extra effort for stuff nobody else cares about, even if even if all I do is carry it around and I can't do anything else with it. It's just I'll fill my pockets with it uh to the point that it weighs me down. Um and then the the hope is that I don't start handing it off to people in a way that weighs them down too.
SPEAKER_00Let me ask you this aluminum ladder. Aluminum actually gets slightly stronger when it flexes to a degree. Yes or no?
SPEAKER_04Uh I don't know. That's outside of my knowledge. Um like is it does it do you mean like it work hardens or do you mean it's like a an elastic toughness?
SPEAKER_00Like it's like I I don't even know where to go with this because it was like a little comment made by a guy testing ladders one day. I've never dug into it, but to give you one little nerdy thing to go into the rabbit hole on, it's like so these ladders, you know, getting getting a little bit of rough use and flexing and and and bouncing around potentially is good for them. You know what I mean? Okay, I I don't know that to be true, but when you hear these comments coming from possibly, and I I use this term loosely, a subject matter expert, a guy that all day tests ladders, you know. Um man, that that's it it almost just gave me a little itch. I wanted to scratch, but maybe I just having young kids and stuff, I I just never got there. But uh since you're riding around on the tiller truck, I'm gonna throw it at I'm gonna throw it to you to figure out and let me know.
SPEAKER_04Um I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna look into that, and then I'm also gonna throw it at Clay McGee since he uh he has a a ladders class that he presents and see if he can get into the metallurgy of the aluminum and and how that behaves.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but and then let me add this. I'm also this guy in the back of the room because I I was told I was told drawing with a Sharpie on that same ladder was gonna somehow void the warranty. Dude, the the amount of stuff I could have a whole podcast with the the rain clouds of shit that have been dropped on me. And I gotta tell you, dude, that this is these are all firemen. Yeah, America's heroes. And the one guy's telling me about the molecular level of the halligan, and this guy's telling me not to draw on something with the Sharpie, and you're like, my God, I didn't realize there were so many rocket scientists sitting at this coffee table today. And then you see them at a fire and you go, Ah, got it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Never mind. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, I got one more question, but I was gonna see if either of you had anything else you wanted to talk about. OJ, did you have any questions you wanted to throw into this from one skateboarder to another, anything like that?
SPEAKER_02No, I think you covered everything pretty
Best Songs To Skate To
SPEAKER_02good, Bill.
SPEAKER_04All right. Well, then the last question I got for both of you is the best song or album to skate to. I don't want a genre. I want to get a little more specific. If you if somebody said, hey dude, you're gonna skate uh to this one song or this one album for the next year solid, what's it gonna be?
SPEAKER_02Mine is Ned's Atomic Dustin uh Greensail Gray.
SPEAKER_04I don't know what that is. What what is that?
SPEAKER_02Ned's Atomic Dustbin, it's a band, and the song is Greensail Gray.
SPEAKER_04What uh what genre would that be in?
SPEAKER_02It's punk.
SPEAKER_04Okay. All right, so like uh would you say like 80s punk or more into the 90s?
SPEAKER_02No, early 90s.
SPEAKER_04Okay. All right, I'd probably like it then.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you would.
SPEAKER_04All right, what you got?
SPEAKER_02All you have to do is look up uh if you look up Rick Howard's part, um he staked to it, fantastic song, fantastic part.
SPEAKER_04All right, what you got, Gary?
SPEAKER_00Uh so I'm gonna say I gotta say Operation Ivy. Uh I mean they had basically they had one album, which would uh was called Energy. Um if you want one song off of that, I'm gonna say the crowd uh is probably the song I would go with. Um are you familiar with that?
SPEAKER_04I'm not, I'm not, but I'm gonna go I'm gonna go dig into set because I grew up a little later, so I didn't get most of the the music from the 80s and early 90s until now. I'm having to go back. Uh I'll after y'all are done, I'll tell you my pick. And it is also one that I had to go back and listen to because I didn't listen to it when it was actually on the radio and stuff. So yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Well, not none of mine would have been on the radio. Uh but I'll give you so let me let me say Operation Ivy, um uh the I mean the 20 whatever songs are on the album, that's pretty much it, because then they broke up and then more or less formed Rancid. Okay. Uh um coming out of that. So this would have been like 89 going into 9091, where Operation Ivy ended and then rancid came out and and kickstarted off. But I would tell you, uh if you you know the descendants, yes. Okay, so and if you remember they had uh an album called Summary, which was you know kind of like a little best of, if you will, off of Milo's Goes to College and Okay, yeah, and I don't want to grow like so so Summary come was like uh one of the first few, you know, like cassettes that I had or got to listen to, plus all the songs uh from pretty much bands I also listen to, like today, um they were all in skate videos coming out of the 80s, yeah. Um and then in the end of 90s, so that would have been my my window where I was uh um influenced by it. Um but uh oh OJ, you know uh what about um oh God, let me think. Uh was it Wheels of Fire or Streets of Fire? Is he there? Um not as part. I remember Nodis' part, but I don't remember the song. Yeah, he the one one of his parts, uh he had he he skated one part to uh Fire Hose, uh Brave Captain, I think. He had another part and he skated to a descendant song. Yeah, and so you remember his like, I'm not a cool guy anymore, dude. Yeah, like right now, right now, I want to go like. Kick out the I mean, dude, like ready to go. Yeah. Oh yeah. Dude. But uh yeah, that's what I would say, William.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I could probably talk for an hour about these bands, dude.
SPEAKER_04But what are the I would um uh yeah, so I skated in the era when a lot of that music was going on, and it was in in the videos and stuff. I didn't watch all the a lot of videos, it I just didn't have access. Internet wasn't a thing, and um, you know, I didn't have enough friends and I wasn't that deep into it for long enough to have uh accumulated videos. I'd watch them at other people's houses and stuff like that. So hearing some of that music, I and it like you said, it wasn't on the radio, and even if it had been, um, I didn't have my own radio or anything to listen to that until the mid-90s. Uh so I missed everything that came out of the late 80s and up to the mid-90s. I can tell you when I started listening to the radio was 1996, because then I got my own uh alarm clock that had a radio in it that I could play the radio in my room. And that's that's when I picked up on um the alternative scene and the end stages of like Metallica. So I I picked up Metallica when Lode came out in 1996. I never heard Metallica before that. Um, but you know, so I missed all most of the grunge era, um all of the hardcore, post-hardcore, all that that punk era up right into the the pop punk. I didn't pick up on punk until much later, basically when Blink 182 made it more mainstream and stuff like that. That's when I got into it. And so I've had to, in my much later adult years, go back and listen to stuff that I missed when I was a kid that would have been freaking great. Um and so yeah, the uh I I like Pennywise a lot as far as that kind of era of punk um and punk that's more melodic and things like that, um, a little less of the just straight up thrashy kind of stuff, uh depending on the mood. But I'll tell you, my number one album, and again, this is I had to go back and find it. It it wasn't I I had known the songs because they're played on the radio, the hits and stuff, but the whole album as as one thing to just go skate to from one end of the album to the other. Pearl Jam 10. I it's it's not high energy. I mean, there's a couple of higher energy songs, right? But but for me, that brings back I didn't hear most of that in the era when I was skating the first time.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And but it has this weird nostalgic effect. It's like it's like retroactive nostalgia because I didn't I didn't have it back then, so it's not something I'm remembering with fondness from back then, but it recreates all of that same feeling for me of skating when I was a kid because I didn't have any music when I was skating as a kid. Yeah, there was nothing playing, I didn't have headphones, I didn't have anything. It was just me and the sound of wheels on asphalt or concrete. And so yeah, that uh yeah, Pearl Jam 10.
SPEAKER_02Uh well uh what a chill. Nostalgia. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's retroactive nostalgia. I don't know if I just came up with that or if that's a real term or something, but yeah, it's it that brings back all of those feelings of skating when I was in middle school and how that felt. So I could uh we've got a couple of firehouses at my part-time that have really nice smooth concrete pads. And like OJ said, just the feeling of the board underneath you. I can't do any tricks. I can barely ollie uh I can't ollie it all moving. I really have never been able to. I I used ramps to get onto anything that I had to get on. Um, but I just like to cruise around in a skate park and just, you know, I'll uh if it's if it doesn't have any vert, I'm good. If it has any vert, uh I broke myself a vert when I was a a child and I fell from vert to flap and landed landed face down with an arm tucked under my my solar plexus. Um but I'll just get out and cruise around or get on some smooth concrete and just just move. And that to me has it feels the same, like OJ was saying, just feeling it. Like if I had a pump track at a firehouse, brother, you might never see me. The tools that all get rusted, because that's where I'd be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. OJ had something. No, I'm good. I'm fantastic.
SPEAKER_04Well, gentlemen, um that's the conclusion of all of my questions. If there's anything you'd
Upcoming Classes And Closing
SPEAKER_04like to end with, um I usually on podcasts I'm hosting, which I kind of am on this one, uh usually give guys an opportunity to, you know, plug whatever they got going on. If you've got a conference or a class or something coming up, throw that out there and let everybody know. So whenever this airs, it I don't know, OJ, how how long you think till this comes out?
SPEAKER_02Uh going try by the end of the week.
SPEAKER_04Oh gosh, that's that's way faster than I can get them out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, um uh that from this part on it'll be edited. Uh I got some software I'm going to play with, but my goal is after we record them to get them out like pretty quick.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So Gary, what you got coming up? Uh anything? Any place people will find you, see you, hear you, smell you?
SPEAKER_00Uh I don't know.
SPEAKER_04All right. Well, we'll see you at firemanship next year.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Alright, no, I feel like I I feel like I signed up to do something somewhere. Uh I think we're the Brothers in Battle has um one of the live fire like grabs classes. Okay. Uh that's sometime this fall in Aurora, Illinois. I think I signed up for that. Okay. As far as in what like instructor stuff.
SPEAKER_04Um but you're gonna come help out with uh the brothers in battle search stuff at uh East Coast Truck?
SPEAKER_00Uh I don't know. When's that?
SPEAKER_04That's uh what February is that right? February next year? Yeah. So February. Yeah, February in North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00Oh really?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Which city? Uh just east of Asheville, so western North Carolina. Yeah, just like right outside the mountains and all that.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Weasel weasel your way in there. Come to you.
SPEAKER_00I like dude. There's some good dudes in North Carolina. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. I I need to uh figure out you so that's in February.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and BIB is doing uh doing the search component to that, and it's all acquired structures.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm it's an old nursing home.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we have we have a huge like three or four story nursing home.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh that uh we're gonna text me the dates.
SPEAKER_00Cody's probably gonna not let me come. He's gonna make sure I don't show up. I'll stay the night there. I'll I'll just stay the night. It sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah. And uh in uh January, actually, this reminded me uh I don't think they've announced it, but I I'm gonna actually talk at the conference um uh instead of doing hands-on stuff, and so I don't do a lot of lectures, so I'm a little nervous about that. Um I've I've done a couple lectures here and there, but I'm gonna uh be talking at a a conference here in Ohio in January. But I I did tell them it's gonna be a hybrid lecture. And I I needed a hose, a hose head, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03You just need something to have in your hands. You need a you need a fidget spinner of some of sorts.
SPEAKER_00Probably. Yeah. Uh no, I got I got nothing going on. I would I would just say uh thanks for doing this. Uh hope someone enjoyed it. I don't know, you know, other than getting a laugh or just feeling like they're not alone with how they feel about certain things. It's it's nice chatting like this. So I appreciate you guys thinking about me.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. What about you, OJ? What do what do we have? What do we have coming up?
SPEAKER_02Uh let me think. For Magic City, we got Utah in October. And then we're off for the holidays. January or in Kentucky. Uh date's not settled yet. February is East Coast truck. There's nothing to work. It's just nothing's uh solid yet.
SPEAKER_04Alright. And I'll be at uh something. I'll be at East Coast Truck. I'll be at uh what are we doing? South Carolina, we got uh oh yeah, the Truckman's Academy with Soda City. There's a couple things coming up. Alright, well, that's all I've got.
SPEAKER_02That's all I got. Jerry, I appreciate you coming on tonight. Uh it was a fantastic talk.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, OJ.
SPEAKER_02Of course. Billy, I appreciate you getting the questions together and getting this thing up and going.
SPEAKER_04Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_02We we went two hours and didn't keep track. So it was a good talk. We got a lot of information out, and I think everybody will enjoy it.
