Jason Lee Interview 1990

Yeah, I know Jason
We go way back. I kicked his ass at recess one day and we’ve been friends ever since. That was in second or fourth grade, one of the even ones. I remember because the even-grades’ classrooms were on the south side of the hail. Jason and I used to pound on the walls on our way to and from the bathroom. It disturbed the other students and made us laugh. We had fun back then.
I haven’t seen him much lately. I’ve heard that head’s real busy. I remember when we used to dress up in my dada’s clothes and tell people that we were mafia bosses, business moguls, or pimps. Those were real fun days. But now he has his skateboard and he gets paid to skate. I’m really happy for him. He must be doing well. I heard head’s even getting an interview in Skateboarder Magazine or something. I always knew head be famous. - An old friend of Jason’s

you can be easily influenced by the person just sitting next to you, whether it be a stranger or a friend or relative. For instance, you could be sitting on the bus, with a straight line of thought in your mind, and someone could come along with maybe an odd-looking pair of shoes, and you could be easily influenced by the way those shoes look. And your whole day could change.

Do you have a girlfriend?
No.

Why not?
I just haven’t found a girl that I really like, or that I’d want to be with for a long time.

What are you looking for, do you even know?
I’m looking for a girlfriend. I’m around the same people all the time, and doing the same thing all the time. I figure if I have a girlfriend, it will kind of change my everyday lifestyle.

Can you describe-to someone who might not know you-your scene, your look, your everyday vibe?
Well, it’s just pretty plain.

What really gets you going?
In anger, or just . . . ?

Just anything.
Laughter. Being around certain people, my close friends that I laugh with. Laughter gets me going.

Don’t try to be so serious.
I can’t help it. That’s how I always am when these recorders get turned on. Okay, this is Take 2.

Take 2. What’s your newest toy?
My newest toy is a 1990 Chevy truck. I really like it. It’s a 454 Super Sport, its black, its fun to drive. The ride is excellent. I used to have a Honda four-door. I wanted to trade it in for a truck because I had driven the Honda for so long, and then I drove Mark Gonzales’ truck. I liked the way it took off so fast.

How old are you?
78.

So you’ve got to be one of the oldest pro skaters around.
No, I just recently turned 20.

Okay, here’s a question. There’s a quick turnover in skateboarding, and someone’s up on top for a while, and everyone’s all into it. Like yesterday, you were this hot new guy, Jason Lee. Now you’re known as a contest veteran. You’ve been around for a while, you’re not this new person anymore. What do you think about that?
I think it’s natural. It’s going to happen to everybody. Nobody can stay the new person forever. Someone else comes along and takes their place. But it doesn’t mean the person who’s not new anymore doesn’t deserve credit.

Who do you see coming up, new guys that impress you?
All the new vert guys, the amateurs that just turned pro at Del Mar. I like Mike Conroy, and Buster Halterman, all those guys. Now they’re getting attention from everybody, and they’re going to get the attention for a long time because they’re new faces and good skateboarders. Then someone else will come along.

Now that you’re pro, is there a lot of different stuff you have to deal with that you didn’t have to deal with as on amateur?
Yeah, because when you’re pro, you’re in the spotlight. And the public is going to expect more from the pros.

Are you scored of raccoons?
I’m not scared of raccoons because I don’t live in the country. But if I lived in the country, I’d be scared of them because I’d see them more often, and I’d see their vicious claws.

Are there things that scare you, that you have gnarly dreams about or something?
Um...no.

You’re fearless, aren’t you?
Except when I’m sleeping, and I can’t move

You sleep and can’t move?
You know when you’re sleeping, usually your mind and your body wake up at the same time. Sometimes you’ll be sleeping, and your mind will wake up before your body. And your body can’t move. It’s like you’re in a coma. You’re just lying there and you can’t open your eyes or anything. You just have to jerk and wake up. Have you ever had that?

Yeah.
Seriously, I’ve had that. That’s what scares me.

It happens when I’m falling asleep, usually. It seems like my body will fall asleep before my head, and I feel all heavy and stuff.
No, this is right when I’m going to wake up. I’m totally in the middle of sleep. My mind wakes up, I’m totally conscious, but my body’s still asleep. I talked to Chris Miller in Hawaii in March, 1989. and he told me that’s happened to him before. I told him that it happened to me a lot, and he asked me if I smoked marijuana. He said marijuana might have something to do with It.

Do you smoke marijuana?
No, I don’t.

Why not?
Because I’m too paranoid. If I ever took drugs, I wouldn’t go along with the so- called high that drugs give you. I would go against it. I would be really paranoid because I’d be feeling abnormal, it would just ruin it.

When you started skateboarding, did you start street skating?
In eighth grade, I got a Variflex skateboard, and I used to wear these volleyball shoes, just because I thought I was a surfer and that’s what all the surfers wore. I wore these Hawaiian print button-down shirts, and I used to surf-skate in front of my house, and do grinds on the driveway edge. I’d try to do boardslides on the curb and my stepdad would get mad and say, “You’re scratching up your board, you’re messing your board up’ And I used to try to tell him, “That’s what it’s made for’

You seem to be a pretty happy-go- lucky type of guy.
Yeah. I’m mostly happy. But when I get down on things, I get extra down.

Big mood swings.
Yeah, when I get depressed, I get depressed about skateboarding and everyday situations.

That seems common with a lot of skateboarders, one of the only times you see them mad is with the way they’re skating.
I’m kind of depressed on how skateboarding’s turned out. I think skateboarding’s kind of ruined now.

Really?
Yeah. Just because nobody wants to skate for themselves.

Because of the money, or what?
There are people who will spend 24 hours of their day just skating and trying to learn tricks. They think of what all the other people do in skateboarding, and they want to do it better. That’s a good way to teach yourself how to skate, as long as you have fun with it. It just seems like people make up lists in their heads of what tricks they can do, and compare them with other people. If their list says they have more tricks, they say they’re better.

Seems like a lot of kids’ main motivation for skating is to one-up people. Have you ever had to deal with that when you go to a town, having these kids want to skate against you?
A few times, I just try to ignore it. It seems that people don’t understand that pro skateboarders are just like anybody else. They expect us to get right out of the car at a demo, be totally healthy and ready to go. It seems like just with the snap of their fingers, we’re expected to do every trick that they see in the video, first try. That’s what I think people expect from pros. It’s not that easy.

Was that hard to deal with at first?
Yeah. It’s hard to deal with now.

Are you getting better at dealing with It, though?
Yeah. Sometimes there’ll be people who smart off to pros at demos. They’re always pushing you to do more and more and more. Then if you don’t do it, they yell out, “You suck.” It just seems like people don’t understand. If I go skating to the store or something, and I’m just doing tricks that I feel are fun. I picture myself skating to the store in a video, and people are watching, saying, “Jason sucks. He’s not doing anything hard, head’s not doing any hard tricks. Why is he pro?”

Who influences you?
Everyone. Mark Gonzales, definitely.

He’s your roommate?
Yeah.

You just moved out. How long have you guys lived together?
A year, probably. I think Mark’s so good on a skateboard. He’s my favorite skate- boarder. When I go skate with him, he’ll try anything. He’s just great. If a trick feels good, he’ll do it. He won’t care what people think about it, if it’s up-to-date or not, that’s just what he wants to do.

Did you get picked on as a kid?
Yeah, by my older brother. He used to pin me down and punch me in the arm when we were younger. It hurt. I bothered him. I was hyper, he was frustrated.

What’s his name?
James. He likes to work on cars.

He lives with your mom?
Yeah. That’s where my skateboard ramp is.

Where do you usually skate?
I skate on my ramp and on the street.

Do you skate every day?
I skate whenever I feel like skating. I get bummed when people ask me if I skate a lot or if I’ve learned a trick lately, because it seems now in skating its mandatory. Skateboarding is just skateboarding, it’s not a course in school.

What about skateboarding in television commercial?
People in commercials want to use skateboarding because it’s a popular sport, but they don’t want to publicize it too much.

How did you get involved with World Industries?
Rocco watched me skate. I was really nervous, I was scared to do tricks in front of him.

Where were you
At Hermosa Pier. I was skating, and then he put me on Venture and SMA Rocco Division

you like knowing about the business side of things?
Yeah, just because that’s how I make my living.

Yeah, but does it bum you out?
I just get really bummed about it. I’ll go to a demo, and I won’t be skating really well, but I’ll be skating well enough for myself, and I think, “This is just stupid” I’m so confused now, because it doesn’t seem I’m skating well enough for the crowd, but I’m skating well enough for me. What should I do? I know I want to skate for myself.

Is it hard to feel like you are skating for yourself when you’re being sent to all these places and people are buying your time, “I’ve got him for an hour, here he is and he better do his stuff”
So in other words, when a pro goes to a demo, a bunch of people are standing around a fenced area, and they’re all yelling out, “Okay, let’s see what you can do:’ You’re on the Spot, and you’re just supposed to do all these tricks. They think, “Oh, Jason Lee’s a pro skateboarder, head’s going to do all the tricks that we’ve ever seen in the video. Because if one person’s a pro, head’s as good as the next pro. They’re all the same’ If I’m skating the way I want to skate, there might be some bad vibes. Then people say, “Well, why didn’t you do that one new trick that I’ve seen in some new video?” I just say to myself, “Because I don’t want to.” That’s about it. That’s the bottom line right there. Skating and doing tricks that you want to do is the best thing because it puts you into a good mood, you feel good about yourself. You don’t go to a restaurant and order food you don’t like. It’s the same thing.

Are you a competitive person?
At contests, for myself, not to be better than anyone, just to do good. I’m doing the tricks that I’ve learned, that I’ve picked out. I plan out a run, and if I go through the run and make all the tricks, I feel good about myself,

What are some other interests that you have?
Music.

Making music or listening?
I’m trying to learn how to play bass, but I’m more into listening to music.

Who are you Into right now?
Old David Bowie, Neil Young, a lot of music from the ‘70s. I like some funk music, Mark got me into Parliament. Bad Religion. not too much punk though. Anything.

What about after you’re done skating?
That’s a lot of the stress on my back right now, what I’m going to do when I’m done skating.

Do you want to go to school or something?
Yeah, I think after this summer I’d like to take English courses in school, hopefully for five years. Then when I’m done skating I’ll have a lot of English credit. Then I want to take a journalism class. Then, I don’t know.

Do you know what you want to do when you’re done? What will you be taking those courses for?
Maybe I can be a journalist or something. I think that’d be fun. Write for a newspaper or something. I like writing. That’s what I do a lot, too. I guess the only reason things are on my back, and I get bothered more easily, is because I wasn’t really like this when I was younger, my mind wasn’t really set. Yet I didn’t try not to care about things, I just didn’t really think about too many things. Now little things bother me. I was driving down the road and I saw a car with a fancy-looking girl in it, and a bumper sticker that said, “Stop Pollution” If you’re into something like that, that’s fine, but it’s just hypocritical, displaying it on a moving, polluting vehicle.

What it really means is, "Check me out."
It’s just so stupid. I get mad because it’s trendy now to put a bumper sticker on your car that says "Peace" or "Save the World" I mean, that’s a good thing if people are really into saving the environment that they live in, that’s fine. It’s pretty funny. I think if someone is really into that, they wouldn’t display it with a bumper sticker with a short speech, they’d just be into it and keep it to themselves. It seems more truthful that way.

Leather seats.
Yeah, she probably had leather seats, too. You know what I just found out? Scientists say that a cow’s fart is just as dangerous to the ozone as car exhaust.

Really?
Yeah, that’s the truth, it sounds funny just because I said the word fart, which means nothing. It’s one of the stupidest words ever invented. There’s a scientific word for it that they used, but I forgot what it is. Cows put out just as much damage as car exhaust to the ozone, just because of the way their insides are, what they eat and things like that. Since they were all into the ozone studies, they studied everything possible to find out what was ruining it, and that was something they came up with.

Do you care about what other people think about you?
Yeah, sometimes. It’s weird. I guess you could call me a hypocrite, too.

You don’t want to worry about it?
Yeah, that’s the thing. That’s why I’m confused and that’s why I get stressed out, because I don’t want to worry about it, but I just do. I do get worried, if someone looks at me weird, I get mad. I say, “Why did that person look at me weird, what did I do wrong? What’s wrong with me?” And I get a complex. I shouldn’t care, I don’t want to care.

It’s just human nature. You live in L.A., right?
Orange County.

Do you feel like a lucky person?
No. I don’t feel lucky because feeling lucky is winning the lottery.

What about the situation that you’re in?
I’ve skated since I was in eighth grade, dropped out of school, never did my homework, skated every day. I had hoped someday I’d be a pro skateboarder, later I got sponsored, and then finally turned pro. If you work at something, you get it because you worked at it for so long. It’s not so much luck, it’s just getting to live a certain way from working at something for so long.

Are you bummed that you dropped out of school?
Yeah, but I dropped out for an okay reason, I guess. I didn’t ever take drugs, or drop out to rebel. I don’t understand how people can drop out of school who don’t have anything else going for them. They just go down and hang out at the local arcade or whatever, and just smoke marijuana with their friends, they want to be rebellious and go against what their moms and dads say, and then they drop out of school, then they just sit there. They work at McDonald’s or something. I skated every day, and I wanted something to happen, so I kept skating, and I was so into skating that it overpowered my schoolwork.

Where do you see skateboarding going from here?
I guess skateboarding’s just going to have its ups and downs. There will be people out there striving to learn tricks and keep it going.

Do you think it’s ever going to get like tennis, you know, with seeds and very, very organized?
No, it’s just kind of a bummer that we don’t get any respect. People look at me and say, "You’re 20 years old and you ride a skateboard?" and I just want to say to them, "Hey, don’t you think if skateboarding was dumb, and it didn’t get me anywhere, that I’d be done with skating already?" If I didn’t like it, I might be working construction or something like that. But it’s obviously doing something for me. When people ask me
what I do, I say, "I’m a professional skateboarder" and they say, "Really?" They ask where I’ve been, and I tell them different parts of the country, and they say, "You can make a living off it?" I say, "Yeah." They freak out. They don’t understand how skateboarding could get someone through life.

Everyone always says, "Can you make a living off that?" Like that’s the bottom line, It doesn’t matter if you’re happy or not.
Yeah. So I don’t think anybody should talk bad about it until they know. When you explain it to them, they say, "Oh, really? I didn’t know." So until they know, they should just keep their mouths closed and let us do it. There are 50-year-olds playing tennis! Why can’t I skateboard? You have to run around, sweat, swing a racket, there are different tricks, tennis television programs, tennis matches, tennis associations, tennis magazines, then there are skateboard magazines, skateboard associations, skateboard contests - it’s all the same thing. You can’t just jump on a skateboard and do tricks. You have to go through life and learn how to skate, and get better at it, and you have to travel, enter contests. Skateboarding is its own thing, tennis is its own thing, football-they should all be equal. We should be respected by the rest of the public, rather than just the skateboard public, because it’s the same thing. It’s a sport.

It’s really young, though, and it hasn’t been accepted yet.
Yeah. I don’t think it’s ever going to be accepted by the majority of the public because the common people look at us and just think we’re trashy, we’re messing up the city. Policemen say, "You’re messing up that curb there" I just say, "The United States of America has built billions of curbs, why can’t they just open us upon area and build 100 curbs for us to skate on, and we’ll go there and we won’t have to skate on your curbs." They ignore us.

It’s set up, everything’s set up.
We were getting on this airplane, and a flight attendant looked at Mark [Gonzales] up and down. He had cut-of f shorts, his hair was messed up, and he was holding his skateboard, and this one flight attendant was lust shaking her head, giving the most disgusted, snobby look. I was seriously bummed the whole plane ride. Because, look at her, she has to put on all this makeup, wear a freshly pressed suit, be really kind, and just act fake. That’s her job. Our job is to skateboard and do whatever we want to do any hour of the night, and we get paid for it. She has to act and dress up to get paid. I know she doesn’t like it. You know, the flight attendants say, "Oh, it’s been our pleasure serving you" They might as well say, "You over in seat 35A, I was really pleased serving you that brownie. I really had fun, you know. It was a pleasure." It’s just bullshit, it’s fake. They’re waiting on other people, and then they act snobby to us because we have skateboards. I don’t think people should act snobby or mean until they know. That lady didn’t know that Mark was a professional skateboarder. She probably looked at us and said, "How did they even get the money to fly on this airplane?" Until she knows that head’s a professional skateboarder, that head’s travelling and doing what he likes to do, she should keep her mouth closed and all her facial gestures hidden. Her job is fakeness, mine is freedom. This is stuff that bothers me. It doesn’t have to be this way. That’s what’s so wrong in the world, this whole attitude thing’s just so strong.

Anything else you want to say to the skateboarding public?
Being influenced by others is fine. Just don’t feel like you have to do what your friends tell you to do. If you’re into something, it’s just what you’re into, that’s where your feelings take you, so you should be into it. If somebody takes you away from what you’re into, then you’re just going to be disturbed, and you’re going to be depressed.

Christian Jacobs: Are you ever hyper?
Yeah, when I’m around my-close friends, I’m hyper, when there’s music playing and I’m in a good mood. When I’m in a good mood, I just say stupid shit. When my friends come over, and my friends are hyper, I get really hyper. There’s nothing wrong with being hyper, it’s fun. Just as long as you know when to stop.

Now, people are looking up to you, like you look up to Mark. Do you think about that? Does it freak you out?
It’s weird, because I can’t feel it or see it. What else do I want to say? Another thing is if a pro’s at a demo, and he got up that morning at 7a.m., and is not used to waking up so early and feels kind of sick, so head’s really not in the mood to talk to someone, head’s looking kind of down, and all the people at the demo are saying, "I wonder what’s wrong with him" maybe someone comes up to that pro and he says, "Oh, I don’t really feel like talking right now." That’s just the way he felt, head tell that to anybody. The young skateboarder is going to take it like head’s too good to talk to them.

It’s like you’re supposed to be able to talk to anyone and be totally on all the time.
They’re like this; eyes wide open looking at every possible thing. That guy’s just living his life, and they think it’s a big- headed thing, like, "All right, head’s pro, head’s in a different Country, head’s doing a demo for us, head’s too good to talk to us." That’s exactly what pops into their minds. I don’t think there are very many people in the skateboard world that think, "Maybe head’s sick. Maybe it’s too hot out. Maybe he just doesn’t feel up to skating right now or..." They assume it’s just a pro attitude. They don’t go any further and see if it could be a sickness. Or some people are just mellow by nature, and they’re not comfortable around a lot of people. It’s an attitude to other people, but it’s just that person’s life for him. So that should be thought about. I’m glad I talked about a lot of this stuff, though, because it bothers me. I always talk about it when I’m around my friends, but it’s kind of good that I’m talking about howl really feel about things in an interview.

Rather than just flapping about
Yeah. I’m not criticizing anyone, I’m just saying what I feel.

C.J.: Do you think cartoons have affected your life at all?
No, but it’s pretty funny how demented things go into little kids’ brains. About how strange a story is, but it could be so neat-sounding to a little kid. If you really think about a fat man with a long beard, wearing velvet suit, sliding down your chimney, coming into your house in the middle of the night, putting presents with your name on them under the tree, and then going over to a plate filled with cookies and a glass of milk. Then he goes away, and the kid wakes up early in the morning and sees “From, Santa.” Kids need imagination, but it’s just pretty funny the imaginations we give them.
Cartoons are just destroying little kids-like Mutant Ninja Turtles. Television is the ultimate brainwashing machine. That’s what I think. What do you think, Christian?

C.J.: To be honest with you Jason, I think you’ve said a lot of good things here.
You feel good about it. It’s a good feeling.

C.J.: I feel good about it.
Let’s hold hands.

C.J.: Okay, ready.
You buy a couch, and at first the couch is new. People come and sit on it, and there are different people that sit on it every day. It’s just a fluff, and over the months and years, the couch gets worn out. The couch is made for sitting on, it was made to support people, to relax on, to sleep on, whatever. People that are sitting on it are doing what they’re supposed to do on a couch, right? And just by doing what it’s made for, it eventually wears out.

Just like everything else.
Yeah. Just like everything else.

Life is like a couch.
People do the things that they want to do in life to please themselves. If someone wants to use hair spray to make their hair go up or whatever, that’s what they want to do. By doing that, it messed up the ozone. But the Earth was put here for people to live on, to do their thing. How it was worn out was just by people living the way they wanted to live. Then everybody says, "Oh, it’s ruined now, we’ve got to change its’ If we want to live like a bum, or somebody else wants to live rich or whatever, and use aerosol, and that’s just what that person wanted to do to please himself, to live better. Just by those ways, the Earth is being destroyed. It’s pretty funny that no one wanted to save the world while it was being destroyed, but now that it’s in the so-called depth of destruction, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to save it. I’m not really much into this Earth- saving thing, just because I don’t think the condition of the Earth is bad enough to cause the total destruction of the human race. I just think everyone’s attitude is hypocritically funny. I mean, a couch would last 100 years if no one sat on it. If everybody just sat on the grass and did nothing, the Earth would be perfect, you know what I mean? But the Earth was made for people to live on.

Yeah. It’s made for use.
Yeah, it’s made for use, just like a couch.

C.J.: And if it’s going to get worn out, it’s going to get worn out.
Yeah, if it’s going to get worn out, it was just by ways of living, like sitting on the couch.

C.J.: If it takes until now to be destroyed, or it takes another 10,000 years, it’s going to be destroyed anyway, you know what I mean? But there’s still time for love and friends.
I know there’s time for that. But this is a serious matter. When I leave this restaurant, I’ll hug all my friends, just because I like my friends. People who are really into the Earth are aware of what’s happening and understand that they have to continue living because they’ve enjoyed living so far and realize that they have to live in the same wooden house and drive the same car to work to earn their money that helps satisfy their lifestyle. Awareness is the best thing, because the only true action to take would be to run naked around the world killing all the tree-cutters, polluters, and animal- killers. Self-explanatory.