Patrick O’Dell: 20 Year Issue
Portraits By Sam Muller
For many of us, Patrick O’Dell is the primary supplier for morsels of media necessary to satiate our deranged obsessive skateboarding hunger.
Like a priest feeding the hungry, or a cocaine dealer on a night out, Patrick has given us exactly what we need, right when we need it, and kept us coming back for more.
Through his show, Epicly Later’d, and before that, his skate-blog of the same name, and before that as photo editor of Vice, Patrick has been feeding us insight and perspective into skateboarding and the lives of our favorite skaters, and we have been eating it up by the spoonful. His contribution to skating and the facilitation of an entire generation to enter into the culture through his print and video output cannot be overstated. His voice narrates the stories of our heroes and the glamorous paid-to-skate lives we all aren’t talented enough to lead, and we are grateful for it.
I have not yet met and could not fathom meeting someone who skates who is not personally affected by the output of Mr. O’Dell, and whether he wants them or not, he has fans. We are fans. That’s why we asked him to come over and talk (with a cameo by Greg Hunt, his two kids, an In-n-Out burger, and Greg’s dog).
You worked at Little Caesars Pizza, do you ever have stress dreams about orders coming in and you’re the only person working?
I don’t think I gave enough of a shit to have any kind of PTSD about it. If that had happened in real life, I was sixteen years old, I’d be like, ‘I don’t care, I’ll do my best.’
What year was that?
That was ‘93 or something?
What were you doing in 2003?
I was partying a lot. New York City. This time of year, the weather would still be good so I’d be out on the street. Tompkins square park, Max Fish, The Hat. It was called El Sombrero but we called it the Hat. You could get a $6 margarita, and they’d put a straw in it and take it to go, but because it looked like a soda, nobody cared.
That’s what they do on Coney Island. If you get a drink, they’ll put it in a Coke cup with a straw so no one can tell.
That’s one of those laws that seems normal growing up here but it really is bizarre that you can’t drink unless you’re under a roof.
Are you taking photos at this time?
Yeah.
Were you skating?
Yeah, I would skate Tompkins. Let me think about my skating. I’d skate Tompkins because I lived at 9th & A, right across the street, and I would skate the ledge and the flat ground.
It’s funny because that part of town has become prohibitively expensive to live in. It has gone from being the most affordable to the least affordable part of time.
In 2003, I had this apartment, it was $750 a month, but it was just a room, so I had roommates and I lived in a closet - well not a closet, but a room with a bunk bed and it was tiny. $750 a month, windowless room in New York.
How were you making money?
I believe I still worked for Thrasher. $1500 a month from Thrasher, and that was half my rent.
When did you start making video? You weren’t a filmer, right?
I never made a skate video, no. I have a little bit of wet brain, so hold on. I remember I worked at Thrasher, and then I had a brief stint as photo editor of Vice. And then they started the channel, so I just grabbed a camera and started filming.
VBS?
VBS.tv, yeah. That was after, though. In 2003, I was still at Thrasher, and not the most prolific skate photographer in New York.
Would you say that? You were a staff photographer at Thrasher?
I got in trouble a lot. Jake Phelps would call me and say, ‘you know, a lot of our photographers get something in every month. Sometimes you’re real prolific, and sometimes you go underground for months at a time.’[1]
Was he right?
Yeah.
Why do you think that was?
Drinking? New York can really suck you in, so that you think you’re productive, and it’s winter and you look around and it’s been three months since you did anything.
I live in Brooklyn and I just don’t go outside from January through March.
Yeah, right. I’d just be like, wow it’s been a while. I was picky about tours, too. I would go on tours with Baker and enjoi at the time, because of Jerry, and Jake was like, ‘you can’t just go on tour with the same two companies,’ and I was like, ‘well what then,’ and he was like, ‘Bakersfield with the Consolidated team.’ and I think he said it because he was trying to think of the worst combo possible. Like, ‘Bakersfield with the Consolidated team, get to work,’ and I was like, ‘oh fuck, I’m in trouble.’ One time Jake called me and I was groggy, it was noon or one in the afternoon, and he was like, ‘what’re you doing still in bed, it’s half way through the day already! You’d better have been out late last night with Jason Dill and the generators!’
How do you feel about that time in your life now?
It was great. I just started feeling really bad about my productivity. At one point they wanted to cut my pay and I got really annoyed, but in retrospect, I kind of wish that I had just let them cut my pay and I had taken on a more chill role and kept the job as a thing. A hobby. It was so either you work there or you don't, but I should have just kept my name in the masthead, shot stuff when I felt like it.[2] It’s kind of like what Atiba does or has always done.
If you had never started skating, what would you have been doing?
I would have been taking photos, but I don’t know of what. Baseball?
Do you follow baseball?
Yeah, I do. It’s addictive. It’s on every day, you can have it as a nice background. I got to this point where I don’t know who the pros are on certain brands, but I know who is coming up AAA St. Louis Cardinals. I’m like, ‘oh that guys gonna be good. We are gonna need him next year,’ but I go to the skateshop and look at decks and I’m like, ‘who the fuck are these people?’
This is a lofty question. What do you think has been the most significant change in skateboarding culture in the last twenty years?
I think that it’s the complete turn around on homophobia.
“And then you have the skate crew, and in skating, throwing out some just completely homophobic thing, it was just normal conversation. Now, if I was on a skate session saying shit that someone would have said back then, you’d get kicked out of the session. People would hate you. ”
Where did that start?
Maybe Brian Anderson. Everyone was like, ah fuck it.
It was palpable in the culture.
Oh, yeah. I moved to San Francisco and went to art school, where I had separate friend groups. I had art friends, who weren’t necessarily all gay, but you weren’t keeping track, they’re just from all walks of creative life. And then you have the skate crew, and in skating, throwing out some just completely homophobic thing, it was just normal conversation. Now, if I was on a skate session saying shit that someone would have said back then, you’d get kicked out of the session. People would hate you.
So you’re saying that about when you were in college, the mid-90’s, but that was true when I was coming up maybe ten years ago.
Twenty years ago when I’m skating Tompkins, I wouldn’t have been around saying anything homophobic because my friend group in New York was full of all kinds of people, but I remember hearing it. I remember one time we were at Sway which is the club we went to on Sunday nights, it was like Morrissey night. I remember this skate tour was in town so we invited them, and all of a sudden they got really bummed. Someone said they’re leaving and were super bummed on how gay it is in here, and it took me aback. I was like, ‘what? This place is awesome, and if you’re straight there are girls here, all kinds of people.’ I just thought it was the best place you could be on a Sunday night in New York City, and then this group of skaters were there looking grumpy.
Skateboarding is at its core a very countercultural thing, and gay culture is also often considered a sort of counterculture, that one would look at the other with repulsion is strange to me.
I just think it was a weird insecurity. It’s a bunch of guys, almost no girl skaters, a bunch of guys circle jerking at a skate spot, and then a truck drives by like, ‘skater fags!’ and they’re all like, ‘no, we’re not gay!’ That’s all I can think of, is that there was a weird insecurity. I do remember when I was in art school, I went to parties with all kinds of friends. Brian Anderson had won SOTY and there was a big Thrasher party with all these people, and then the next night I was at a party with all these guys from art school, and Brian was there at the party, and I was like, ‘that’s so weird, all these people are in town to see Brian, what’s he doing at this art school party’-
Oh hey, Greg, come in.
Oh, wait, I might be self conscious.
Are you going to be okay?
Yeah. How much longer is the talking?
Seven minutes.
Okay. I get self conscious. I don’t mind Justin, but I do get self conscious a little bit.
What do you think has been your career high and career low?
Career high is Epicly Later’d the TV show. If I’m going to pick an episode, maybe John Cardiel.
Isn’t that the one that’s like an hour?
It was an hour and fifteen minutes I think.
“There are moments where you wake up at like two in the morning and you think, ‘I’m a fucking loser. Everyone thinks I suck. Fuck. This is going to be so bad.’”
You made a movie about John Cardiel.
Yeah. I don’t know if it was the peak, but it felt good. It’s dated at this point and it’s not perfect, and we did it real fast - we filmed it over four days or something. I just feel like it’s something that I treasure. Then again, I haven’t rewatched it in like ten years.
Do you rewatch your stuff?
No. I watch them when they come out and then I stop watching them.
Why?
I don’t know, I just don’t feel like watching them. I enjoy how they feel when they come out, like, ‘yes, we did it, this is sick.’ I had an experience when we were filming Ali Boulala’s and he was saying his favorite skater is Mike Carroll, and he was like, ‘no way I never watched it!’ and he put it on his flat screen and we started watching, and it was so much crappier than I remembered it.
Well how are you critiquing yourself?
It was just shot crappy, I don’t know, I just started feeling really self conscious. I don’t rewatch them, I just feel like I get embarrassed. I’m not going to listen to this podcast back. I’d rather watch a baseball game. Sometimes you work on skating all day, you get off, you just wanna watch Netflix.
I know you’ve done things that aren’t skate related. What’s your ideal trajectory? Features?
No.
That’s a rare answer, everyone wants to make movies.
I think if I were thrust into it, I’d be excited, but that’s not a path I sit around and think about. Making documentaries is what I’d want to do.
If not skating, then what would be your subject?
I don’t know. I get ideas but I’m not sure exactly.
What has kept you passionate about skating?
I think the friendships. The people I’m happy for when they do good tricks. Mostly Instagram, you follow your friends and one does a trick and you get excited. Most things like baseball or some sport, you age out because you're not gonna be productive to your team or be at some level, but we went out skating yesterday - and I am so much worse at skating than I was when I was twenty - but I had fun showing that I can slappy something or ollie up something. It’s a fun experience as something that you can just do.
In skateboarding or filmmaking or both, what has been the biggest tech change that you’d have to deal with?
We’re filming new Epicly Later’d episodes right now which I’m excited about, and what I’ve noticed is that in the past, I had free reign. There wasn’t a ton of other content that was similar. There was a dearth of similar content, but now there’s a lot, there are podcasts.
Sorry about that.
There just wasn’t so much content. Each person we are thinking of doing an episode on, I’ll go on YouTube and type in their name and there’s six other documentary type pieces about that person, or they’ve been on four other podcasts, so I’m not swimming in new information. I feel like a lot of people are gonna watch and go, ‘I already knew this, and this, and this,’ and that’s a challenge, and one way in which the technology of skating has changed. Podcasts, and the million other mini docs on people. It’s a challenge that I’m enjoying navigating, but it’s a challenge.
I think people are attracted to your show rather than another because it’s less about data and historical points and more about a story. Even if it’s a slice of a story, it’s a story.
That’s something that’s concerning me about the new batch, like, ugh. It’s better to try than to let your brain eat itself alive, or make you not do anything. Sometimes I can be like, ‘whoa can’t do that’ or beat yourself…
Do you have moments when you’re filming something and you think, ‘this is gonna suck.’
I usually get pretty amped. There are moments where you wake up at like two in the morning and you think, ‘I’m a fucking loser. Everyone thinks I suck. Fuck. This is going to be so bad.’
Oh, yeah, when you read the Instagram comments.
Yeah, everyone hates me, this is going to be so bad. And then hopefully you can put your pants on in the morning and get to work. Vice just put up an old episode of mine, the Ali Boulala episode, and the friend that I was with started reading the comments and I was like, ‘oh, don’t read those.’ It’s not a prohibition, it’s not like I sit around with comments tempting me. I think I just get my feelings hurt easy, so now I’m not reading anything. I don’t want to be sad because of some random thing that someone said, I’m just going to tune it out. I’m not saying those comments shouldn’t be there, I’m just a little touchy. I don’t know. I feel like if I came out with an episode and there was a Gifted Hater episode on my episode, I’d watch it. There was one skater I talked to about an episode I did on them and I saw the top comment and was like, ‘oh, that’s a really nice comment’ and he was like, ‘oh no, I dug in and they are all so mean.’ I was thinking about how you can read nine nice comments and then the one guy sticks it to you and it ruins your day.
Do you have a refresh activity? Are you a jigsaw puzzle guy?
I do, at Christmas time.
Wow I just took a shot in the dark.
Now I have a three year old and I can’t do puzzles cause he’ll just steal the pieces.
How’s fatherhood?
Great! It’s hard because I’ve been on this work trip for three weeks. That part is miserable. I found out he got in trouble at school for kicking some kid, and I found out that every time I go out of town, he gets in trouble. It’s not that I’m strict, I just think every time I leave town, he gets a little upset and starts kicking kids.
So you make books and zines and many things. What do you think is the value of tangible print media like us?
It’s really valuable. It seems like there’s a resurgence too. I needed money and I started looking at my art books to see what I could sell. I only sold a couple that I was not as invested in, but it was crazy looking at the value. The value of a photo book has skyrocketed. Second Hand ones that I collected over the years are like $600 now, so it’s not just me. Photobooks and art books are really valuable.
Well even just within the culture. Seeing a thing in person is nicer than on a phone.
I think - and Monster Children is good about this - making a thing look nice and collectible, is important. When I move, I look at everything - piles of magazines and newspapers and art books - and you have to decide what’s trash, and what you’re going to lug with you. Monster Children does a good job of keeping themselves in the ‘I should hang onto this’ category. You know when you have to move and the moving company charges by the pound and you’re like, ‘what is this crap?’
Get your hands on issue #73, here.
