10 things that will get you kicked off the team

Top 10 ways to get black listed in the skate industry.
courtesy of Nate Sherwood


1. Sleep with another skaters lady and or wife..

2. Wreck a bosses car. There has been mad rumors but I will not state
them. Lets just put it like this; back when I was painting houses for 8
bucks an hour a mate of mine borrowed our foremens truck. Anyway, he
rear ended an old man and the next day he was not on the job
site. I never seen him since.

3. Leave a Company and not tell them you did and still collect their
checks as you double dip the new ones. Get 2 checks from two different
board company's.

4. Sue a skate company for workmen's comp? Look I do not care if you
are god but most skate companies have to lie to get you medical
insurance. When you are pro they say that you work in their warehouse
and shit so they do not lose their business license, most are too
small to afford a suit of any magnitude.

5. Stick out too hard like Simon Woodstock. Rock flare but not flare
that is too off the wall. Be creative but do not be too de la Cruz or
too interesting. The more bland you are the safer you will be.
Just keep a low profile if you have anything crazy to say or do.

6. Never call Santiago, Chile on a dare at 2 am from one of your
sponsors office phones.

7. Being Straight Edge .
Look I love Strife, Minor threat and basically all the sxe bands. I
hate to break this to you but Skateboarding is a youth oriented
industry just like Smirnoff Vodka. No matter where you are, in the
street or industry or just at a shop you will run into some guy who is
addicted to some sort of mind altering substance. You can be
mellow and not do anything which is the path of Svitak, Mike V, Ed
Templeton, Jason Maxell, Rodney Mullen, Lance Mountain, PJ Ladd and many more. But if you open your mouth and preach hard at some guy you work with about it chances are he will get pissed and make up a story that you stole company money and that you need to be fired. Or that you jacked boards or shoes from the shop or office building, warehouse, etc.

8. Talking too much behind backs and smiling to the faces.
I seen this way to much. Cats like my home boy, Blister we will call him, rips and has dropped mad video parts and has been in the
game for 17 years but is stuck with no hook-ups and is in a skate
limbo of sorts as if he is in skate purgatory. I Hope he gets a come
back but humans cannot stand his attitude. Now if you talk smack
about heads and fess up to it and never say sorry, then you will get
mad respect.

9. Now back in the day it was about making a political statement, i.e. Ed
Templeton wrapped in a American flag holding his eyes shut. Mike V and Moses beating down security for treating skaters wrong.
Brian Lotti with his hunt human graphic blind board with the 2 hunters
getting shot. The list goes on forever but my point is that now apathy
is in. Being a party junky, not skating anything but rails and never
saying anything that is provocative or intelligent and just pissing people off in a interview is the way to go. For instance when Jeremy Klein said, "littering
creates jobs." Have your intro portrait look more like a GQ shoot and
follow the tends of Hollywood and Paris Hilton rather than come up
with something original like Kris marokovitch/denial, Harold strut
famous ghost portrait.

10. Never start up a site that is geared toward hating skateboarding. It's
companies or the people who keep the wheel rolling so that guys like
Me, photographers, filmers, editors and graphic artist have jobs. If you do you
might feel the cold shoulder of the black hole known as the black list
show up at your desk one day.