SMASH MAG


	SM: How long have you been skating? RM: About nine years; the first year was on and off. Then the second or third year, when I met my friend Joel, I started skating really hard, doing nollie stuff and whatever. But I never saw a skate video until I was four or five years into it. It was The Reason. It was tight and it’s my favorite video, still. SM: So, do you like skate videos? RM: Yes, videos are like porno for skaters. SM: Do you consider yourself a macho skater? RM: Mucho macho!* SM: So, what kind of junk are you skating? RM: Street, some parks. I skate a little vert. SM: Like Winchester? RM: No. That’s not vert it’s totally a street park with kicker ramps. I love those hips though. And those kids are starting to really rip. SM: So when you say “vert” do you mean big half pipes with actual vertical surface on them? RM: Yes. Like ten foot high half pipes. I can’t do like huge 360’s or anything. But I can drop in and do rocks and stuff. SM: Is there one skill you can’t do without on your board? RM: Balance, cause I like a lot of technical tricks. Manuals to 360 flips, Nollie 360 filps. SM: Are you good at visualizing tricks? RM: Yeah. I see it before. Then I just float it in my brain. SM: Do you make up tricks? RM: Yeah, just learning them on my own. I did kickflip to tailslide to frontside flip out before I saw it in a video. And I did this one-foot nollie thing. I am pretty sure someone has done it but I haven’t seen it in a video yet. SM: What do you like about skating right now? RM: I like street skating. I take the bus way up the street and just skate all the way back down.
SM: Is that different from driving from spot to spot? RM: You’ll drive to a far away spot and that’s cool. But when you have to skate, you get a better feel for the street. I think people who drive everywhere don’t have as much balance. SM: Can you skate pools, can you keep your speed? RM: I can’t do a lot of tricks, but yeah, I can keep my speed. SM: What do you think about trends in skateboarding? RM: Oh, do you mean like how a lot of people are wearing tight pants? SM: Yeah, do you dig that? RM: It’s alright. I’m not going to hate on anybody for that. I’m not going to call someone a poser, cause they skate too and I respect them. SM: What do you do besides skateboarding? RM: I like to paint. I’ve used acrylic. And I have big canvases that I spray paint on. And I make beats with my friends. SM: Does your attitude/mood effect your skating? RM: Yes. Sometimes I’ve been really mad and I go out and skate and land stuff right away because my mind is not so focused on the trick until right at the last second. SM: Do you think Karma has anything to do with skateboarding? RM: Yeah like me and my buddies will mess around. Like if they don’t make a trick, I’ll be like Nelson off the Simpson’s, “Ha-Haa.” And then I’ll be the next one to fall. So I try to treat everybody good, have a positive attitude. SM: What music have you been listening to? RM: I like a lot of hip-hop but I listen to everything- stuff like Atmosphere, the Atari’s, Bob Marley. SM: Alright, so go ahead and give your people some love. RM: What’s up to all my friends at Winchester, to Senisins and Joel and Kendal and to my Mom and Dad. (* Fiction.)