EP 103 Northern Boarder’s presents: A Conversation with Local Legends

I think the key is finding something that you fail at and there's really not much, that maybe every sport person says this but skateboarding snowboarding uh we chose this pursuit or fell in love with this pursuit of something that you fail at constantly. And if you can learn to deal with that, I think it's a huge character builder. I think that that's, um, you have to have some adversity in things to find your character, uh, and to value what you get out of it.

If you, if you walked up to a, they had never drawn anything before and you picked up a pencil and you and you drew a masterpiece you probably wouldn't care yeah but if you went half mad trying to do that to figure out how to get to that point then there's a whole different that's a whole different realm that opens up it's a whole different level of pride it's.

You like you said you find yourself in those moments of being tested and failing I really think that skateboarding teaches kids something amazing because they can fall in love with something that they don't complete. That was Jason Borgstead. He's one half of JB Deuce, a local snowboard and skateboard video that ran from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. It was funded by Borderline Alaska Snow and Skate Shop, a retail business my

dad owned. and featured snowboarders and skateboarders from Alaska. Jesse Burtner was the other half of J.B. Deuce. And together, he and Jason filmed their own video parts for it. They also produced all seven videos. Polar Bears, Dogs, Sleds, and Igloos was the first. Then came Northern Exposure, 100%, Survival of the Tightest, The 49th Chamber, In for Life, and Steason for No Reason. At first, the video premieres were small, projected onto a screen outside of Borderline in Diamond Center.

But as they grew, so did the venues, until they were selling out the 4th Avenue Theater in downtown Anchorage. To this day, Jason and Jessie have continued to pursue their love of snowboarding and skateboarding.

Jason is the owner of Blue and Gold Board Shop in Anchorage And Jesse is the co-founder of ThinkThank A series of snowboard videos with the motto Progression Through Creativity, Skater Micah Hollinger and snowboarder Andre Spinelli Also join this conversation, Micah is one of the most celebrated skaters from Alaska He filmed for all seven J.B. Deuce videos and went on to bring a unique, creative, and artistic vision of progression to skateboarding.

Andre, also known as Big Air Dre, filmed for numerous snowboard videos, including J.B. Deuce and Think Tank. His signature style involves hitting big jumps in the backcountry. This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience in the Anchorage Museum Auditorium on Friday, January 17th, 2025. That event was brought to you by the Northern Borders Exhibition. The exhibition celebrates snow and skate culture and community in Alaska through art.

A lot of people helped make this episode possible. Julie Decker, Alex Tate, Danny Crombie, and Max Kritzer at the Anchorage Museum. DJ Spencer Lee, and everyone on the panel. A quick note here about the episode. About 42 minutes in, DJ Spencer Lee asks a question. And at the end of the episode, there's an audience Q&A. There, you'll hear questions from Ollie Burtner, Sharon Liska, and Les Burtner. So here they are. Jason Borgstead, Jesse Burtner, Micah Hollinger, and Andre Spinelli.

Welcome to Chattermarks, a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, dedicated to exploring Alaska and the Circumpolar North. Through the creative and critical thinking of ideas. Past, present, and future. My name is Cody Liska, and I'll be your host. What do you think it is about those borderline years that we still find intriguing all these years later? I mean, why do we keep talking about it? Because it was at one of the most pivotal times of our lives.

You know, I think most people remember those high school era times for better or for worse hairdos, when I had hair, all kinds of things. For most of us, those are defining years that not only were memorable and cool things happened, but they're what I use as a foundation to define who I am. My identity is tied to that time period, so that's why it's pretty pivotal and important to me.

We were talking today about this because just thinking about those days and we're talking about i guess we're talking about early 90s kind of more mid 90s to mid 2000s ish period of time but really what it felt like for me personally is like there's a it's like all these people that would have done it alone one way or another super motivated all working together on one thing like starting with scott and the liska family with borderline the shop and then

having jason off in his little planet he was already becoming a pro doing his thing and then i was doing my thing over on the hillside we didn't even know at the time but micah was doing his thing skateboarding and andre was doing his thing and everybody even others were swirling and creating in this space And we all like coalesced on this video project and around the shop and the camp. Form like Voltron. Yeah, like Voltron. Exactly.

And by the way, like this is at the time when snowboarding and skateboarding in general. Were hitting kind of the zeitgeist of counterculture in a way that america had never seen and we were just kind of right place. Right time right people i might say for that for me personally it was meeting up with these guys and just trying to keep up with the level they were on because they were already established pros.

So i was like i need to get on that level and try to hang and i think yeah yeah it was like having that many people push each other yeah so you were just having you know some first having somebody say like let's do it which was like the shops i mean g and b first and then borderline and just saying like let's do it like they do down in the states so let's push skateboarding let's push snowboarding and there was like oh there's this team it's the borderline team

so then all of a sudden you have something to look at and be like whoa look at those jake and derek liska in their match or jr i guess in their matching outfits and their moral boards and the borderline team on their backs yeah you know it's like what is this like do i need to be in this like this is the level to us but so just having a level to hit yeah and then knowing being allowed to hit a higher level like like having jason be like in a volcom video and be like down

at mount hood like and you're like what like someone from alaska is in a volcom video like are you kidding me like oh this is happening like there's to look be able to look at something first of all is really important like oh there's the level you know yeah yeah yeah i think we're done good talk thank you everybody.

What about your first memory of going into borderline oh my god scary kind of intimidated, shane was that shane well i'm thinking back in the arctic days the old shop with the skate park behind it yeah arctic international yeah arctic and international and um i'm gonna botch his name I'm your uncle. Kent. Thank you, Kent. Yeah. Louie's hitting gyros. Yeah. So Kent and Jay were there. And I walked in, boom, some beer, some older guys.

Whoa, got to level up for this. And my first conversation with Scott was like, he's like, what board you got? And I'm like, oh, I just got a, hey, guy, I just got a GNU. Dukester He's like Did you get it from me? I don't even have those I got it from the house I ordered it He's like Whack! Whee! You know I'm like Oh my god I blew it I blew it Yeah, I always thought it was pretty amazing how all three Liska brothers have completely different accents.

It's pretty amazing, but it really lent itself to the individual personalities. And I got to spend a lot of time with both Jay and Scott in the beginning and then really honed in with Jay in the Arctic time. And then when that kind of separated, I went over and hung out with Scott a lot in the beginning of the Diamond Center. And then later on with Kent and, uh, yeah, it was a, it was a pretty interesting privilege.

I don't really remember the very first time I went into borderline, but I do remember it was early in the Arctic days. I remember being there when it first opened, when the skate team was Dave shoe and a few other guys were introduced as like, oh, this is like opening weekend of the place. This is our skate team. And they were super sick. Uh, Andy Taylor was the snowboard God of the team at that time.

And, and then shortly thereafter was just a bunch of consecutive events of me coming in asking, how do I get sponsored? You know? Yeah. Hey, Jay, can I get on the team? He's like, well, do you do any contests? You got to do contests. And I was like, ah, no, I'll go do contests. And then, uh, but I want to do video parts. He's like, you don't get to do that. We've got to win contests and then you get to go do video parts.

And uh yeah i mean jay was just for a little reference jay was our first real, uh outwardly noticed professional in alaska and so it was pretty formidable for me uh to get to spend some time under his wing just uh a normal guy but was ripping was in snowboard videos and Yeah, I mean, the double bump switch triple poke indie is still NBD. Yeah. I mean, that Project 6 video part with Jay and Richie is absolutely legendary. No, Richie! No, Richie, no!

But yeah, there was a lot of events like that that were really pretty awesome in those beginning times. I first saw Jason at the trampoline. Yeah. I was going to say, yeah, the trampoline contest. Yeah. Controversy ensued. They didn't know I was hiding out up in Glen Alps inside of a gymnasium. My dad had built his four boys with a 16 foot tall ceiling. Is that right, dad? 16 foot tall ceiling. You know, we learned to play basketball and,

but then we got a full size trampoline and I was just in there just training. Yeah. Secret weapon from the hillside for the contest. For snowboarding, I was like, oh, I could strap in on this and do it. Here's a funny part of that contest. So never has anybody taken a trampoline contest more serious than Jesse. But we were also training. And at the same time, out of one side of my mouth, I was saying like, what's this guy doing? He's over here complaining about the judging.

The other side, I was like, what do you mean Jake Liska beat me? That's because his dad owns the place. Wait, was it on a skateboard or snowboard? We did some skating for fun, but it was a strap into a snowboard, fall time, Mistrawl sponsored it. And they had Jimmy Halepoff and Randy Walters were there. And these were pros at the time. And I mean, think about that for like a second is like this event, you just are figuring out what snowboarding is and you just go down and it's packed.

There's 200 people in this parking lot. There were a lot of people there. Yeah. A lot of people. And these pros are sitting at a fold-out table, ready to judge your little routine on a trampoline. You duct tape your edges. No. And you just start unleashing the backside 720 tailfish you've been working on. That was it? The heater was a 720? I think I did like a 900 somehow. Really? That's impressive. On a trampoline you did? Yeah. Wow. Did anyone go upside down?

Not me, but I don't think so. But Jason, yeah, it was fun, but. Were you at those, Dre? No. This is all before my time. Yeah. Oh, young buck. You know, what do you think about all this nostalgia surrounding Borderline? Do you think it helps the local scene or do you think it hinders it in some way? That's a good question. I think it can't hinder it. It helps. You know, it's like, I feel like as a community, we were so together during those days. And at camp, I mean, it bottles the mind.

I believe they say. It bottles it. It bottles it. That's what Bogart would have said. But, you know, like, and it's going to come back around.

Like everyone sort of spread out but everyone i mean it's like i feel like we're back almost at camp right now like yeah this group here and it's like yeah it's gonna come back around like you know like and jason's doing it with blue and gold and it's like the energy's still there a lot has changed information the way we take in information like talking about how we know every line from project six a snowboard movie that came out in 1993 or whatever that's we're

inundated with snowboard imagery now as snowboarders fed to our straight to our brains it's different now it's everything's different but that's not to say that like community still isn't coalescing yeah the difficult part now is that when people have nostalgia for that time processing that into not holding to the same level or expectation currently, but more so adapting it to the current landscape.

I've always held that I'm not going to be able to replicate those days, but I can take the values and the principles that we had from that time and try to apply them currently. And hopefully that takes, hopefully that influences the next group to say, yeah, it is rad to get together with a bunch of people and share things in person and experience that with another person. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I wanted to ask Jason, like, because you started a snowboard shop. We're 10 years in now, right?

Yeah, almost. When are you going to start a camp? No, I wanted to ask him, because he was there with Scott from pretty much the beginning, and what he's carried into his business plan from Scott and what he hasn't. And Sharon, I should say. I mean, I've had to, we've had to make some HR changes from, from what I've mainly, my training has had to, had to take on some different faces than what it originally was. There's a, there's a different sensitivity level nowadays.

You can't beat up people when they steal? No, I mean, allegedly there have been some confrontations that are physical that, uh, if I'm in the store, it's a different policy, you know, I carry an older policy than that. Yeah. From the streets.

So for frame of reference what they're talking about is at borderline there was a was it fifty dollars you got fifty or a hundred dollars fifty if you caught the thief and got the merchandise back but then a hundred dollars if you i wasn't around for bounties we just you did it for the love of the game yeah it was more yeah more for the love of the game pat the pat on back from Scott was enough. Yeah, it was really like not being caught slipping and getting yelled at by Scott.

Avoiding the wrath. Yeah, avoiding the wrath for sure. What the fuck are you doing? You're not paying attention. What are you in the back? You want to be one of the good ones. Yeah. Burner, when was the last time you rewatched a JB Deuce video? Not too long ago because I feel like every year because Jason put them up on Vimeo, I end up showing somebody something. But I think when Alex reached out to me about the Northern Borders exhibit,

I started kind of poking around in them. So probably a year ago. What was that like? Oh, it's awesome. I mean, it's like any movie you're part of.

It's like, I can't believe how good this is. i can't believe how bad this is why like i can't believe we were so cool i can't believe we were so whack it's like anything you do as a creator anything i do i guess some some good really good stuff and some like questionable stuff but yeah over time music choices i think all our music choices like kind of leveled out like i think we felt stronger about them then you know and like now like anything i was like why did that get used

or like i don't know if you feel the same way but i'm just like it's all good dude like we got like it's cool to have topography and no regrets no regrets yeah yeah no regrets for sure like the like yeah no like love it yeah no regrets at all like love the borg skits like i mean all that stuff is like so rad now like all the all the weirdest stuff you do is so cool when you're older you know like yeah the stuff you really like that was very difficult to like imagine working at the time

you know it was like or you felt awkward about it you know that stuff's usually kind of the gold later yeah yeah do you feel like you think that now because you know you have a son ollie and so you can kind of see it through his eyes or do you feel like it is still cool. Oh, cool. No one knows what that is. I mean, no, I think it's just when you're out on the edge creating and you're taking chances, that's usually going to pay off over time.

And like you might even get kind of like, why did you do that at the time? But then if you try to just be cool in your time, you're probably going to end up getting really forgotten.

Okay okay because cool is pretty boring usually one of the cool things about that was that we had a big diversification you know jesse's music was like in my eyes as far emo as you could get and mine was as far aggressive aggro dude as you could get yeah like we had we had um down set yeah and not somebody dying in the back before the poster service i heard something yeah you know the most like emo seattle music in the same video so and we just went along with what we

wanted to do not everybody wanted to do skits but i loved skits so these guys helped me do skits and yeah not everybody had to do one but it was fun for me so we got to include that and everybody kind of had their own little portion that they got to do what they want with and and micah did What was your favorite skit? Micah did some skits. Did I? My favorite one is- I mean, didn't you fall in love at the mall? You fell in love with your skateboard.

Yeah. Yeah. Took his skateboard on a date at the mall. I did. Yeah. And it's like, I need love. You got little stickers. You remember at the mall, you could get a sticker made of you and your sweetheart, you know? Yeah. He has one like with his skateboard. That was just a little afternoon in the Diamond Center. This one is for everyone except Borg's dead.

In the JBD's videos, there were skits that were introductions to video parts and Borg had a number of skits, parodying pop songs by people like Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys. What do you guys think his skit might be today? Taylor Swift. Okay. Yeah. Oh, you can't answer. I'm going to go with Snowboard Preacher Man, Preaching Community. Yeah, I don't know. I've got nothing. I mean, Nice Gordon was an entire skit. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

He might go super elaborate. We don't know what's in that mind. What would you do? I mean, I don't have the soft, supple skin for a Taylor Swift pull-off these days. Got it, dude. We might have to go with like a Steven Tyler or something at this point. That's more befitting. Moby, maybe Moby. Yeah. We could shave it down and Moby it. Yeah. I like that. Okay. How about you, Micah? When was the last time you watched a J.B. Deuce movie?

Oh 10 years 10 years maybe i tried real cool thanks i tried we missed you too i just i just haven't i don't know it's hard to watch videos i'm in for me so i should go back and watch like your guys's parts but it's been like it's been a while why is it hard to re-watch videos with, I just don't want to watch myself skate. It's nerve wracking. Yeah. That's probably why he was so good. I didn't go to the first two or three JB Deuce premieres.

You didn't? I didn't, no. Oh, that's right. You were like, you have to go. I feel like you weren't around for the very first one. I like purposely was like leaving town. There you go. Oh, yeah. I think 100% we did it in the Diamond Center. We did the first three, at least the first three in the Diamond Center. I went to the, I think 100% was the first one I went to and I was just like freaking out. And I just see Bogart in the chair, in a chair. He has a seat by him, Ben Bogart.

And I sat by Bogart and that was the best dude to sit by in a premiere. The hype was insane. Like he loved everything, you know? And I was just like, so ever since then for like every movie premiere, hence I sit by Bogart if I can. I just look for him. Like, where is he? I find him. I'm going to just latch on to him. Shout out, Bimbo Gar. Yeah, because it's nerve-wracking. Yeah, yeah. How about you, Dre? When's the last time you watched a JB Deuce movie?

I haven't had a DVD player in ages, decades. And I didn't get the memo about Vimeo, apparently. I mean, that's even gone. No, it's still there, but barely. Oh, yeah. I saw a nice Gordon here, but I haven't seen any of the JB Deuce movies in a long time. I do have the DVDs, though. Got a stack of them. Look at them.

Now we know he's lying there's only two jb deuce well they're in a stack with some turning in hardcore and some think that you know that's interesting because i feel like um growing up the videos whatever video it was whether it was jb deuce or you know a skate video or snowboard video that's what you watched you know before you went and skated or snowboarded and it was such a like focal piece of the whole, you know, act. And then, you know, we get older and some of us don't watch them anymore.

Well, it comes back to like there being just so much content, you know, where it used to be so streamlined and focused. Like when I started, it was when we started, it was like a few magazines, really two for snowboarding. And really, it was snowboarder for me. And it was just like you got everyone was reading the same thing at the same time, getting all their info from this one place.

So everyone was basically on the same page. So you could talk about the same stuff and, uh, you would wait for the next magazine to come. And then the videos were a yearly. So the magazine was monthly and the videos were a yearly hit. And it was just like your, your Bible, your rules, your, your guide. And you just got to pick what you liked out of it. You know, here's the menu of snowboarding. And you're like, oh, I like Mike Rankin. I like Damien Sanders.

Yeah. I like the way Noah pokes his board. Let me translate it for those of you that are a little younger. Imagine there were only two Instagram pages that showed snowboarding. That's it. Perfect. That's perfect. And then every day you would be like, did you see that clip on the grid? Oh, yeah, I did. I saw that one. Yeah. I must be keeping it old school because if I'm cooking breakfast and I'm about to go ride, I'll throw on the movie. I'll throw on some videos and just let them play.

I love that. I love that. Yeah. I mean, that's how we did it. Now you get them from YouTube or Red Bull TV or wherever you feel like streaming. But it's not, you know, I guess my point was like, that was it. Like when I first started, it was like Warren Miller or Greg Stump ski movies. And there was one snowboard section and it was like almost a joke. Like, look at these wacky snowboarders. They're wild and crazy. Yeah. Half the shots are people flying onto their back. Yeah, yeah.

You went right to it. You would just fast forward the rest of the scheme. Maybe you watch Glenn Flake because he's got a mohawk. Yeah. But otherwise, you're going straight to the one snowboard part, and you're just like, we'd rent the movie at Video City, and then just watch that one part. Copy it illegally. Yeah. And just watch it. And then all of a sudden, there was snowboard movies, and I was just like, oh, yes. Like it didn't matter if they were even good. Yeah.

And then we started making them good. I think from the very beginning, like that was all I wanted to do. It was just like, as soon as I saw it, I was like, I want to do that to make them make them. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, just everything was like a puzzle piece too. Like, okay, I got to get a camera and like, how do you work this thing? Yeah. Like that's one puzzle piece. And then it's like, okay, hey, how do we get the music to it?

Even when Jason and I went to make the first JV Deuce movie, we're sitting at an actual Avid machine. Yeah, we used what we call linear editing, which is basically, for those of you also that don't know how this works, it's basically like everything was on a tape. It actually recorded to a form of tape, and it's like, I'm going to record this to this space.

There was no, like, you can't move the clip here, try it out you can't move it here you had to re-record it in that section so we made the movie in the order that you wanted it to be and that was our i had made one of those uh right at the end of my senior year at chugiak high school and then that was shown at the same time jesse showed something uh more well put together from his side of town we made it at polaris yeah and that was,

the beginning of what turned into us working together, which it didn't seem like this, but it actually was like three and a half or so years later before we started making a movie together. But that was how it worked. And then we went back. We knew the technology teacher. Started as a wood shop and metal shop teacher for me in high school. And then as things progressed, it turned into technology. And he let me use his editing equipment. And then I said, hey, can we come back and make this video?

And Jesse and I would go in there after school, would get out, and we would edit this video. And that was how our first video was ever made. What school were you at? Chugiak. And you were at service? Yeah. Yep. But I was out of high school at this point. This would have been my first year out of high school that we made polar bears, dog sleds, and igloos. And yeah. Yeah. So we're sitting at this Avid machine.

And when you're at one of those, you're still just kind of like, so how does the music go to the snowboarding? And every time we do it again, we're just like, so how does the music go to the snowboarding? It's just like magical. But yeah, super funny. Yeah. Were you concerned with music rights back then? No, we weren't thinking about that whatsoever. No, I mean. Music costs about $10 at that time to get the rights to a song. We honestly thought that. You got it from Musicland.

You would buy a DVD or a CD. We honestly thought that. And you're like, yeah, we bought the music. We bought the CD, so it's ours to use. What do you mean? Yeah, we bought it. It's only right to use it since we bought it. That's what we figured. It was just like. Own this DVD. Yeah, we bought the music. Or a CD.

Yeah. we paid and got the music I mean let's face it there were like 17 people seeing our video, well there was definitely no way for it to get kind of out of control out in the ecosystem it was very much contained here yeah yeah. What comes to mind when you think back on the video premieres? Is it your part? Is it someone else's part? Is it the crowd? Is it a specific story? It was just kind of like a big party every time.

Seems like. Like we'd roll up in like a motorhome or a... The motorhome to 4th Avenue. Definitely like the climax of premieres. That 4th Avenue one was crazy. Yeah. It was like a whole year of hard work. And tonight we're going to celebrate that and shock each other and be like, your purpose is great. And then just party or whatever, if that's what you're going to do. Did Josh Boots perform at that one? Yeah. Yeah. Pretty heavy. I mean, it was like packed.

Fourth Avenue Theater. I mean, we sold out two showings at the Fourth Avenue Theater, which was about in the neighborhood, I think in the neighborhood of about a thousand people per seating. So, you know, it was a different. But to answer the question, I think it was slightly different for Jesse and I than it was for the others. Because not only are we, oh, our video part's going to be here, but this baby that we made together in a time when that wasn't even accepted.

Only Arnold and Danny DeVito had done it at that point. We made this thing together that was pretty magical and impactful because you're not only showing off your stuff, you're not only showing off this video you made, but you know that you're making an impact on people like Micah and Dre who put in hard work. And it's our responsibility to try to portray them the best we can and give them this platform to blossom on.

And so it was an indescribable amount of happiness and joy and pride that all came from those nights. I mean, some of the best nights of my life. And I didn't have a letdown afterwards. There was no depression point afterwards. It was just magnificent to come together as a group, to come together as a team with Jesse and I, with all the riders, and in essence, this community. And to have that, that's when the star bursts.

It just comes out in that one night, in that time period there, and then... I guess we never really had the depression afterwards because like the day later, it was like, oh, let's meet up and talk about what's going to happen next year. And you start working. No downtime. The next day, start filming for the next video. You put it down. The video is done. Put it down. Let's move on. Next video. Every single time.

I think another thing to add to that is that the hometown crowd for the hometown video was about as hype as any premiere I've ever seen.

So it was like the hypest premiere especially in a state like alaska where people have so much pride for be alaskans and then also they feel so overlooked by the lower 48 and the larger culture conversation so like to have their own thing yeah it was and we would put tons of homies in so like like you might be in there and like your one homie gets you get one clip your name pops on screen everyone always got their name on screen it was like the whole crew was like.

And it was special you guys were pretty secretive back then too like I mean maybe still but like things were very secretive like once you were on the inside you were not allowed to talk about it we would go into like a cave for sure we go into you know blackout like mode, and I hate editing with people over my shoulder just, absolute hate it so like if you're gonna come and try to like what you working on i'm just like, frozen you know just like i'm not working on anything now.

But i think for me for the premiere i would tell one little story my favorite premiere moment moment is uh in for life when the credits is it in the intro the credits capping it ghetto comes on the screen? What? Kept it ghetto. JB Deuce, Kept it ghetto since. I think that was the very beginning opening credit. Opening credits in for life. It's like we wrote this whole thing about like not pirating the movie and like supporting the shop and everything.

And then we have this little thing. It's supposed to say, keeping it ghetto since blah, blah, blah. And we wrote Kept it with two P's. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just like at the premiere and just like gigantic typo.

It's like totally yes capping it ghetto that is now our slogan no regrets yeah and we just still running that one to this day, were you embarrassed at first or at first but then immediately it was like yes this is perfect yeah well and probably nobody noticed well yeah no one notices but like you know illiterate skaters, that's how you spelled it after that there was some school skipping going on if burtner spelled it it's probably right.

I think this is kind of going off of what you just said, Jesse, that, uh, you know, I think that the pace of media now has a tendency to make people disposable, you know, Instagram clips and things like that. But it wasn't really like that back then. You know, we're sitting here talking about, um, if you were in a borderline video, then you were kind of immortalized. Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, that was, it was special for sure.

And the, you know, the internet is so awesome for the democratization of featuring everybody at any time and getting so many voices out there. But there's the downside of that, which is like, none of it really comes off as special anymore.

And you're immediately just like cool what have you done for me lately you know like you could literally digest and forget an absolute sledgehammer of a clip 20 times a day i mean this is what i do for work i'm always looking at my phone i know everything that's happening out there and in the realm of of of pro snowboarding yeah and it's like your brain just survival mechanism needs to just dump it you know put it catalog it dump it you know but like the truth of the matter is like that person

went off to get that clip and it was a huge moment for them but it doesn't really get featured in the same way it's just diluted now yeah and it it's disposable and unfortunately that kind of uh lends itself to the people that are involved you know it's just hard to build heroes when when there's nothing mythical about it the curtains pulled back everything's seen all the time and. Beforehand, when you did videos once a year, then you had to wait a whole year.

That person got to live off that mythical status for a year. And if they didn't show up next year, well, it took a whole year for them to be replaced. And people were rewinding and watching that thing over and over for a year. And now that's, you know, watching a hundred clips a day. And how often do you go back and watch the same one again?

I mean, I even see amazing videos that i really like watching i really love the outliers videos from juno i'm gonna go watch them two or three times maybe max and then there's you know there's just going to be too many other things coming at me to to get you to continue to watch it a second watch is really special these days yeah it is yeah well dre said he had a stack of dvds from back in the day how many times did you watch those back then well back then they were on yeah they were like

all the time all the time plan but now yeah with the internet it's just so different and it's like that you play the album like with music like not only is it on but you just you go tip to tail on it yeah and just let even the parts that you don't really like the songs that you don't really like at first or whatever you know it's like it's the album it's not like the song it's the album you know and that's a different thing you know

and i i think you know yeah like we're it's different now like Like, we're, you know. Our mode has been replaced. Yeah, we long for that. There is the nostalgia for that. I don't think it should be forgotten. I think there's a lot more positive to it than the current state. But also, we are in the current state. So, do we spend our time talking about how we wish it could be? Or do we figure out how to adapt and understand? Yeah.

Kids are progressive. They're the ones making this happen and we have to learn to live by their rules. We were those kids at one time and now it's the next group coming through and we got to figure out how, if we want to interact, how do I speak to them? How do I teach them the values that we all really got because that was just the way things were done back then? How do we continue to instill those values in the language that's being spoken today?

How do you find the next, you know, Jason and Jesse to, you got to find a couple influencers. Irreplaceable. Do a blue and gold What's Up Guys YouTube channel, you know? Yeah, I've been working on it by just doing one or two Instagram posts per year. Nice. Keeping the old ways alive. Here comes my annual post. Put up a teaser like a month before.

Jason, I thought about what you were saying there with the mythical status and kind of what I was curious is if you guys viewed those videos that way for yourselves and like if you tried to use them to open up any doors for yourselves locally or outside, if they became kind of calling cards for you like that.

Uh i mean i might have got a date or two from it, no i hopefully from mandy yeah um i don't think i thought like that i think we were just living in that moment and this is this is what we love to do we snow i was lucky enough to get paid to snowboard and eventually that was enough that i didn't have to work in the summer so i could skateboard all summer uh and then we really did enjoy the creativity of of making movies i was never artistically gifted or musically gifted but i did feel like,

the one place i could put something together that was artistic was video and so it was just the just the love of doing that it was like uh when i watch my kids now if if they want to play and you try to stop them at some point, they really, you know, really bums them out. So in order, you know, like they find a lot of joy in just being allowed to continue to, Oh, five more minutes. Let me just play longer.

And that's kind of what it felt like for, you know, for the seven years that we worked together, it was like, Oh, we just get to keep playing continually and we get to play with our friends. And, uh, it was great. It didn't, you know, it didn't lead to too much. That I can think of and I don't feel like that was the motive I don't feel like.

We were going for that yeah not too many people launched pro careers out of JBDU specifically they weren't allowed to like with the industry then you weren't allowed to like really maybe they launched out but. I don't know, that's debatable. Yeah, on the skate side, actually. No, and snowboard too. Cooley. Lando. Yeah, Lando. Bogart. I mean, basically we made everybody's career. That's true. For sure. Cancel that. I mean, that is why we did it.

But it got everyone in the mode to film. That was a big motivation for me personally was like, hey, by the time we started making these videos, I was starting to get into some movies of my own.

And then grind what the grind yep uh and but i wanted to come back and give other people this platform we wanted to make stuff the way we wanted to do it we wanted to film all the time and that stuff wasn't going to make it into other movies so let's all put it together and then we love skating we loved the skateboarders and everything came together and we just wanted to give a platform for the people here to be seen they not not everybody was going

to get that chance And so it really felt awesome that maybe in our delusional minds that we could be that chance to be a platform for people to be seen. And they all took it seriously. I mean, what this guy put down on a skateboard and turned into a career for a while, it's incredible. You know, he gave everything for that. You know, there was no half-stepping from the people. We didn't take it like it was a homey local video. We took it serious and, uh, these guys took it serious Dre.

I mean, that's, that's bad. Yeah. Big air Dre. And that came from a lot from our videos, you know, because he's not half stepping. He's not, nobody ever said, oh, it's just JB Deuce. Let's just chill. You know, whatever. We'll, we'll phone it in. Uh, everybody went hard for it. And, and, and that gave people that large platform to try to be seen a little bit. And, and then it was up to them to take it from there. Micah may have gotten some footage to be in something with us.

And then it was up to him. He took that, he ran with it and he made, made big things happen. Adrian Williams made big things happen. Lando, uh, Cooley, you know, lots of people.

All we are is helping each other. you know we're just doing what you should do that's just what you do and we were always like known as being like really loud and annoying when we went out to the lower 48 together me what do you mean like when we mostly me as a pack to the usasa nationals like you would hear people like oh those alaskans oh my god they're so why are they stop will they stop yelling alaska, Yeah, Alaska.

We were just so like together and so tribal and like so about being from Alaska and bringing it, bringing what we had into the mix down there. Another thing about filming was, for me, it felt more productive. I like snowboarding, or I love snowboarding, love being in the mountains, love doing all that stuff. But then you can only play hooky so much. But then once I started working on the videos, I felt like I was actually doing something.

So I really had an excuse to be doing what I wanted to do. And so I think that was a pretty sweet part of it.

Yeah you can only miss your mom's birthday so many times yeah you gotta be doing like a 140 foot front nine to miss her birthday sorry mom but i got this clip today yeah i showed up i showed up after that's a story for dre's endurance and season for no reason it's real yeah he was like mom's birthday he was up snowmobiling with the twins and like got like the biggest front nine ever at that point in snowboarding no yeah, march 26 yeah march it's tattooed on my lower back i never forget it.

Is that is that that productivity is that what helped you feel justified in utilizing certain churches and places like that in the middle of the winter that you may not have been a uh parishioner of i wanted to yeah i wanted to ask micah about stories about what they had to do to keep skating through the winter yeah i want to talk to my lawyer before i speak but uh yeah we used to break into like schools and stuff museums maybe uh no we'd we did

what we had to do to skate like no matter what when we were kids you know like if you're not old enough to like fly around the country on your own 15 years old and we just break into a school and skate at night there's no alarms back then i guess or a church um i don't know if i was involved certain latter-day saint church i don't know if i was on that that mission there's a specific clip in the video a switch certain switch 360 flip switch tray flip

off of the stage much like this no but like that's really the most miraculous thing i think from. My time doing this is like what micah and adrian and jerry and anthony and the whole crew was able to do skateboarding because we're in alaska it's like we're it's snowy there's mountains snowboarding is like the thing to do you know like of course not of course but it's more downstream that we created a vibrant snowboard scene, but the skateboarding was like a complete uphill battle.

Yeah. A place where they spread gravel over everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not. We spread gravel on our skatable surfaces. Yeah. It's not good for skateboarding. No. It's like the worst thing you could choose to pursue. Yeah. Like, why? Why? But that was what Micah did, and he did that for the whole video, too, was when he came into the mix, he was looking at movies like Toy Machine or the pro movies, and instead of being like,

I want to get near there, he was like, that's the level. I got to get there. And he said his bar's so high that the snowboarders were like, damn. Like, okay, we got to like, he's going all the way. Like, he's going to go all the way to the top of this sport. Like he's going to be as good as the best.

Like we got to be as good as or better than the best. You know, I think that when we talked about not seeing ourselves as a small video production thing, uh, I think one theme that goes throughout is that nobody in this group saw themselves as limited. And that's what you're saying. You know, he didn't see the limits of, oh, they didn't find excuses for themselves to be mediocre. And that's why you saw certain people. And if you did, you kind of fell off pretty quick.

That's what separated the different levels. And that's why you saw certain people go up to do big things, especially in the skateboarding side for you to decide, I'm not going to snowboard during the winter. I'm going to skate. I'm going to see it through. And then I'm going to not accept that I'm going to do less because I'm up here and have these hurdles. It's a pretty big deal. Yeah. You're kind of a big deal. It's like, I love Adrian's intro with the trucks. It's just kind of hard. Yeah.

It's like the best summation of Alaskan skateboarding. What did he say? It's kind of cold out here. Trucks are breaking. Wheels are breaking. You're breaking. Which is kind of crazy. Yeah. And yeah, he's still pro skater today. Adrian Williams. Got a board on the wall out there. Yep. Yeah, that's right. Ted Kim graphic. Is Ted in here? Yeah.

And we were oh come on he was the first guy to grind hand shoe adrian i think so the day that he that the moose he did the back 50 unless you say otherwise micah we'll have to ask carl carl might know uh just a quick shout out to carl i think carl was at the first skate contest ever in alaska in the 70s so just shout out to carl carl also was the person who helped us edit our second and third videos carl's action video yep

just down the street from here i was just watching footage of the editing bay like a week or two ago actually i'd like some behind the scene footage i shot and someone passed gas in the editing bay we won't say who. Where when we had to render a slow-mo, we would go and get a lemonade from Hot Dog on a Stick. That's right, yeah. Because it was going to take an hour and a half. Let's see how this slow-mo looks in an hour and a half. Oh, yeah. Was that Avid? Yeah.

That's how long it took. The first year we used Final Cut Pro. Micah. Final Cut. I was listening to... Codeman. I have a question for you. Do you really, right now? What was your favorite video part of any of those videos?

This is a me say me i remember uh polar bears dog sleds and igloos how old were you when that came out oh i i had hair yeah uh but i remember going up to either you jesse or you jason and uh i was just so jazzed about the movie and i couldn't figure out why and i like sought one of you guys out and i was like this is like my favorite video ever and i think one of you guys was like yeah because you know everybody in it and it like blew my mind because i because i remember watching other videos

skateboarding and snowboarding videos and being like that person is incredible.

And i just didn't know them it felt like uh it felt so distant and i think that that's a symptom of being from alaska and being like oh they have all of the parks they have all of the you know the cool architecture down in the states and that person can do that there but i think that you guys showed me actually i know you do and i i actually credit you guys even for the podcast for crude i mean my dad you know is a big influence as far as like his uh entrepreneurship

but you guys media wise really showed me that i mean alaska is cool because you feel a little disenfranchised here you know being so annexed from the rest of the world so i love that video i mean i love all of them i love steason living for life uh i remember the um terror squad cd came out uh that year and it's called in for life and terror squad is a rap group with big pun Fat Joe, all those guys. And to this day, it's one of my favorite albums. But I remember I would just play that.

It's probably not an appropriate CD to play at Borderline at a retail store, but I would just put it in all the time. And I remember years later, you were like, I think... You might have in some way suggested in for life because I was so obsessed with that. And I was like, I mean, it was, it was in the zeitgeist though. I mean, it was already there. Very possible. I'd like to just make a comment real quick.

When Scott, uh, just speaking of inappropriate music in the diamond center in the mall, I was there and moved over to work with Scott a lot when diamond center was kind of in its early infancy. And Scott had a Rage Against the Machine period. Scott would listen to the first Rage Against the Machine album all the way to work, get pumped up, fired up. If you don't know that album, you should check it out. F.U. I Won't Do What You Tell Me. Very popular track.

Then he would come in, bring the CD in from the car, put it in, play it there full blast all day long, all day long. And when we would close, he would hit the button, he would grab the CD, and we'd take it out and put it back in his car and listen to it on the way home. Yes. Amazing. And you wonder where I get it. Yeah. You know?

I love that. Okay, Micah. So I was listening to the crude interview we did back in 2020, and you said that at a certain point, you got sick of doing standard skate tricks.

And that's when you kind of gravitated toward doing non-traditional skate stuff like one-footers what did that transformation look like was it all at once like you just showed up to the skate park the next day uh trying all these techie tricks or was it kind of bit by bit, that's a tough question to answer um yeah i was just sick of how skateboarding looked it looked so cookie cutter to me and for a while i was trying to do the biggest obstacle like i'd go to any city in the

country and go what's the biggest thing i can go down on my skateboard and after a while that like it hurts first of all and after a while it's just boring like another 30 stair rail 40 stair like who cares so i was like i need to create something that looks different to me that i care about that's fun and interesting that maybe that doesn't even look like skateboarding to most people. So then I just started going with that. And then I feel like.

A few years into that, meeting up with Jesse and Gus Engel, and then we really started getting weird. If you want to elaborate. I think it was always there, though. Yeah. You always had a je ne sais quoi about your skateboarding that was there, and I think you just started listening to it more. Maybe, yeah. Like, treating it with respect and being like, I'm going to listen

to it. Cause you were always, yeah, you were like the first person that told me kind of how to edit something based on like, you were like, I just never forget. You're like, wait till my buttery steez comes out. Like I cut this clip and you're like, no, wait till my buttery steez comes out. It comes out right here. And it made me drag it longer. And it was like, there's the buttery steez. And I just think you were thinking.

Angel Williams was a strong proponent of the buttery steez as well you were thinking on that level like from the beginning I don't know I just think like well I'm a big fan he was doing yeah he was working up because one of the coolest things was you would see, the sickest current type trick kick flip back nose blunt at Ben Bokey on the box and you're like. And then you would see the one foot front board on the rail later on in that day.

So you were seeing him transition, but you knew he could do whatever he wanted on a skateboard. And then it started to be like, Oh, Hey, I'm, I'm not going to just do what these guys are doing, but I'm going to forge my own path. And that's all based on that. The passion and the skill put together, uh, with some creativity mixed in.

Well, don't, don't you think that, uh, I mean, skating during that time was they were becoming like robots and they were breaking themselves off, like destroying themselves, probably a little bit of survival mode and you tapped into other talents you had. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I don't know if I want to do that forever. And it was like there with like the circle too, like just being able to take like a normal thing and make it extraordinary.

And that was like a big thing for think tank and like the ethos of that that you created like in your cul-de-sac there with the circle how you would like you laid wood down on your stairs, and had like some ollie like you were using the roof of your house you guys were like going, crazy at the circle yeah like you yeah like belky would jump off the roof land on the grass roll run up jump on the skateboard hit the box and the whole thing was part of the clip at that point it Second story.

What happened on the box only mattered. And then all of a sudden they're like, no, the skateboard's not even involved for most of this clip. And then it gets involved. It's like, wait, what? He invented parkour. Yeah. It was just like, you know, when you take a little, it expands the universe a little bit. You're like, oh man, like you would pop off your skateboard and run sometimes in a line. And no one was doing that. And it was like, so amazingly like mind expanding for me personally.

Be like oh my god i love that i love that he pops up and runs and then gets back on the board like i don't know yeah and that's when burtner stopped strapping in, no for real though for real for real for real that wasn't joking yeah not joking at all i mean micah was the total spirit animal for that entire journey that's ongoing now gave me permission to also look at the creative side of me and i was very much on survival mode because i had hit my head and you know had a traumatic brain

injury and had to really think about yeah how i was going to continue inside this sport that i loved more than anything but also had very almost nearly ended my life so it was like you know like yeah micah really gave gave me that you know opportunity so Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. With buttery steez. I don't have the buttery steez. You can't just do that. You got to be born with that.

Something that I just keep thinking about with that transition in the way that you transitioned your snowboarding and the way that you transitioned your skateboarding is that... I can imagine, like, maybe if I thought about it, I'm like, oh, that would be cool to do. And I guess me and Gus were kind of doing it, but it was also influenced by you guys. And then I can't imagine it continuing if I was in a scene where people are like, what the heck are you doing, dude?

Like, why would you jump off an overpass? Or why would you, you know, why would you do any of that stuff? And so it has to do with like how insular and how like supportive everybody else was. Because if maybe if you decided that you didn't want to do all those big skate tricks anymore and then you started doing the smaller techie stuff. But then everyone else around you was like, dude, that's kind of whack. You know, maybe you wouldn't have continued.

Yeah. I had support for sure. People I was filming with were like, that's cool.

And friends are like, that's cool. but then there were outliers that were like that's stupid and that's fine like i'm not doing it for them yeah but if you have a crew around you that and you're kind of chasing a similar vision and it just it just makes you feel good about the direction you've chosen and you just start supporting each other and like you end up creating better stuff because of it yeah i i am a believer that an artist creates his best when

they he um create for themselves like unapologetically just let me create what I think is cool F everyone else and that's when I think artists shine the most in any genre. Definitely you know anything in my opinion my humble opinion yeah.

I've used to talk about like a thing that was how i looked at making movies was, you know concentric circles and like the very most important circle was me in the middle like exactly what i want and then it was like you know you go out and out, and you think about you know maybe like what a sponsor wants or something way out here yeah that's when you gotta be true to this like inner core like yourself and the people right around you, and first and foremost you know and then you start

thinking about at the very end maybe you think about how your message is going to resonate with a bigger audience no we said we were out filming today actually and we were jesse's belittling himself a little bit he said oh this isn't even that great and i go who's this for who are we trying to impress here and who would you say the gram i don't remember what i say me oh no i said scott stevens.

I said there's only one person i'm snowboarding for it's scott stevens that's the only person i snowboard for anymore i don't snowboard for me yeah god i gave up a long time ago, i'm like a zombie puppet that scott stevens controls but he's over your shoulder like a little like thing telling you like this is a little angel and he's an angel and a devil Yeah.

Yeah burner when it comes to your vision for think thank you've always wanted to make movies that are philosophical i've heard you reference directors like stanley kubrick alfred hitchcock i think it actually is pretty interesting um to explore human philosophy through snowboarding i've never outside of like you I haven't really ever heard that and I guess maybe this question is for everybody um. Yeah. What do you think you guys have learned through snowboarding and skateboarding?

And maybe Burtner, I mean, like philosophically, because that's where you kind of exist. Yeah i mean man you you learn everything everything is contained in everything in in in the world um and so but you learn so much about yourself from snowboarding from pursuing anything you love with passion you learn so much about yourself you want to meet yourself try a really difficult trick a million times yeah you will meet the true you.

And and you will you when you get in that moment like a true battle yeah and you're face to face with yourself it's pretty beautiful and powerful just to strip strip everything away strip ego away and just be in this like weird moment it's like transcendental i think like it's insane yeah your colors come out yeah i was filming a trick last year and i was crying and i messed i messed up uh where's alia he was there it's embarrassing but i'm crying and like a tear

falls in my eye while i'm trying to trick messed me up during the trick remember that you filmed it yeah yeah i don't but it it tears you apart from the inside and teaches you humility and and and patience right i'm more than anything i think how to fail i mean yeah how to fail i think snowboarding and skateboarding almost everything that i've learned, came from that or can be rooted in that but it's it's like these guys said it's,

i think the key is finding something that you fail at and there's really not much, that maybe every sport person says this but skateboarding snowboarding uh we chose this pursuit or fell in love with this pursuit of something that you fail at constantly. And if you can learn to deal with that, I think it's a huge character builder. I think that that's, um. You have to have some adversity in things to find your character, uh, and to value what you get out of it.

If you, if you walked up to a, they had never drawn anything before and you picked up a pencil and you, and you drew a masterpiece, you probably wouldn't care. Yeah. But if you went half mad trying to do that, to figure out how to get to that point, then there's a whole different, that's a whole different realm that opens up. It's a whole different level of pride. It's. Like you said, you find yourself in those moments of being tested and failing.

I really think that skateboarding teaches kids something amazing because they can fall in love with something that they don't complete. You know, there's not very many things in life that you can fail at all day long and still be super psyched about. Go watch other people succeed at it almost seemingly effortlessly. Yeah. And then you fail all day long and you're still pumped to go do that again with your friends. And, you know, those are, those are, that's something magical.

And that vehicle that, that we fell in love with has taught me a lot of things about life. And that failure is what I think is at the root of most things you learn. And you just it's like what you get to be you get addicted to the feeling of being alive on that level like where you're just like whoa that's life yeah like life just hit me in the face literally.

Like like when you slam you're just like whoa yeah no check all systems check i am alive i didn't really know i was alive all week working staring at my computer looking at my phone yeah you know like going about my business but now i'm definitely sure i'm alive you know i just caught my edge and yeah and i'm better for it like let's go you know i'm ready now, i don't know if this is speaks to that question but one of the things i've realized

lately is how amazing it's very cliche to say i found something that lets me live in the moment but uh the thing that snowboarding gives me are these moments of complete focus i don't necessarily. It's not always about this joy and elation or whatnot, but I guess I think when people say, oh, I get this Zen state when I snowboard or... I don't really feel that that much. What I feel is like, oh, I got to spend moments completely honed in on one thing.

There was no tough stuff at home. There was no bills. There was nothing in that anywhere other than me focusing on accomplishing something completely on that one point. Whether I get there or not doesn't really matter, but I did get those moments to completely focus and try to improve on myself and accomplish something. That sounds like what people mean when they say Zen. Flows thing. Flows thing, yeah. I don't know.

Zen seems like a happy, let go of everything feeling, where this is more hold on to everything, but that everything is only that one thing for a moment. Can I make it down this line without leaving my face on that rock? I don't know, but there's nothing else that's going to be on my mind for that five seconds. It's like out of body. I think they also call it flow state. Do you guys remember like dropping into a big air contest and just being like, is this happening?

Am I pointed towards this jump right now? I'm not, is this me? You're like, oh yeah, I'm just flying at this jump. Okay, here we go. Time to do business. You know, it's like this weird, like, out of body almost sometimes, like, where you face a fear you didn't know you were possible facing, you know? Yeah. Like, that's what it's really given me, too, because I'm not, like, some daredevil person. And, like, snowboarding was how I was able to tap into that.

And, like, unexpectedly, you know? Mm-hmm. Sometimes accidentally. Well, I was definitely a daredevil, but I still had that same feeling dropping into a big air contest. Yeah. Really? Oh, yeah. Like the big ones where there's cameras. We used to all travel. The three of us used to travel around and do these crazy contests together. I can't believe we even lived through that. Did you guys black out in the air ever? Or on a rail? Come on, dog. I blacked out when I crashed. Yeah, the back Rodeo 7?

Yeah. No, in the air. You never blacked out in the air? I mean, like out-of-body experience. Yeah. Jason probably, like the times I've landed perfectly. Yeah. And like won or did well, it's almost like a blackout. Yeah. You don't remember being in the air at all. You just can't believe you're the guy that just did that, you know? Yeah. I mean, Jason made a career out of it. The Borg Ariel. Should we talk about that? The back nine tail, really. I mean, that's the moneymaker. Yeah.

Is that the Borg Ariel? No. No. It's a different thing. I have a few tricks. Explain the Borg Ariel to the people. A Borg Ariel is a fakey to fakey 360 backflip. Perfect. I don't know. And you invented it, obviously. I would say that I was the first person to notably put that on video and contests. Who named it? We were trying to think, everybody was naming tricks back then, and we thought, what would be a funny way to name this? And I thought that sounded funny.

And it, yeah. Sounds amazing to me. I love it. Do you have any tricks named after you, Micah?

Maestro flip no i'm not gonna say any helicopter bones okay what's that, cody just got real serious wait what's that it's too it's ridiculous two front side, 270 body with a kickflip 180 i don't even know to back tail or something how do you feel about that description yeah mine was a little bit more smooth now yeah yeah he's almost at i was like i believe it's a b up down up yeah not something that's fun to look at.

Something i kind of wanted to go back to is when you guys are talking about battling a trick And then all of the, like these primal emotions that bubble up and what it sounds like you were talking about Bertner and Micah is like, you guys came out of that primal anger. And then at a certain point you realize that there's something to be learned and gained from that rather than I'm angry because I can't land this trick.

Yeah i mean be you know grateful for the battle yeah like it became the point to me was like whoa i'm here with the opportunity to do something i'm happy with the opportunity, to get a clip that truly is going to matter to me when i get in those situations i'm just like thank you like and it's not if it's when so and i'm willing to go that's it forever you know like because once you realize you've got it you've got oh i got the trick i know now what

to do it's not if it's when so now you're just you're in like yeah like zen state of like and you you might not land it that day but you can stay in it for a while and that's pretty rewarding Yeah. Yeah. Dre, outside of video parts, one year at Borderline Camp, you got the Coach of the Year Award. Do you think that that affected how you looked at your role in snowboarding and all? I maybe legitimized my time off work during the summer. But I don't, it wasn't, I don't know.

It was something I was definitely proud of, but I don't think it changed my snowboarding. I mean, kind of like what Micah was touching on, the snowboarding was for me. I mean, that was just something that I was proud to do and, you know, bringing kids along and teaching them how to. Do backflips and be on team big balls. He didn't get coach of the year for his snowboarding necessarily.

So that's, what's pretty cool. He got it because he brought out a side of his personality that encouraged Stoke and encouraged kids to find some love in this. And that's, that's the amazing thing about it. That's why he wins that award. So I thought it was cause I was the one that showed up in the morning. That was big back then. On time. That would have been the digger of the year award. Yeah. That wouldn't have happened. How does one get on team big balls?

I don't know how the teams got selected, but I mean, my campers gave the team that name. I didn't come up with that. I'd like to ask you guys how you feel your effect on these two young men is being taken over here. Very impactful hearing from the old hands. That honestly looks about right. I like that. Yeah, we should talk a little bit about camp for those that don't remember it or know about what we're talking about.

Sure, yeah. Because, yeah, when we talk about camp, it's like, I hardly remember that it was real. It's like, so it was surreal that Alyeska opened up to us and we had the run of the entire quad plus the glacier bowl to have this crazy rogue snowboard camp. Yeah. I mean, so like everyone needs to know, like the last two weeks in May...

Snowboarders would go up to the glacier bowl or all over chair six and build jumps and obstacles and get it ready for the first two weeks in June when school was out and kids came and snowboarded for two weeks. So like, I mean, that as a parent today, you know, like January, February comes around and you're like, well, what are we going to do with these kids this summer? We got to figure it out, like that would be a great option, Borgie.

If somebody were to bring something like that back. Because I haven't had this discussion for four or five years with Alieska. Yeah. I mean, it's probably never going to happen again. I mean, the way it did then. We're working on it. Really? Yeah. I mean, I'm trying really hard. Yeah. I mean, it was really. If anybody knows Alieska people, maybe we can form a coalition, but there are other people also helping to push.

My plight a bit so hopefully we see a resurgence of that um cool yeah yeah it was really special and scott would scott would get people that were you know he would get brands to fly their teams up and you know there'd be all these pros there and mixing it up with us and we would hand build jumps off of like the rollers at aliasca like first aid you know we'd always have a big money time booter there we'd have one on horseshoe if there's enough snow we're chucking in the gullies Lando's hip

Lando's hip Huge hip Lando would work on for like a week While everyone just kept everything going The head digger would be gone for a week Just working on one jump But it was amazing And he went big And then in the Glacier Bowl was like Two cat made jumps And a bunch of jib features, And everyone like You guys know the Glacier Bowl All. Um, you, it's big flat in the bottom. And so you could watch everything go down. So you're just hanging in the bottom and you, you could come from a different

direction. So there's snowboarding coming at you in multiple directions and it's just so hype. And then you could spend laps on the quad insane. Just you guys, no one else. Sometimes. Yeah. Well, a lot of times there wasn't enough snow. Yeah. Snow dependent. Yeah. And then after that, it's like, oh my God, I've just done so much snowboarding.

And then you go down and Girdwood skate park is just firing and it goes and you're out, you're just up until 1am making sandwiches for the next day for 200 campers, you know? I, I, I don't know if people know this, but if you've enjoyed the Girdwood skate park at all, then you can really thank snowboard camp for that because there was next to nothing in that place until snowboard camp came and Scott needed a place for people to get down after snowboarding.

So he would go in there and build, you know, some ragtag stuff, but he put that effort and that money into it every year, year after year after year. And then as camp faded and the things that were left behind started to wilt, then the community came in and kind of picked up the slack. But that, that exists because of snowboard camp. Mm-hmm. That's beautiful. And Scott Stamness came off the boat one year.

Oh, yeah. And helped build that skate park too. Added a bunch of stuff to it, which was really special because he's a really important skateboarder and snowboarder who ended up passing away tragically in Europe. But, um, so he was a part of our history too, which was really cool. Mm-hmm. But yeah, wild times. The tennis courts were the skate spot for Girdwood for years, but it would be like a curb, some things like that in there.

And then when camp started, then Scott went in and built a fairly large amount of items that helped populate that thing and legitimize it, I guess you could say. You know, he made the pyramid, he moved the borderline ramp. He moved it to my backyard for a little while and then it wasn't getting used there really because we couldn't put it together. And then it moved over and into Girdwood. Not the big one, the little tiny one. Because that used to be in a warehouse behind Borderline.

But yeah, that's kind of how it got its start and really pumped that place up and helped it become what it is. mm-hmm before that it was just where darren mattingly skated. That one hit yeah i don't know who that is no yeah old heads only yeah, dre i have another snowboard question for you so you were in thunk and cue the birds which were both ThinkThink videos. What was it like being in a video like ThinkThink where so much of it revolved around smaller technical stuff?

Did you ever feel out of place at all? No no i don't think so i mean there there would definitely be times when i was less into what what the what we were working on but i was able to kind of adapt i was just happy to be out there medium air dre well those two movies in particular we were still kind of, chasing the big dogs and trying to chuck you know it wasn't really until patchwork that dre Right.

Tracing, like once we started doing more mini shred, he would just air over everything we were doing. Like he would just be like, Oh, okay. He was great at it. He would be like, Oh, okay. I'll just, you guys are going to do like a little triple line here. I'll Miller flip over all that and drag my hand on that tip, you know? And like, it was like sick. You know, that was just kind of the thing was like everybody just to find the way to express yourself inside snowboarding.

It didn't have to be my way it was better if it wasn't you know it was like whichever way made sense to you like interpret the feature interpret the day to fit your style of snowboarding and we started getting that like in the tin can trees and stuff too where we would be spread out like rather than just everyone on one jump it was like we were spread out and so-and-so's hitting this and doing that yeah and like dre and jenno and there were they were like the extra block crew,

like they would just be like get done with a jump and then be like another block like another layer like their jumps would just go up up up up so yeah that that was an exclusive crew, not a lot of not a lot of one foot's going off those jumps yeah that was where the theraflu jump came from oh the extra block that on the screen right now i want to see yeah. But nowadays it's different up at 10 can, right? Not as many booters getting built.

I don't, there was a couple booters getting built up there preseason this year. Back when we had snow in November. I haven't seen any big ones. Yeah. I've seen a few little, basically little kids or skier ran groups building something to backflip onto the flat. And then that's, that's all I've really seen. I don't know if it's going down or not. A lot of split boarding. Yeah. Borg said. What up?

When we talked on the crude podcast back in 2020, you said that if you did another video, it would be nice Gordon too. You know, I tried that. We were talking about the skits earlier. It's funny and bringing things full serve, you know, trying to introduce what have we brought to the new thing? I, we made two videos with blue and gold.

And i went right in trying to say let's do nice gordon too let's do all these skits we'll continue it everybody was like nah dude we don't do skits you know we had some some rad is dakota still here.

No he bounced oh he's over here yeah i remember dakota was like i don't know how old he was then maybe 16 ish or so 17 somewhere along i don't know somewhere in that zone he was and i was like Dakota let's do some skits and stuff he's like nah dog, I'm not really with that, you know we were just dealing with a group that was young and you know they had their idea of what cool was and videos weren't really doing any skits it took another like five or six years for it to come full circle

where everybody is like oh robot food sick because of all the skits and now you know skits are back skits are back, try to tell them kids don't know Bruh. Those kids are lucky they left. I was just, look, I got my phone out. I was going to go get a sick selfie with the sleepers. Mom woke them up and they took off. The sleepers. Okay, Bertner, in our interview from 2019, you said that wherever you are, you go as an Alaskan.

You bring your people and your culture with you and that you become a representative of this place. What does everyone think about that? And how do you think Alaska is being represented now? Um, yeah. I mean, I think it's so true that wherever you are from is where you're from your whole life. And it's like, the second someone asks me, like, if you get asked, I've lived in Seattle for 20 years.

If you get asked, if you ask me where I'm from, I say Alaska, you know, it's like, that's where, where you're from is where you're from, you know, and where you grew up and where you cut your teeth and like, and, you know, um, Um, yeah. And so I just think Alaska is still the hinterland, you know, we're, it's still that place. It's still that place that captures the imagination of everywhere else in the world.

And, uh, it's changing all the time, but it's still that mysterious it's, it's on the license plate, you know, it's still the last frontier.

And uh yeah i'll always be alaskan and i love spending so much time up here and um running the salmon quesadilla booth with my parents for 20 some years and now christina and ollie and i running it together and ollie gets to flex his alaskan credentials even though when he grows up he'll be like i'm from seattle which is interesting because you know yeah you just if you're not from the place it's hard to be of the place and and uh maybe it's

different in a smaller community like this but especially a big city like seattle so so appreciative of the community that i'm still a part of mostly remotely but up here you know.

There's also like when back in the day when we started like traveling for skateboarding snowboarding it's if like there would be an apartment in downtown seattle and if you were from alaska and you skated you were welcome at like you you were like it was weird if you didn't go to that apartment and stay there and there'd be like 30 kids on the floor and the oven would be open to heat the place kind of weird but but like i mean that's how it was like if you left alaska

the first thing you did was search out the other alaskans where you were and get together with them absolutely yeah i made a lot of friends like that but you're from alaska like yeah like all right let's roll that's why i went to bellingham i was just like this feels like alaska like there was alaskans everywhere we all went down together yeah to western washington university and like We're going to ride Mount Baker now, but as a little Alaskan posse. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Okay, this one is for everyone. To what extent do you think we're all storytellers? And if we are, then what story are we trying to tell? What are we trying to tell today? Yeah. I don't know. I'm not really trying to tell a story. There's five old dudes. There's a lot of stories Mike is not trying to tell. Six old dudes on stage. Putting people to sleep. I've always. I've got a tagline, you know, progression through creativity as sort of the story that I've been working on for a long time.

It's just instead of finding progression linearly, find it through creativity, whatever that means. And I guess why I asked that question, I ask a lot of questions based on questions that I might want to be asked. And if I were to answer that question, I think the story that I've been trying to tell through the interviews that I've done through journalism is Alaska story.

You know, I have this special attention paid to the snowboard and skateboard scene, but the interviews that I do for crew, the interviews that I do for chatter marks is really trying to hold a mirror up to Alaskans and tell them like, this is who we are. You know, we're snowboarders, we're skateboarders, we're artists, we're, um, we're, you know, we're, we're everything. We're so cosmopolitan here. And there is never a shortage of people to interview, new stories to hear.

And also, I think that when people, at least I hope, when people listen to those stories that aren't from Alaska, they can get a, uh... Kind of a fly on the wall perspective of who we are, you know? Cause it is different being from here to being around this area. It is. It's weird to say, but it is different. Yeah. I think it's environmental. It's like, yeah. In the winter, it's just dark all the time. And you're just like, you're in the dark and it's frozen literally.

And then in the summer it's light all the time. It's very polarizing. It is. Yeah. And you get these polar swings of, of, of energy inside yourself and people have big personalities to match these big swings. And, uh, yeah, we're loud. Yeah. Yeah. Loud and proud. Loud and proud. Okay. I think, uh, now's a good time to open up questions to the audience. If anybody has any questions, there's a microphone right here in the front and, uh, You can come ask the question right there.

Ollie? Microphone in the front, Ollie. Come up to the front, Ollie. We got our first question. Yeah. Here we go. I just wanted to ask, what would you say is the best snowboard or skateboard trick that you've ever done? To who, Dre?

Anybody. Everybody. Theraflu. That's Dre back rodeo off an incredible jump from patchwork patterns that's the best thing I've ever filmed over a tree with a one liner that's that's why it's so good yeah he drops a one liner he said you better get some Theraflu because this is about to be sick, break out the Theraflu break out the Theraflu this is about to be sick and then he drops in and just hits this jump that no one else could hit i like went off this jump did a melancholy,

was just chilling and then ended up doing half a front flip for no reason after i did my melancholy it's like okay i'm hitting the jump everything's working and then i was like wait what's happening, drago's just back rodeo right over this like 20 foot tall perfectly straight tree out of the one-liner that was that was a miracle didn't hit the tree didn't you incredible too yeah a little tap a little just a little tap tap taparoo yeah.

I would be interesting to hear what jason thought i would almost say the nice gordon ender was gotta be up there because it's at arctic valley no one had hit that jump, yeah what he's talking about is uh the last is that maybe the last trick i ever really filmed or the last trick of me on video, really? I mean, you know, I mean, we did those other videos recently. So, uh, but, uh, Arctic Valley has always held a special place for me.

I grew up in Eagle river and Arctic Valley was the place that was close enough. We could hitchhike rides to get dropped off at the bottom and, uh, we could afford to go there frequently and it didn't have a lot, but we made what we could out of it. I would say it was a lift access version of what you were hiking over by your house kind of, um. There was a lot of that between the two of us of just trying to make something out of not much there.

And to come full circle 20 some years later at the end of nice Gordon, I found a kind of a cornice. It drops down and there's a wind lip and to gap from that. And I went up and there was nobody to hit it with me. I built this jump, uh, salted it and said, Hey, point the camera, please. And did a back seven over it. And yeah, that was probably one of the bigger jumps I've ever hit. Um, and yeah, that's, it's pretty special because it was Arctic Valley and,

uh, because it was a solo mission. It was, that's a little strange. Usually, usually you're not hitting a big jump just by yourself. You set up a tripod? No. Um, Andy Halverson filmed, uh, Gary Milton filmed.

And um alex mertz took photos okay was that was that was more media than riders you were riding so yeah was that up under gordon lion is that where that was i think so it's whatever that, gut you would go up to to to and on your right when you're going uphill on your right hand side there's that little island that comes out yeah yeah yeah.

Maestro favorite trick you've ever done i can't it's hard to say um because of the pronunciation, i can probably say that one you filmed actually borg uh tell we're talking about reno yeah i mean that's one of the bigger things i know yeah that comes to mind university reno nevada yeah 40 or 50 stair maybe yeah let me let them know how it went so unr oh wait you tell the lead up because you went a few times right i went a few times yeah with different people and then the film what were

you doing in reno uh meeting up with you so i lived in truckie at the time, micah was rolling through he said he wanted to do this thing or i i can't remember exactly how it went down but i said do you want to film some stuff yeah i want to do this cool let's film.

I don't know if Gary filmed or not But I know we set up one as a still And then I did a follow-in angle of this But the cool thing was This was a theme of mine Find a holiday that people are busy And go film the bust spots on those days And this was the Super Bowl Sunday So everybody was out and about It's a big football college. So everybody's, you know, in their houses or in places doing that. Afterwards, Michael lands this nose slide that he had tried a few times.

And we're talking like 20-some stairs, flat 20-some stairs. It looked like a hundred. Yeah. Yeah. It's a humongous. It was a lot. It's a total, complete monster. Yeah. Did it with six, super high to get onto. He laces this thing. Nipple high. what like chest high yeah Hogarth did it on a snowboard, So, I mean, yeah, that's a whole discussion in itself. Back to me, back to me. Yeah, if you're going to compare doing something on a snowboard and a skateboard, pretty much skateboarding wins.

100%. Yes. So, don't ever do Hollywood High on a snowboard. Bad porn. But anyway, so Micah does this thing and the cool part that's super memorable is we went to the casino to celebrate afterwards and got to witness the Janet Jackson nip slip happen right live on the TV. I did not know that. You got this done? So we got this done in the first half and went to the casino to grab some food and watch the nips. Wow.

History. some might say it was she knew that Micah had landed this and was in his presence and it made her so nervous, that there was a wardrobe malfunction so that year was did we figure that out uh 2004, yeah or 20 years ago Sharon. All right my question is you guys talked a little bit about how J.B. Deuce and how the movies and the filming and everything had changed their trajectory of your careers and what you guys decided to do and where your careers went to.

And from, you know, my side of things, I saw a lot from the background, right? And from behind the scenes, keeping things running and all of this. And I love hearing your stories because I didn't participate on the side that you guys did, but I'm so very proud to see where you guys have gone. That being said, I couldn't help but wonder, what if there had never been a borderline? What if the Liska boys had never poured their hearts and souls into this community

of skating and snowboarding? What if there had never been a summer camp? How would that have changed the trajectory of your lives? That's hard to say because...

Borderline was such a big component in what we did but we were all so absolutely motivated and starved to to make it that we were going to figure out a way no matter what but scott and borderline and you you know the whole family definitely helped make it a lot easier i think it might have come together not been an alaskan story yeah you.

Know i think it would have been and there would have been other stories that wouldn't have maybe had as much impact and it probably wouldn't have been a uniquely alaskan story because we would have had to leave to make an impact yeah and.

We all wanted to make an impact and like everyone was motivated like mike is saying but uh doing it here might not have wouldn't have been on the table you know and like i mean the commitment that borderline made to our video was staggering like yeah i mean at that point to have a ten thousand dollar check written which i don't remember that about it's a million dollars in today's money yeah yeah that was the first or the second movie or something there was like to make all the copies and to

to have the editing done and the time and everything it was a big that was that's a big chunk of money now to put behind any project in snowboarding and so yeah scott and sharon saw they might they either scott was definitely a risk taker but they saw this marketing opportunity and saw you know they felt the energy and and were like oh what if we could have this energy that roadkill has that fall line films has that you know mac dog has what if we could own some of that

energy you know and i think jason and i popped up and like yep here you go guys like make it happen you know and it's like whoa holy moly that's trust us to do that like okay that's weird to think about though like. If there were no borderline like yeah yeah i can't imagine i can't imagine anyone that would have stepped up and filled that void i just can't even I'm racking my brain and I don't, I don't think it would have been pretty sad.

Yeah. Probably no blue and gold. Somebody would have stepped up and done something, but it would have been much different. Yeah. There's, you know, obviously it's a very unique family with a unique perspective, but I think it takes, it takes those type of people to say, I'm going to risk all of this. I'm going to do something non-ordinary, non-traditional.

And I mean, those guys, if I remember the story right, you know, they cashed in a lot of what they had put into 401ks and whatnot as electricians, a very safe, traditional route that could have provided for families and whatnot to say to, They traded him for the ability to run in and go on Friday night. I need the register. I just need to clarify. Electricians in the late 80s were not participating in 401ks. I don't believe you. Yeah. Yep. See? It is. Dang.

That's rare. That's rare. Somebody would have done something, but it wouldn't have been. I mean, it started because Jay Liska was already in love with snowboarding. He was already there. And then those guys came up with this idea together. Let's start a shop.

So there were people that were going to do it regardless. Uh, I had started snowboarding before borderline opened, but I don't know what the platform would have been, but I credit that time period with giving me a community to belong to, to feel open and free enough to, to be confident, to be who I needed to be, to go as far as I could go.

Same um and that was what i did and try and continue to try to provide for others um i don't know if i would have who i mean i can't even imagine it because it's just not fathomable what would have that's what it was it was that group and we will have no other idea what anything else could have been um we can see now that when i'm doing it and when when jake and Derek are doing it. It's not the same. Even the same family can't reproduce it because time has changed. People have changed.

The delivery method for everything we're doing changes. Again, we can only try to continue to reproduce the values and the beautiful things that we got from that and try to pass those on and instill those in the next group.

I don't know, but I'm grateful that it was those guys and um yeah i will forever be grateful that uh that those are the guys that i get to proudly say i learned under i got to be around i got to try to get a piece of pizza from before it cooled off jay would buy him pizza and but he would not let it cool down and he'd say You can have some if you eat it while it's hot, you know, it's hot and Jay could finish the pizza by himself. If, if I didn't get a piece, you want to use the mic then?

But that being said, support your local skate shops, guys. It's important. Yeah. Get off your Amazon accounts. Come on. Yeah. In the early years in the Burtner household, there was a snowboard called Big Alaska. Oh, yeah. What is your take on how that fits into the story of snowboarding? So that was Dennis and Kathy Sayre. And Kathy was a DJ at K-Whale. And they started a snowboard company. And for me, they were really big because I rode for them.

And they said they would send me to amateur nationals if I rode for them in Minnesota. And that's why I signed on. And they sent me. And that really launched my career because I won that contest and was able to really, yeah, that was really a big pivotal one for me. And that was an operation run right out of here at Anchorage. The boards though were made actually in Minnesota at that point.

And then they switched to a Washington state manufacturing. But Kathy is Native Alaskan, and she worked with Native Alaskan artists. And I remember a time when we had a whale kind of art on the board, and she was like, look, people use this stuff all the time, but they don't know what they're doing. This is approved.

And we have got permission to use this from the tribe and the artist and it's okay to put this on a board and i was like i didn't even understand what she was talking about you know yeah because no one was talking about that back then and just really cool to uh i was like i had never thought of that you know like oh it's like a language you can't just throw whatever you want anywhere you want it you know this is a people's language and history and you have to do it in the right way.

And you know that was anyways that's just a little anecdote from that time but it was a funny Anchorage snowboard company and a few of us were sponsored by them Who else? There's one at Play It Again Sports if you want one right now No way There is What do you mean? Go get it There's a big Alaska board over there Like for sale? Yeah Let's go get it From back in the day? From back in the day Let's go tomorrow, I still have one Oh never mind Yeah Are we talking Huffman or Spenard? Spenard.

Riveting radio for the podcast. Yeah. Listeners. I'm going to cut that out. We'll see if they get out there and get that fine by the time this releases. That's cool. Well, who else was on that company? Aaron Greeno, Robbie Gonzalez. Chris Bombeck. Bomber. Bomber. It was Bombeck and the Bomber and the Jester were the two mainstays. Oh, I remember that poster. That was the pro team or as close to pro as you were going to do team.

That was the poster. We had a really unfortunate poster of me doing just this huge Tina method. Cranked all the way back and it said, the jester above me. And I was like, never had been known as the jester. They just coined it. But Will ever since then. They didn't get permission to use that. Yeah, they didn't get permission to use the jester. Love that. I just showed up to Gary King and there was this poster I was supposed to sign that said the jester. And then the bomber beside me.

But yeah. Super funny. I like that. All right, guys. Those are all the questions I have for you. I want to thank Borgstead, Bertner, Micah, Dre for being here. The audience for being here. Everyone at the Anchorage Museum for making tonight possible. Julie Decker for her vision of what a museum can be. Alex Tate for your work on the Northern Borders exhibition. and Danny Crombie for helping set tonight up. And of course, everyone in the Alaska snow and skate scene right now carrying the torch.

Thank you, Cody. Thank you, guys. Music. For more information about the Anchorage Museum, visit anchoragemuseum.org. This podcast was produced by me, Cody Liska, for the Anchorage Museum. With additional help from Julie Decker. Chatter Marks Music is produced by Keys Open Doors. Music.