How I Spent My Winter Vacation
by Adam Yauch from Grand Royal Magazine #1
OKAY ADAM, HOW MUCH TIME DID YOU SPEND SNOWBOARDING THIS WINTER?
All of it, except the last two weeks in December, when I went to Nepal.
COULD YOU CONCEIVABLY GO SNOWBOARDING IN NEPAL?
Conceivably.
GOOD ANSWER.
I can go into it if you want.
PLEASE DO.
Well, you would have to bring your own helicopter. And oxygen. Either the copter, or hike like a motherfucker. But I'm pretty lazy when it comes to hiking. People have done it though. Like my man Steve... what his name? Steve Matthews.
BUT HAVE YOU GONE HELI-BOARDING BEFORE?
Just this past April in Alaska was the first time. I got the grand tour from Liska and Fowl Air, the AK locals.
HOW LONG WERE YOU IN ALASKA?
For the whole month of April.
AND THE REST OF THE WINTER YOU SPENT IN UTAH?
Yes.
WHICH WAS BETTER, ALASKA OR UTAH?
The snow can be better in Utah a lot of the time, but Alaska's unreal because it's so spread out and so sparse. You'll be up on a mountain and there will be thousands of mountains in every direction for as far as you can see - and no people anywhere. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life. No guides, no rules, no ski patrol to save you. You just see something you like, and say, "drop me over there and I'll see you at the bottom." You've got to watch out for avalanches, cornices breaking off, bergschrunds and crevasses in glaciers. No one is setting off avalanche charges or testing the runs. There's no ropes up. It's just you and the people you're with, and the mountains. In regular ski areas you get used to having shit roped off or marked. In AK, you could be coming over a roler and - BAM! - there's a crevasse or 50-foot drop onto rocks. You could start going down a shoot and have no way out. Then you have to take your board off and hike out. I did that one time, on a steep face of wet snow, with wet slides coming down all around. If the snow would have given way, I'd have tumbled on some rocks and I'm all trying to hurry up before a slide comes my way. It's as sick as you want. There was this one gigantic cornice there called The Berlin Wall that was about a 150-foot drop. One day it broke off and there were pieces of debris lying around as big as a trailer home. But all in all, if you just use common sense, learn about the snow and respect the mountains, it's not a problem. I was lucky to be around people who taught me a lot: Parata and the Hatchets and all of them.
SO, IN UTAH YOU LIVED IN A BIG HOUSE WITH A BUNCH OF SNOWBOARDERS?
It was just like an apartment, but there was another apartment downstairs with a bunch of friends also. Their place was a bomb shelter, but we tried to keep our shit clean.
HOW MANY WERE UPSTAIRS AND HOW MANY WERE DOWNSTAIRS?
Me and Chris and Mikey Basitch lived upstairs, and Matty Goodman, Fish, Timmy, Tara and God knows who all else were all piled in downstairs, with Matty living in the closet like a bum. He got the idea from Mike.
HOW MANY TIMES A DAY WOULD YOU GO SNOWBOARDING?
Once. All day. Everyday.
GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OF HOW THIS IMPROVED YOUR SKILLS- LIKE WHAT KIND OF TRICK OR MANEUVER WERE YOU NOT ABLE TO DO AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WINTER THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO DO NOW?
I learned some spinners and some other tricks, but the main kind of riding that I was into doing was sleeps, drops and deep snow in the trees and shit like that. It wasn't so much trick riding. I mostly like riding fast in deep snow on my long board.
IN OTHER WORDS, EXTREME SNOWBOARDING?
Whatever.
RIGHT. BUT DIDN'T YOU GO TO THE EXTREME SNOWBOARDING COMPETITION IN ALASKA?
Yeah, but I didn't compete in it. It's a little over my head. Maybe next year. These guys don't fuck around. Goodwill, Farmer, Liska, those guys are like the original Jedi masters. They don't fuck around.
BUT THEN AGAIN, NEITHER DO YOU ADAM.
True.
DO YOU MIND IF I ASK ABOUT YOUR GETTING ARRESTED FOR GRAFFITI?
It wasn't so much that I got arrested, it was a criminal mischief charge, like a ticket. We made the mistake of going back to the scene of the crime in order to take a photograph. The owner saw us and followed us to fuckin Taco Bell on the DL.
EXCUSE ME ONE SEC BUT I'VE WANTED TO KNOW FOR A LONG TIME: WHAT DOES "ON THE D.L." MEAN? "ON THE DISABLED LIST?"
It you don't know Bob, whatever. But its the top secret shit. On the Down Low.
THANK YOU, ADAM.
No worries. So anyways, I'm sitting in Taco Bell, minding my own business, eating a bean and cheese burrito with my homeboys, when 5-0 steps in. At least thirty young Mormon faces turn and stare at us as the officers approached, asking for ID. After querying us about some supposed graffiti piece on a wall not far from there, which I denied knowing anything about (as any good fool would do), he asked to see my hands. Which coincidentally had the same color of spray paint on them as the mural in question. Officer Attitude immediately claimed that he had witnesses who had seen me do the piece and questioned my integrity in front of everybody. He exclaimed-much to his own amazement-"YOU'RE A LIAR!!!" Then they asked us to leave the restaurant and outside they had three cop cars and cops walking around everywhere, searching for the empty paint cans. As they had deduced that we had only finished the supposed crime moments ago.
HOW COME THERE WERE WITNESSES? DID YOU DO THE CRIME DURING THE DAY?
No Bob, the crux of the matter here is that Officer Attitude is the liar. And it had been done the night before. But on a more serious note, I thought it was a public wall, owned by the city. I wouldn't have done it if I knew it was private property. So I offered to pay for them to repaint their wall and they dropped the charges.
UH, ONE LAST QUESTlON? WHAT WAS THE MURAL OF?
241, my friend Mikey's clothing company.
ACTUALLY, LIKE ATTITUDE, I WAS LYING. ONE MORE QUESTION: DO YOU AT LEAST HAVE A PHOTO OF THE MURAL THAT WE COULD REPRINT TO GO ALONG WITH THIS INTERVIEW?
Mikey's got it, you can call him.
FAIR ENOUGH. ARE WE SQUARE?
I think so.
