Belated Lance
Jeez, Lance Mountain turned 50 four days ago - so belated happy birthday to the guy who actually cried a little bit while we did the following interview two summers back during Bright tradeshow:
Lance, let’s start with an introduction of sorts: Imagine it’s the early nineties, and there’s a camera in your face, and you’re supposed to tell that camera everything that’s going to happen in this particular episode of 411 – yet I want you to use this announcement to tell our readers about what’s going on in Lance Mountain’s life these days. Can you do that for me, present your life in the way you used to present 411?
Well, unfortunately I had to present 411 in a way I wouldn’t normally… present it: “Welcome to 411,” and then I’d say a bunch of names I’d say wrong – because I didn’t know who they were.
Can you give it a try anyway?
Sure. I would say: Welcome to Not-411, my life is much easier now without these introductions! I have a lot more time on my hands: not running business, and I don’t have all these responsibilities anymore, you know? Responsibilities to try to make other peoples’ lives work as much now… instead, I just have one responsibility, myself and my family. So it’s a much more comfortable time in my life now, to be honest.
You seem to be extremely relaxed, I have to say.
I mean I miss those days, with all the relationships with all the guys and stuff. Now I just found time to clutter it up with other things, because I’m still pretty busy, but I just don’t have that pressure of always thinking about other peoples’ lives. So it’s a comfortable time in my life: my son has been married for eight years; he’s moved out, and he and his wife have a cool little life, so my wife are like “empty nesters” now – which is kind of hard, because that time with your kid just goes so quick in life.
Hmm.
Now I have plenty of time to skate and travel and spend time with my wife.
So if you think back to the days when you could place 11th in a contest – and go home and not even tell your friends that this was actually the last spot you took, because there were no more than 11 kids attending –, if you think back to those days, did you, in any way, expect your life to turn out the way it did over the next, well, three decades? Did you even remotely think that it was possible that thirty years down the road you’d still be doing this?
Oh, well, expectations in life… let me think… I mean when I think of the word “expectations” it’s something I probably struggle with, because I probably did and do expect things out of life – and when you do that, you set yourself up for always expecting more, wanting more. It’s a bad place to be in, I think. However, once I started skateboarding I thought I would always skateboard.
You mean in one way or other?
Yeah, but to have it become something like a profession, to get sponsored, I didn’t expect any of that. The only desire was that I didn’t want this to end.
I was more thinking about the point once you were in, because…
… because that’s when you start having expectations.
Yep. And then there must have been career points when you had to find a new spot, because the next generation was around the corner, and they were doing things differently.
I believe that I always had to find a spot for myself – because that spot that I took in skateboarding didn’t mean anything to anybody: the bottom spots didn’t mean anything to anybody in the industry. So I believe that from the beginning my goal was not to get the recognition from the people in the industry – I didn’t care what they thought; I didn’t really like their opinion, but my goal was to get the skaters to like it. I mean if you’re trick-oriented, they like you while you’re doing a new trick. And when someone else is doing a new trick, they like someone else. My goal was more to embody what skateboarding is. Because that’s what I loved about it, as opposed to “oh, that guy went higher than that guy.” However, the dudes who judge contests or get to decide about who to put in an ad campaign, they don’t care about who embodies skateboarding. They don’t get it.
Still you were always part of the game.
Yeah, they don’t get it, but then they see the reaction of the skaters, and only then they’re like, “oh, we want that as well!” You know, my son got into basketball a bit when he was nine, so we’d go to some games. As an outsider, I was told that Michael Jordan was the best, and Pippen was the second man. So we went and saw games, and I was like, “Dennis Rodman is the raddest.” “C’mon he doesn’t do it all, he’s not the complete package – he’s not the best” Well, maybe he wasn’t the best but the team would not win without him, and he was just interesting to watch, and he was funny and he was creative and weird and wrong… I think I just connect with that a little bit more. And I’m not saying that Jordan wasn’t good – he was good, fantastic! He won the most, made the most, but you know what: there’s a connection to something that’s interesting as well, and I just liked Rodman better. I guarantee you that the people in charge, the people paying him, the industry, the media, the judges really would’ve been fine if Rodman didn’t come along. He was kind of a nuisance to them, “ugh,” kind of a problem, “what do we do with this?! Oh, wait, everyone wants his jersey?” So to expect anything from that: nah. I’ve had low esteem rather than high expectations, and I’ve struggled with that a lot, though I think the top spot is harder!
Because you have to hold that top spot.
Yeah, and that’s physically impossible. Would I rather hold the part where people go, “oh, you embody what skateboarding means to me”? Yeah. But that being said, that’s what I chased after rather than chasing after the other things, and I think a lot of people didn’t get that. And they still don’t get it. And to be honest I don’t really get it from the guys that I’d put into the highest position, I don’t get the “we really appreciate you, Lance” from them, I don’t. I get that from people like Neil Blender and… radder people. But then you go out there to skate every day and of course reality hits you: Man, I’m garbage. I’ve had that since I was 17.
So, imagine you were a kid now, even younger than that, 14, 13, would you still be attracted to the skateboarding?
No.
What would you do instead?
I have absolutely no idea. And I’m not saying that it is a bad thing – it’s a better thing in some sense. It was just a special time. I don’t know what I’d be attracted to. All I can say is that I’m probably not much different than kids today. Like, we think we’re different, or we say we’re different: no we’re not. We’re all the same, to some extent. And the kids today are just attracted to everything. Back then you were attracted to one thing – and you hated everything else.
Yeah.
And that’s what it was about: we’re this, and not that. I mean I don’t understand how kids can love rap, punk, and metal at the same time. And classic rock! In the seventies: Either you love disco, hate disco, hated the stoners, loved punk – it was so fragmented! Now it’s like, “yeah, I rollerblade, I snowboard, I ping-pong – I’m just so good at everything!” That’s today, and I don’t think I’d be much different from that as a kid today.
So you wouldn’t be a real skater, but you’d own a board at least.
I don’t know. These are all what-ifs. But I hope I would skateboard, that’s for sure.
(rnk)
Lance, let’s start with an introduction of sorts: Imagine it’s the early nineties, and there’s a camera in your face, and you’re supposed to tell that camera everything that’s going to happen in this particular episode of 411 – yet I want you to use this announcement to tell our readers about what’s going on in Lance Mountain’s life these days. Can you do that for me, present your life in the way you used to present 411?
Well, unfortunately I had to present 411 in a way I wouldn’t normally… present it: “Welcome to 411,” and then I’d say a bunch of names I’d say wrong – because I didn’t know who they were.
Can you give it a try anyway?
Sure. I would say: Welcome to Not-411, my life is much easier now without these introductions! I have a lot more time on my hands: not running business, and I don’t have all these responsibilities anymore, you know? Responsibilities to try to make other peoples’ lives work as much now… instead, I just have one responsibility, myself and my family. So it’s a much more comfortable time in my life now, to be honest.
You seem to be extremely relaxed, I have to say.
I mean I miss those days, with all the relationships with all the guys and stuff. Now I just found time to clutter it up with other things, because I’m still pretty busy, but I just don’t have that pressure of always thinking about other peoples’ lives. So it’s a comfortable time in my life: my son has been married for eight years; he’s moved out, and he and his wife have a cool little life, so my wife are like “empty nesters” now – which is kind of hard, because that time with your kid just goes so quick in life.
Hmm.
Now I have plenty of time to skate and travel and spend time with my wife.
So if you think back to the days when you could place 11th in a contest – and go home and not even tell your friends that this was actually the last spot you took, because there were no more than 11 kids attending –, if you think back to those days, did you, in any way, expect your life to turn out the way it did over the next, well, three decades? Did you even remotely think that it was possible that thirty years down the road you’d still be doing this?
Oh, well, expectations in life… let me think… I mean when I think of the word “expectations” it’s something I probably struggle with, because I probably did and do expect things out of life – and when you do that, you set yourself up for always expecting more, wanting more. It’s a bad place to be in, I think. However, once I started skateboarding I thought I would always skateboard.
You mean in one way or other?
Yeah, but to have it become something like a profession, to get sponsored, I didn’t expect any of that. The only desire was that I didn’t want this to end.
I was more thinking about the point once you were in, because…
… because that’s when you start having expectations.
Yep. And then there must have been career points when you had to find a new spot, because the next generation was around the corner, and they were doing things differently.
I believe that I always had to find a spot for myself – because that spot that I took in skateboarding didn’t mean anything to anybody: the bottom spots didn’t mean anything to anybody in the industry. So I believe that from the beginning my goal was not to get the recognition from the people in the industry – I didn’t care what they thought; I didn’t really like their opinion, but my goal was to get the skaters to like it. I mean if you’re trick-oriented, they like you while you’re doing a new trick. And when someone else is doing a new trick, they like someone else. My goal was more to embody what skateboarding is. Because that’s what I loved about it, as opposed to “oh, that guy went higher than that guy.” However, the dudes who judge contests or get to decide about who to put in an ad campaign, they don’t care about who embodies skateboarding. They don’t get it.
Still you were always part of the game.
Yeah, they don’t get it, but then they see the reaction of the skaters, and only then they’re like, “oh, we want that as well!” You know, my son got into basketball a bit when he was nine, so we’d go to some games. As an outsider, I was told that Michael Jordan was the best, and Pippen was the second man. So we went and saw games, and I was like, “Dennis Rodman is the raddest.” “C’mon he doesn’t do it all, he’s not the complete package – he’s not the best” Well, maybe he wasn’t the best but the team would not win without him, and he was just interesting to watch, and he was funny and he was creative and weird and wrong… I think I just connect with that a little bit more. And I’m not saying that Jordan wasn’t good – he was good, fantastic! He won the most, made the most, but you know what: there’s a connection to something that’s interesting as well, and I just liked Rodman better. I guarantee you that the people in charge, the people paying him, the industry, the media, the judges really would’ve been fine if Rodman didn’t come along. He was kind of a nuisance to them, “ugh,” kind of a problem, “what do we do with this?! Oh, wait, everyone wants his jersey?” So to expect anything from that: nah. I’ve had low esteem rather than high expectations, and I’ve struggled with that a lot, though I think the top spot is harder!
Because you have to hold that top spot.
Yeah, and that’s physically impossible. Would I rather hold the part where people go, “oh, you embody what skateboarding means to me”? Yeah. But that being said, that’s what I chased after rather than chasing after the other things, and I think a lot of people didn’t get that. And they still don’t get it. And to be honest I don’t really get it from the guys that I’d put into the highest position, I don’t get the “we really appreciate you, Lance” from them, I don’t. I get that from people like Neil Blender and… radder people. But then you go out there to skate every day and of course reality hits you: Man, I’m garbage. I’ve had that since I was 17.
So, imagine you were a kid now, even younger than that, 14, 13, would you still be attracted to the skateboarding?
No.
What would you do instead?
I have absolutely no idea. And I’m not saying that it is a bad thing – it’s a better thing in some sense. It was just a special time. I don’t know what I’d be attracted to. All I can say is that I’m probably not much different than kids today. Like, we think we’re different, or we say we’re different: no we’re not. We’re all the same, to some extent. And the kids today are just attracted to everything. Back then you were attracted to one thing – and you hated everything else.
Yeah.
And that’s what it was about: we’re this, and not that. I mean I don’t understand how kids can love rap, punk, and metal at the same time. And classic rock! In the seventies: Either you love disco, hate disco, hated the stoners, loved punk – it was so fragmented! Now it’s like, “yeah, I rollerblade, I snowboard, I ping-pong – I’m just so good at everything!” That’s today, and I don’t think I’d be much different from that as a kid today.
So you wouldn’t be a real skater, but you’d own a board at least.
I don’t know. These are all what-ifs. But I hope I would skateboard, that’s for sure.
(rnk)