Scott Bourne interview

May 01, 2007 @ 2:46 PM

At 33, what does skateboarding mean to you?
After well over 20 years on a skateboard and 10 in the professional world, I finally feel as if my skateboarding has fully matured, caught up, so to speak, with my state of mind. Which means I fully do what I like. I am no longer imitating anyone else’s movement. What you see me do I have choreographed on my own… using 20 years of experience. I don’t feel myself in competition with anyone anymore. I have out lasted most of the competitors, which simply means when they were not winning contests any more, they disappeared. I am doing this for myself and as my body degrades I simply find new movements to keep my skating alive. I have found new ways to skate simply because my body could no longer move the old way. I really use my hands a lot these days and this changes my movements.

Can you give us a run down of your physical situation?

I have broken just about everything on the right side of my body. Foot, ankle, toes, three knee surgeries, fractured pelvis, ribs, elbow, wrist, fingers, arm, and my clavicle… its amazing I haven’t broken my neck. The left side doesn’t look much better and there are three compounded discs in my lower back. Not to mention the concussions and stitches along this journey…

When did you discover that some tricks were no longer possible, and was it hard to accept it?

As a skateboarder you are very in touch with your body, so you notice immediately that something is no longer possible, and, yes, you are certainly disturbed because you have tricks that you do just because you enjoy them. What I mean is they feel good. Often an injury can take this sensation away. Skating is not always about that one big trick that is only done once and can kill you. Often it is about a simple trick like frontside ollie 180’s, a trick I quite love but injury has taken from me… but it is in these moments that the mind and body are forced to find other movements that create a similar sensation. These are the times that you progress and your style changes.

I see the words “Death to the individual” on a lot of your boards, what does it mean?

First and foremost, I have only stayed in professional skateboarding as long as I have, because it’s given me a voice. And each and every one of these guys you see in the magazines has a voice, whether they are using it or not. Which means working on their own ad concepts or coming up with a board graphic that represents them. For me, I want to do something positive with it, and that thing is to show kids that you can do anything you like. Not just with skating but with life. But many times these kids get trapped in skating and never go anywhere else. Skating was once a haven for creativity and now it’s just a training ground for corporate sponsorship. Do this, this and this… and you’ll get sponsored. It used to be that the rider defined and created the image of the company. Now the companies create and manufacture the image of the skater. They give you some goofy nick name, come up with some meaningless graphic and costume and then they put you in it. Then they put you in the magazines and all the clones buy the image and company. Often when a pro changes companies you see his image change.....whoaa this is weird shit man. Where did skateboarding go? Skateboarding has completely stagnated. Its lost its individuality. The first kick flip ever done was creative. It barely came off the ground. But now you see it done 15 foot out of a vert ramp and you know what? It’s still just a kick flip. The creative evolution of skating has bottomed out. For me, I don’t want to just keep imitating old movements but take them and apply them differently. I want to skate something that has never been skated before, and most of the time I accomplish it. But it’s not because I have set out to do this task, it’s because my mind just sees these things. My creative imagination has not been destroyed by the next contest run. I really see these fucked up things in the street and I talk about wanting to skate them and even my friends who skate think I am crazy. Then, I skate them… by doing so, I hope I break down this destructive movement against the individual. This destructive movement against something I love.

Who do you feel is creative here in Europe?

Man, Jérémie Daclin has been blowing my mind for years… and thats what I mean: this is an older guy that has really shook it up here in Europe, and even in the States, and not everything he is doing is gnarly. It’s creative and you want to watch it. When I hear about this guy having an interview, I look for it. When I hear he has a video part, I go watch it… skip everyone else and watch Jérémie! Why? Because I am not a kid anymore. I do not need to be entertained, but this guy has won my attention, I want to see what is next for him. Pontus Alv… he is out of his mind. On a different plane, than any man I have ever met. This guy could skate a candy cane and make it look like murder.

What’s going on with The Unbelievers?

Earlier this year we pulled the company from the people who had been backing it. After four years, Jeremy Fish and myself were just not happy with what had been transpiring. From there, we began the search of a new home for the company.
There were several people that showed interest in what we were doing and eventually we thought we had found a home for it. In the end, they did not have the money they told us they did, so we decided to pull out. Without proper funding and advertising, no company can possibly make it in this day and age. At present, Jeremy and myself have all the rights as well as the name and if someone should show real interest, we will continue the company. The truth is that The Unbelievers never really was a skateboard company, it was a philosophy, a way to look at the world, at life, a way to approach dreams. It was the idea that anything was possible. The Unbelievers philosophy certainly continues with or without skateboarding.

Are you going to ride for any other board company?

Yeah...I have a board coming out on The Driven, Jason Jessee’s company. It is super small numbers but really great stuff that has a voice and meaning. J is completely insane and brilliant and I love the way he see’s the world. The Driven is his voice and its cool to be a part of that type of brilliance and madness combined.

It seems as if you have taken a real distance from the skateboard world in recent years…

The truth is I just began to want more. I began to want to be more. I looked around and all I saw were all these sort of defunct Peter Pan types. Old guys that never grew up or were still clinging to something they could no longer do and they just didn’t know how to move on. In essence, skateboarding just wasn’t fulfilling to me anymore and I didn’t try to fight that sensation. I began spending more time doing something else I really enjoyed. For me that was reading, writing, studying or spending long hours hiding in the back of a library or sitting in on college courses that interested me. I began to go to the symphony and the ballet as much as possible. I was interested in all these sort of things that weren’t cool for a skateboarder to be interested in and, as a result of my success in skateboarding, I believe that I was suppressing them or maybe even hiding from them to some extent. The generation of skateboarding I am from has really glorified the derelict, the idiot, the tattooed, “fuck the world” type of downfall. Sorry to blow the top off it all, but that just isn’t me. You don’t change the world by saying “fuck you” and getting drunk. A lot of my heroes started to look like losers to me and I just wanted to get out. So I basically disappeared from the whole scene.

Was there a defining moment when you first realized that you were no longer a kid on a skateboard?

It began to happen back in San Francisco. I would go skating downtown and see these gorgeous women, women that were my age. They wore nice dresses or skirts, long legs tucked up underneath, some were in business suits with these brilliant shoes and there I was in a pair of baggy pants, a dirty t-shirt and sneakers on a skateboard. It made me feel like a fool. Like I had been cheated out of manhood.

Internet Idiot.
How many hours a day do you spend on the thing. While you went blind staring at your screen for countless hours a day I-babbling to someone you will never meet, or looking for a date on My Space, I have read well over 100 novels, and have written my first. I have written on paper, and posted countless letters around the world

I began to realize that I was no longer attracted to girls, I was attracted to women, the problem was that I was still a boy, a lost boy on the streets of Neverneverland. In some strange essence, I was a grown man trapped in a child’s world.

How would the person you are now speak to the Scott of your childhood?

I am doing it, right now. Somewhere inside me is that little boy. That 5-year-old kid that first stepped on a skateboard with all those crazy dreams. The truth is that I am still attempting to maintain contact with him and, at the same time, challenge him.

How would that young Scott see you, a lifetime away, living in Paris?

He would be baffled. He is baffled! That small town boy from a farm at the end of a dirt road could have never imagined the life that lay out in front of him. He still can’t. It’s all a dream to me, one incredible dream. I do not think I will ever be able to understand my entire life and at the same time it has barely begun. Anything can happen… still can happen. I feel as if my life has just begun.

Actually, many people from Europe might not really know where you’re coming from. Would you mind describing where you grew up, and what life was like, then?
I grew up on a small family farm. The only house at the end of a dirt road in North Carolina. My father was a minister. When he wasn’t in the church, he was working for a furniture manufacturer. My mother worked at the mill on the other side of the tracks, tracks that divided our town in many ways. That’s basically what my second book is going to be about. The place I grew up, and the strange group of characters that surrounded my youth. When I was not quite 18, I ran away from North Carolina and spent quite sometime traveling the US by any way possible, from freight trains to foot. Until I finally ended up homeless on the streets of San Francisco. After months I got a shitty job, then a shitty apartment, and well, the rest is history…

Describe your state of mind when you first discovered Europe?

I was a young American kid who had been living the California Dream. I had no idea how things were in other parts of the world. I thought America was number one, Home of the Free, Land of the Brave… I bought into all the patriotisms that were thrown my way. In a matter of a month, I was completely transformed, and when it came time to get on a plane to return to America… I just couldn’t do it.

Was reading and writing something you always had an interest in, or did some event lent to you getting interested in it?

Yes, for sure. David Duffee, my 8th grade teacher at Woodlawn Middle school in Mebane North Carolina. He gave me George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. It was the first book I ever read in school and the only book I ever read in all my school days. He got me to write in journals and I have written nearly everyday in my journals since I was 15. That’s over half of my life. All these journals I threw away when I left America for France and I began a new life, new journals and my first book, something I have wanted to do my entire life. I talked to him once since I left his class. I was 18, in my first year of college, just before I ran away from Carolina for good. The year he taught my class was the last year he taught at our school. He was run out of the system by small men, baboons. Duffee was a real Dead Poet’s Society type of teacher. At a young age, he had a profound affect on my vision of the world. I was one of the lucky few that had a chance to learn from him.

Is that encounter a part of the reason of why you ended up writing a book?

Well, all this was happening to me just before I left the States for Europe. I was really unhappy with the entire life I had built and it basically came apart in a very self-destructive manner. The pinnacle being the loss of the only woman I have ever loved in my life. Her departure was certainly well deserved but it was also the breaking point for me in many ways. For years I had been wanting to move to France. After shedisappeared (due largely to my inability to grow up) I had no reason to stay in California, or America for that matter. I packed my board, a typewriter, a large stack of notes, and some clothes and off I went to write my book. A book that became largely based around this relationship I had with this wonderful woman.

You have finished it now. Can you tell us a bit about what is happening with it?

Yeah, it’s the first thing I have ever done in my life that I can honestly say that I am proud of.  I have an entirely new vision of the world and myself. Anyone who sits alone with himself long enough to write a book will experience this. I spent over a year at my desk alone. 412 typed pages of trying to figure out the world, my life and all my experiences and combine them into a story with meaning. In doing that, I found peace. If only for a moment, I had peace.

Will the book be published?

I recently sent off submissions to some key people and publishing houses. Now… I’m just waiting.

So you are already working on another one?

Yeah, I am well into it and have another one I want to write after it and ideas for a fourth and a fifth.

Is it true that you still do not speak French after living in France for close to three years?

Yes, its true. A large part of the reason I chose to come to Europe was the simple fact that I did not want to talk to people anymore, and I didn’t want to hear them. I really wanted to listen to what was happening in my head, my heart and soul. I knew I could do that in Europe. I came here to escape the meaningless talk we are subjected to everyday. Now, that is almost over. I speak French quite poorly but now I understand so much that I hate to ride the Metro and it gets hard for me to sit in a cafe and read or write. The truth is I may leave soon.

How much is it really possible to alienate yourself from the outside world?

It’s very possible. I can disappear for days into a single idea, spend hours on end at my desk, which can turn to days where I forget to eat or sleep… Rarely do I have an experience outside of myself that captures me in this way. Most people never have this. They live in fear of it happening to them. They are scared to be alone. Loneliness is one of the greatest human fears. But to me, loneliness is the fear of ones self....I am not suffering from loneliness...I have accepted that I am alone and this actually comforts me. I use to look out at the world and think “what am I doing here?” now when I look out at the world I look at all these people moving around me...day in, day out. Eat, sleep, fuck, work, McDonalds, KFC and TV...and I think to myself as I look at all these people, I think “what are you doing here...what are you here for?” That’s what I am dealing with. Trying to give life a since of purpose and I get little confirmation from the people moving around me.

But its not like you’re ever some antisocial type . You are always meeting people from all different kind of social backgrounds and all levels of society. What makes it so necessary for you to retreat to some inside world?

The truth is I love people. People who can talk and think and trade ideas with me. I love this, but even truer is the fact that few people are capable of this kind of exchange, and that’s the reason why I have so many friends in different social circles. When I find a connection with some one, I immediately embrace their friendship. I take them in, invite them into my life. I don’t care where they are socially. If we connect, we become friends. I need inspiration and few people are capable of giving me this much needed stimulation, when I feel it, I grab for it, pull it into my life and let it become part of me.

Any last words?

Yeah… follow no-one.

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