Aristocratic Workshop: January 2009

Taken from one of the last issues of Document magazine.

Meeting up with someone you really admire, one of your heroes or even a living legend is and always will be an odd experience. And it’s especially true when it’s one that defied medical opinion to get out of a wheelchair that you’ve just watched do 180s on a freezing cold London street on a track bike. Begrudgingly having to do his thing on two rather than four wheels, in spite, or possibly in defiance of everything that’s happened him, Cardiel remains one of the most upbeat, infectiously enthusiastic and positive people you’ll ever have the pleasure to meet. Skateboarding is privileged to still have him.

Click the link to read John’s words of wisdom

JOHN CARDIEL: NO SUBSTITUTE

“I’m in a different situation, but I still feel like when you’re with your girlfriend and you don’t want to cheat on her. Skateboarding’s my girlfriend and I don’t want to cheat on her. It’s fucked dude. I’m slutting out to a bike man, it’s fucked up!”

What are you doing here in freezing London?

Honestly dude I got hooked up with a ticket out here and I’m just like, ‘fuck yeah. I’m going’. Why wouldn’t you? What am I going to do, sit at home? San Francisco is eighty degrees right now, but I was like, ‘I’m going somewhere completely different!’

It’s so cold

The streets are warm though

You’re not living in SF anymore are you?

Nah, Sacramento.

Is Omar still living there?

Yeah Salazar, Stefan lives there, Matt Rodriguez, Brandon Biebel, there’s all kinds of skaters up there.

Omar is into riding bikes isn’t he?

Yes he’d just been getting into the fixed gear thing or whatever, actually I built a bike for him, like a Redline, a 26inch bike for him, it’s beautiful. He’s been cruising that around a little bit. He’s got his own house out there he owns, he’d doing it you know. For a young kid to own a home and a fucking sick car and shit, he’s doing good from skateboarding.

Have you started up a bike business or is it just a hobby at the moment?

I’m trying to start my own business, but it’s kinda hard. I’m doing it out of my house and I’m just using friends to paint bikes and getting other people involved to hook stuff up. I’m building specialty bikes for friends and stuff, but it’s hard to buy products through distributors, as I don’t have a proper ’store’. You have to send a photo of your store in order to get a wholesale price and I don’t have a storefront. So all my bikes I have to buy them at retail, and when you re-sell them it gets expensive, that’s the downfall. But for the main I’ve built like a few bikes that are pretty nice for kids and stuff, it’s a labour of love. You get to build, basically an art project for someone that they appreciate and they ride around town like, ‘yo, my friend built this’ and it gets around by word of mouth and then somebody else wants one. It’s just a trip right now because gas is so expensive, it’s the perfect situation for all this. People have been riding a lot of fixed gear bikes and it’s just good, it’s all positive. I just went to Los Angeles with Julian Stranger like two weeks ago and we rode, and I never new Los Angeles as much as do now since riding bikes through it. You cover so much ground on a bike, from one side of town to the other, I only knew a couple of skate spots and with skates pots you only know what’s right in front of you. With bikes now it’s like, ‘whoah these banks are over here, right and those banks are there’, we were travelling like gnarly…like thirty forty miles in a day. It’s a trip man it’s a really neat way to experience a new town.

What’s an average day for you back home?

Getting up, checking emails and just trying to get stuff going. Dealing with the Anti-Hero stuff I drive down to San Francisco and go work on different t-shirts and sweatshirt ideas and keep things going down there. Basically just hooking stuff, talking with different people, getting stuff going, it always seems to make its self, I really don’t have a proper regime.

You’re lucky not to have to work to a set routine

Right! It’s beautiful. It’s just so blessed I’ve been hurt and just trying to get back and now it’s kind of like I’ve levelled out of my healing and I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do…I’m so confounded by skating and so into that world, I don’t necessarily want to break free, I’m just like…that’s all I know. Riding a bike is just another way to stay involved, but it’s on a bike! It’s a trippy situation, I don’t know, but whatever the case it’s working.

Are you still having to exercise a lot to keep the movement in your leg?

Yeah, back at home every other day I have to go to the gym and if I don’t I start to break down, the body starts to break back down. If I wasn’t taking care of myself, if I wasn’t riding my bike and staying fit, I would have to be in a wheelchair, like my legs and everything would just deteriorate. The muscles that I’ve built, they’re the ones that help me to walk. You’ve just got to keep going, keep taking care of your body.

Obviously it’s a crazy situation you’ve found yourself in and I’m guessing prior to the accident you were going to gym too regularly

Dude. Exactly!

Maybe Anti-Hero should make some lycra

It’s such a trip! I go to the gym at like ten o’clock at night, late, when no one’s there and I’ve got all these crazy exercises on these balls and doing all these crazy, weird things. I’m just going in there doing my shit and I think to myself, that exactly, ‘what am I doing here?’ You see people there trying to get the ‘master physique’ and they’re like, ‘yeah bro!’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t want to be here’. I’m not here for that, I’m here because I have to be here, not because I want to.

I have noticed that a lot of older skaters are starting to ride bikes I guess it’s because it’s obviously fun and also because it’s a good way to try and keep the old knees moving

It’s true though with riding the bikes, and especially the fixed gear bikes, when you’re riding down through traffic and you’re looking at a line in front of you and you have to charge this certain line, it’s the same thing as skateboarding, like it’s the same energy, it’s the same feeling you get. You have to calculate your move, you have to have an exit, you’ve got to deal with the situation, like running a red light or something. You’re heart’s up and you’re fucking dealing with the situation, it’s just like skating. In San Francisco we’ve got a lot of hills so you’re sliding you’re going back and forth, San Francisco is all about riding hills, sliding, it’s a trip man. You don’t get to do the tricks but it’s a different way to channelling your energy, but it’s close to the same feelings.

When the whole fixed gear thing started a lot of people dismissed it as a fashion, and while there are aspects of it that I still can’t get my head around, ploughing through red lights on a bike with no brakes is pretty gnarly

To me…it’s hard to explain…your love for skating how did it get tied up into a bike? It’s fucked! You don’t want to sit there and talk about bike stuff with your skate friends, it just doesn’t…why am I even taking about this. It’s like, ‘why do I even want to support that?’ I’m in a different situation, but I still feel like when you’re with your girlfriend and you don’t want to cheat on her. Skateboarding’s my girlfriend and I don’t want to cheat on her. It’s fucked dude. I’m slutting out to a bike man, it’s fucked up! It feels like I’m cheating on skateboarding truly.

Skateboarding doesn’t care though!

To me I love skating so much, I just want the energy to be involved with skating. I personally wish that all that energy could be contained in skating, but it’s not and that’s why it’s so fucked! I don’t know how to get it out. It is what it is. But I wish I was out skating.

Interview: David Hopkins Photo: Sam Ashley