Familia Chepesent

Fue un viaje relampago pero relleno de momentos alegres, no pude ver a todos los compas, pero a los que vi me hicieron sonreir y recordar porque la Familia Chepesent es la Familia Chepesent. Senti el calor de los hermanos, el calor de la ciudad antes de la lluvia, y el vaho que se enfria luego de que cae el baldazo, senti la cercania que siempre siento con los compas, el asfalto de chepe centro bajo mis ruedas, la pilsen fria, el vino tinto, a mi hermano Matias creciendo y convirtiendose en marido. Senti que estaba en casa pero que Natalia me faltaba inmensamente, senti a los QTs, senti que necesitamos seguir unidos, senti a Rafita, senti a don Clarence, senti la necesidad de protegernos, de cuidarnos, de impulsarnos, inspirarnos. Senti que el futuro nos tiene aun muchas aventuras juntos, sorpresas y cosas no tan sorprendentes, senti a mis hermanos hermanos, y a los que no son hermanos por lo menos mas cercanos. Senti a Chepe un poco mas de lo mismo, pero mas gastado, senti una constancia de doble filo, que asegura pero puede aburrir, senti que descubria cosas nuevas y que al final estaban cantadas, senti que habiamos cambiado pero eramos los mismos, senti que debemos despertarnos, senti que ya es hora, y senti que podemos hacerlo como la familia que nos toco ser. Senti que llevo a Chepe adentro, y que regresare, mi Natalia y yo, senti que volveremos tarde o temprano, con los edificios de Chepesent tatuados en el alma, donde solo los hermanos y hermanas saben mirarlos y apreciarlos y sentirlos.Senti que nada se compara a como nos hacemos sentir. You feel me?

Kareem Campbell (New York City, 1972) fue uno de los primeros patinadores en darle al street un sentimiento mas urbano, un estilo propiamente callejero, ya sin la nota surfa involucrada en su estilo de patinar, ni tampoco el extremo punk. Contacte a Kareem para escribir un articulo para EXPN y otro para TWS Bizness. Lo llame por telefono para una entrevista y, sin conocerme, el compa me trato con paciencia y respeto.

Un par de semanas mas tarde, estuvo en NYC para hacer unos negocios, y nos encontramos para matizar un rato y hablar del articulo que yo estaba escribiendo y de paso tomar unas fotos. Cuando nos encontramos, el mae fue tranquilo y humilde, dandome ideas para las fotos que teniamos que tomar, que eran principalmente retratos del mae y no trucos.

Por ahi al mae se le ocurrio que un compa tenia un Bentley, y que seria cool tomar unas foto con ese carro en Times Square. Entonces saco su cel y marco y en eso dice, "Alo, Leo? Hola como estas, es Kareem, queria pedirte tu Bentley para unas fotos." Resulta que Leo, era Leonardo Di Caprio, pero el mae no tenia el Bentley, lo andaba Giselle, pero Leo iba a llamar a Trump para que le prestara un carro matizado. Como podran imaginar yo me quede estupefacto. Leonadro Di Caprio? Trump? Que es esto? me preguntaba.

Al final Leo no consiguio el carro y Kareem se fue a toparlo a no se que chante que yo ya no fui, pero me parecio increible que esa gente que parece tan exclusiva esta ahi nomas, solo hay que conocer a Kareem, cha!

Pero, contactos aparte, Kareem es un fresco, y me conto que ha estado en CR y habia visto a Chepesent en el video de Around the World. "Pues desde ya eres miembro honorario de la Familia Chepesent," le dije, y el mae estaba cagado de risa, "Thanks man, send my love to all your peeps," me dijo. A continuacion hay una parte de la entrevista que le hice.

What trick won you the bronze medal at the x-games in 95?

I think it was a kickflip off the flat bank over the rail, and a fakie kickflip down  into the big bank with the big rail that Jamie railslid.

In that contest, Gershon got 2^nd and Jamie got 1^st, do you remember their tricks?

I am positive Jamie had railslid the rail, and he grinded the rail, and that was good enough. I think Gershon did a frontside flip onto the inclined bank, I'm not really too positive though.

Do you know what Gershon is up to?

I know he's been around for a while but I don't really follow up unless they are really in the circuit, so I haven't really seen him hardcore in the circuit in a little while.

After the X-Games you concentrated in building up City Stars, how did you go about putting skateboarding aside to focus on the business side of things?

After doing so well in a lot of the contests I didn't want to over saturate myself out there in the industry. Plus, I started getting a good view of the industry itself, and what I thought the industry was. My ideas on the industry came from being raised in Dog Town and Z and Santa Cruz  and around Powell and all those days. There weren't too many companies that had that real skateboard feel and love for it. I just wanted to kind of focus on bringing up a lot of other guys.

How was it being the mentor to the City Stars guys?

I just taught them the game, exposed everything, from the good to the bad so they could have a good enough view of how everything is. That's what I didn't have so much when I was coming up. Sometimes not having that hinders your whole happiness of skating. That's why a lot of skaters are not happy with what they do, they're just doing it to get a check, you know?

As we grow older, responsibilities tend to take us away from skating. How have you dealt with that?

The more obligations the more they take from you. What I try to do is make the skate related things my main focus, my obligations. Now that I'm dealing with TV shows and stuff like that it does kind of take away from that, but I'm trying to base everything around skateboarding. I was taking care of 54 different skateboarders and paying them, now it's just me and my couple of guys within a team of ten. I feel so much more relieved.   

What business deals do you have on the works?

I got City Stars re-launching, I just signed a deal with Boost Mobile. When I was owner of Axion, I was designing and doing everything for that, now I want to go bigger but have someone else pay me, not myself. I'm negotiating a couple of things with a  couple of shoe companies. They haven't finalized so I can't really spit whose name is looking to bet. I just got a show picked up from MTV…

What is that show about?

It's basically about skateboarding, its me, Muska, Anthony Mosley, Javier Nunez, Terry Kennedy, Clyde Singleton, Harold Hunter. It's about the lifestyle of skateboarding, other than your Tony Hawk and your Bam. That's not really based around the skateboarding lifestyle, the mentality, the real ups and downs, the things that we really go through. It's our lifestyle, our version of what skateboarding is, other than the regular cookie cut Tony Hawk scenario.

Sounds interesting. So how are you transporting the Kareem skater flow into these projects?

Basically just being myself. As long as I don't let people take from my creativity and I take within creativity. As long as you're happy you can always give off exactly what you are. That's pretty much how I look at everything, as long as no one can take away my creativity I'm going to be able to be me. I f someone if helping to better my creativity and not taking from it that helps me even more.  

What kind of problems does one encounter in making these moves?

A lot of it is just backstabbers, fake people, people who don't know what they're doing. A lot of skateboarders don't really have their own identity, so what a lot of them do is try to take away from people that are really doing it, like Danny Way, myself or Jamie Thomas, to try take away from that to try to make something of themselves. Now that everything is out and we are about to go to a full press release, now I can speak more on it.

What would you say are your strengths as you prepare for this new adventure?

Well, I've been around, my whole career I've been trying to sense who I was, and I was just a pro skateboarder. When I started getting into the design and company side, I try to better myself in that aspect. Now, I look back at myself and I say, yeah, I could have been doing all this TV stuff 24/7 in the same process. But I'm pretty positive it turned out perfect for me. I am very much happy.

So what other projects are you working on?

Right now I have a couple of meeting with the video game people, I got Buddy Carr, his real name is Buddy Johnson, he's writing a script for my movie.

You're working on a movie?

Yeah, it's actually being written right now by Buddy Johnson, he wrote some stuff for Scary Movie and other movies. I've also collaborated with Aaron Davis and Stacy Peralta and talking to a couple of other people to go to that next level of exposure. I've been through so much, and I made it in the end, I want to be able to deliver my story to kids a let them know you can come from almost nothing and really make it.

What changes are ahead?

You always got to make changes, it's a form of survival and being unique. At times it's not really that things are so different, it's just that they are done differently. I have to be able to work myself in with everyone so everyone is comfortable.

What about the video game?

I've been in meetings for the last month or so. I pulled out of the THPS to be able to communicate with people from my own game. I helped out a lot on that other game so now it's time for me to brand myself. I'm not going to say he took away from other people, but he's pushed to the level where he's a legend, and he always will be, but when you look at street skaters it's different. People are always going to compare and say, 'hey Tony Hawk is better than you' and I would never want to disrespect but we're talking about two different levels of the game.

What elements of being a skater help you outside of skating?

I guess being open different cultures, I've been around the world so much and nothing really stays with me because everything has a similarity. You understand?

The differences make everything come together.

Yeah. This is one sport where you can go around the world and as long as you have a skateboard, you can go to any city run into some skaters and end up sleeping at their house, getting to know each other. It's a culture that's been tucked away, hidden, that now that it's being exposed people try to grasp it, but they can't relate, but they love it because they can see our freedom.

How do you approach skateboarding these days?

I've just been skating constantly, taking photos, video. But even just skating around, taking little trips, basically, keeping the surroundings great. That's the main thing, as long as your surrounding is great, everything is beautiful.

What attracts you to the business side of things?

Honesty and stability.

You like to control these factors?

Not that I want to be in control, I mean, I want to know what's going on. You got to realize, by the time most skateboarders expose themselves so much to the point where they are hyped, the companies are already robbing them. So when it's time for them to think, 'Oh man, I've been killing myself for this company for the last year and a half, I should go get the check I deserve,' next thing you know the company is looking at you like 'huh?' or some people break they leg in the process and then the company is dropping them. It's no form of loyalty.

So who is in the new City Stars line up?

I can't really say. I can say that the only person that I kept from before is Javier Nunez. Some are coming from other places, and I got two that are coming from out of nowhere. It's going to be driven with four ams and three pros. And I'm not going to just drop everybody on everyone at once, everyone has to have their shine hour.

La verdad que me siento raro posteando algo luego del post pasado de nuestro hermano Rafita. Ahora que han pasado unos dias, sigo teniendo flashbacks a algun momento con el. Ahora me atrapan recuerdos de cuando patinabamos con Roberto Moya, Matias, Federico y Andres Carranza los barrios detras de la UACA de Medicina, en esos dias del cole (1990) no podiamos ir muy lejos del chante. Pero tambien se que Rafa era una persona consciente de que hay que seguir adelante y que tampoco se trata de achantarse.

Uno de mis pocos remedios para limpiar el pensamiento, sin asistencia de quimicos, es salir a patinar. Mi estrategia es ponerme metas, una sesion se da por satisfecha una vez que haya caido cierto truco, o haya pasado cierto tiempo. Normalmente, si estoy medio achantado, trato de rodar por lo menos dos horas al suave. Si estoy tratando algun truco y es mas intenso, entonces trato de patinar por lo menos una hora sin parar. Cuando me atrapa alguna tristeza o frustracion, casi siempre me puede calmar una buena patinada. Es mi terapia, mi medicina y mi cura, todo de una sola sudada. Vamos a empezar una nueva seccion para saber en que anda cada uno y voy a empezar conmigo porque hoy me soy el mas proximo a mi mismo (eso no siempre es el caso).

deck: Steve Berra, Birdhouse. Siempre uso tablas planas, mucho concave me desespera, me gusta sentir la tabla bajo mis pies: desde los dedos hasta el talon. Este deck fue un regalo reciclado, otro mae lo recibio de regalo, el mae no patina y me dijo que si yo lo queria. "Lleguele" le dije, como dice el Arrey. Steve Berra hace meses que patina para Alien Workshop, pero la tabla todavia tenia pop fresco y tiene un tamaño tuanis.

trucks: Fury. Tambien regalados, pero se paran, se parecen a los Tracker. Se me ha caido el tornillo del kingpin un par de veces y como no ando herramientas se arruino mi patinada. Son raros porque tienen buenos bushings pero el axel es muy bajo para los kingpins que tiene. No los recomiendo.

wheels: Birdhouse, 52 mm. Son rojo transparente, cosa que no me termina de convencer, aunque ahora mas bien son color mugre. Y son duras, se siente el pichazo cuando salto un gap, pero hacen slide rico y no se gastan mucho.

cachos: éS- Rodrigo Texeira. Esta marca de cachos nunca me dura mas de un mes, pero estos Texeira me han salido muy buenos, protegen bien el talon y tobillo, y por dentro traen como una tobillera que amarra bien el pie al cuero. Ademas me gustan porque son ese tipo de cacho que son incomodos para caminar, pero ricos para patinar, no son multifaceticos. La banderilla rasta en la suela esta irie, me recuerda a las Pilsen grandes de Raices. Un buen toque que estoy haciendo es que apenas consigo cachos les pongo una capa de crazy glue a las costuras y al ollie pad, esa bara sirve un pichazo y no es todo aparatoso como el shoe goo.

ultimo truco aprendido: aprendi cuando saltarme los trompos del subway sin que nadie me vea para no tener que pagar la maire, mihermanek!

Como aprender las lecciones… como interpretar estos mensajes… que fue
lo que no hicimos, que fue lo que no cambiamos…. Nada… no se puede
hacer nada… como te podemos recobrar?……Dios mio dame fuerzas, ayudame
a tener FE….ayudame a entender…porque tanto dolor? Y le puede pasar a
cualquiera… todos estamos expuestos a la vida… como pensar en medio de
la devastación? No se que hacer…Focus brother… fueron de las ultimas
cosas que me dijo, y me introdujo al Arte de la Guerra y me enfoco con
la lectura…. Cada uno de mis recuerdos con su alma son las lecciones…
como volver en la memoria y reinterpretar lo cotidiano? Ahi estan los
mensajes de su presencia.

Hermano, en que lugar te encuentras en este momento? Este momento
donde no hay explicación?

De todas nuestras dudas, tu ya tienes las respuestas, de todos
nuestros miedos tu ya tienes las respuestas. En todos nuestros
corazones permanence tu presencia… presencia que ahora viaja mas alla
de la comprensión de nuestras limitadas mentes humanas… desde aqui
tomo tu mano… desde aqui te siento hermano… danos una señal de que
estas bien…aunque sea solo para calmar la tempestad que se ha desatado
en cada uno de nosotros… o tal vez debemos estar asi y aprender de esa
tempestad… donde encontrar consuelo cuando el dolor esta en el alma?
Se que responderias todas estas preguntas… pero sabes que cada uno se
las tiene que hacer y cada uno se las tiene que responder… haciendo lo
mejor que pueda en su camino, enfocandose mas y definiendo mejor la
trayectoria… Cada una de nuestras vidas tiene un propósito…. FOCUS
BROTHERS

- Andres.