Andrew Langi
Skateworks Employee
Location : Skateworks
Date : 3/13
First Interview
**Lots of mumbling and setting camera up**
Becca : What’s your name and what’s your profession?
Andrew : My name is Andrew Langi and uh my profession is skating.
Becca : When did you first start skating?
Andrew : I started skating when I was about 11 or about to turn 12. Hehehe. So when I started skating I was about 11 about to turn 12.
Becca : What was your first skating experience?
Andrew : My first skating experience was really crazy actually. I remember going to the skate park right down the street from my house that was just built. And I remember seeing all of the kids and uh ya know, people skating. And it made me want to skate.
Becca : Where have you worked before Skateworks?
Andrew : I’ve never had a job other than Skateworks haha. Actually let me tell my first skating story myself, like me skating, or the first time I ever saw skating.
(mumbling trying decide what story to tell … a bit of swearing on his part)
Andrew : Okay I’ll just tell my story. My first skating experience was a good one. It was at my local home town skatepark. My mom brought me there with my little sister, it was just one of the best times of my life. I remember I was doing other things at the time like Taekwondo and you know, doing a little sports here and there.. which made me happy, but nothing made me feel like how I felt on a skateboard. That sense of freedom and you know just the way I was able to express myself through doing something that was looked down upon essentially.
Becca : How has skating helped you escape negativity in your life?
Andrew : So, as far as the influence skateboarding has had on me and keeping me out of trouble, I would say it’s definitely kept me out of trouble in a sense of hanging out with the wrong people, but it also has gotten me in trouble because skateboarding is not really accepted everywhere. You can’t just go to a school and skate at the school, or on a random curb outside of someone’s house, so in that aspect, we got the cops called on us a lot.. Pretty frequently. We get kicked out of places, tickets, citations, you know, detained, arrested and stuff. So in a sense of keeping me out of trouble, I’d say it kept me out of trouble in a way that I wasn’t joining any gangs or (…mumble…) stealing or anything or anything negative. So everything that I did was just because it was something that I loved to do and cops didn’t like it hahaha.
Becca : Aside from working at Skateworks, have you ever been paid for skating?
Andrew : Yes I have, I’ve done a lot of contests and also having sponsors, they pay you as well. Typically having sponsors, most skaters, you have a skateboard sponsor, you have a truck sponsor, a wheel sponsor, a barring sponsor, clothing sponsor, hat sponsor, you know. A lot of those sponsors will give you a contract as well as a certain pay a month. As well as a contest cap so if you win first, second, or third, they’ll match what you make. And sometimes the first place prize is up to 10 or 15,000 dollars. You get paid that way and also by representing your sponsors.
Becca : How did you get sponsored?
Andrew : I got sponsored, actually Jason here, my boss here, started giving me little sponsors just through the reps that come through the shop. Um my first one was Anti Hero skateboards and S Shoes, which all entailed (mumble) once a month I get 2 to 3 boards, some wheels, maybe a couple of pairs of shoes. And moving forward from that, it builds on each other. And you slowly gain more by attending events and networking.
Becca : When did you first start working at Skateworks?
Andrew : I started working at Skateworks a little over 5 years ago.
Becca : How did you follow your passion while maintaining an income?
Andrew : Well I never.. HA.. As far as (mumble) Balancing my income and my passion of skateboarding.. Didn’t really have conflict because I didn’t really have income at the time when I started skateboarding. I was still a young kid living with my mom so I didn’t really have and financial responsibilities. So I never had a job growing up and for that reason, I had all of the time in the world to skate. I would go and skate before school, after school, until 10, 11 o’clock at night. So that was never really a burden on me. It didn’t really become a burden until later on in life where I started living on my own and had to come up with money to pay for my bills. Which at that point always sucks when becoming an adult, but it’s something that everyone has to go through.
(mumble regarding lighting / camera issues)
Becca: How would you tell other people to follow their passions?
Andrew: If I were to tell anybody, or, you know, kids, younger generation, how to follow their passion is, first you gotta find your passion, you know? Find what you love and let it kill you pretty much. Also, big this is just like, make sure you have fun with it. If you’re not having fun while you’re doing it, it’s not a passion, it’s more like a job you know, or a hobby. But with me, skateboarding, you know, it’s something that I found and I stumbled upon cause I thought it was cool and it looked fun, and uh, I never let that, uh, slip away from, from uh, from my grasp. So once I first started skateboarding, how much fun I had I made sure that I held on to that fun and uh, never let anything come in between, because it’s the one thing that I really do love to do and it’s one thing that I would never not do.
Mahika: There are a lot of stereotypes that follow skating culture and link it with today’s conceptions of hip-hop culture. What’s your experience with skating culture?
Andrew: Uh… Skateboard… Well, I mean, as far as skateboarding culture and its influence on hip-hop and everybody that, you know, that’s not a part of the skateboard culture, uh, I’d say skateboarding probably, uh, you know, generated a lot of the style that we have today, you know. And back when I first started, it wasn’t something that was cool, it wasn’t something that everybody wanted to wear, you know, we actually got made fun of a lot, you know, me personally I got made fun of a lot, like “oh you’re wearing skinny jeans those are for girls,” you know, “oh cool shoes skater boy,” like, you know like, in a joking way, and uh, you know, today, it’s– everybody wears skateboard stuff now, it’s become so popular, and, you know, my personal opinion on it is I don’t want you guys to wear it (laughs). To be honest, you know, it’s– everybody wants to look like a skater but not actually skate and, you know, I tell this to a lot of people, it’s, you know, don’t try to look like something you’re not, you know? Especially if you’ve made fun of those people for what they wore growing up in the industry or in the skate culture, you know? Uh, I see it as like a– skateboarding as like a lifestyle, a way of life, that’s not something to be, uh, to be impostered by anybody, you know? But it’s cool, you know, it generates a lot of money for the skateboard companies and industry, and stuff like that. I just personally think that like, you know, society should stop stealing stuff from skateboarders and not giving any credit to us.
Mahika: What do you think about the laws that some cities have in place that prevent people from riding skateboards on the streets?
Andrew: How do I feel about laws that affect skateboarding? Honestly, you know, laws don’t really affect skateboarders. I mean, you know, you can always tell someone not to do something, but it’s their choice to do it, you know? So if we see a sign that says “no skateboarding”, it’s just a sign, you know, there’s no one there to enforce it and if we get kicked out, we leave, you know, we’ll come back another time. You know, we have a bunch of skateparks we can skate at and stuff and they even try to, you know, make laws there where, you know I feel like skateboarding is something you should do at your own risk, um, and, you know, obviously, just like anything else you learn in life, it’s gonna– you’re gonna have little ups and downs, and accidents, you know? Like car accidents, you’re gonna have, you know, accidents in cars, you have accidents riding a bike, rollerblading, uh, you know, anything, you know? You’ve just gotta be aware of it. I think that the reputation skateboarding has is like, “oh it’s such a dangerous thing kids are jumping off of things, well, skateboarding’s no more dangerous than driving a car on a freeway at 75 miles an hour, you know?
Becca: Do you have any injuries caused by skateboarding? Perhaps a tooth?
Andrew: Have I had many injuries skateboarding, yes I have. The most noticeable one is my, my teeth obviously. I had uh, knocked out my tooth when I was 15. Uh, I was actually on a skate trip with some friends down in LA and uh, my skateboard hit me in the face, and uh, I could’ve gotten it fixed but uh, decided not to. Also I’ve cracked a rib, um, broken fingers, I don’t know if you guys have seen this one but this one’s still broken, broken all my toes, uh, broken my left wrist twice my right wrist once, um, you know, sprained my left knee twice, my right knee once, multiple ankle rolls, sprains, um, I’ve been knocked out, uh, a lotta, lotta concussions, you know. You gotta pay to play, you know? What I tell a lotta the kids that get into skateboarding is, you know, that they want to be good at skateboarding, and I tell them, if you want to be good you can’t be afraid of falling. If you’re afraid of falling, don’t ride a skateboard. It’s not for you. You gotta be willing to accept the consequences that come with doing something that allows you to be so free.
Mahika: Have these injuries ever deterred you in any way from skateboarding?
Andrew: My injuries have never caused me not once to consider quitting skateboarding. And I think that’s super important for people to understand is, you know, if you’re gonna do anything in life, you know, as far as finding a passion, something you love and getting paid to do it you gotta love it so much that nothing’s gonna stop you from doing it. No matter how badly you get hurt or shut down you get, you know, if you love it that much just keep doing it. You shouldn’t be in it just for the money, you should be in it for the love.
Andrew Langi
Skateboarder
Date: 4/3/18
0:18
Mahika: Who was the most influential person in your skateboarding career?
Andrew: The most influential person in my skateboarding career… Uh, I mean there’s a lot, there’s a lot of them, a lot of people in my life that helped my upbringing, um, one of them was Jason Strubing, my boss. Good friend of mine, he’s been taking care of me for the past 15 years and like I said, uh, I think a couple interviews ago, bought my first skateboard off of him. So, you know, he’s had a big impact on my life. Another person that’s had a big impact on my life is a lot of pro skaters that I never really met until later on in– in life, after, you know, getting a few sponsors here and there. They– a lot of them helped guide me to places where I needed to be and, you know, influenced me to make the right decisions in a lot of areas.
1:16
Mahika: According to Grinnell College’s article on skaters (http://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultures-and-scenes/skater-subculture/), skateboarding has been associated with “danger, carelessness, and laziness.” You addressed the danger and carelessness in your last interview, but why do you think skateboarders come across as lazy?
Andrew: I think skaters come off as lazy just simply because we do what we want, when we want, wherever we want, how we want. And I think, to some people who work a 9 to 5 job, um, you know, it– it probably comes off as jealous, jealousy I think, you know. They see people doing what they want and, (laughs) they see people doing what they want and I think that makes them really envious, you know. We’re far from lazy, we do things, like we build DIY skateparks you know, we go up and find spots, we travel to spots, we, you know, we do a lot of things, and we take care of the skateboard community. But I think that the one thing is that– people calling skateboarders lazy, is probably one of the least, like, I don’t know how I’d say it. Calling skateboarders lazy is definitely something that you cannot call us, just simply because of the fact that we do a lot more than what people think.
2:44
Mahika: What is your best skateboarding story?
Andrew: My best skateboarding story? Um, I’ll tell you the one where, um, where it hit me that I was at a good place in my skateboarding career, and it was when, um, I remember as a little kid going to see the X-Games when I was a little kid and it was in San Francisco, and uh, it was the year that Tony Hawk did the 900, and uh, that was back in 1999, and that’s the first time I ever saw skateboarding and, kinda wanted to do it. I didn’t end up getting a skateboard till a few years later, um, but, you know, it became then that my dream was to become a professional skateboarder and to skate in the X-Games. And 10 years after I bought my first board, I got invited to the X-Games and, uh, I got an invitation in my email, and it was the wildest thing that ever happened to me because I never thought that I would actually make it so, you know, that was a big moment for me and uh, another thing too was that, you know, I obviously watched Tony Hawk pro-skater growing up, and I played all the Tony Hawk games and stuff, and Tony Hawk was an announcer there, and, you know, I got to meet Tony Hawk, and to hear him say my name and talk to me as if we were friends, that was a big moment in my skateboarding career and, you know, that was probably one of my favorite moments, or highlights in my career, just being able to see the guy that kinda started for me.
4:57
Mahika: According to the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/fashion/11skaters.html), skateboarding was a predominantly white trend before its integration into hip-hop culture. Did you see a lot of this trend growing up?
Andrew: You know, I feel like, the assumption that, skateboarding was a white trend, um, totally– totally wrong, you know? Skateboarding is so accepting of all cultures and all races, and different types of people, um, when I was growing up, and even watching old skate videos from before I started skateboarding, you know, skateboarding was, you know, a community where skaters from all around the world and all different types of communities– poor, rich, white, black, you know, brown, whatever, you know, its just, it was something we could all do together and connect with on a level of like, this is something that we love to do, and this is something that we want to do, you know. To hear that being said, I feel like it just shouldn’t even be acknowledged, just because, you know, it’s totally inaccurate. To me, that’s probably the most ignorant thing the New York Times probably could’ve posted. Skateboarding is far from being a racial thing, and I think the world needs a little more of that skateboarding community and the skateboarding views, because, if you look at us, we don’t judge anybody.
6:35
Mahika: Why did you originally start skating and what motivated you to try?
Andrew: Originally, the reason why I started skateboarding was because I went to the 1999 X-Games, and I saw skateboarding and it looked like something that was really cool, like something that I wanted to do. It just looked fun, and that’s the whole reason why I… I didn’t get a board for a few years after that but, you know, after getting a board and, that first time stepping on a board I immediately knew that this was something that I wanted to do and, not necessarily to become famous at it but to do it because it felt good and it made me happy. I think every skateboarder could agree with me on that and say that just riding the board just makes you feel free which in the world that we live in today, it’s kinda hard to feel free.
7:28
Mahika: You mentioned that Jason took on fatherly roles that your father couldn’t fulfill. What was your home life like when you started to skate?
Andrew: My home life when I first started to skate, um, I was raised by my mom, my father was absent, he was an alcoholic, still is to this day. My mom raised me and my sister on sectionate housing, welfare, so we didn’t have a very comfortable life growing up, you know, we were eating very, you know, eating cereal with water or orange juice, you know, because we didn’t have milk, or we didn’t have basic necessities to, you know, have a good breakfast. So, it was rough growing up, so definitely skateboarding was a good outlet for me to kinda– kinda, you know, escape from that kinda lifestyle because it’s not fun, you see all your friends who are living pretty comfortable and you’re at home eating top ramen out of a bag because you guys don’t have heat, or you know, don’t have a stove to cook on so, you know. It’s uh, skateboarding definitely did a lot, and the home life was rough for a little while but it eventually got better.
8:41
Mahika: How do you think your life would be like if you hadn’t met Jason?
Andrew: If I hadn’t had met Jason and bought a skateboard, I feel like my life would have been, probably pretty bad right now. You know, a lot of– a lot of kids my age, or you know, that grow up without a father figure or in a broken home or on welfare, they tend to turn to other areas where, to make money and to be comfortable and I feel like I was in that situation and, uh, you know, skateboarding gave me an outlet to possibly change that outcome. I think I probably would have been somewhere selling drugs, either on drugs, or um, you know, doing something not positive for the community.
9:35
Mahika: How did your mom or other family members support you on your journey with skateboarding?
Andrew: My mom was probably the most supportive person in my skateboarding life. She would take me to the skatepark before school everyday and after school everyday. My school didn’t start till 9 so my mom would take me in the morning, I would skate from 7–or from 8… from 7:30 to 8:30 and then go to school, go to school all day, get out of school, my mom would pick me up, take me school– I mean take me to the skatepark, skate all day till 10 o’clock at night. So uh, you know my mom definitely helped out a lot, she definitely wanted me to have a good outlet to skate from the, the harsh reality that we lived in at the time, so, you know, and she would take me and my friends to skateparks all over the bay area, and uh, just make sure we were having as much fun as possible.
10:30
Mahika: Growing up, did you have any other passions that you tried?
Andrew: I tried– as far as passions go, the only other thing I tried growing up was taekwondo, and I did that for about 5 years, I became a first-degree black belt, but then, right after I became a first-degree black belt I ended up finding skateboarding and, I haven’t left it since so, skateboarding has been my only passion my whole life.
11:01
Mahika: What kind of music do you listen to while skating?
Andrew: What kind of music do I listen to? I listen to all sorts– I listen to rap, Slayer, Metallica, Drake, dude I love Taylor Swift, I know this is really weird but I love Taylor Swift. I don’t skate to her music that often but I do love Taylor Swift because she’s really tight, but uh, (laughs) you know, huge swifty, whoooo! (laughs) But nah, I listen to everything, it’s kinda hard for me to get down to but, you know, I’ll listen to it.