Tim Von Werne
By Isac Walter

I initially wanted to do this article to show how unjust and cold the business world can be. A place where you can be on top of the world one minute and lose it all the next. Kinda like Las Vegas. I also wanted to explore more of what I consider skateboarding to be a cultural melting pot. I have never in my 12+ years of skateboarding seen someone get blackballed or alienated from skateboarding for being different. In fact I think it usually makes the individual to be a bit more popular. Take for instance people like Andy Roy, Chad Muska, Mike Valley, Simon Woodstock, Bob Burnquist, Pancho Moler, and Jon Comer. Each and every one of these people has their own eccentricities and are all different in every way. Some crazy, some punk, some handicapped, some immigrants, some rockstars, and some just plain freaky. My point is that all of them are in love with skating and everyone respects them for their love and skills as skateboarders. Think about this; 20 years ago these people would be labeled freaks and outcasts. Now, not only are they skateboarders, they are models, actors, spokesmen, and even heroes.
Is it possible for someone to break that barrier that I considered to be unbreakable? Could someone actually manage to get the cold uncaring shoulder from the open arms of the world of skateboarding? It is the year 2000 now and things have begun to change. In the last century we as a culture and society have managed to travel around the world via Internet, fly into outer space, and bite into a hot dog only to find the presence of cheese already nestled inside. But are we ready to accept the fact that not all of us are comfortable with being heterosexual? If Michael Jordan had come out of the closet and said he prefered males do you think that the Jordanism of yesteryear would’ve be completely wiped out? Do you think the Bulls would have kicked him off the team? I doubt Gatorade would’ve continued to run commercials of him in the locker room after a game all sweaty chugging Gatorade. He would have become a financial nightmare; after all he is an investment, isn’t he? Or should his private life even become an issue when he is scoring 40 points a game? This brings me to one of my closest friends Tim Von Werne. Tim has been in the situations I have described here, not because of freaky hair or tattoos, but because of his sexual preference. You see not only is Tim one of the most talented skaters I have had the pleasure to skate with, he is also gay.

Isac: What’s your age in gay years?
Tim: What are gay years?
Isac: You know, your dog’s 7 years for every one human year. Do you have a different life span?(Laughter) It seems I’ve stumped Mr. Von Werne with the gay year’s question and I’ll have to come back to that.
Tim: I’ll have to refer to “The Gay Handbook” for that one.
Yeah do that.
Oh yeah, on the back of the “The Gay handbook” it says, “One gay year for every human year.” It’s actually 1.0008 years for every human year, but roughly, approximately the same. So I’m 25.
Let’s say for the younger viewers out there, they want to start on the gay starter package, is there a number they can call?
Oh sure, it’s 1-800-GO-GAY!, with an exclamation point at the end.
(laughter) The gay phone numbers only have six digits.
Does being gay give you the ability to do special tricks?
Yes, sure it does.
Such as the “gay twist.”
Oh, definitely the gay twist, oh and handrails. Because you don’t have such a fear of racking yourself on handrails, because you really wouldn’t mind you’re legs spread on a pole.
So, that’s a possible turn-on for you.
Oh yeah, it definitely is.
Do you see that stuff in the video with people slamming? That’s possible masturbation material, I suppose.
It’s almost a porno.
How old were you when you first realized you were gay?
Gay homosexual.???.. I don’t know, I always was. There’s no realization point.
You didn’t think to yourself one day, “Hey, I’m gay. I don’t like chicks.”
Well, when did you think to yourself, “Hey, I’m straight. I like chicks”?
No. But I wasn’t surrounded by people who liked guys.
That could be your problem.
When did you first realize you were a skateboarder?
When I got my first skateboard. Actually, I used to ride my sister’s skateboard and I would steal it from her. Learned kickflips in only a week.
What board was it?
Ken Park. (laughter)... It was!
You learned kickflips on a Ken Park?
I learned kickflips on a Ken
Park with clear grip tape and stickers underneath.... and I had purple trucks.
To get facts straight here: You realized you were a skateboarder when you got your first skateboard, so you probably realized you were gay when you had your first male?
When I had my “first male?” No, I think it was a bit before then.
An article like this with you was originally going to run in another mag a while back, right before you got kicked off of your board sponsor, who were they and what happened?
Bad politics, you know, the article comes out and it looks like my sponsor is supporting homosexuality and Reverend Bobsays, “That’s not the way to go,” and people stop buying their skateboards, they lose a lot of money. So, I understand why they wouldn’t want the article run. I am not mentioning their name in this interview out of respect for people in the company and dont want to create bad blood between the people there who supported me.
You were the sick rider regardless, the company should support you fully no matter what.
Well, supporting me no matter what is different than the business decision. What’s the point of having a rider that’s super sick, if he’s cutting your sales in half? It’s from a business point of view.
Your sexual preference shouldn’t even come into the picture in a skateboarding business venture.
Well, right. It really doesn’t have anything to do with skateboarding.
What if they said, “Don’t do an interview for any magazines, or we’ll kick you off the team”? You think that is fair. Do you think that’s infringing on your rights, so to speak?
Well, it is infringing on my rights. I’m not sure what rights people have.
I guess if you’re riding for a team, it’s almost like having a job. They can’t fire you based on your sexuality or what you do outside of the work.
No, but... for skateboarding, they can fire you for whatever you want.
That’s assuming that skateboarding is not legitimate and run like a business.
If it was dealt with like a business, then I would see why they didn’t want me to do the article. But, if it came down to a point where they told me that if I did the article they would fire me, I would probably just quit.
You’d quit just because you don’t want to ride for a company that would give you an ultimatum like that?
Either that, or I wouldn’t want to be affiliated with an industry that promotes that type of thing.
Well, I think a big majority of skateboarding is heterosexual, male,...borderline jocks almost.
Yeah, it is. But, I can skateboard and not be forced to be that type of person. I don’t think that just because you skateboard you have to be that type of person. Just like in the 80s when you skateboarded, you didn’t have to be a punk.
Do you think when this article comes out, it’s going to change the way every time you go out to a skate park, everyone is going to look at you differently, or will it be same ol’ same ol’?
veryone I skate with now already knows and it doesn’t seem to be a big deal.
You’re gonna go to the skatepark and the kids are going to say “Dude! You’re the gay skateboarder!”
What, like, “Look, it’s Captain Faggot!” No, I have it all worked out.
Look around closely, in the United States alone, there are an estimated 6.2 million skaters- almost half (3 Million) live in the state of California. Do you honestly think that Tim is the only skateboarder who is gay? Don’t miss out on life by closing your mind.