John Cardiel: Skateboarder
Story & Photos by Chris Carnel
August & September 1994

YEAH IT'S KILLER...hehehe........ SNOWBOARDING AND SKATING IS KILLER!!...

This is John Cardiel laughing into my mini-recorder. It's a mellow, late season slush day at Boreal and relatively uncrowded. Cardiel is obviously in a good mood... So where have you been traveling? Is that what you're asking me? Yeah (Talking like Mr. Traveler in a cool guy voice)...Aaah....to BRAZIL... hhhheeee.....(laughing). Did you snowboard at all down there? Nah, I skated these sick bowls. It was insane! Were they in a public park or something? Yeah, they're the most perfect bowls. Down there, cement is cheaper than Wood.. (All the sudden his face takes on a new look as we glance off the quad chair to the snow below) No way this guys going for the insane bomb track.... YYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHH! (Cardiel yells off the chair, laughing at the top of his lungs whilst a snowboard kid fails to clear a dirt gap at about 30 mph and lands right in the mud ). yyyyyeeeaaaah that was insane dude!! (By now we are both laughing in hysterics.) Relaxing on a run to run basis the questions are slowly interjected on the lift... Ever broke any bones? I think I fucked up my jaw bone. Before today you did? Skateboarding or snowboarding? Fuckin' flailing. On the cement or snow? I don't even remember. I was too drunk to remember. Who is your favorite skater? I never broke no bones before though. Who's my favorite skater?.... The Gonz and Christian. Weren't you supposed to go with Christian on that Brazil trip? Yeah, but he lagged and didn't go. After a few laps of luxury slashing antics, it was time for noon espresso in the lodge. Gleefully with a dash of papaya. Do you think skates will get wider again? Wider? Fuck no! Do you think they'll stay the same? Yeah fully! They're pretty much like wiring down, all skates pretty much buckling down to the same thing. So you still skate pools? Fuck yeah! Really, where at? In Sac.? Last pool I skated was near Sac. The sickest pool dude! The best backyard pool I've ever skated. Although I never skated at Pleasant Hill though, but. [Being too interested and excited, I cut him off] . What shape pool!? It was kinda like oval, it was rad! We put the diving board in the shallow end to get speed, siiick duuuude! Fuckin grinding for days, it was like this real slick coping, big chainsaw grinds. You'd just go RERRERERERRAAA!! It was hella sick! Had a killer death box. A totally perfect pool, rode there with Royce, Coco, Jake and Julien .... it was so rad dude! What do you like to skate the most, street, ramp, pools, vert...everything? Everything. You get bored skating when you always skate the same thing.... Did you get hooked up? (speaking to Colin Fisher who has a plate of food and informs John that he works at Boreal) Oh you work here!!? I just got like a soup and a fuckin' drink and it cost me like eight bucks! Heeeeeh..... (everyone laughs.) To Be Continued... A few days later Bert Lamar, Cardiel's snowboard sponsor, told me that John did actually break his jaw and had to have it wired shut. He should be OK by the fall though, and we'll have part 2 of this interview where we talk snowboarding. No wonder he ate soup.

Part 2

It was a warm evening July 18 1994 at Tim Windell's summer camp facility located approximately 30 minutes due west of scenic Mt. Hood Oregon. The town of Welches to be exact. My partner Friday was on vacation and I was alone, it was 7:47 p.m. Dusk. A white male, 175 pounds 5' 7" with a husky build, short hair in his early 20s code name Card approached the skateboard facility and it's masonite structured deck on which I was standing. Chris Carnel my associate for this assignment was greeted-out of the blue by a Mr.John "Card" Cardiel carrying a skateboard. A stranger to a restless teenager's summer playground, I occasionally straightened my tie. I watched and I wondered...As John Cardiel "dropped in."
John Cardiel: Hey Chris, what's up!
Chris Carnel: Hey John, what have you been up to? Just get into town?
JC: Yeah ,we've been hangin' out at the river drinkin' beers today. Hehehehehe. But were goin' boardin' tomorrow yyyyeeeeeehh! ! It's gonna be fuckinsick!!! This Mr Cardiel was slightly intoxicated and talking rather loudly (around 93 decibels) in a lingo I couldn't comprehend. But according to my records he recently suffered from a blow to the mandible. Was he consequently suffering from an apparent slight fracture (a broken jaw)? Upon visual inspection and a Boy Scouts medical background, "Card" had no swelling around the cheek bone and no speech impediment. Therefore he had no broken jaw. I had to confirm his whereabouts with Metro though. On a gut instinct I pulled a quick fingerprint from a piece of galvanized inch and 1/8th pipe commonly reffered to by this riff raff as "coping." I was right, this is the subject we were looking for. I called Metro and turned this case (#32042) over to cultural expert Chris Carnel, I scraped a sample of this metal into a film canister left behind by Carnel.This was to be Fed -Xed to Metro immediately. Carnel could wrap it up from here... Whilst awakening from my t.v. rerun daydream to the sound of wheel and masonite, Cardiel drops in the plush mini ramp at Windell's and goes to work. Suddenly his friends appear from nowhere jostling him with gurns.
"I'll give you 5 bucks if you can do a Andrecht plant on the high wall" one replies in a drunken stupor .
"Shut up dude I just wanna skate for myself," replies John .
Within 10 minutes a drunken play fight ensues on top of the high wall deck of the ramp leaving Cardiel a sleeveless t-shirt and a visit from Tim Windell himself. "I don't care if you guys wanna skate but it's dark out and you guys can't be makin noise here or skating at night."
Then John replies, "Sorry man we're not always rowdy and shit we were just screwin around... You're Tim Windell huh? I always looked up to you as a little kid seeing you in brochures and stuff.Dude I'm stoked to meet you!." Card soaps his way in, and then the pitch..."Hey can we sleep on the lawn here tonight, would that be cool?"
Then John's lit partner butts in "Yeah we camped out at Burnside for the past two nights, we'll sleep anywhere!"
Windell paused then stated "Follow me, I'll show you were you guys can sleep." Like a purring kitten Tim the old time contest ruler himself escorted John and bros into the front yard of the Windell coaching staff condo. I then realized how stoked the coaches would be. Not getting any shut eye due to a drunk and disorderly team of skaters, who didn't have to get up and coach snowboarders at 6:00 a.m. the next morning.
John pulled through on this interview. Most mags he doesn't touch and has shut down a few. He showed up when he said he was gonna show up and he rode around and had fun at Boreal and was into shooting. Not bad for a Grass Valley bred rock star who has a cult following from his contribution to snowboardings popularity of no grab shifty backsides to fakie. That's not all you have done John but it sure sticks out in a lot of minds I bet...

Our interview continues on snowboarding -

CC: Who have you been boarding with?
JC: Bay (Bowman), Devin Ryerson, Lake Of The Pines.
CC: Where did you get the Lake Of The Pines hat?
JC: I had it made. That's where I live (near Grass Valley). it's the fuckin team dude HEHEHE!
CC: Who are your fave snowboarding guys?
JC: I don't know? I like Roachy, Palm, Ranquet, Noah. Those dudes are rad!
CC: Are there any newer guys that you like watchin' ride?
JC: Oh, new guys?
CC: Yeah, like the new guys, the way they ride.
JC: No I hate it! I hate it cause they ride with their hands out like this (puts hands up flailing). It's totally gay-with there hands in the air, all ready and shit!
CC: I've seen people carve powder with their hands straight up in the air before, it's so weird.
JC: Aaaahhh...Dude I cant handle it, that's why I get so pissed.
DEVIN RYERSON: They have their hands all up and they do like shifties off everything.
CC: Why?
JC: I don't know why. I hate shifties! It's just like a minor tone of riding.
CC: Yeah, but you guys were the originators of that stuff, in a way!
DR: With like twisto's (laughs)
CC: Then John started doin' airs, like in the videos, the late backside no grab to fakie air. Every kid in the world you would see on the hill was doing those.
JC: Oh the late backside 180s without grabbin your board, yup. That became quite the craze that one year, huh? hehehehehe.
CC: Yeah, that was a craze. What do you think the next phase in tricks will be?
DR: The new schooler guys are trying to do grassers now. I heard some guy goin "no way I can't pull em."
JC: No way? Fuck you Devin hehehehe.
DR: I swear! But people should do cross rockets instead (laughs).
The conversation now turns to avalanches (not the company)
CC: You were in a avalanche before?
JC: Yeah at Donner Ski Ranch goin' through the Palisades. The part where those two trees are, not where the gnar-gnar part is but the part between those two big trees theres a little gully right there. Well in there, there was like a little rock, about a five foot drop or something, and I caught a little air, went through this steep gnarly pow and all of the sudden KKKKEEHHH hit some rocks underneath, got flipped forward and had to punch my way out from under the snow. I
was like holy shiiiit!!! Then this avalanche came and I was fightin it again! It was gnarly!!
DR: How big was the avalanche?
JC: Not that big, but big enough to cover and fill my hole up. (pause) It was like one of the scariest things that ever happened to me.
CC: Where is the raddest place you have ever snowboarded?
JC: The raddest? Probably this place in Switzerland dude.
CC: Was the snow good when you went there?
JC: Yeah it was siiick heheheh. I took the raddest lines dude, on the sickest mountains in the world.
CC: Powder stuff?
JC: Siiick powder dude. To go out of bounds there is no big deal they didnt even care so I was barging dude it was insane! I was doin this demo thing so I took these kids on this run (starts laughin) and it started to avalanche, and we were surfing it dude. Hehehe.
CC: No way
JC: We were surfin' this avalanche and they were all freakin' out! We were just all ooooohhhhhh (out loud). They were sooo stoked dude!
CC: Was it goin' like way slow?
JC: Yeah it was goin' hella slow. It was just cool to do you know cause it was like an avalanche. Like fuckin 15 feet wide and like 10 feet long. It was insane cause you're moving and the grounds movin. We were just like ridin' it! I'm all screamin' aaaavvvviiii screammminng aaavvvvaalllaannccche heheheeh. They were all like h-holy shiiitt!!