"He's not here Chris, Travis is visiting friends in Mt. Hood.
He'll be back some time soon though and I'll tell him that you called."
It's a rehearsed answer in the voice of a super cool "dad"
Yamada playing message translator from his outpost in Bend, Oregon.
This is where 20 yr. old Travis lives when he occasionally stays
home. Don, his dad, hangs out in Bend quite extensively, trying to
help remodel and rebuild the bathroom of the pea-soup-green sided
house when not living in San Francisco or answering phone calls for
his son.
For Travis personally working on the project was sandwiched
between winter snowboarding trips to Europe, a two week long road
trip to Canada and his final 3 week snowboarding venture to the
northwest.
In mid winter Travis finally returned to Mt. Bachelor. After only
three days of riding an injury occurred and some bad news to go with
it: He needed reconstructive ligament knee surgery. The only good
news was he could dedicate more time to his pad. After all, since
late last summer when Travis moved into the duplex, the side he
lives in has been without a useable bathroom/shower.
So two months ago, Travis and his girlfriend Heather came
through Reno. I asked, "Hey, lets do this interview while you are
here."
He replied, "Nah, I've gotta' take off to Stockton today, to
have my knee checked out. Let's do it when I come back through, I
just want to think about it. I want it to be really good! "
Whilst visiting in Bend, Oregon this summer (Travis was still in
Mt. hood nowhere to be found) I witnessed his dad finishing up a
plush bathroom and offered my assistance. Don replied, "No, you
better not Chris, Travis is very particular and wants everything done
perfectly." Sound familiar?
That was almost a month ago, and it's now late July (Heckler
deadline time). It slipped through the cracks and we never did get
the interview rolling. I was really lagging, so I desperately phoned
his pad...
Hey Travis, what's up?
Ah..he's at hood again, this is don.
Hey Don, what's new?
Not much Chris, how was your trip home?
Good. hey, I'm on a deadline, can I ask you some questions about
Travis for this Heckler article? (as I hit the record button).
Hey man, you know how picky Travis is about business things like
that-I can hear you recording-I'm gonna have to hang up now
Chris...............
Wait, hold on Don (with Don snickering) *******click.
Travis called me back 3 weeks later one evening and said, "I'm
workin' on it, I just want it to be good. I will send you a tape when I
return from Mt. hood, I have to leave tonight for a Morrow team
meeting though."
I replied, "That's cool. Thanks Travis," and called John Botch, only to
relay the info to his NASA satellite digital voice mail.
"Hey John its Chris. I know the deadline is soon, but Travis is gonna
send me a tape with some things he wants to say on it, I'll have it
within a few days."****click.
20 minutes later Botch called back, ( breathing heavy and stressing
like he had just jogged a few hundred laps) "Dude are you serious, he
hasn't sent you a interview yet! What's the deal, he's your friend, I
thought this thing with Yamada was going to be a piece of cake-Is he
trying to be like the Palm!" (see last issue).
The tape finally arrived, Fed-X no less ...
O.K. Mr. Carnel here goes, I don't know what order to put all this
in, I'm kinda' embarrassed. The tape spits forth info, slow, in a
cautious tone ...
I was born 10/9/73. I'm originally from Sonora, California, and it's a
hicktown East of Stockton. I grew up there from age 5 to age 18.. Oh
before that I lived in Merced, California on a catfish farm. I was
about four years old and I would catch huge catfish for dinner. I
could hardly carry them home! I would also catch turtles and
crawdads and ride horses. Then I moved to Sonora and lived on my
grandfathers ranch.......
OK, so growing up in Sonora..Aren't there cows there?
In the sixth grade I started skateboarding and I rode my bmx bike.
In the eighth grade I went snowboarding my first time (pause) oh
yeah, me and my dad went to Boreal.I was on a Burton elite 130. It
was at night and it was icy and I was slamming. It was harsh. But it
was so much fun, I wanted to do it again. The next season I rented a
few times from Mike McDaniel, who now works at Avalanche. He got
me into boarding! More facts figures and trivia. So I got a snowboard
in 88 and started snowboarding at Dodge Ridge which is 45 miles
away from Sonora, or actually 40 miles away from Sonora. I got a
Sims Pocketknife 144 and was super stoked. When I was a freshmen
in high school I got a job at Dodge Ridge in the snowboard rental
shop and worked there all through high school which gave me the
opportunity to ride without having to pay or scrounge up money for
tickets. Then when I was like a sophomore, yeah I think it was my
sophomore year, I went to a Go Skate contest atMt.Reba-Bear
Valley and didn't think too much about it, kinda' just did it as a
joke. I pretty much had only boarded a few times on family vacation
with my parents at Tahoe. I was pretty much self taught, there
weren't a lot or riders at Dodge who boarded at the time, so me and a
few guys from there went to this contest just to check it out and
entered. We did good, like 2nd place or something. We were in the
juniors. Mike Basich was the winner in the juniors and I just
remember, he was soo good! Devin Ryerson won the mens I remember.
Those guys were so rad back then... Like Dave White and Chris
Andrews, they used to rule the Cal. series contests, that's after
Basich and Roach went on to the pro events. I like Tahoe and used to
drive there for contests all the time I don't live in Tahoe because I
get claustrophobic. Mt. Bachelor has made me ride better just because of
the express chairs and no lines and the runs are real long. The guys
in the Northwest have a burlier style of riding, I think. Especially in
Canada. The level of Canadian riding is better than the American
level I think. And Canadians seem real nice, most of `em. I just
concentrate on freeriding. Never done a pro contest, am I supposed to
be pro?-I don't get it, I don't know what it means. I don't think I'm a
pro guy, just a rider. I don't think I'm that cool as far as
snowboarding goes these days: I don't really talk with like a
gangster accent. I don't say any cool gangster rapper words. I think
it's kind of funny how a lot of snowboarders are like that now. Like
gangbangers, I'm not a snow gangbanger. I don't even say dope, I don't
give props out to anybody..whatever they say and I don't smoke pot.
So I guess I'm not that cool.
Yamada continues: Hell I still like wearin' snow clothes,
I don't even like wearin' jeans. I think it's kind of silly makin'
these boards all ultra-light an everything then having
these jeans on, that get soaked up with water and they weigh 15
pounds-and your board only weighs only 5 pounds. But (pause) it
looks dope and fresh.
I have a few goals: I've been workin' construction and I want to
build my own house someday. And someday I want to be a bee keeper
and have my own bees. I wanna have the whole suit, beehives and
everything. And make gourmet honey! Oh yeah, I have a new sport: you
hike up to the volcanic rocks and roll the big ones down. You create
mini-rock avalanches, it's pretty fun! What else can I say, I'm
holding the steering wheel right now drivin' through the Redmond
why does that figure-he made the tape on his way home from Mt.
hood, in the drivers seat....bye Chris, that was embarrassing.
Here's more sensitive things Travis said whilst driving: I like
karate movies and cowboy movies. I like sandwiches that have chips
in em. Thanks Morrow, Fishpaw, Plain Sane, 916, John North and
Chris Fink. Somewhere along the way Go-Skate first sponsored me,
Mike McDaniel got me into snowboarding, him and Eric Nyberg gave
me some clothes. Then Ron Depp gave me a board, then Randy
Schaffner 916 gave me some clothes and totally helped me out so
much. Then I got sponsored by Avalanche (where is there team?)
which lasted a while, but didn't work out. But now I'm stoked to be
involved with Morrow, a real company that's pushing the sport with
good riders. Travis vented only a little frustration that I managed to
get on tape at the time for this interview: "My doctor said for no
extra charge I could order a custom colored knee brace. So ordered a
solid black fading into blue and got butt-rocker-spandex-speckled-
blue."
Out of the blue a call came from Bend, Oregon as I had just
finished things for my deadline. It was Travis. He was concerned if I
had gotten the tape? I replied Yes, thanks. Wow, you're finally home,
what are you doing!?
Travis just replied "Oh, just working on my bathroom."
-Chris Carnel
