“The best way to describe it is like wearing a jacket in a rainstorm then getting inside and sitting with it on your couch for six hours. You finally take it off and think ‘why was I wearing that jacket for the last six hours, what is wrong with me?'” says Nichols. What does it mean to be an ally, not a passive one but an active ally? Allyship has always been relevant to many marginalized communities, yet, now more than ever its meaning and its application come into light. Buddy Nichols and Rick Charnoski, producers of Loveletters to Skateboarding, recently published the last letter in the wake of Jeff Grosso’s passing. Focusing the LGBTQ+ community, the Loveletter and Lovenotes, look at diverse figures in the community and their experiences. I chatted with Nichols and Charnoski about their intentions, about the changes this project brought them, about writing one last love letter.
Interview by Emanuele Barbier
“[Jeff] felt passionately about this topic and this episode when we started it, but he felt five times more passionate about it when we were done shooting.” – Buddy Nichols
To start things off, could you explain how you two got involved in Loveletters for people that don’t know?
Rick: Buddy and I have been making skate videos together since the late 90s. We met in the early 90s at a park in Texas. We were both crossing the US and we met there. Then years later, we met again in New York. Buddy was working in production and I just moved up there. We both thought it would be fun to make a documentary film about pool skateboarding. We were really interested in investigating skateboarding because skateboarders are really interesting people. We did that for years and that led to Vans reaching out. We didn’t know Jeff before we met up with him but from the get-go, we were all aligned. It was really a perfect storm.
Buddy: This is super awkward and difficult for Rick and I, because Jeff is not here. In one sense, we’re speaking for him, we know a lot of what he would say. It’s bittersweet, this is an episode we all felt really strongly about. And while we were making this, Jeff definitely learned about two things he knows really well, skateboarding, and himself. He felt passionately about this topic and this episode when we started it, but he felt five times more passionate about it when we were done shooting.
When you three first met and you felt that connection, were you already aware it would go on to take those proportions and have so many seasons?
Buddy: [laughs] Well it’s funny, at the end of every season, we had to convince Vans. We wouldn’t get signed up for another season ahead of time. You can see, the last episode of each season, we’re sort of “hope we come back next time, if they let us.” […] It’s such a labour of love. You can’t let your friends down, right? So if it takes you 18 hours to make them proud, then it’s gonna take 18 hours. With the Loveletters, we know it’s not going to be two weeks to make an episode, it’s going to take four, but nobody will pay five people for four weeks.
Rick: The reason we got re-sign is because we made those things so that people had to like them. There wasn’t a choice, they couldn’t suck. But we put so much effort, our friends and some fans were telling us to relax. Episodes are supposed to be 8 minutes but it’s always 27 minutes or so.
Buddy: Case in point, speaking of this particular episode, it’s 36 minutes and 42 seconds. We get paid for 10-12 minutes, that’s our contract. We weren’t even getting started at the 12-minute mark. [laughs] You can’t be allowed into the queers skate scene, people open up to you and then not do your best. Are you kidding? We always made our videos, our films, and our love letters for the people that were in them, that’s our audience.
“Weeks into it, Buddy and I are thinking how do we start, where do we start?” – Rick Charnoski
You have been looking at skateboarding and its community for a long time now and you’ve covered a lot of topics. I am wondering what was the initial idea behind creating a queer section of the Loveletters and when did that become more concrete?
Buddy: Two seasons ago, we wanted to branch out from doing old dudes. [laughs] We wanted to start doing scenes, the first one was Atlanta. We had so much fun doing it, we went on doing more scenes in China, Brazil, France, Canada, and Hawaii. Then we thought about how we can branch out from geography. It was a no brainer, the most exciting thing going on was this queer skate scene. Seeing Unity and the excitement of how the scene was connecting reminded us so much of the spirit in 82-84. The only thing we were worried about going into it, is whether we are the right people to do it and not to let anybody down.
Rick: Every time we meet up before we start the season, we would sit together and cross ideas for episodes. With the LGBTQ+ episode, I didn’t trust myself to do it justice. We’re 50 years old and we’re talking to teenage kids. It’s a tough group of kids, they have a lot to say and a lot of feelings. They have to figure out how to articulate and be mature enough to share it. Weeks into it, Buddy and I are thinking how do we start, where do we start?
“I thought I was an ally, that I was open and accepting of everyone but I quickly realized that’s not enough.” – Rick Charnoski
Do you mean weeks into the interviews or weeks into researching?
Buddy: We researched for two months before we did. We listened and absorbed before we ever said anything.
Rick: Yeah, exactly. You can’t cut a piece about the whole skate scene and then just totally miss out on Cher Srauberry or Unity.
It’s good to hear you put a lot of research into it, I think it’s important to properly research communities and the people that make them. Once you started doing the interviews, did you go back and question again your ability to do it?
Buddy: We were so concerned about what we were going to do wrong, that we stopped focusing on what we can do right. What we know how to do, to talk about skateboarding, to showcase skateboarding, that’s all we’ve done for 25 years. We never research for two months before an episode, never, ever. For this one, we didn’t want to meet people and say stupid stuff, because we were uneducated. The more research we did, the more we got stoked on the whole scene and how cool it is and how rad the energy is.
Rick: I can’t stop talking about how I’m a different person today than I was six months ago. I’ve never been so challenged and have researched something so much to come out the other side, a different person. Also once you get on the inside, you realize these people are amazing. […] I thought I was an ally, that I was open and accepting of everyone but I quickly realized that’s not enough. It’s the same thing with Black Lives Matters. It’s not enough to just put signs in the window and say ‘I support you’. That’s the new trendy thing but that’s not enough. You have to stand up and educate people.
“We didn’t want it to be any different than another Loveletter episode […] because what’s the difference? It’s all about skateboarding and the love of skateboarding.” – Buddy Nichols
You talked to many queer skaters, not just from the US, but from around the world. What would you say is your biggest takeaway from those interviews and having those conversations?
Buddy: We’re two dudes that sit in an edit room 80% of the time, not talking to anybody. We skate pools, avoiding people and cops, avoiding being seen. We’re pretty sheltered human beings, so doing this was so amazing for us to have the learning experience and meeting so many rad people. I don’t want it to come off and sound light-hearted, but it is true, people can be separated into all kinds of groups and all kinds of categories. As skaters, those are categories that are placed on us. But when you’re a kid and you skate, you get to choose the way you want to define people. […] It’s all about the camaraderie in the family, it’s meeting all these people and having a connection with a 19-year-old kid, regardless of where they’re from, their sexuality or whatever, that’s cool enough.
Rick: It renewed my faith in skateboarding. I wasn’t so sure if it could survive and be as cool as it was with all that changed in the world. Like Grosso says, “I will lay down in traffic for skateboarding”, I will do anything for skateboarding. This episode can save lives, it creates communities. It’s the closest thing to music, and the coolest thing about music is that there’s no place on earth where it doesn’t exist.
Buddy: And we didn’t want it to be any different than another Loveletter episode. There are funny stuff, serious stuff, and goofy stuff in it. It’s the same as a Loveletter. Because what’s the difference? It’s all about skateboarding and the love of skateboarding.
Jeff holding a bounce card. Photo by Buddy Nichols
Do you think this is a good end to the Loveletters?
Buddy: Yeah, we’ve said that amongst ourselves, it’s an episode that took too long to happen but at least it got done. When we were in the middle of making it, we all were sitting around, me, Rick, and Jeff, just being like, you know, this is where this show was supposed to go. We didn’t see it before, but this was the goal. Not specifically an LGBTQ+ skate scene episode, but an episode like this.
Rick: Once we felt like we were getting somewhere, we were super excited, we felt we had done some meaningful work. We were like, ‘how did it take 120 episodes to get here?’
Buddy: Exactly, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Rick: We probably subconsciously thought we aren’t the people to do this.
Buddy: We are firm believers in people telling their own stories. We came at it, we’re skaters and this is a skate story, so we’ll tell it as a skate story.
Rick: There’s never been a better group of people we’ve interviewed, more articulate, more clear in their ideas. Everyone we spoke with, everyone we interviewed, or even just got advice from was so clear and articulate. It was really beautiful to see that, the passion in their voice and it had nothing to do with the quality of the skater.
Feature Photo by Yoshiro Higai
