Speaker 1: Mute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails on
Speaker 1: straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's going on? This is rad the host of
Speaker 2: SOFTWAP Radio and I have a super awesome stoked episode today.
Speaker 2: But before I introduce my next guest, I gotta tell
Speaker 2: you I appreciate you checking out the merch store. We've
Speaker 2: been shipping stuff out to you. We love you picking
Speaker 2: up the branded softwarep radio goods. Like I say, it
Speaker 2: keeps the gas place going. So we can keep the
Speaker 2: show going for you, so I can bring awesome guests
Speaker 2: and author about who I'm going to talk to in
Speaker 2: just a second. But I want to mention our book club.
Speaker 2: So soft rep dot com forward slash book hyphen Club.
Speaker 2: We have that book club. Brandon Webb and the guys
Speaker 2: and gals have put all the time and effort into
Speaker 2: putting a book club together for you. Go check it out.
Speaker 2: Read a book, read a band book, Just read a book,
Speaker 2: read a book. Okay?
Speaker 3: Amen? Brother?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Amen? And who that is who is on the
Speaker 2: video who you hear in the background is none other
Speaker 2: than Eric Blem. Eric Blem, Welcome to the show Soft
Speaker 2: Rep Radio.
Speaker 3: So stoked to be here, So stoke.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm going to give you a quote from somebody
Speaker 2: real quick about you, and it's Eric Blem offers an
Speaker 2: insightful perspective on how Craig Kelly became the effortless icon
Speaker 2: that we all revered, as well as sobering details of
Speaker 2: how his heroic journey tragically ended. The Darkest White is
Speaker 2: a must read, not just for fans of snowboarding, but
Speaker 2: for anyone looking for inspiration from an unlikely hero. Tony Hawk,
Speaker 2: professional skateboarder, wrote that quote about the book that we're
Speaker 2: here to talk about, which is The Darkest White, and
Speaker 2: to precursor that, like Star Wars, okay, how they go backwards. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you also have a book called Fearless that's been out
Speaker 2: and that really took off top ten biopic. You know,
Speaker 2: you wrote about Adam Brown and the heroics that happened
Speaker 2: and he ultimately succumbed to the injuries. Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Correct? It was. It was a redemption story.
Speaker 4: He was killed in combat, putting himself in the line
Speaker 4: of fire to keep his brother safe and accomplish a mission.
Speaker 3: And it's a yeah, it's a it's.
Speaker 4: A story that has resonated with so many walks of
Speaker 4: life because it is a redempt story. It's kind of
Speaker 4: like the Prodigal Sun meets Sealed Team six meets train Spotting,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: And I'm not trying to confuse my viewer or my
Speaker 2: listener that there's multiple things going on here in this intro. Okay,
Speaker 2: First of all, we got Eric blem on the on
Speaker 2: the line, all right, and he was the editor of
Speaker 2: trans World Snowboarding editor in chief, right.
Speaker 3: Yep, once upon a time in the nineties.
Speaker 2: Time that was my bible, okay, and my god. I
Speaker 2: had a skate shop when I was thirteen years old
Speaker 2: in Leyton, Utah. And I carried Transworld skate and snow
Speaker 2: and I got the dealer issues. And I would always
Speaker 2: love to flip to the very very very very back
Speaker 2: and go Utah Layton Skateboard Village. Boom. I'm in this
Speaker 2: thing like the phone book. I have a purpose.
Speaker 4: Are you talking about transwrow snowboarding business, the business pubs too,
Speaker 4: the trade wise as well?
Speaker 3: Yes, so well there was the shop. I just have
Speaker 3: to interview you.
Speaker 2: See. I went to SIA when I was seventeen in Vegas. See,
Speaker 2: so that was like, I'm forty six now, so ninety.
Speaker 2: I had my shop when I was thirteen till I
Speaker 2: was about eighteen, and it was from like ninety one
Speaker 2: till about ninety four ninety five, so about four years,
Speaker 2: maybe fourteen.
Speaker 4: I was finishing college in ninety three, and during that
Speaker 4: final year of SDSU Journalism school, I was hired as
Speaker 4: the managing editor of Snowboarding Business. So I put together
Speaker 4: that little rag of a magazine that you used to love,
Speaker 4: and I'm so stoked to hear somebody out there actually
Speaker 4: read it.
Speaker 2: I did. I love it. I just want you to
Speaker 2: know that when Guy my editing director or my editor
Speaker 2: in chief of software, it's like Rad get Eric on
Speaker 2: the show. I love his book Fearless. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's great. I get the Seal community, but you know
Speaker 2: what you have in common as a snowboarder and as
Speaker 2: an extreme athlete, just like a seal or any of
Speaker 2: these rangers or any of these guys that go through
Speaker 2: infantry or anybody who joins the military puts himself as
Speaker 2: a healthy person. They are able body. They are chasing,
Speaker 2: you know, the two mile qualifications, they're doing the push ups.
Speaker 2: You know, I see that in snowboarding. I see that
Speaker 2: in these athletes like Craig Kelly, like Mark McMorris, like
Speaker 2: these guys out there, they're training, they're standing on one leg,
Speaker 2: they're doing squats, they're doing all these different types of
Speaker 2: burpies and flutter kicks, and you know, it's all about
Speaker 2: the core, and you know it just crosses over. I've
Speaker 2: got friends in the specops community, Eric, and I know
Speaker 2: my listener wants to listen to you, and I'm fan
Speaker 2: boying over you, bro. But Brandon Webb, who runs this,
Speaker 2: you know, former Navy seal sniper, he's going to see.
Speaker 4: I know Brandon and read his you know, his early
Speaker 4: book and we met via his word, via the written words,
Speaker 4: is how we met.
Speaker 2: I love that he's getting ready to go to Shamanee.
Speaker 2: And before COVID hit, he went and did Big Mountain
Speaker 2: Heroes where he took veterans from where wherever they were
Speaker 2: at and he took them up to Shamane on soft
Speaker 2: Rep's dime, which is no easy task. And they had
Speaker 2: Nick Cahill, who's been on National Geographic as a videographer
Speaker 2: video of the whole thing. One awards Big Mountain Heroes.
Speaker 2: I just want to put it out there so that
Speaker 2: you know my listener hears that. And uh, I mean, bro,
Speaker 2: I got a snowboard right behind me on the wall.
Speaker 2: You got snowboards right behind you.
Speaker 3: I'm surround there in the front of me.
Speaker 4: It's like I'm I'm squeezed in by the memories and
Speaker 4: the nostalgia of my life because snowboarding gave me a
Speaker 4: path and I just make me feel good to have
Speaker 4: him around me, just like books.
Speaker 2: I love that. And so you went to college. Huh,
Speaker 2: so you chose the college path as a young man,
Speaker 2: and what did you chase in college? What was that exactly?
Speaker 2: That degree that you went after.
Speaker 4: I didn't necessarily chase college. I chased a goal to
Speaker 4: be a professional snowboarder.
Speaker 3: First.
Speaker 4: I went to one year of a community college, Palamar College,
Speaker 4: out in San Marcos, California. After high school, I graduated
Speaker 4: high school eighty seven, went to one year junior college.
Speaker 4: Didn't quite know what I wanted to do. Always loved reading, honestly,
Speaker 4: and IM were the magazines. International Snowboard Magazine was the
Speaker 4: mag at the time. It was the bible for snowboarders.
Speaker 4: And I decided I'm going to go and try and
Speaker 4: make it as a pro, and I moved to Breckenersh, Colorado.
Speaker 4: That was inspired by my mom, who died when I
Speaker 4: was seventeen from cancer, and she had told me, whatever
Speaker 4: last you know, when you know how it is with
Speaker 4: that with cancer, you know, eventually lose your speech and
Speaker 4: it becomes a fricking nightmare. But imagine a seventeen year
Speaker 4: old kid listening to his mom on her deathbed and
Speaker 4: she just said, you know, they worked a lot. My
Speaker 4: parents were entrepreneurs. She was a pharmacist, my dad was
Speaker 4: a CPA. They were retailers, and she just said, if
Speaker 4: there's anything you want to do in life, do it
Speaker 4: now because you never know about tomorrow. I mean they
Speaker 4: put off a lot for retirement and whatever. We're all
Speaker 4: behind the eight ball. And so that inspired me to
Speaker 4: go out there and I'm going to try and encapsulate
Speaker 4: a whole bunch and the shoot this route that took
Speaker 4: me to this whole thing.
Speaker 3: Worked at a ski shop, rode one hundred and.
Speaker 4: Twenty days that year, got sponsored, blew my knee out,
Speaker 4: and somewhere in there I met a travel writer on
Speaker 4: a chairlift when I had my season passed, and he
Speaker 4: started interviewing me about Breckinridge, like, where's the best happy hours?
Speaker 4: You know, where's the best place to grab a bike?
Speaker 4: Where can I find powder two days after the storm?
Speaker 4: You know, these kind of questions.
Speaker 2: In person podcast, Yeah, on a chair, I know, I know.
Speaker 3: And so he.
Speaker 4: Did this and then I turned around and said, you know,
Speaker 4: I eventually want to go to school. And this was
Speaker 4: before my injury and I and I just said, did
Speaker 4: you major in any what did you do? And he said,
Speaker 4: I major journalism and I worked for this newspaper. They
Speaker 4: sent me out here on assignment. I'm gonna I'm at
Speaker 4: the Beaver Creek Resort, which was a shanky lodge at
Speaker 4: the bottom of the hill at peak nine I think
Speaker 4: it is at Britain Breckenridge and free lift tickets.
Speaker 3: Write a story and I have all, what a scam.
Speaker 4: And that's when he said, you know, journalism, And so
Speaker 4: I blew my knee out. A couple of years later,
Speaker 4: after I was sponsored and got through that route and
Speaker 4: I thought, you know what, I'm gonna knuckle down. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna get my degree in journalism. I still want to
Speaker 4: be in this world of snowboarding. My goal is to
Speaker 4: be an editor and writer for ISM and went back
Speaker 4: to school and got the degree.
Speaker 3: ISM went out of business. I was crushed.
Speaker 4: And Transworld, I found out, was just an ocean side
Speaker 4: up up the road. And so I ended up finding
Speaker 4: a place at rental between Ocean Side and San Diego
Speaker 4: State in Encinitas and Cardiff by the Sea actually and
Speaker 4: got a place, and I would commute to school for
Speaker 4: the last classes, and I would commute north to trans
Speaker 4: World and ultimately work my way up to the ladder.
Speaker 4: And with F and A, I was able to see
Speaker 4: the world on someone else's dimes, snowboarding with my heros.
Speaker 2: You know, one of my I want to say, there's
Speaker 2: a cover of te Hay just bombing off of a
Speaker 2: cliff on the cover of the trans World. That was
Speaker 2: just one of my favorite photos of him just going
Speaker 2: just ham off this cliff, huge cliff.
Speaker 3: You probably I got the magazine right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a few years, right, and forgive me.
Speaker 2: I should have kept all these things of nostalgia from
Speaker 2: my skate shop. But I'll tell you this, I did
Speaker 2: one time get like this. This This card was inside
Speaker 2: of one of these business dealer magazines that came to
Speaker 2: my shop. And I was just young, sixteen year old
Speaker 2: Aaron sitting behind the shop one day and it's like
Speaker 2: fill this out and try to win something from Plan
Speaker 2: B or something like Girl Skateboards and so and so
Speaker 2: I get this skateboard in the mail after filling out
Speaker 2: that little postcard, right, and I open it up and
Speaker 2: and it's signed by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and
Speaker 2: it's got Guy Mariano on it and he's kicking a
Speaker 2: soccer ball with his little girl skateboard. And I just
Speaker 2: want to say that it's because of that magazine and
Speaker 2: that influenced my life as a skateboard shop owner as
Speaker 2: a young man trying to get these brands and trying
Speaker 2: to find what brand I can purchase to have in
Speaker 2: my area. It's because of you, bro, trans World transformed
Speaker 2: my life.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: I will tell Peggy Cousins and Larry Balma and Louise
Speaker 5: Balma and Brian Selstrom and all the people, Kevin Kinnear,
Speaker 5: Grant Britain, Dave Swift, all these names, skin Phillips.
Speaker 4: I mean, all these people would love to hear that.
Speaker 4: And you know what, it's pretty special. We had a reunion,
Speaker 4: a trans World reunion from all the magazines that they
Speaker 4: did not too long ago.
Speaker 3: And it did.
Speaker 4: I went in there and it was just kind of
Speaker 4: like it was just a feel good vibe of just
Speaker 4: standing in the middle of this aura of people that
Speaker 4: all had that similar experience, and some of the people
Speaker 4: I didn't know. It's like yeah, and it was kind
Speaker 4: of like when you're with a group of snowboarders from
Speaker 4: back in the Golden Age. It's kind of like what
Speaker 4: I've tried to tell people to explain. I'm like, I
Speaker 4: know you, but I don't know you, or I don't
Speaker 4: know you, but I know you, and it's because we
Speaker 4: all have that common thing and it made the world
Speaker 4: a little smaller place and you know that hand, that
Speaker 4: nod that whatever, you know.
Speaker 3: It it was a good thing.
Speaker 2: Well, you put friends of mine in the magazines, like
Speaker 2: Jason Brown, you know, I mean, you know I skated
Speaker 2: with him, yeah here in Utah.
Speaker 4: Well you you earlier mentioned a shot of Terrier with
Speaker 4: a huge cliff and I don't know if this.
Speaker 2: Is it or not that is it, but.
Speaker 3: That was a huge thing.
Speaker 4: And I just and I have I mean my you
Speaker 4: can kind of see if you look over this way.
Speaker 4: I mean, those those are all yeah magazine then up
Speaker 4: here in my wall.
Speaker 3: I mean, these are the history books of the sport.
Speaker 4: And I was able to pull them all out when
Speaker 4: it was time to circle back and.
Speaker 2: Tell me skate shop in a ninety three or ninety
Speaker 2: four backpage, if it's like local skate shops, you know
Speaker 2: how there was a list right.
Speaker 3: In snowboarding or in trans in the skateboarding was it?
Speaker 2: What did what? Did snowboarding have that or did?
Speaker 3: I thought they both they both did? They both did
Speaker 3: for sure. I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Baller, I'd be everywhere, bro.
Speaker 4: I mean the earliest ones this was I SM I
Speaker 4: told you, God, I know you might be too young.
Speaker 2: I love Yeah, No, that's legit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And Burt Lamar Vision Streetwear back cover when he you know,
Speaker 4: I mean just just.
Speaker 2: Is that a SIMS snowboard SIMS.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when Burt Lamar was on SIMS at first, and
Speaker 4: what I say, world champs like Burt Lamar. And that
Speaker 4: was during the period when Craig Kelly was in a
Speaker 4: legal dispute with SIMS because he dropped jump ship from
Speaker 4: SIMS went to Burton.
Speaker 2: With to Burton.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and all that, Yeah, it's all covered in the book,
Speaker 3: Not that I'm trying to sell a book, but.
Speaker 2: You know, well, well let's talk about your the darkest
Speaker 2: white you know what I mean, obviously you're you're deal.
Speaker 2: The arch is white to me is exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, the snow's all white and then
Speaker 2: it's all dark. It's just gone. You know, it's just
Speaker 2: like to me, it's abby, it's you know, you can
Speaker 2: look up, you know the things about Craig Kelly and
Speaker 2: those that perished, you know, but tell me about Craig
Speaker 2: and what moved you to want to just tell the
Speaker 2: story of the Michael Jordan of snowboarding at the time
Speaker 2: of Michael Jordan.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, exactly, he will. I mean, honestly, I have to.
Speaker 4: I can actually have a prop here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So take you to.
Speaker 4: The moment of that a catalyst. So this Craig Kelly
Speaker 4: is my co pilot. If you can see that. That
Speaker 4: was a sticker that was made by a kid in
Speaker 4: Utah the X Games the year when he died in
Speaker 4: two thousand and three, and it was you know, Craig
Speaker 4: was he was kind of like the compass that pointed
Speaker 4: the way for a lot of snowboarders in our generation.
Speaker 4: And I was fifteen years after his death, in a
Speaker 4: chairlift line taking my son snowboarding, and this kid in
Speaker 4: the lift line next to me, a kid who looks
Speaker 4: like he should know better, Like you know, he's in
Speaker 4: his twenties or whatever, but he's got his gears, gnarly
Speaker 4: boards chipped up, he rides a lot, and he looks
Speaker 4: down at that and just looks over says, who's Craig Kelly?
Speaker 4: And I just was floored because Craig Kelly was everything
Speaker 4: us and I realized at that point, Wow, the new
Speaker 4: generation doesn't even know who he is. And I didn't
Speaker 4: want him to be forgotten. And that's what made me
Speaker 4: decide I want to tell the story. Because I knew
Speaker 4: Craig personally just through magazine articles. We were friends. We
Speaker 4: weren't buddies, you know, like because he grew up with
Speaker 4: and whatnot, or the Mount Baker hardcore that he rode
Speaker 4: with at Mount Baker, right, but you know we were close.
Speaker 4: We spent time together, and anybody who spent time with
Speaker 4: Craig got to experience his He just has this aura
Speaker 4: and he was snowboarding's first professional.
Speaker 3: He was a guy who brought discipline and training.
Speaker 4: He worked his ass off with a four time world
Speaker 4: chain and that's what really makes him. I think the
Speaker 4: special ops communities would all appreciate Craig because he was
Speaker 4: that guy who kind of he was a child of
Speaker 4: adversity and a lot of special ops guys were and are.
Speaker 4: And so he had forced parents, last key kid. His
Speaker 4: dad ran a trucking business. There was times when he'd
Speaker 4: be home alone for weeks at a time. If something
Speaker 4: was going to happen in his life, he was going
Speaker 4: to make it happen. At the same time, he loved
Speaker 4: his parents. They loved him and just had to grow
Speaker 4: up a little bit early. And he rose up and
Speaker 4: he was smart. He was cerebral. He was going to
Speaker 4: the University of Washington majoring in chemical engineering. Just a
Speaker 4: bright guy, super smart, and then he decided two quarters
Speaker 4: shy of graduating.
Speaker 3: He started the university. By the way, he had moved
Speaker 3: up in school.
Speaker 4: He was seventeen years old his freshman year in college,
Speaker 4: so he was like the baby in a fraternity. So anyways,
Speaker 4: he he was this guy who decided, I think I
Speaker 4: can make it at the pro snowboarder in a sport
Speaker 4: that didn't even exist. Yet dropped out of college where
Speaker 4: he had this promising career to make a lot of
Speaker 4: money compared to you know, the near poverty that he
Speaker 4: grew up with and became an icon and it's just
Speaker 4: a great story and he inspired so many people. He
Speaker 4: was eloquent, he was smart, and he had this ethereal
Speaker 4: style that just it made him beautiful to wash no
Speaker 4: matter what he was doing, freestyle, half pipe, tricks, but
Speaker 4: especially cow plants, hand plants, and drek, especially especially though
Speaker 4: in powder. And he ultimately left, you know, turned and
Speaker 4: walked away from all of it and returned to the
Speaker 4: back country because he that was kind of where he
Speaker 4: felt snowboarding was most pure and where he he you know,
Speaker 4: he followed, he followed his bliss and decided, I'm going
Speaker 4: to go back into the back country and he ultimately
Speaker 4: became a was endeavoring to become a mountain guide at
Speaker 4: a time in his life when he was thirty six
Speaker 4: years old when he had kind of dropped off the
Speaker 4: map publicly, and the way I describe it, I know,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm an eighties kid, but he was the
Speaker 4: Obi Wan Kenobi of snowboarding, and that was who way
Speaker 4: this mysterious Misto soul snowsurfer, soulsurfing snowsurfer who but was
Speaker 4: always progressing inside and was tragically killed during his training
Speaker 4: to become the first snowboarding mountain guide for the ACMG
Speaker 4: Association of Canadian Mountain Guys, which is renowned around the world.
Speaker 4: You know they are, they are gnarly, they are like
Speaker 4: the top percent. Just like such, they actually.
Speaker 2: Trained to follow. Yeah, he gave others the wake that
Speaker 2: they could ride on to.
Speaker 4: He broke down the walls with the ACMG. He was
Speaker 4: the first snowboarder, split boarder that they allowed to even
Speaker 4: attempt their training certification process. And people to this day,
Speaker 4: the people who followed after in the first one, they
Speaker 4: always give credit to Craig.
Speaker 3: And so I want the world to know about Craig.
Speaker 4: I want everybody on the planet to know who Craig was,
Speaker 4: at least the snowboarders and the skiers. I don't want
Speaker 4: anybody to see a Craig Kelly is my co pilot
Speaker 4: sticker and say who's Craig Kelly.
Speaker 3: And that's my goal with this book.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. I have actually on my snowboard in my
Speaker 2: tuley right now. I have an I ride with Jake
Speaker 2: Sticker yeah on there, and I also do the I
Speaker 2: ride for others hashtag whenever I post up snowboard picks.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, I have that mindset as well
Speaker 2: as I don't want to take it for granted. Yesterday
Speaker 2: I was traversing Milli Bowl with my wife and we
Speaker 2: take Milly at Brighton go all the way up, go
Speaker 2: in front of Milly Bowl and it was just straight
Speaker 2: shoots and ladders all the way down and I slid
Speaker 2: out for like, I don't know, five six seconds and
Speaker 2: I got all this slough at the base of my
Speaker 2: feet and I just come to a stop and I'm
Speaker 2: just like, oh man, I'm playing with I mean, like,
Speaker 2: I know, we avalanche bust up there and the ski
Speaker 2: patrol is really great at it, but I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: you just have this awareness all of a sudden, and
Speaker 2: my wife's above me. She's like, are you gonna slide down?
Speaker 2: Or are you gonna snowboard down? It's like, oh, I
Speaker 2: stood up. I was like, I'm snowboard down?
Speaker 4: What are you talking about? You didn't see anything? Isn't
Speaker 4: enough the droids you're looking for?
Speaker 2: No, dude, We're literally traversing. You know, what you look
Speaker 2: like would be powder, but it's wet and it's heavy.
Speaker 2: And I was talking crap to Millie the mountain as
Speaker 2: I was riding, and then she just stuck me in
Speaker 2: the snow and I said, all right. I was like,
Speaker 2: fair enough, Millie, all right, the.
Speaker 3: Mountain will put you in your place. Nature always wins.
Speaker 2: Always. I mean, if you're not ready and you're not
Speaker 2: alert and you're not aware of what's around you, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm like, give me, give me three second lead time
Speaker 2: to navigate myself, is what I'll say to her if
Speaker 2: we're writing, you know, give me three seconds the lead time,
Speaker 2: and then you come to me like kind of like that,
Speaker 2: and just make sure I don't go off a cliff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, do that. That's awesome. So that that
Speaker 4: is funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I taught my wife to snowboard now, six years ago.
Speaker 2: She learned at forty. Oh she's hard charger. She's faster
Speaker 2: than me. I thought. I was, like, oh, I grew
Speaker 2: up with Jason Brown and went to school with JP
Speaker 2: and all these different guys, and like, she's gone, I
Speaker 2: bet she.
Speaker 4: I bet she carves because they they learned the mechanics better,
Speaker 4: they're I mean, I don't want to throw, you know,
Speaker 4: hips grace graceful, and the mechanics and all comes together,
Speaker 4: and it's just it's a different look when you see
Speaker 4: a woman ride.
Speaker 3: They can ride anything that a guy can nowadays.
Speaker 4: And oh my god, if you look at the half
Speaker 4: pipe and everything, it's it blows my mind.
Speaker 3: There is there is.
Speaker 4: There is a even much more even play playing field
Speaker 4: now than it was when we started. But it's it's great,
Speaker 4: it's really honestly. The snowboarding has become like what skiing was.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you've noticed, but like the kids,
Speaker 4: a lot of the kids are winning to ski, so
Speaker 4: they rebel against their parents who were snowboarders. And Cody Townsend,
Speaker 4: who you know, the guy did the fifty project that
Speaker 4: you know, writing all the fifty best ski lines in the.
Speaker 3: World, and he's working on that amazing skier, nicest guy
Speaker 3: in the world.
Speaker 4: And I came to find out that his dad wrote
Speaker 4: a Craig Kelly are I sent him. I sent him
Speaker 4: a copy of the book a while back, and he said,
Speaker 4: you know, I think what would move on the early
Speaker 4: generation where my parents were both snowboarders, and I rebelled
Speaker 4: and said I want to ski, and and now he's like,
Speaker 4: you know, one of the most amazing world.
Speaker 2: I can't laugh at that. I started as a skier
Speaker 2: at Powder Mountain here in Utah, and with my skate shop,
Speaker 2: I was like, I gotta get on the snow first.
Speaker 2: I started as a cross country skier. I wanted to
Speaker 2: do the biathlon, so my father encouraged that and would
Speaker 2: train me to do cross country ski by athlon and
Speaker 2: he wanted to see me do it, so he's like,
Speaker 2: let's go do it. And then I liked the downhill
Speaker 2: part of skiing, and so I started downhill skiing, got
Speaker 2: some K two's and I bought my own boots, my
Speaker 2: own Nordica's psych hustling, and then I started riding at
Speaker 2: Powder Mountain and I'm sitting on the night ski lift
Speaker 2: and as we're going up at Powdered Mountain, I look
Speaker 2: over and there's a bonfire and I just see these
Speaker 2: snowboarders wearing surreals. Bro and he's just like up the stairs.
Speaker 2: He's like, I'll be right there, Bro, up the stairs.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I want to walk like that.
Speaker 2: I don't want to I don't want to wear robocot boots. Yeah,
Speaker 2: dead or alive. You're coming with me? Here, I come.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Dude, It's like I can't run.
Speaker 2: So from then on, I wrote a Burton split tail
Speaker 2: board that I had in my skate shop. That was
Speaker 2: I was trying to sell, but nobody wanted it because
Speaker 2: it was too old school.
Speaker 4: Was probably a Burton Elite black and red. Maybe it
Speaker 4: was yellow yellow, Oh, the yellow with like the pinky
Speaker 4: weird whatever it was lee tail. Yep, I remember, I
Speaker 4: know exactly the board.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and having a skate shop allowed me access to
Speaker 2: people like getting rid of stuff that they didn't know
Speaker 2: they wanted, you know, back in the day. And I
Speaker 2: remember I had like this Burton twin tip demo board.
Speaker 2: It said demo in the bottom of the p tex stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well I'll sell that.
Speaker 4: Well I'm just I mean, thirteen years old to be
Speaker 4: the entrepreneur and want to open a shop and stoke
Speaker 4: you know, you know, you probably I don't know, they
Speaker 4: probably weren't a lot of skaters, or maybe there were
Speaker 4: a lot of skaters, but there wasn't a shop.
Speaker 3: But whatever it was, dude, thirteen year old entrepreneur.
Speaker 4: You need to meet Ken Auchenbach and have him on
Speaker 4: your show someday because he opens the first snowboard shop
Speaker 4: in Calgary out of his parents' garage.
Speaker 2: That's basically a wee could talk, you know. I started
Speaker 2: selling grilled cheese sandwiches because kids were selling lemonade, and
Speaker 2: I would sell them for two bucks. And then my
Speaker 2: dad had a vending machine in his armory because he
Speaker 2: was an army guy, and he's like, well, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: feed all my guys when they come to drill, so
Speaker 2: I'll have a coke machine and a vending machine. And
Speaker 2: so we had some stuff in the garage and I
Speaker 2: would bring it outside and sell it, and i'd sell
Speaker 2: it right there on the corner and the kids would
Speaker 2: come and buy it from me. My dad's like, how
Speaker 2: much money did you make today? I was like thirty
Speaker 2: six bucks. He's like how much bread do you use?
Speaker 2: And I was like the whole loaf. He's like how
Speaker 2: much melvida? How much melvida? I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe like half the brick of elvida. And he's like,
Speaker 2: well that costs four dollars, okay. And I was like
Speaker 2: all right, and he started busting out how much electricity cost,
Speaker 2: and how much the house that I lived in that,
Speaker 2: how's the food cost? And then he started telling me
Speaker 2: about you know, how much I made, and he's like,
Speaker 2: what'd you sell the diet cokes for? I said two
Speaker 2: for a dollar. Everything was fifty cents in the Vendom machine.
Speaker 2: It changed to sixty cents and I didn't realize it,
Speaker 2: and at the time it was breaking everyone's dollars, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 3: You can't buy anything out of a venue machine for
Speaker 3: less than two bucks.
Speaker 2: Now, no, So I had to pay him back for
Speaker 2: the diet cokes and the Velveta, but he said I
Speaker 2: made enough off the bread that he let me keep it.
Speaker 2: And that's how I actually got my cross country ski poles.
Speaker 2: It was by hustling for money and he wanted to
Speaker 2: see me earn it, and that's how I got my
Speaker 2: in Ordica ski boots. Was hustling and then I said, hey, Dad,
Speaker 2: right here, there's a uh this distributor, Smoot Hill Distribution.
Speaker 2: It's called smoot Hill out of la Or California. I
Speaker 2: was like, let me fill this out and get me
Speaker 2: a business license. And he looked at me, and he's like,
Speaker 2: all right, So I took my one hundred dollars that
Speaker 2: I had saved up in my little cash register, gave
Speaker 2: it to him. He got me a business license, and
Speaker 2: then I applied to Smoot Hill and I started getting
Speaker 2: in skateboard but I couldn't afford a roll of tape.
Speaker 2: It was like eighty something bucks and I can afford
Speaker 2: like two skateboard decks. So I just started flipping skateboards.
Speaker 2: And then they'd go to the other skate shop that's
Speaker 2: in Ogden and he's like, where are you getting all
Speaker 2: these skateboards because he's grip taping them. He's not selling
Speaker 2: on the board, just the grip tape because I didn't
Speaker 2: have it. Yeah, but all my homies in the area
Speaker 2: were like, I'm buying ree boys skateboards from his garage.
Speaker 2: And so next thing, you know, my dad's like, we
Speaker 2: need to get you a little shop, and so we
Speaker 2: it's not my shows.
Speaker 4: What a great story, No, I mean, listen, I mean
Speaker 4: that's kind of I love story.
Speaker 3: I love people's stories. And that's and.
Speaker 2: So how you transitioning from snowboarding to military. My dad
Speaker 2: was fully supportive of that same culture. He was a
Speaker 2: Green Beret. He saw the whole awesome snowboarding, skiing, downhill,
Speaker 2: Nordic crossover. You know, he trained me in it.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, that's not I mean a lot of people
Speaker 4: they don't get it. They're like, where, where, how did
Speaker 4: this happen? And for me, you know, I, first of all,
Speaker 4: I always understood the wisdom of older people, and I
Speaker 4: would always listen to stories, and I was always interested
Speaker 4: in military history.
Speaker 3: And what really did the turn for me? Is?
Speaker 4: I mean after I after I graduated, after I worked
Speaker 4: for transport for many years and you know, saw the
Speaker 4: world went freelance and started. I wrote my first book
Speaker 4: called The Last Season, which was more kind of like
Speaker 4: a It's a story of a backcountry ranger who went
Speaker 4: missing while on patrol. He was a guy who everybody
Speaker 4: went to when someone went missing, and then one day
Speaker 4: he went missing and they had to find him. It's
Speaker 4: a great it's an awesome story. Again, The Last Season,
Speaker 4: it's uh call. It's takes place in Sequoia Kings Canyon
Speaker 4: National Park and it kind of tells the story backstory
Speaker 4: of the history of national parks and seasonal park rangers
Speaker 4: they called you know, they called them. I think they
Speaker 4: called them like three month wonders or things because they
Speaker 4: would worked just that season area time of year. But anyways,
Speaker 4: so there was that book and then uh nine to
Speaker 4: eleven happened, and around that same period of time, I
Speaker 4: always again loved military history.
Speaker 3: I had a neighbor who was a Vietnam VET when
Speaker 3: I was a kid.
Speaker 4: I was the last key kid, so I would go
Speaker 4: and toss the football around with him. He would show
Speaker 4: me his old photo albums. He showed me this shot
Speaker 4: I remember one time of a helmet that I actually
Speaker 4: I didn't have one. I got all sorts of crap
Speaker 4: here because I like it, but I mean, I love
Speaker 4: it even I have a you know, old school Vietnam
Speaker 4: era help it. And he had a picture of his
Speaker 4: that had a huge dent on the side where he
Speaker 4: had been side swiped by by a friendly fire by
Speaker 4: a missile and that's what took him out of the war.
Speaker 4: But he had been a tunnel rap who was the
Speaker 4: guy that went in with the you know, the pistol,
Speaker 4: And you tell me all these stories and I was
Speaker 4: just rapped by it. And so my mom and dad
Speaker 4: they subscribed to Time Life books and I read the
Speaker 4: whole history of the Vietnam War, you know, tet offensive
Speaker 4: and you know the military zone and the you know
Speaker 4: Cambodia and the Hochiman Trail. I mean, I learned all
Speaker 4: this stuff at a very young age. It was fascinated
Speaker 4: by it and read the Battle of Midway. So I
Speaker 4: had that base of respecting the military, loving the history,
Speaker 4: loving the stories, and then saving Private Ryan came out
Speaker 4: and Band of Brothers and the kind of the storyline
Speaker 4: that was going with those movies and.
Speaker 3: Those shows and things with the World War two vetts.
Speaker 4: At that point, we're getting old and a lot of
Speaker 4: them didn't talk about it, and a lot of their
Speaker 4: stories were dying with them. And so fast forward to
Speaker 4: after nine to eleven, I just you know, looked at
Speaker 4: what was going on. I've been telling these adventure stories
Speaker 4: and snowboarding and having a good time, enjoying this life
Speaker 4: we have in America, right, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 4: the War on Terror happened. I got married three days
Speaker 4: after nine to eleven. It was like a celebration, you know,
Speaker 4: it was kind of like the ultimate few to terrorism.
Speaker 3: No life goes on. We've got this wedding plan and
Speaker 3: we're going to party and.
Speaker 4: I just thought, you know, this is our this is
Speaker 4: history happening right now, and this is our current, this
Speaker 4: is our current, greatest generation. And a lot of people,
Speaker 4: these guys are coming back and women, and they're not
Speaker 4: talking about it either. You know, it's war, it's shitty
Speaker 4: and yeah, and so I just do yeah, And so
Speaker 4: I just thought, what can I do?
Speaker 3: What's my part in this? I didn't serve the military
Speaker 3: at that point.
Speaker 4: I mean at the age when I would have wanted to,
Speaker 4: I was so far from wanting to do that. But
Speaker 4: I always had a great respect for it. I always
Speaker 4: say thank you for your service when I see somebody.
Speaker 4: And I know some people can have a problem with
Speaker 4: that whatever, but I'm sorry when I see old guys
Speaker 4: with their caps on and their you know whatever, but
Speaker 4: you know shift they were on or whatever. I walk
Speaker 4: up and my kids see you walk up. And one
Speaker 4: of the proudest moments is not too longo. Like, you know,
Speaker 4: my sixteen year old daughter, when she was probably thirteen,
Speaker 4: at an airport, walked up on her own to this
Speaker 4: old gentleman and then sitting down with a hat and
Speaker 4: thanking for a service.
Speaker 3: And I thought, what a moment.
Speaker 2: The fact that you said, we live in America and
Speaker 2: you get to do all this is like, what the
Speaker 2: thank you? I think that service members are cool with
Speaker 2: bro the fact that you said, we live in America,
Speaker 2: we get to do this. Yeah, we live here.
Speaker 4: It's and also, I mean, you look at this whole community.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, but I have I've traveled around the world.
Speaker 4: I've snowboarded in Iran. I've been to Russia and snowboarding
Speaker 4: and skiing and skateboarding.
Speaker 3: All these companies started in like America.
Speaker 4: They and those guys, I've talked to them, and they're
Speaker 4: and they and the and that I have a great skier,
Speaker 4: addicted most diehard skier ever that lived in the in
Speaker 4: the projects outside of Moscow.
Speaker 3: And he would always just say, I you know, we didn't.
Speaker 4: Have companies because their leaders are free, couldn't make this
Speaker 4: happen anyway.
Speaker 2: We can say, that's how it is. They get to
Speaker 2: say what they want. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh, he always tell me their subways and their infrastructure
Speaker 4: is beautiful, marble statues, amazing. I took the Trans Siberian
Speaker 4: Railway from China through Manchiia all the way across Siberia
Speaker 4: to Moscow with my girlfriend at the time of wife
Speaker 4: now and got to experience some of that, and a
Speaker 4: lot of kids haven't been able to do that.
Speaker 2: No, you're not. I still see you seem to move
Speaker 2: it for me, So.
Speaker 3: That's an issue, are you okay? Okay okay.
Speaker 4: So anyways, going back to why I decided to write
Speaker 4: these stories, that was really it. I really decided to
Speaker 4: write these stories, these military stories, because I figured that's
Speaker 4: my part in all this. I can tell the stories.
Speaker 4: I can do it, you know, being a fairly moderate.
Speaker 4: Not that they moderate exists anymore.
Speaker 3: You're not. You're either fast, you're far right or far left.
Speaker 2: There's no like, you can't be just like.
Speaker 4: There's no in between. But but I thought of myself.
Speaker 4: I thought of myself as being pretty moderate. But I
Speaker 4: also thought of myself as someone who I just want
Speaker 4: to tell the story from the perspective of the guys
Speaker 4: and or women on the ground. And that's what I
Speaker 4: wanted to do. That's what I endeavored to do, and
Speaker 4: I thought, this is how I can honor and be,
Speaker 4: you know, do something for my places. So I stepped
Speaker 4: away from all that fun and actresss whatever, and I'm
Speaker 4: going to find a story to tell that will document
Speaker 4: our current generations of warriors.
Speaker 3: And it started with the only thing We're dying for.
Speaker 4: I went and sat in on a class of at
Speaker 4: the time of the major, but after nine to eleven
Speaker 4: he was a captain of an Oda five seven four
Speaker 4: Jason Amern found out that he had been the military advisor.
Speaker 3: For Hamid Karzai president and who became the president.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the most I look back and I'm my way,
Speaker 4: this is the most geopolitically significant SF mission probably of
Speaker 4: all time, because that is what they do, right. They
Speaker 4: go in, they foment a rebellion among a group, overthrow
Speaker 4: whatever the.
Speaker 3: Bad guys, which I agree were the bad guys.
Speaker 4: The Taliban were bad guys for sure, and within the
Speaker 4: postumee he wanted he was. They went into the south.
Speaker 4: Everybody else, the original horseholders went in with the Northern Alliance,
Speaker 4: and they went in with standing armies of you know,
Speaker 4: people who were warriors. They had been fighting the mujah
Speaker 4: haden early on against Russia and everything. He went in
Speaker 4: with this unknown statesman and basically when once they found
Speaker 4: out this small under strength, ohda, there's only eleven instead
Speaker 4: of twelve, they went in and.
Speaker 2: There was a you're talking about horse that's what you're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 4: No, No, I'm talking this is This is the group
Speaker 4: I rode about within the South. They're all considered the
Speaker 4: horsemen that era because they went in, But these guys
Speaker 4: didn't ride horses.
Speaker 3: They were in the South and they rode trust I.
Speaker 2: Was going to say, I interviewed the commander of the horseman,
Speaker 2: who was the guy that taught them how to ride
Speaker 2: the horses?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean, there's totally anyways, that was my
Speaker 4: first deal.
Speaker 3: I went in. I met this guy. He was teaching
Speaker 3: at west Point.
Speaker 4: He was teaching Arabic at West Point, and she kind
Speaker 4: of liked the fact that I was not a New
Speaker 4: York Times or Wall Street journal like political writer. I
Speaker 4: had no I had no spin, I had no angle,
Speaker 4: I had nothing going Paul political.
Speaker 3: I just said I want to tell the story. And
Speaker 3: he had read my book the.
Speaker 4: Last Season, and he thought it was cool that I
Speaker 4: was a snowboarder and worked for a snowbeary magazine. And
Speaker 4: he said, if you go and talked to the family
Speaker 4: members of the guys on my team who did not survive,
Speaker 4: and they're into letting you tell the story, he said,
Speaker 4: I'll tell you everything I can, you know, aside from
Speaker 4: TTP's and whatever. And he had kept scrupulous notes of
Speaker 4: his conversation with Carsie and everything I did.
Speaker 3: Daniel H.
Speaker 4: Pedatory and Daniel Age Pedatory was in Cheshire, Massachusetts, and
Speaker 4: Donnie Davis JD was from Oh my gosh, Tennessee. And
Speaker 4: I went to there and I talked to their families
Speaker 4: and this. They said, I would love it if you
Speaker 4: tell their story. And when I left it was really cool.
Speaker 4: I mean for me, I never whole punch it. I mean,
Speaker 4: I tell the story like it happened. And at first
Speaker 4: I was it was tough. I'm like, I'm going to
Speaker 4: learn things about these guys. This was battle and there
Speaker 4: was a friendly fire incident that happened.
Speaker 2: This is not really friendly, right the joke about friendly
Speaker 2: fire is it not really friendly when you're getting shot?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is that that person shot? How's that friendly?
Speaker 3: It's blue on blue. But this was a friendly fire incident.
Speaker 4: This is friendly fire in the fact that, if you
Speaker 4: can imagine, a staff element came in and decided they
Speaker 4: wanted to call some jay dam bombs in and they
Speaker 4: called it a two thousand pounds jay damn in on
Speaker 4: their own position and so it was horrible. It was
Speaker 4: all mass, casular situation. But Pedatory, Daniel H. Pedatory, was
Speaker 4: the radio man, and so the parents were always kind
Speaker 4: of wondering, like was he the guy that called it in?
Speaker 3: They were kind of curious, and I went and stayed
Speaker 3: with them.
Speaker 4: I went to Cheshire, the classic New England town where
Speaker 4: the in the Berkshires, where the tallest building is the
Speaker 4: church steeple, I mean, classic town, white buildings, visited his graves,
Speaker 4: slept in his bedroom as as a boy that he
Speaker 4: slept in as the boy. They showed me, you know,
Speaker 4: where he would be up in the window and snipe
Speaker 4: at his buddies with a baby gun.
Speaker 3: All these great stories.
Speaker 4: And after I left his dad, well, the first night
Speaker 4: we got there, they were really nervous, and we started
Speaker 4: with a few beers and then went to the whiskey
Speaker 4: bottle and then we opened up. We walked talked until
Speaker 4: like three in the morning, and then the next day
Speaker 4: we checked. I hung out for a few days and
Speaker 4: then when I was leaving, he said, Eric, I know
Speaker 4: you're going to do a great job.
Speaker 3: Just do me one favor.
Speaker 4: And he's telling me this while he's shaking my hand,
Speaker 4: one of those long, maybe a little bit uncomfortable, overly
Speaker 4: long handshakes, pulled in tight, and he just says, tell
Speaker 4: it like it happened. He said, Dan believed in accountability,
Speaker 4: and I don't know exactly what happened. I'm hoping that
Speaker 4: you'll find out, but I want to know, and we
Speaker 4: just want it, he said. Don't candy coat everything, you know,
Speaker 4: don't make him an a stud. And if he was,
Speaker 4: you know, really a C plus student, you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: jel it like it happened. And that was such an
Speaker 4: amazing thing for me as as a young writer, to
Speaker 4: kind of have that permission and say, hey, these people
Speaker 4: just want to know what happened. They don't necessarily want
Speaker 4: they don't want this, you know, propaganda. They don't want
Speaker 4: something that's going to just kind of necessarily elevate their sons.
Speaker 4: They want to be respectful, respectful of course, but they
Speaker 4: want to know the truth. And that set the stage
Speaker 4: for every one of my books thereafter. And I that's
Speaker 4: what I've been able to do. I've always just thought,
Speaker 4: you know what, at the end of the day, I
Speaker 4: can always stand on the truth, and I know what
Speaker 4: where every line comes in my books I know, if
Speaker 4: someone asked me, why do you put this there, I
Speaker 4: will tell them if there's a hole in my book, sorry,
Speaker 4: because I've always told people when I get to talk
Speaker 4: to students occasionally, now i'll tell them. In nonfiction, you know,
Speaker 4: you're going to kind of find places where you cannot
Speaker 4: feel a you know, a certain aspect of the story,
Speaker 4: and don't make it up. It's better to have a
Speaker 4: little hole in your story than to feel it with bullshit.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, it's just it's to me.
Speaker 4: It's just been an honor to tell these stories and
Speaker 4: and and each one has led to the next. I mean,
Speaker 4: Adam Brown, you know, came after that. And then I
Speaker 4: told the story of Roy Benavitez, the Medal of Honor recipient.
Speaker 3: You don't win a Medal of Honor, of course, being
Speaker 3: a civilian.
Speaker 4: And I learned that, right, yeah, you're you're, yeah, you're
Speaker 4: a recipient.
Speaker 3: So some people said he won the Medal of Honor,
Speaker 3: and they will look.
Speaker 2: At you and say they don't really want it.
Speaker 3: They don't want that.
Speaker 4: No, And so anyways, I just was able to get
Speaker 4: into this community that appreciated it, and I thought, what
Speaker 4: I can do that maybe somebody who is writing a
Speaker 4: memoir that is in deep in these worlds, maybe they
Speaker 4: can't make it quite as accessible to the general public.
Speaker 4: And honestly, the general public needs to read these stories.
Speaker 4: And so I feel like I can help. I was
Speaker 4: able to help bridge that gap, be respectful and you know,
Speaker 4: inspire people with the things people have overcome, the.
Speaker 2: Things that people will read that you write, like Business
Speaker 2: Magazine hopefully, or like you or like this, Yeah, Craig Kelly,
Speaker 2: the darkest white right, because it's real.
Speaker 4: It's real, it's real stuff, and I and it is,
Speaker 4: you know, the one I think the nicest compliment I
Speaker 4: ever got from another from a special Ops guy when
Speaker 4: actually Green Gray where he said, dude, I read this
Speaker 4: book and you're a civilian and you weren't there, and
Speaker 4: as I read this story, I felt like I was
Speaker 4: there beside those guys. And he said, that is a
Speaker 4: credit to you, and thank you. He said, the terminology
Speaker 4: was great, And you explained what my mom or dad
Speaker 4: this guy had, you know, parents said I want my
Speaker 4: parents to read this because they can help explain to
Speaker 4: them what I do in a way that I can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and sometimes it takes an outside perspective
Speaker 2: to bring it to table, right, you don't have you know,
Speaker 2: the guys are so in that world all the time,
Speaker 2: and they're so jaded all of the acronyms and everything
Speaker 2: that goes on, and they just say these things to
Speaker 2: each other like mos or or you know whatever the
Speaker 2: acronym is, and civilians are like, what is that? You know,
Speaker 2: it's a whole other world. So to have you come
Speaker 2: into that world and be able to decipher these code
Speaker 2: words and bring it to a story and then deliver
Speaker 2: it in a way that is based off of the
Speaker 2: reality of what these guys went through, that's awesome.
Speaker 4: I was crazy acronym challenged. I mean, these guys would
Speaker 4: start talking. I would have to say, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 4: You just said three things and I have no idea
Speaker 4: what you just said?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's a partow down? What's a forward? That er refueling? Wait?
Speaker 2: What's a fob at a at a fact at a
Speaker 2: de fact? Is that where we eat? Wait?
Speaker 4: And it was cool too, like as I got into it,
Speaker 4: I mean early on, actually I did. I was embedded
Speaker 4: with with a platoon of army rangers up to do
Speaker 4: a magazine article.
Speaker 2: I want to do that time.
Speaker 4: I got to do it in nineteen ninety nine before
Speaker 4: like nine to eleven, and it.
Speaker 3: Was that kicked my ass.
Speaker 4: At the end of this thirty six hour I was
Speaker 4: literally pissing blood. I mean, the guy out in the
Speaker 4: field gave me an ivy to rehydrate me.
Speaker 3: I was I thought I was in shape.
Speaker 4: I thought I thought that I was in shape, but
Speaker 4: I was in civilian shape.
Speaker 3: I wasn't in Korean War era shape. Rock shape. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was. It was crazy. But the what was kind
Speaker 3: of cool about following that.
Speaker 4: I loved the Ranger history and you know, point to
Speaker 4: Hawk and I went, I've gone to Normandy went there
Speaker 4: to check that out and see those cliffs, and it
Speaker 4: was cool.
Speaker 3: Like when nine to eleven happened.
Speaker 4: Early on some of the original like you know, grainy
Speaker 4: footage of a ground operation was an airfield with men.
Speaker 3: They showed the parachutes.
Speaker 4: Coming down all this, and it was on the news
Speaker 4: and it didn't say who it was or whatever. They said,
Speaker 4: American forces are coming in, and I remember leaning over
Speaker 4: to my girlfriend saying, those are Rangers. They specialized in
Speaker 4: airfield seizures. And like two days later they said we've
Speaker 4: come to find out that the group that whatever with
Speaker 4: army rangers than Michael, like, I was like a hero
Speaker 4: to my buddy. They're all, how did you know that?
Speaker 4: I'm like, because that's what they do. They do and
Speaker 4: and you know, I don't know. It's just it's it's
Speaker 4: fascinating to me. And it's a way of showing, you know,
Speaker 4: know a little bit of it of our the different
Speaker 4: unit's history, you know everything from Dale presso Leb to whatever.
Speaker 4: It's just, you know, it's nice to know your country's history.
Speaker 4: And the people would give us this world. I'll circle
Speaker 4: back to it again. I love it. And and Craig
Speaker 4: by telling Craig's story, he really lived that as well.
Speaker 4: And he was a guy who had friends who from
Speaker 4: all walks of life. He had a guy one of
Speaker 4: his closest mentors had escaped Czechoslovakia and was huge on
Speaker 4: personal freedoms, and so he had friends on that were
Speaker 4: a very on the red side of the spectrum and
Speaker 4: the blue side both and he was this guy that
Speaker 4: just could always see the good in both sides.
Speaker 3: He was somebody that would have flourished.
Speaker 4: And not lost friends during the COVID fiasco when people
Speaker 4: are being so divided. He really could bridge the gap.
Speaker 4: And that's another special thing about Craig Kelly. So he
Speaker 4: I don't know, it's just time to tell his story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's awesome. We need more people like that
Speaker 2: that can just bridge the gap and just be like, hey,
Speaker 2: look you know, just yea yeah.
Speaker 4: No, he he could do that, and I think you know,
Speaker 4: people respected him.
Speaker 3: First of all.
Speaker 4: He was really smart and he could look at everything,
Speaker 4: but he would His widow, Savina would say how he
Speaker 4: had this I'm paraphrasing her, this amazing ability to look
Speaker 4: at a person and kind of see the good in
Speaker 4: them or the whatever, you know, and focus on that
Speaker 4: and not necessarily define them by something that you might
Speaker 4: perceive as not so good.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's not how she said it.
Speaker 4: She said it much more eloquently, but she and she
Speaker 4: noticed that in Craig as well, and we need more
Speaker 4: people like that.
Speaker 3: We need more people like he just had.
Speaker 2: He had the ability to just see them like see something.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well he was an ambassador. Yeah, I mean he was
Speaker 4: an ambassador of snowboarding. When people win. You know, skiers
Speaker 4: hated snowboarders or you know, so everybody thought and so
Speaker 4: it was fun.
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, it was fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was both and that's what you.
Speaker 3: Want to do. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: I love honestly at this point, what I love is
Speaker 4: that whoever is out in the mountains in nature, enjoy
Speaker 4: outside with the kids, with their wife, with their friends, whatever.
Speaker 4: Just get out there and to do something that's fun.
Speaker 4: Go for a hype in nature, for a hike, yeah,
Speaker 4: or swimming even better like nowadays, I don't care splipboard
Speaker 4: through my splipboard on. Go hike for two hours and
Speaker 4: get one run and I'm like my heart is.
Speaker 3: Full for a week.
Speaker 2: You earn those turns though. When you split board. You know,
Speaker 2: for those of you that may not know what split
Speaker 2: boarding is, it's where you take a snowboard and you
Speaker 2: saw it down the middle and you put the bindings forward,
Speaker 2: and then you put these skins on the bottom of
Speaker 2: them that strap on, and then they slap on the bottom,
Speaker 2: and then you start to cross country ski uphill because
Speaker 2: you've got some grip. And then you get to the
Speaker 2: top and then you take your skis that were split
Speaker 2: and you put them together and they got latches and
Speaker 2: then they latch together and now you can turn your
Speaker 2: binding sideways. And you can go down the mountain like
Speaker 2: the rest of us sideways, right, Yes, you're just to
Speaker 2: break that.
Speaker 4: Grow up as a crossair, that Nordic mentality of going
Speaker 4: up and walking up the mountain and going down without
Speaker 4: sinking down to your knees or whatever. And post holing
Speaker 4: makes it much less tedious and more energy to go down.
Speaker 4: And so you're basically across the sphere on the way
Speaker 4: up in a snowsurfer on the way down and almost
Speaker 4: you know, so many companies now there were kits originally
Speaker 4: that you could do exactly what you said the middle
Speaker 4: now with Jones Snowboards, Burton winter Stick, everybody, all of
Speaker 4: these they have.
Speaker 2: I think there's a Nitros splip for too.
Speaker 3: The very first with a Nitros split.
Speaker 4: And honestly, I my favorite article in transport was when
Speaker 4: I I don't know if you remember It's a Chameleon,
Speaker 4: where I poached all the scary that didn't allow snowboarding
Speaker 4: bottle lift ticket at Keystone. That was me well with
Speaker 4: my altar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, you're like, I'm gonna go ride these places
Speaker 2: with your splits.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna, I'm gonna it was when the first split
Speaker 4: came out, I have never I still have never skied
Speaker 4: in my life.
Speaker 3: I've been somewhere in since eighty three ish.
Speaker 4: And but that board came out and I thought, you know,
Speaker 4: they're hard boots.
Speaker 3: They look like skis.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go buy a lift ticket and all these
Speaker 4: these few dinosaur resorts that don't allow snowboarding to get
Speaker 4: in the on the lift, I'm gonna go to the
Speaker 4: top of the busiest run, I'm gonna pop into the trees.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna turn it back into a snowboard, and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna ride down the center and I'm gonna ride as
Speaker 4: many runs as i can until the stroll tackles me
Speaker 4: and kicks me off.
Speaker 3: And I did it at Three Mountains, the first.
Speaker 2: Rocket skis, rocket skis, I got them.
Speaker 3: It was great. I got to I got to be
Speaker 3: a I got to be a spy.
Speaker 4: I basically created all of your guys said that we
Speaker 4: hired a spy named the Chameleon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you blended.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And that's how I did it. And then I did
Speaker 4: Park City the next year. I called it irony in
Speaker 4: the washouts because at that point they did not allow snowboarding,
Speaker 4: but they were bidding for the Olympic snowboarding, you know.
Speaker 2: And they said that we were going to get it
Speaker 2: unless you know, one of the ski resorts here. I
Speaker 2: don't want to give them credit for who they are.
Speaker 2: They're a town in Utah. I don't want to call
Speaker 2: them their name because they won't allow snowboarding. You can
Speaker 2: hike it, but they will allow you to go up there,
Speaker 2: you know, And I just find that to be unfair.
Speaker 2: And back in the day, Jake Burton was like, we're boy,
Speaker 2: you know, the Olympic should be boycotted until you know
Speaker 2: snowboarding is allowed at that specific resort.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no, I know, I know exactly what you're
Speaker 4: talking about. And Toos, New Mexico, I rode Taois before
Speaker 4: anybody else. There was a little free towist movement.
Speaker 2: I mean Snowbasin didn't allow snowboarding. My wife asked me,
Speaker 2: and I can't come up with an answer of why
Speaker 2: I'd never snowboarded at Basin. And I grew up. I
Speaker 2: went to Powder Mountain in Nordic Vality, my backyards up
Speaker 2: there and in the northern Utah area, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: they didn't allow snowboarding. I was like that's what it
Speaker 2: was for a while, think about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, And I mean in the very beginning, I
Speaker 4: get it, like when the equipment was as horrible as
Speaker 4: it was, and literally it was questionable if could could
Speaker 4: turn left right and stop on a dime and not
Speaker 4: hit each somebody. But that was in the very beginning.
Speaker 4: It didn't once high back bindings came into play and
Speaker 4: steel edges. It was there was no difference between the
Speaker 4: out of control danger zone of a beginning at the
Speaker 4: beginning snowboard, you know. Yeah, so there's all these things
Speaker 4: that were you know, at play. But and then there's
Speaker 4: a mad River Glen on the East coast. You know,
Speaker 4: they have that little spumper sticker that says mad River
Speaker 4: Glenn ski it if you can. I know a guy
Speaker 4: his name with Greg Saladino, and he is kind of
Speaker 4: an inventor, just a genius guy, and he wrote made
Speaker 4: his own play on that and made sticker that said
Speaker 4: mad River Glenn.
Speaker 3: I'd write it if I could.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exact exactly, you know, that's exactly it. That's so great.
Speaker 2: I love it, and I love snowboarding. And I know
Speaker 2: I've had you for almost an hour of your time
Speaker 2: and and we've talked about, you know, the Darkest White,
Speaker 2: which is the Craig Kelly story. And uh, he's an
Speaker 2: extreme athlete US snowboard champion. Uh And and I mean
Speaker 2: that he won the US Championships here, right, and so.
Speaker 4: For you were the four time you know, world champions
Speaker 4: and seven times in various disciplines back in the eighties
Speaker 4: and nineties. Basically, Craig Kelly was the Sean White of
Speaker 4: the eighties and nineties. Everybody out there knows who Shawn
Speaker 4: White is, right or Chloe Kimp. You know who these
Speaker 4: writers are? Now who are these olympians that are on
Speaker 4: the tip of every ones Mark mc morris at that point, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: I like it to anybody out there who Travis Rice?
Speaker 2: I got to say that hard. I gotta say, Travis Rice. Oh,
Speaker 2: how can I not talk about the Navy Seal of
Speaker 2: snowboarding with that? Bringing up Travis Rice. I mean, the
Speaker 2: guy literally has a TV of the terrain, what is
Speaker 2: underneath it, and the lines that should be not ran
Speaker 2: and all of the things that you do for like
Speaker 2: a combat mission. He is pre planning a year in
Speaker 2: advance to drop what he drops.
Speaker 4: Yeah, dude, he is another very cerebral writer who has
Speaker 4: a a.
Speaker 3: Gift for terrain.
Speaker 2: I write five wide and I'm six foot five, Okay.
Speaker 4: I I should write a Wow, you're six five?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? And I ride a one fifty
Speaker 2: seven but I like it.
Speaker 3: You ride one fifty seven and you're six ft five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I write.
Speaker 3: It's five nine and a half on a good day.
Speaker 4: And I have a hard time being old school going
Speaker 4: below one sixty two.
Speaker 2: I told what I do, I should probably ride like.
Speaker 3: I'm reading. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I used to carry Avalanche snowboards. They were this brand
Speaker 2: and uh, I know Bavalanche, and there was like a
Speaker 2: one back country. It was super tall. I was like,
Speaker 2: how am I ever going to sell that?
Speaker 3: That thing was huge? You know.
Speaker 4: I have some of those old boards as well, and yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't need them that long. And honestly, it is
Speaker 4: true nowadays the shorter boards with the effective running edge
Speaker 4: and the length and everything, you know, especially a camera board,
Speaker 4: you don't necessarily need the length. I'm like, a one
Speaker 4: fifty eight is kind of should be my k board.
Speaker 4: I think I just like to have the river for
Speaker 4: the book tour. I'm this whole book tour to honor Craig,
Speaker 4: I'm leaving. Literally, I don't know when you're gonna able
Speaker 4: to put this up, but I'm you know, my book
Speaker 4: tours starting on the twenty six is the first day
Speaker 4: of the book tour in Boulder, Colorado, and then I
Speaker 4: get to go to Edwards and Running.
Speaker 3: Vale and Big Sky.
Speaker 4: I will come to Utah eventually. In fact, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: be on Uh. Can I say another podcast?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 3: The bomb hole? The bomb Yeah, the bomber, Yeah, the
Speaker 3: bomb Hole. Those guys are awesome.
Speaker 2: As long as they say my podcast softw Rep.
Speaker 4: You say what you should be on the bomb hole.
Speaker 4: I'm not kidding. No, you should be on the bomb hole.
Speaker 4: Your your history and everything and your whole vibe. Oh, snowboard,
Speaker 4: you are the epitome of snowboarding right there. And I
Speaker 4: can't believe you're in Utah and that you're not on that,
Speaker 4: that you're not on not that I believe they're not
Speaker 4: in Utah. I can't believe you're in Utah and haven't
Speaker 4: been on the bomb hole yet. No, No, you should.
Speaker 2: I've hosted a Brighton, been the MC for those things
Speaker 2: like we had the Wizards Festival for Slug Magazine out
Speaker 2: here and all that stuff, and yeah, you know the
Speaker 2: bomb hole is awesome. They bring their limo out and
Speaker 2: everybody loves to ride for them, and like you know,
Speaker 2: baby Kangaroo or Joey Fava, he's out here. Pat just
Speaker 2: won the X Games. Uh freestyle there.
Speaker 4: I'm going to do a call in for the book
Speaker 4: at some point here next week for them, like a
Speaker 4: Tony McCollugh. And at some point I'm gonna I want
Speaker 4: to get out there and do it and event to
Speaker 4: get back out to you.
Speaker 2: We have to together one day, bro, oh.
Speaker 3: For sure, you kidding me? Apri or afternoon and then are.
Speaker 2: Exactly well, we can go to the new Snake Creek
Speaker 2: lodge that just open called Sidewinder at Brighton and have
Speaker 2: the Doyles come over and just have something to eat,
Speaker 2: some chicken strips.
Speaker 4: That's perfect. Now, it's it's gonna be a really fun man.
Speaker 4: I'm honestly right now my biggest decision. It's pretty funny.
Speaker 4: But I'm going on this book tour and the best
Speaker 4: thing you can do to honor Craig Kelly. First of all,
Speaker 4: it would be amazing if it hit a bestseller list.
Speaker 4: You know, that would be awesome for Craig because he
Speaker 4: was such a competitive guy once upon a time, and
Speaker 4: I'm competitive myself, so I hope everybody out there might
Speaker 4: consider picking up a coffee. But in addition to that,
Speaker 4: best way that I could do, the best way I
Speaker 4: could honor Craig is to go on a book tour
Speaker 4: and snowboard everywhere I go.
Speaker 3: And so right now my.
Speaker 4: Biggest question is I'm putting together my little quiver and
Speaker 4: I like.
Speaker 3: To have one.
Speaker 4: I'd like, you know, one board generally, but my quiver
Speaker 4: is that I'm gonna bring that board that started this
Speaker 4: whole process that I showed you, a Burton Juice Wagon
Speaker 4: from twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 4: It's got a narrow tail, a little hot wider in
Speaker 4: the shovel for pow.
Speaker 3: Love it.
Speaker 4: It's a great board for carving. I'm riding Jones Stratos.
Speaker 4: It's amazing. And and then I have my one fifty
Speaker 4: eight rob Kingwell Winterstick.
Speaker 3: It's the arc.
Speaker 4: And so those are my three boards and I'm gonna
Speaker 4: bring on this trip. And it's funny because I packed
Speaker 4: them like a week ago.
Speaker 2: You're ready now, I'm ready sleeping over there like up
Speaker 2: at five thirty in the morning, all dressed in their
Speaker 2: bed ready to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 4: My friends actually called me Fireball when I was I
Speaker 4: was a kid knocking on windows at five am down
Speaker 4: patrol surf with them. Yeah, let's go, dude, it's five am.
Speaker 4: I'm all, we want to get there early.
Speaker 2: And you already have like a couple like hot topl
Speaker 2: or coffee goal. You're like, what are you doing? Let's go?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah for sure, Yeah, let's I mean you're burning daylight.
Speaker 4: You can sleep when you're dead exactly.
Speaker 2: And you know what, I think that is the best
Speaker 2: way to go out on the show is that if
Speaker 2: you're burned out, you'll sleep when you're dead. So don't
Speaker 2: give up until then. And then second you go check
Speaker 2: out The Darkest White, the book written by Eric blem
Speaker 2: and the life story of Craig Kelly. And you know
Speaker 2: how he was a hard charger. He's got more.
Speaker 4: It is a it's a survival story like The Perfect Storm,
Speaker 4: only in the mountains.
Speaker 3: Yes, well that part will Rocky World.
Speaker 4: It's a cautionary tale, but it's it's an inspiring story.
Speaker 4: Like I was saying, I think I think that this
Speaker 4: community would love it. And I'm just dope that you
Speaker 4: can lets some people know about it. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I can't, we will, we shall, And it's going to
Speaker 2: have a little link on there too that my guys
Speaker 2: will dissertate down there when they type it out and
Speaker 2: listen to it and listen to what we talk about,
Speaker 2: and Anton and Mark and Brandon and all you guys
Speaker 2: that listen to these podcasts after I record them. I
Speaker 2: want to thank you for all your effort that you
Speaker 2: put into making these shows the number one rated podcast.
Speaker 2: You tell me it is, you tell me it's number one, guys.
Speaker 2: I'm behind the scenes, so I'll keep it going. And
Speaker 2: with that, I just want to say check out our
Speaker 2: book club soft rep dot com Forward slash hyphen book
Speaker 2: Club Right now, we're running promos on softwap dot com,
Speaker 2: So make sure you're going over there and visiting us,
Speaker 2: and make sure you're checking out you know, Eric Blem's
Speaker 2: books and his life stories that he's putting out there
Speaker 2: for us. And if you can find an old copy
Speaker 2: of trans World Snowboarding, go look it up. I think
Speaker 2: there's probably digital formats of it out there online that
Speaker 2: you could probably find and.
Speaker 4: Just see what it's everything. It's an audio. It's electronic
Speaker 4: everything nowadays. Are you kidding me? It's in every single
Speaker 4: format you can find. Fearless readers. The fearless will love it.
Speaker 4: And I just want to do one final shout out.
Speaker 4: You're going to get the last word, but I just
Speaker 4: want to say, you know, thank you all the listeners.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of you have worn their uniform.
Speaker 3: I never did, but I appreciate you.
Speaker 4: Appreciate you all for what you've done and your family
Speaker 4: sacrifices for the rest of us that we can live
Speaker 4: this freaking awesome life that we get to live here,
Speaker 4: and that's the fascination of America.
Speaker 3: Thank case.
Speaker 2: So my last word is to my veterans who have served,
Speaker 2: who can go to the VA to ask their doc
Speaker 2: or for recreational therapy. Okay, go to them and say, hey,
Speaker 2: can you please prescribe me something other than pills? So
Speaker 2: let's get thrills before pills. Okay. So if you can
Speaker 2: go outside, get prescription for a snowboard, get a prescription
Speaker 2: for some snowshoes, get a prescription for some roller blades,
Speaker 2: go do that, a skateboard, whatever it is, you know,
Speaker 2: go outside, enjoy yourself. Ask your VA representative for recreational therapy.
Speaker 2: You think I'm joking, but those dudes that lose their
Speaker 2: legs that ride in buckets down the mountain are getting
Speaker 2: recreational therapy. It's a thing, Okay, So get out there,
Speaker 2: enjoy yourself, touch some water and just live life to
Speaker 2: the best. Okay, And eric On behalf of everybody here.
Speaker 2: Brandon Webb, who's a hard charge of skier, he probably
Speaker 2: will be thrilled to know that I had this conversation
Speaker 2: with you. Thank you so much for being on our show,
Speaker 2: Soft Reap Radio, and I will say peace
Speaker 1: Listening Sylph Red Radio