The Skateboard Mag

Ploesser POTE

Text Mike Munzenrider—November 18, 2008

Mr. Randy Ploesser has been getting so much love for his Mag Minute, that I figured I'd put a little bit more Randy out there. Click on the post name or the "more" link to read the Randy Ploesser Product of the Environment I wrote a year or so back. Photo by Matt Price

The hipsters at the coffee shop we’re bumming me out. It was a typical Middle Western autumn day; the weather simply sucked. I was on a tirade to a friend about my intentions of skating all afternoon, powersliding through leaves, wearing a hoodie because by golly it was hoodie weather. At least it had been the day before, when it was sunny, and even though there was a slight chill in the air, you knew that once you were warmed up, you’d find things to be ideal skating weather. The next day though, which at this point was today, brought with it a 30-degree drop, which landed us hovering at freezing. The sky was intermittently dropping rain or ice, and having had my afternoon plans dashed by Mother Nature, I was bringing out my Midwestern gift for bitching about the weather even though I know exactly what to expect. All of which would have been fine and dandy, however, the hipster kid working the counter had to flex another one of those sweet Midwestern skills that is so agonizingly obnoxious, however, so sweet to indulge in one’s self. He asked, “Why don’t you just stop complaining and move to California?”

This type of question shouldn’t catch any Midwesterner off guard. I’ve done it a million times myself. Girlfriend complaining about having to scrape off her car in the middle of January? Why don’t you just move? The mosquitoes really bad tonight? They’ve never even heard of mosquitoes out West. Wow, there sure are a lot of cracks in front of those steps…and so on. The fact of the matter is that we all know that the things we complain about are just a part of where we live. And it’s so very easy to complain about them. But at the end of the day, we all know that we’re still happier in the Midwest. It might be seemingly irrational, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of Midwesterners are making a conscious choice to be Midwesterners. At least I am. So what did I tell the hipster that rightfully called me out? “Well yeah. But I’ve been out there, and I like it way better here.” It ends up being fairly ambiguous though. You know things suck about where you live, but you’ll defend it and love it to the end.

Randy Ploesser is no exception to this rule (Ploesser rhymes with dresser). A son of St Louis, Missouri, transplanted by skateboarding to Chino, California, Randy is quick to tell me that, “[St Louis is] your basic, small, shitty Midwestern town…I like it a lot.” This uneasy balance of love and distaste is also held for his new home of Chino. “For the record, if my stuff sucks for the Birdhouse video, it’s because I lived in Chino.” Upon hearing that, I asked Randy if his video part would be better if he was working on it out of St Louis, and his answer was neither confirmation nor denial. After a pause, he replied, “Yeah, kind of.” And so is the contradiction of Middle living.

For Randy, the fact of the matter is that “easy skating” is difficult in both Chino and St Louis. “Skating in LA, for me, especially since I've been living in Chino, consists of sitting in a car for at least four hours, then going to perfect cookie cutter spots that have been left more or less unskateable by all the local talent.” Unskateable? “[Yes], in the skateboard media’s eye,” he says. Randy continues, “Usually if you don't get kicked out of said perfect spot, someone has one [trick] in mind they want to do there, they do it, get a photo, log some foote, and its back in the car for another hour or so.” This modus operandi really doesn’t work for him. “I'm much more accustomed to the spontaneity of St. Louis skating, which definitely puts me at a disadvantage out here since I'm supposed to shoot photos and all that. I'm terrible at planning out tricks to do and usually come up short when I try to.”

So what is to be said of spontaneous St Louis? “Usually, when we film out there, it just sort of happens.” Randy explains further, “If someone is doing something cool, the camera might get pulled out to document it; if not, no big deal. The lack of competition or need to produce makes skating a lot more laid back and natural. Many times people will just meet up wherever it isn't a bust, and just play games of S.K.A.T.E. for hours.” That sounds good, but, then again, “Our main shop that everyone skated for, [Altered Skates], went under five or six years ago.” Not to say that a new shop hasn’t come into fill the void. Infinity Skateshop is currently holding things down, though there’s always a rebuilding process. And then there’s always the different seasons.

“St. Louis has extremely muggy, excruciating summers, and bitterly cold winters.” Randy let’s some stubborn Midwest pride show when he states, “I hear people complain about heat or cold when I'm in LA, and it makes me sick.” In The Middle, when the heat index creeps above 90 degrees or so, you’re screwed (my friends at Wikipedia.org explain heat index: “The Heat Index is an index that combines air temperature and relative humidity to determine an apparent temperature – how hot it actually feels.”) “Summer in St. Louis usually means sessions which inevitably lead to more suffering than fun.” Randy goes on, “You're usually soaked in sweat before you even step on your board, and over it within an hour.” Are we saying that St Louis completely sucks? No? . “There is about a month and a half on each end of [summer] that could reasonably be called spring and fall; that’s probably the only time anyone used to LA weather would even consider stepping outside.”

But wait, there’s more. “Winter is even worse. [There’s] snow on the ground for at least a month, and most of the time is spent in underground parking garages skating tiny manual pads.” Now, not to get into a pissing match with Randy about how long there’s snow on the ground (would we see who could write their name best in it?) but I should state that a month of snow on the ground is kind of amateur hour. It’s that stubborn Midwest pride again. Anyways, Randy continues, “I'm pretty piss poor on the manny pad, but usually by the time the winters were over, I'd be feeling like Daewon [Song].” St Louis used to have an indoor park. “Before Altered Skates went out of business, they had a skatepark on the second story of the city museum for a couple years, which made those winters much easier.” As really, really cool as that sounds, the details are even better.

“The city museum was designed by a local artist, and is more or less a very large and surreal fun house for adults, “ Randy says. “With a bar in a cabin, a giant playground made of found junk outside, and three stories inside consisting of an aquarium, completely mosaic floors, large sculptural playgrounds, an art and architecture museum, a beatnik cafe, slides connecting all the floors and more, the skatepark was a strangely fitting addition.” Before you book you’re ticket to St. Louis, remember that the park is no longer open, and even Randy was quick to say that, “The atmosphere of the place made up for it, but the park itself wasn't too great.” Even though the park closed down some time ago, there may be hope for it yet. “I took [Matt] Price there when we were in town, and all of the ramps are rearranged as a playground, and oddly, look more fun to skate [now].” Beyond that, Randy explains, “The artist finished off a concrete bowl that was in the process of being made, putting in his own touches, making it look really cool and really good to skate. There was some talk of trying to get permission to shoot some photos in there for a Mag article, hopefully we can get on that.”

It would seem at this point, that even though Chino is located in complete plastic sprawl, at least you can skate comfortably for more than four weeks a year, hassle as it may be. Flying in the face of rationality though, I still have a gut feeling that Randy likes St Louis way, way more, even though for the most part, you’d never know it. “There’s not really a lot going on there.” Randy damns his hometown just a little bit more when he states, “No one ever [skateboarding wise] comes out of St Louis.” He goes on, almost positively, but right back to the negative, “I like the spots…the spots are honestly pretty terrible…It’s mostly rough, like rough street skating stuff, and you’ve got to force it out sometimes.” At this point I’m kind of reaching for straws. “Aren’t the Cardinals from St Louis?” I ask. They’re good, right? “Yeah, Cardinals. Go Red Birds.” Randy reminds me that the Rams also play in St Louis. “It’s a big sports city, that’s what people really feed off there. Without that man, there’s not a whole lot going.”

It feels like I should just bag any thoughts of a pro-St. Louis argument, when Randy extends an olive branch to, first and foremost, his beloved/maligned Midwest home, as well as the Californians he so derided earlier. “Note to the industry,” he said, “In St Louis there’s tons of good rails and gaps, and no one really touches them.” Yes, an open invitation to come plunder, and it’s not even going to matter to the locals. A win, win situation. Randy explains this too, “It’s pretty cliché, but the first video I saw was Welcome to Hell. And of course, all us kids liked Jamie Thomas. We thought it was cool and whatever, but we didn’t have any desire to skate like that.” The next logical question was to find out whom Randy actually was influenced by. “I grew older and started to like more creative, stylish, small ball types of guys.” Stating that the list goes on forever, Randy didn’t get specific. Back with St. Louis in mind, he says, “No one is really out to get hooked up or impress, so the gnarly hammer thing that seems to be the rage in LA doesn't really apply there.”

With all that said and done, and each difference weighed out, Randy Ploesser is a skateboarder in flux. He’s not satisfied with Chino, at all, and he lets it show. “[I live] in a shit-hole apartment in Chino,” and at any given time, “[I’m] pretty much losing my mind in Chino.” But then again, now that he’s kind of a big deal back in St Louis, it’s not the same there either. “Oh god. Yeah, there’s a little bit of home town hero shit going on.” However, Randy quickly backtracks, “I know everybody, so it’s not any different.” In the end, Randy doesn’t seem to be exactly sure of his opinion of where he’s from, or exactly where he wants to be going. Though Randy was slightly ambivalent in just about everything he told me, he was clear and almost uniformly positive while thanking someone who’s made this transition easier. “I was lucky to meet a photographer like Matt [Price], who seems down to go around to different spots and goof off and shoot whatever happens.” In a characteristic turn, he continues, “Most photographers in LA would probably be looking at their watches sighing, while I try to step hop into a playground slide with a litter of kittens under it at sunset, just because I think it would make a nice photo. Thanks Matt.”