I remember Jerry Hsu coming to New York in 2001 and 2002, back before he knew anyone here. He was probably 17 but I thought he was 24. We were at my house on Graham Avenue in Brooklyn and he turned to me and said, “Do you wanna go to Supreme and get vibed?” I thought that sounded fun, so that’s what we did. We walked all the way to Soho, stepped into Supreme, felt the notoriously chilly reception, then turned around and left. It was funny yet depressing—a “skate shop” that hated skaters. Back then Supreme was famous for that. I’m not sure who the people that worked there were, the ones doing the vibing. It was definitely not Alex or A-Ron, those dudes have always been cool. In fact it seems like A-Ron’s ethic is exactly the opposite, at least now—embracing weirdos, out-of-towners, cool guys and girls, thugs, gay kids, whatever. It’s always surprising to me how the landscape of skateboarding has changed since then. I almost wish I had come up in the world now. Seriously, it used to be against the rules of skateboarding to wear shorts. Now you can pretty much be and wear whatever you want. Or maybe it’s just because Jerry’s like a top pro and I have a totally successful skate-journalism career cooking that we just don’t get vibed anymore. Maybe that’s it, and skaters are just as big of dickheads as they’ve always been.
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