March 1, 1999
By Who Could It Be Now?
Almost there. Home stretch.
One thing you always write, you want to know more about us.
Fair enough.
You want to know what we ride, where we ride, if we ride, and whether we're a bunch of chicks. You demand personal details like they would put all this typing in some context that explains why you should bother reading, other than you've just finished a cup of coffee and the can is free.
We disagree with this idea, which is why we go to a lot of trouble each month erecting some unbelievable facade to hide behind. It's much more fun this way, to be sure. But since we're no longer Angry™, and you've given us so much over the years compared to our meager offerings, and you always ask, here's this: we've never been good with confrontation.
No doi, yet still, amusing how we ended up in this small corner of the snowboarding world-a declaration of war on ignorance wrapped in a surrender-to you, to the system, to being a snowboarder and a human. No target was safe from being flipped on its back and napalmed in eight-point type. We feared no one, hated convention.
But the more we got into it, the more the reactions became kneejerk, and the more we realized the world is already full of those. So we decided we would confront no more forever. The world is still full of bloodless idiots acting like machines but the more they turn, the more inclined we are to feel pity. As they say in Tibet, you don't hate the fist that hits.
You hate that there is hitting. There isn't a fool in the world you can't look in the eye and see a reflection of yourself, unless you're a vampire. If you don't want to be someone's bitch, call bullshit. Use mental jiu-jitsu-help negative forces bring themselves down. Mister Rogers tells us those who wave misplaced aggression around like a flag need to make themselves feel big on the outside. We'd rather go snowboarding and feel big on the inside.
Settle your own damn quarrels with constructive conflict resolution. It's called mediation, and tin sheds probably conduct that shit. We understand confrontation is inseparable with work and life-a lesson straight outta the not-so-real TransWorld. You win some, you lose some, that's pretty much good as it gets. We all want the same things, it's how you go about getting them. Thanks for helping us understand. Whatever you choose, win or lose, we booze. So let's agree to disagree-we won't be judged. Don't piss down our back and say it's raining.
Much as you like to.
Daniel will not stop talking about his large testicle. Please make him stop. Very important!
Todd and Matt and Dennis and Ross
Clackamas, Oregon
First-we're not a court or even Judge Judy. We are not here to assess guilt or innocence, but to get parties involved in talking toward a resolution (kind of like the NBA but at a subatomic fraction of the salaries). The only way we can do that is by keeping our testicles in check, no matter what size.
Next we need to explain the ground rules, and the best way to do that is with graphic examples, like letters that had to be rejected from the mediation process. Guess which ground rule each violated!
For the past three to four years, I have done my best to avoid your mag and all the f-king felchers who read it. Today I bought one at a gay snowboard shop to find that they raised the price by one dollar. I hate idiots who are too cool, too dumb, too small for their pants, and people who raise the price of someone else's product. I bought your mag because I had to take a very mean dump on my way to a woodcock hunt here in Michigan. Needless to say the quality of the paper sucked frummundah' cheese. I'll be in the Northwest this season, and if I get shit from any of you FNGs this year, I'm going to put my boot so far up your asses you'll be chewing rubber.
With love from Chewy
1.) Don't interrupt. This is the kind of person who would. If you're still hunting for a woodcock, Chewy, buy a mirror.
This guy named Michael Landining from Dodge Ridge [November '98] made it sound as if all Sonorans are trippin' because you write articles about places we've never been and will probably never see. Well, I'm here to write that TWS is a magazine, MIKE! You DORK! It would be a losing mag if it weren't for articles about other places. MAN, YOU ARE A DORK! I see you at Dodge, and you're a DORK! Mike is this guy who works at Dodge who thinks it's the bomb because we're getting a new lift and it was Snowboarder's Superpark. I heard that all the pros were thinking to themselves, "THIS GUY'S A DORK!" He reminds me of one of those college male cheerleaders.
Gary
Sonora, California
2.) No name calling. Dork.
Snowboarding boots saved my life! Last season, after a long day on the slopes, my friends and I stopped at a local restaurant to eat. When I got out, I noticed a huge, drooling, pit bull in a house near the entrance. At the slam of my door, he bolted toward me and cut me off from my car, so I ran out into the dirt lot. My heart was beating! But, luckily, as he got close enough, I started kicking him in the chin every time I lifted my heels. After the sixth time, he slowed down, then whimpered back to his dog house. Damn!
3.) Remain seated during session.
In this picture, I had my friend Nate totally convinced that if he ran as fast as he possibly could and launched himself as high as he could he would make it across this huge freakin' road gap that nobody would do even with a board. He ended up doing a "layout Wiley E. Coyote pavement chew." When we woke his ass up, that was the first thing he said. It was a good attempt-he came out of it with a few broken ribs and a real sore shoulder.
Darin Sinclair
4.) Agree to work toward a solution together. As you talked Nate into revealing himself as the idiot he obviously is, it would have been better to work together toward the same objective.
I'm writing in response to some jackass, stuck-up prick who sent in a letter last month ripping on the I.Q. level of snowboarders. He stated, "Of course, how many Ph.D. holders do you see hitting the slopes with a snowboard in hand?" Well, I for one am an undergrad at Colorado School of Mines, which happens to be in the top-five engineering schools in the nation. In another four years I will hold a Ph.D., and you can bet your ass I will still be holding a snowboard when I hit the slopes.
That is why I moved to Colorado, so just because you are a diehard extremist sledder doesn't mean you have to be ignorant-who is a better person? Someone out having fun, doing things they enjoy, living life to its fullest, or some c-ksucker who thinks because he can memorize some stuff in books, or bullshit his way through school, he's so much better than the rest? Have you seen Good Will Hunting? How about this, why don't you take your sorry ass to Deer Valley so you can be with all the other worthless shits in the country, who for some reason see money and status as something to judge people by.
Peter Marshall
5.) Respect each other. 6.) Keep everything said during session confidential, like whereabouts the worthless shits in the country live.
I just want to say that I think it's kinda weird people write to you guys and complain about all of the people complaining. It just doesn't make sense. This is now a complaint, I think you guys are
f-king hilarious, keep up the shitty work!
Travis
somewhere in Wisconsin
It's important that all parties agree to the ground rules. Until you understand, none of it makes sense, and we can't party.
In the November '98 issue, Sunflr07 was right! Why can't llamas ride? It's such a rip off! Last year I wanted to make snowboards for little chimps and monkeys. I mean, they're pretty smart, I bet the little fuzzies could do it! Wouldn't it be shnazzy to see a bunch of monkeys flipping off tabletops and doing tailgrabs with their tails? They could whip out some crazy stuff! It'd be wonder-iffic!
Mikey Muffins
Phase One of the panel mediation program is the introductions. According to yours, you're an infant.
A friend and I are pondering going to Norway in January for a little snowbound excursion but know nothing about what airport to fly into nor a way to get to the mountains. If you can provide any information, numbers, contacts or addresses it would be vehemently appreciated. Thank you for your time.
Dustin
Phase Two involves telling the story of what happened. Clearly in this case, nothing has. When something does, send us a postcard.
So is '99 going to even sniff '98's stinking, powdery, messy ass?
Couldn't tell you, but while all these little hip scenesters keep writing
in bitching at each other about this, that and the other thing ... I'll be
forking over my hard-earned cash to that nice-smiling face at the ticket window making sure I'm on the first set of chairs up the mountain so I can do what I've been itching to do all summer-find an overabundance of untouched crystally soft white, and absolutely f-kin' chop it up. Your mother!
Josh Trayner
Phase Three is about understanding the problem. Here, there doesn't seem to be one, because a powdery slope is the one place your yo-boy countenance will hurt nothing but all sense of aesthetic.
Your magazine rocks, can I have a free snowboard?
John Dwyer
Now we go on a solution search to try and brainstorm alternative resolutions to the problem. Would one alternative to asking strangers for expensive toys be for John Dwyer to wake the f-k up? We believe so.
Once upon a time back in the 20s there was this skinny, blue-haired punk, we'll call him Tito for now. Tito wasn't exactly the hippest in the small town of Timbucktwo, but he got through. Tito was in his local Vlons store when he saw a BlankWorld freestyle walking magazine and said, "Whoopty freakin' doo!" Five minutes and four slushies later he came back and flipped through freestyle walking. He laughed out loud when he came to a white page with a guy way up in the air grabbing his heels.
Just then he drooled a big glob of slushie on the page and tried to wipe it up but it just got worse. He thought "This makes the page look better, like a whole different sport. I think I'll call it "snowslipping." It humored Tito, and he went home and fell asleep that night dreaming of this new sport snowslipping and saw himself on one of those contraptions and saw the future of snowslipping, known to you and me as snowboarding. Pretty cool, eh? It's amazing what you can come up with yer imagination.
Melinda Armsby
In Phase Five an agreement is written. How about: "We agree to disagree."
I was excited to read the riding hint in your November issue from Jessica Daisy Dalpiaz: "Keep your knees apart." I love women who ride with their knees apart; it makes them more fluid. Although it is certainly not the only way for a woman to ride. Let's continue to probe into the matter from different angles.
Eric Messier
Squaw Valley, California
The final phase is departure, where all parties go home to party. Thank you for your deep, thrusting-sorry, trusting involvement in problem solving. Feel free to contact us if you encounter any new problems, or just if you get any phone numbers.
Looking for an alternative to playground fights and the criminal justice system? Have your conflict constructively resolved by The Mediating Interns™ c/o 353 Airport Road, Oceanside, CA 92054. FAX: (760) 722-0653, e-mail: <[email protected]> If you don't get help with us, please, get help somewhere.
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