Crude Conversations

2021 Recap: EP 089 Inspiring you to be better with Preston Pollard

This week, Crude will be revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2021. Number 1 on the list is with Preston Pollard, a motivational speaker and celebrity interviewer. Preston grew up skateboarding in Anchorage, Alaska, and aided by the unwavering optimism he learned from family and loved ones, he pursued it in the same way he pursues everything in his life—with curiosity and passion. Talk to him and he’ll tell you that he’s not great at a lot of things—including skateboarding—but the one thing he is really great at is being himself. He’s tenacious, optimistic and devout. And he has a talent for connecting with people and motivating them to be better. He says that everything he’s doing right now, he envisioned it. He thought about where he wanted to be, prayed about it and doggedly pursued it. And in that pursuit, his dreams became a reality. He says that, “Once you stay true to who you are… everything starts to open up.”
Preston is on a lifelong journey of inspiration, knowledge and understanding. He reads constantly. In fact, among the many people he considers to be his mentors are both living and deceased authors, entrepreneurs and faith leaders. To understand his motivation and faith, all you have to do is look on his bookshelf. He says that these people opened up the world to him, they taught him that there’s more to life than the insulated worlds we generally create for ourselves.

2021 Recap: EP 090 The artistry of snowboarding with Pika Burtner

This week, Crude will be revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2021. Number 2 on the list is with Pika Burtner. Pika grew up watching and studying snowboard videos with the technical eye of an auteur. At 14, she started renting snowboard videos from Fairhaven Bike and Ski in Bellingham, Washington. She would always rewind the videos and return them on time. Fairhaven eventually offered her a job, which is where she worked until she went to college. At 18, she got a photography job at the University of Washington. It came with all the traditional benefits, including a steady paycheck, a 401k and healthcare. Because of that job, Pika—alongside her husband Jesse Burtner and Sean Genovese—was able to help create and fund Think Thank, a snowboard video production company. Think Thank would go on to create a category of snowboarding that focused on riding urban environments rather than backcountry ones. Pika describes Think Thank as an ongoing piece of art.
In 2014, Pika and Jesse had their son Ollie. At that moment, Pika says that she went from working on Think Thank to being a mother. It was a transition that caught her by surprise. So, in response, she began pursuing things she’s always been interested in. She says that as you get older, you feel like there’s less room for error, but that it’s also important to not be afraid to fail.
This is an episode of GLOSS, or the Gorgeous Ladies of Shred and Ski—an ongoing series between Crude and Blower Media.

2021 Recap: EP 091 King of the Hill Part 4 with Nick Perata, the director and event promoter

This week, Crude will be revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2021. Number 3 on the list is with Nick Perata. He worked at and helped create King of the Hill, a legendary snowboard competition held in Thompson Pass back in the 1990s. Perata talks about what it was like being the director and event promoter and how the event came to be. Before King of the Hill, he was a professional snowboarder, pushing the nascent sport into new areas of discipline and filming for the most progressive videos of the ‘90s. He was one of the best snowboarders in the world back when the professionals weren’t considered traditional athletes. They were often dirtbags and drifters with an attraction to rowdy groups and the outdoors.
Perata says that the rate of progression in sports moves quickly, so most athletes have about seven or eight years to be at the top of their game. After that time is up, the next generation of riders are on a higher level of progression. So, to continue his presence in the snowboard industry, Perata made a transition from being a professional snowboarder to an event promoter. It was a move that spawned King of the Hill and also set him down a path that would forever include Alaska.

2021 Recap: EP 088 King of the Hill Part 3 with Dan Coffey, one of the youngest competitors

This week, Crude will be revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2021. Number 4 on the list is with Dan Coffey, one of the youngest competitors at King of the Hill. Coffey’s experience and recollection of King of the Hill is unique, in that he was just a teenager when he went. He was a senior in high school when he first competed in the event. He says it was surreal, he was up there in the Chugach Mountains, competing with and riding the same lines as many of the snowboarders he looked up to. So, for him, the abundance of drugs and alcohol weren’t as front-and-center as they were for others. Sure, he participated in the festivities, but he rarely overindulged. He was there to snowboard.
Coffey says that there was a sense of camaraderie and community at King of the Hill. That it was such an undertaking it took the whole town to do the event, so everybody had to be part of it. But between alcohol, illicit substances and young bravado, there was a lot of room for error. A number of times in this conversation, he makes a point of mentioning that nobody was ever seriously injured. Which, I think, could be a testament to skill and preparation or it could be a testament to luck. In a separate conversation we had—when talking about the equalizing quality of the Chugach Mountains—Coffey told me, “Those mountains will bring the skiers and snowboarders with the biggest egos down to earth.”

2021 Recap: EP 087 The past, present and future of snowboard media with Brooke Geery

This week, Crude will be revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2021. Number 5 on the list is with Brooke Geery. In 1997, Brooke started an online snowboard publication called YoBeat. It began on an AOL message board with 2 megabytes of free space and grew into an internationally recognized website. She says that it was a satirical site that gave a voice to people who snowboarded rather than a mouthpiece for the industry. Brooke and the content YoBeat hosted were children of the Internet, conveying unfiltered opinions and candid ideas. Many of which garnered love and hate in the comment sections that often drew just as much attention as the articles. And this all started back when there were only a few online snowboard publications.
Brooke says that YoBeat needed to die so that she could run a more mature snowboard publication. She was 15 years old when she started the site, and that voice persisted throughout the lifespan of the publication. Now, with her new online publication, Blower Media, a more mature Brooke is re-entering the conversation surrounding the culture of snowboarding during a time when so many legacy publications have died out. There are only a few people left in the industry with the same knowledge and first-hand experience as Brooke. So, her perspective on the past, present and future of snowboard media is one to listen to.
This is the first episode in an ongoing series between Crude and Blower Media—where I’ll be talking with influential women in snowboarding—I talk to Brooke Geery, a longtime snowboard journalist and publisher of snowboard media. 

Chatter Marks EP 028 Teen Climate Communicators on talking about climate change

The Teen Climate Communicators program is hosted by the Anchorage Museum and offers activities and conversations around the past, present and future relationships between people and the land. Those involved, learn about how climate change is affecting Alaska’s diverse landscapes by hearing from Museum and community experts. Climate change is an ongoing conversation—one that is constantly evolving. So, to talk about it responsibly and thoughtfully, requires an ongoing education. That includes citing credible sources and learning about new ways to convey the effects of climate change. 
In the following conversation, Cody is joined by four Teen Climate Communicators. Sofie Chisholm, Eleanor Poe, Emma Ellison and Emma Haas.
Chatter Marks is a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. Just search "Chatter Marks."

EP 100 Writing about a life spent living off the land with Seth Kantner

In this episode, Cody talks to Alaskan author Seth Kantner. Seth was born and raised in Alaska, among the animals and the wilderness, and his writing reflects that. It draws from personal experience, often dealing with themes that involve animals, the environment and living off the land. He says that when he was a kid, his family was entirely attached to the seasons and food from the land. Both decided what they would do every day, be it hunting, fishing, picking berries or chopping wood. Seth continues to live this way of life. In the winter, he hunts for caribou and chops wood for the fire that heats his cabin, and in the summer he works as a commercial fisherman. Writing, he says, is what he does after he’s done working for the day.
 
Seth says that he’s meticulous with his writing, that keeping the messiness and the irreverence and the beauty all mixed together is important to expressing an authentic image of remote Alaska. One that shows the reality of living in harsh, inhospitable environments, not just the beauty of things like the Northern Lights and flawless wilderness. Having grown up on the land, and remaining so close to it today, he’s watched how much everything has changed as a result of human encroachment and climate change. His writing details these observations and what it’s like to have, as he says, modernity bumping up against his life.
 
Photo by Kiliii Yuyan

EP 099 The reality of doing stand-up comedy in Alaska

In this episode, Cody talks with three Alaskan comedians: Matt Collins, Kass Smiley and Dayman Wright. Dayman is still pretty fresh, with three years in the Alaska stand-up scene, while Matt and Kass have been doing it for over a decade. Doing anything for that long, you gain knowledge and experience. Like knowing that comedy in Alaska—and live entertainment in general—mimics the city’s economy. It ebbs and flows based on the community’s ability and willingness to spend money. Kass says that the first thing to be neglected during an economic downturn is live entertainment, and because of the Covid-19 pandemic, shutdowns and hesitancy about attending live events deepened. It’s starting to bounce back though, with more people attending shows. But that’s just one piece of doing comedy in Alaska, it says nothing of the long hours of joke writing and the process of joke-telling.
With help from Kass and Daymen, Matt is about to release a documentary about comedy in Alaska. It’s called “Why Not: A Year in the Life of The AK Comics” and in it Alaskan comedians talk about their hopes, struggles and their lives within a small, but intimate scene. One that’s easy to enter, but difficult to rise to fame because there are fewer opportunities in Alaska than in other places with an infrastructure that supports comedy. So, you have to create your own opportunities, and many times that means promoting yourself, filling the audience with friends and family or even creating a comedy festival, like Kass did with the Alaska B4UDie Comedy Fest. Matt says that Alaska has big city problems with small town attitudes, but that in a small town you can build your own thing. And that’s what they’ve done with comedy in Alaska.

Chatter Marks EP 027 How mapping affects our perspective and understanding of land and our place in the world

Joining this conversation are artists Stuart Hyatt, Dan Mills and Christina Seely. Stuart uses sound to understand our relationship with the natural world. Dan uses maps in paintings and collages as a way to explore ideas of historic and current events, including issues like colonialism. Christina uses photography to address the complexities of both built and natural global systems. All of their work—Stuart, Dan and Christina—is featured in the Anchorage Museum’s exhibition “Counter Cartographies: Living the Land,” which challenges our traditional understanding of what a map is.
Often, maps are viewed as objective and above reproach, but maps—just like any piece of art—come with the bias of their makers. They can be made with the intent of acquiring land and resources, as has historically been the case. So, it’s important to consider how they affect our perspective and understanding of land and our place in the world. It’s also important to consider ways we can re-imagine the traditional idea of mapping because an image can’t always document or express the reality of a place.
Chatter Marks is a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. Just search "Chatter Marks."
Artwork by Dan Mills

Chatter Marks EP 026 How Alaska is contributing to the global conversation surrounding climate change with Brian Brettschneider

Brian Brettschneider is a climatologist and a research scientist. He collects data and analyzes it. And within that mountain of data, he believes many of the secrets of the world exist. But extracting meaning from all that information is a big challenge. It takes time, education and technology. 
With its many research institutions located in arctic environments—including universities and weather stations—Alaska is important in the global conversation surrounding climate change. Brian says that, in a lot of ways, the state is a research laboratory with a collection of intellectual firepower located in close proximity to locations that are experiencing quick and dramatic changes. Changes that affect our ways of life, societal infrastructure, transportation and cultural identity.
Chatter Marks is a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. Just search "Chatter Marks."