Crude Conversations

EP 090 The artistry of snowboarding with Pika Burtner

I this episode of GLOSS, or the Gorgeous Ladies of Shred and Ski—an ongoing series between Crude and Blower Media—I talk with Christina Burtner, better known as Pika, a long-time artist, photographer and graphic designer in the snowboard industry.
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.

EP 089 Inspiring you to be better with Preston Pollard

In this one, Cody talks with motivational speaker and celebrity interviewer Preston Pollard. 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.

2019 Throwback: EP 038 Telling the truth about her people and other Alaska Natives, with Alice Glenn of Coffee & Quaq

In this episode, Cody has a conversation with Alice Glenn, the host of Coffee & Quaq, a podcast that explores Native life in urban Alaska. If you live in Alaska, then you're aware of racism toward Alaska Native people. It can be casual or it can be abrasive. Either way, it's detrimental to an entire group of people who have lived in Alaska for thousands of years. Long before the Russians or the Europeans came here. And therein lies the heart of this conversation. Not racism specifically, but the effects of colonization to every facet of Alaska Native life. From culture to religion to how local media tends to highlight Native communities by their disparities, which in turn, continues an ongoing narrative about how Alaska Native people can't take care of themselves. This is why Alice started Coffee & Quaq, because she wants to tell the truth about her people and other Alaska Natives. That they're strong, proud and resilient.

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

In this one, I talk to Dan Coffey about his experience 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.”

2019 Throwback: EP 039 The Alaska Beer Frontier with Dr. Fermento

In this episode, Cody has a conversation with longtime Alaska beer columnist Jim Roberts, better known as Dr. Fermento. Jim's been writing about and involved in the Alaska craft beer scene for over two decades. Back then, there were only about eight breweries in Alaska, today there are over forty. In an article he wrote for Crude in 2018, he called Alaska "the Beer Frontier."
Cody and Jim talk about how Jim is "a beer drinker with a writing problem," some suggestions for the curious and the uninitiated beer drinker, how there's a niche for every beer drinker in the world in Alaska, and the time Dr. Fermento was invited to the Playboy Mansion.

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

In this 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.
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.

Chatter Marks EP 013 How sound influences our lives and our relationship with the natural world

In this episode of Chatter Marks, Cody talks with four artists and musicians about their work on the Anchorage Museum’s new exhibition titled Listen Up: Northern Soundscapes. The exhibition explores and considers northern soundscapes to better understand humans’ relationship with, understanding of and impact on the natural world. 
A soundscape is made up of all the sounds of a given environment. Artists and musicians were given a soundscape that they remixed using their distinctive styles. Their music styles range from acoustic and classical to hip-hop, ambient and electronica.
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 086 King of the Hill Part 2 with Competitors Julie Zell and Steve Klassen

In this conversation, Cody talks with King of the Hill competitors Julie Zell and Steve Klassen. King of the Hill was a legendary snowboard competition held in Thompson Pass back in the 1990s that hosted a number of different perspectives. There were the partiers, the general participants and the competitors. Julie and Steve were competitors. They were the ones who got up early and made conscious notes of their surroundings and snow conditions. If they partied, they did so sparingly, knowing full-well that the next day they could be deep in the Chugach Mountains, surrounded by variable conditions. For their skill and preparation, Julie and Steve both won King of the Hill multiple times. Steve won twice and Julie won three times.
For both of them, Thompson Pass—during those nascent years of snowboarding—was an outlaw world of guideless backcountry runs, heavy partying and the criminality that King of the Hill attracted. It was far from the world Julie and Steve had come from. In many ways, it represented a more primitive order to life, where everyone was able to adhere to their baser instincts. Today, you can see the lasting impression King of the Hill made on more modern day snowboard competitions like the Verbier stop in the Freeride World Tour and Kings and Queens of Corbet's in Jackson Hole. Although the extracurriculars of those competitions are much more tame and less primitive.

Chatter Marks EP 012 Finding your passion and chasing it, with artist and muralist Rejoy Armamento

Rejoy Armamento says that she’s always been interested in art, ever since she was a kid, but that it took her a while to reconnect with it in a serious way as an adult. As she got older, her attraction and affinity for it was stifled by feelings of ambivalence about whether being an artist was a realistic occupation. That was until she went to college in San Francisco, which she describes as a formative experience that re-introduced her to art. She says that she loves the sense of movement that comes with the energy of an active city. And it’s that energy that is present in her murals and in her art.
Today, she’s able to look back on her childhood and realize that she’s always been the person that she knew she was—she’s always been an artist.
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 085 with Alaskan Author Don Rearden

In this episode, Cody has a conversation with Alaskan author Don Rearden. Don attributes being an author to his experiences and upbringing in rural Alaska. When he was  a kid, he and his family moved to a number of small communities in Southwest Alaska. There, he dealt with the loss of friends to suicide, drug and alcohol abuse and going missing. As a youth and as an adult, he made sense of this real-life horror and tragedy by turning to creativity. He says that that has allowed him to explore and embrace the darkness—both figuratively and literally.
In addition to his fiction work, Don has also co-authored two non-fiction books—Never Quit with Jimmy Settle and Warrior’s Creed with Roger Sparks. Both Jimmy and Roger are former pararescuemen—or PJs—with stories of perseverance, wisdom and heroism. Both books detail the path that led Jimmy and Roger to become PJs and the extraordinary experiences that made them who they are today. Don says that when people have experienced that kind of high-level, intense trauma, we have to listen and learn from it.