1:37pm – MELBOURNE
It’s a sunny Tuesday afternoon and my mission today is to kidnap Nathan Jackson from his place of employment. His mission, if he chooses to accept, is to take me out to lunch and fill my ears with tales of awe and wisdom… or at the very least discuss his upcoming Nike SB video release and whatever else is on his mind.
SWITCH POLE JAM | SOUTH MORANG
Where have you brought us today Nathan? The pub. The Balaclava Hotel on Carlisle Street, St Kilda. It’s where I mostly have lunch when I don’t bring my lunch to work. For the most part it’s pretty dead, apart from a lot of old guys sitting back playing pool, having some beers… and by the looks of things I’d say this is what these fellas do all day, every day.
What’s on today’s menu? Well, today we’re having Chicken Parma burgers, with a side of chips and a free pot, all for the bargain price of $8.00. Which I think you’ll agree is a pretty good deal. Sometimes the Chicken Parma burgers aren’t that great, like the salad will be missing or something, but it is an excellent deal. I’d go as far as amazing.
You mentioned not bringing your lunch to work, what is work? Work for me at the moment is working at Lush Productions. I pick and pack boxes of skateboard product, orders for shops and packages for team riders. That’s about it.
More recently your second ‘job’ has been filming this video part that seems to have consumed your life for the better part of a year? Yeah, I’ve been working on a Nike SB Australia video part. That’s the one thing I’ve been putting most of, well, all my effort in to. It’s been a wild ride.
HALF CAB HEELFLIP | BRISBANE
Wins and losses? Well, there have been plenty of losses, which people probably know about. Well, by people I guess that just means my friends. They’ve definitely seen the losses and that involves me sometimes letting it slide and other times getting really angry. But I’m sure you can appreciate the frustration that goes with trying to get a trick for eight weekends in a row.
Two or three sounds like a punish, but eight? Yeah, I wish that was an exaggeration. Back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes a trick just doesn’t let you get it, and it gets to point you don’t want to see the spot ever again or even try that trick ever again. Unless maybe it was on flat ground, and even then it’s a maybe. [Laughs]
You’ve spent a lot of time in the States with the Baker Boys, some of those guys, off the top of my head; Reynolds and Dustin come to mind who’ve jumped down and off things for years. Those guys have quite a few years on you, but being someone who doesn’t mind a jump, is there any thing you take away from skating with those guys, as far as looking after your body from endless hucking? Well, Reynolds loves an ice bath, and surely, sooner than later I’ll have to be doing that, but for the most part I think my body is kind of just used to it. I’ve just been jumping down stuff since I was young. Mind you, I have done a few ice baths in my time while I’ve been over there. I’ve had a few with Chima… well not in the same bath as him [Laughs] but on the same night. We’d both been jumping this one thing all day, a rail and by the time we were done we were both so sore it was ridiculous. At the time his house had two baths, so we bought a 12-pack of beer and probably like seven or eight bags of ice from 7-11. Split the beers, split the ice and went our separate ways to our separate bathrooms, drank our beers and sat in our ice baths.
OLLIE | HEALESVILLE
“…my head is bouncing up and down between his feet.
he’s pretending to chisel my face yelling out something like “It’s the most chiseled man in skateboarding!!!!” [Laughs].
And that was it, the name stuck.”
BLUNTSLIDE | BALLARAT
Let’s talk about your old man, Doctor Randy. He seems like a champion of the Brisbane skate scene. I’ve heard so many stories of Doctor Randy going above and beyond to help a skater in need. He’s almost like part of the crew, right? [Laughs] Yeah, it sometimes seems like he is.
What’s the best mischief you’ve done where you had to present yourself to him as a patient? There’s been so many, but the best one would have to be the time I punched a window when I was drunk. It would have been about midnight and him and mum were out to dinner and they’d had a few drinks too. Anyway, I went to the hospital to get stitched up because my arm was fully opened up and bleeding. I called him up and told him what happened and he turned up at the hospital, looked at the line of people waiting and said “Nah, stuff this, the line is way too long, this will take for ever!” and Pedro Day was with us and he’d driven me there because he was sober. So, Pedro drove us all home, me, dad and my mum, and we’re all drunk [laughs] apart from Pedro obviously. We got home, and drunk Randall checked it out and there was glass in the wound, so he tried to get it all out and stitch me up. But not being completely on his game, he stitched me all up and it seemed like it was all fine. It wasn’t until about three months later I was pushing on my arm and could feel this sharp pain in there. So I’d kind of push on this lump to make it go down, but it was actually a piece of glass he’d missed which was trying to work it’s way out. So, the whole time I’m trying to push this piece of glass back into my arm it’s trying to get itself out of my arm. So he had to go in for round two, sober this time. Cut it open, get the glass out and stitch it back up.
WALLIE | MARTIN PLACE
Let’s back up to the whole window-punching thing… It’s kind of embarrassing really. I can’t say I’m proud of it, but we were at a bar for a skateboarding movie premiere, but they were playing a football game on the screen and there were all these footy heads watching it. I think the game was meant to finish at 9:00 or something, and then the bar were going to put the skate movie on, but the footy game ended up running over time. It wasn’t even our decision, but the people who ran the joint just came out and went “Sorry lads, we have to turn this off and put the video premiere on.” I guess because that section of the pub was booked in for the event. As the video came on all the footballers were super pissed that they were missing what was probably the last two minutes and probably the most crucial bit of the game. So they got more and more aggro and before you know it a fight breaks out and next thing it’s an all in brawl. One of the footy guys who’d been in the fight jumped in a cab to get away and as it was about to take off he yelled something back at me, and I just snapped, ran after the cab and punched through the window to strangle the guy.
Hulk styles!!! Yeah, afterwards, I was like “What did I just do?” I even surprised myself. Just drunk, full of adrenaline and stupid I guess.
OLLIE, FRONTSIDE 180 | BRISBANE
Forgive me if you’ve answered this 1000 times before but to most friends and associates you’re known as the Chiseler. How and when did this come about? Uncle Gorby (Steve Gourlay) came up with it. Nike had flown us all up to Sydney for a comp and I think we stayed there for a week shooting and stuff, but after the comp we all went out, I mean why wouldn’t ya? [Laughs]. I ended up going back to the hotel and passing out in my bed, and when everyone got back, Uncle Gorby apparently just kept pointing at me going “Look at him! He’s the most chiseled man in the world!” I guess I was quite young and I didn’t have any facial hair or anything…
That and the booze sweat would have definitely embellished it. Definitely! [Laughs] But it didn’t stop there. He ended up jumping onto the bed, while I’m completely passed out and he’s standing over me with a foot either side of my head. There’s actually footage of this somewhere and he starts jumping up and down, pretending to hold a hammer and chisel and while my heads bouncing up and down between his feet he’s pretending to chisel my face yelling out something like “It’s the most chiseled man in skateboarding!!!!” [Laughs]. And that was it, the name stuck.
The Chiseler forever more. Yep. Or as Brit Boserio says: Chizzy from Brizzy!
Well, thanks for lunch Chizzy. No worries. I loved getting a random visitor at work offering to take me out for lunch on a Tuesday… and the burger had salad in it, so I’d say it was a total win.
