Senior Andrew Lo is the only Medill student you’ll ever hear use the word “buckwild” without a hint of irony.
The self described “skate nerd” watches all the videos and reads all the magazines.
He drives out to Northbrook to skate parks. But the Los Angeles native still runs from the cops.
Lo took some time with Massive.tv in the basement of University Library to talk minimalism, Skate Mecca, long boards, and crashing the homecoming parade. Halfway through the interview, Lo got up to guide an elderly academic in a plaid shirt through the stacks.
“I used to work here,” he remarked casually.
Skate nerd indeed.
Kate Adams
Jack Davis
Sean Kane
Anthony M. Del Gigante
Ben Millstein
Matthew Alfonso
Music – “24 Hour Karate School” by Mos Def and the Dojo
// INTERVIEW
Massive.tv: Do you consider skateboarding a sport?
Andrew Lo: It’s definitely an art form, because there are different facets of skateboarding. There’s the X-games, where it’s a competition and everything has to be done perfectly the first try and there’s this whole jock mentality to it, and there’s also the artsy side to skateboarding where it’s about style. It’s about how you maneuver terrain. It’s how your body looks when doing tricks. It’s a very physical art form.
M.tv: Tell me about your skateboard crew.
AL: Sophomore year, my friend Henry picked up [long boarding] after he saw me skating freshman year, because we were neighbors. Then we decided to start this crew called Shred, just to call out to all skaters around the area. And people actually came out. We put flyers around. During the homecoming parade, the streets were blocked off, so we decided to go skate in the street, to cause a scene, sort of. The first year it worked out. The second year we got hated on really badly…by the cops. They were patrolling. So I mean, we got a decent amount of people that would come out every week, [with] more long boarders at first. Eventually, a few of the skater kids started coming out.
M.tv: Do you feel like an outsider skating in Chicago?
AL: I’d say I definitely feel like an outsider skating at Northwestern and in Evanston. Freshman year, I was literally the only skateboarder here, and I’d basically skate by myself, and you know, frat dudes would yell “skate or die, bro!”or tell me to do a “kick flip off these stairs or something.”
M.tv: And now they’re picking up the long boards…
AL: Yeah, exactly. See that’s the weird thing. The next year, I met a few kids, a few of my friends now, that skate, so then there were maybe three or four of us, and one of my friends long boarded, and then all of a sudden, everyone started picking up long boards. I still feel different from the long boards, because it’s just not the same thing.
M.tv: Have you found trouble here from skateboarding?
AL: Freshman year, not really, because I was mostly by myself, but the more people you have…I’d say sophomore and junior year, every time I would skate on campus, or even in Evanston, I would be stopped by a cop. I’ve had to talk my way out of a bunch of tickets. I’m a lot more apologetic to the cops, whereas my other friends might be a little brash, but yeah, I’ve definitely had a lot of trouble. I’m always on the lookout for cops. They’ve told us to just get out. They’ve told us we can’t even be in a parking lot. Sometimes when you tell them you’re with the school, they’re not as objected to you, but I’ve been kicked out a lot. Cops have been following me on my skateboard, and have yelled from their megaphones to “get off the street. Stop skating. Pick up your board right now.”
M.tv: Is developing a sense of community with other skaters an important part of skateboarding?
AL: It’s an incredibly motivating factor in skating, because when you’re skating, you’re by yourself…I don’t know how to describe it…it’s like, you don’t have someone to push you. Everything in skateboarding is repetition. You need to keep trying and trying, over and over again. If someone’s encouraging you, or if you see them doing a trick that, you know, you’re stoked on – sorry I’m using all this LA jargon – it just sort of pushes you, and you get really excited when you do tricks. It’s just more fun. You don’t tire yourself out as much because you’re able to watch people, and they can watch you. You just feed off each other’s energy. But my best friends here, all the people I live with all hate skateboarding. They like me as a person, they just hate that I skateboard, and they always talk shit on it. When I’m with my skate friends, it’s totally skate mode, all the time.
M.tv: What’s it like to skateboard at Northwestern? How do people react to it?
AL: They’re kind of put off by it. There will be some times when I’ll be skating a spot, and people will stop and watch us and they’ll be like “wow, this is really cool,” but most of the time… it’s not even that the kids are put off by us, but the teachers and the faculty that will just sort of scoff at us when we’re skating by. Like even down Sheridan, every time I’ve skated, people have been turning around and looking at me, whereas with a long board, you don’t look twice. I’m not flying by them. I’m not jumping around. I think there’s less of a backlash lately, just because there are more of us now, but it’s still pretty weird.
How does fashion and style contribute to your skating?
AL: Everything I skate is super minimal. Less is more. Just the Van’s Authentics are good enough for me. Style’s involved with it too. Back in the day, it was baggy clothes and now skaters are associated with tights clothes and stuff like that.