One: 15 MINUTES with Chris Mitchell
Chris Mitchell spouted off so many thought-provoking opinions in his 15 Minutes from Issue #12 that we decided to publish the entire text online. Long-time friend Mike Opalek gets Chris on the record about Box Magazine, rollerblading’s true roots, skating in the movies, the phrase “aggressive inline,†and why he thinks 2010 is the year that blading is going to resurface on pop culture’s radar. Find out a little bit about the self-described “robinhood of rollerblading†in this excellent read. — ONE
Writer’s note: This was the best and most controversial interview ever! But because of ONE’s lack of balls and/or lack of funds for a lawyer for the lawsuit that would have happened, Chris and I were forced to go with the regular mess. Sorry, those guys are pussies. — MO
Check the full article on ONE.
Tags: one mag
April 7th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
this man is a legend, listen to his words of wisdom.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I hope it will really be 2010 =)
April 7th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
you cannot hope, hope is not enough. WE ALL must do our part to assure this prediction can even surface. its time for revolution.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Well mostly i hope that me and others are doing their part and its enough ;)
April 7th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
George Clooney? Is that you?
April 7th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
MO: But that’s how you make money rollerblading: by selling out.
CM: That’s how you made money in the beginning! Now, we’ve purged skating of those impurities. Anyone who skates now is doing it for the love of skating. This is ground zero.
key quote for all those people who are waiting for Rollerblading to “Break Out” again. all those money money bling bling types will kill us in the end (although my guess is that they will also be the ones to put us back on the map unfortunately, double edges sword and all that)
I should also say that as much as we all poke fun at Airborne and Brink for the bad rep it gave skating, I (and my crew) all started skating because of Airborne. And I know a lot of the younger guys started out because of Brink. So as lame as they both are I am pretty thankful for the Disney monies…
April 7th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
I love this guy, very interesting and witty fella.
April 7th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
great great interview. Best character ever in the mindgame video.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:12 am
i totally had deja vu…..and then i remembered he was the photographer in mindgames bang hahahaha. shits funny.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:36 am
Very nice. Mike is my favorite. GO OPALEK!
April 8th, 2009 at 12:41 am
so since we have already sold out and are reforming. will skateboarding sell out?
I really hope that his prediction comes true. IT seems accurate due to all of the things that have come up in the last year or so.
April 8th, 2009 at 2:28 am
i love white people…..in my azz
April 8th, 2009 at 3:27 am
Much respect to Chris, but I dont know where he comes up with this prediction that in 2010 all of the sudden rolling is going to become super popular.
Everyone’s always talking this crap about how rolling needed to be “reborn” to “find its soul”, and “now we can build on a solid foundation” or whatever, but they forgot that the people who influence this sport the most at any given time could give a flying crap in hell whether its popular or not.
I wish our pros got more money, but the public popularity of skating doesnt make an ounce of difference to 99% of us who dont care how cool we look standing next to a skateboarder.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:54 am
I respect everything this man said. I also agree with about 90% of it. However, that stuff about keeping our sport broad is not clicking with me. Nobody wants to see slalom,rollerdancing, or downhill blading. Not even other bladers. Honestly the only legitimate use of blades should be aggressive/ freestyle, speed skating, and roller hockey. The rest is pretty much just fluff that will only make us look unappealing to the rest of the world. Isn’t that why we called ourselves “aggressive” skaters? We wanted so badly to distinguish ourselves from the rollerdancers, rec skaters, and spandex wearing weirdos. What we do on blades is COMPLETELY different from that other stuff, and we should keep it seperate, because we don’t deserved to be judged by what the dancers and spandex wearing crowd does. I know that I am bias to what we do, but I really feel that aggressive/ freestyle should be what is marketed as rollerblading to the masses. What we do is the most impressive, and appealing version of blading. Instead of using rec skating to make money for us, Aggressive/Freestyle should be used as the face of our industry to make money for the other variations. We can come back. It has been a long time since the average American has seen what we do. The average person doesn’t think we are “gay” anymore, because they don’t remember what we are. When I go out and skate in the streets, people look at me like I am doing something amazing. Alot of folks stop to take pictures of me hitting a rail, or chat with me to find out more about what it is that I am doing. Todays kids are too young to remember how “fake” we are. When they look at me, they see a guy doing something really cool, and they don’t understand why they have never seen it before. If someone recruits them, they will come. The only thing holding us back, is the old-school guys in the other “action sports”. They still see us as the unrefined, overhyped, brats that have no history or culture to back them up. Well times have changed. We have been refined. We have history, culture, and a whole army of people that are truly commited to growing the sport. If we can raise our voice higher than those of the old-school “action sport” leaders, then I GUARENTEE that the world will listen. We have something real, refined, and visually amazing to offer. The funny part is, alot of these kids we want to win over, will see this as something new and exciting. Which is a good thing, because it will draw them in. But at the same time, we will have the history, and culture behind us that will legitimize us to the point that no other “action sport” can hold us down ever again. Wow, I should have published this as a book. Which reminds me… I bet that Disney sectrets book will be a pretty good read.
Skate hard, Live hard. PEACE
April 8th, 2009 at 5:53 am
I think one of the biggest frustrations with the decline of rollerblading has been the lack of roots in the sport. Companies and even people that were considered mainstays in our industry are gone. Without those mainstays showing newer skaters the way I feel like our sport is running around with it’s head cut off in a way. We need one or two companies and people to step up and show themselves as the faces of our sport and to help lead us in the right direction. I want skating to come back to where it was not in popularity, but just in the overall feel that it used to have. I want to go back to the days when I waited anxiously for the next videogroove or issue of Daily Bread to come out and spend days going through them in painstaking detail.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Chris Mitchell = LEGEND!!!!
These last couple of comments on here give me hope. Its nice to know that there are other people out there that know whats going on too.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:54 am
muscleandharley:
“I wish our pros got more money, but the public popularity of skating doesnt make an ounce of difference to 99% of us who dont care how cool we look standing next to a skateboarder.”
100% true
April 8th, 2009 at 11:51 am
grafkid-”will skateboarding sell out?” Haha “will?” get a clue pal skateboarding is and has been the medias little slut for ten years plus.. sad really
April 8th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
old school reppin!
“jay”
i know what you’re saying, our industry spear doesnt have a spearhead like it once did, but we dont need that, we arent a spear anymore,we’re spartans moving as one. we dont need one culture defining icon to lead us now, we’re older,wiser and proud.we can all pave the way for “aggresive” skating..
oh yeah, great interview.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
amen brother…
been in the sport since 95 with the inlfuence of rec inline..
and have been looking closly at the industry as well as public out look , keeping a eye out , whats new this week,month…
status and i really can see us at a turning point … 08 was the begining of the end “the dark age” with scenes popin up all over with new and old rollers back on blades… and a younger audience/participants gettin on some blades… i saw kids as young as 9 skating fatty pro’s 08 after seeing another side of rollerblading….
back in europe(sweden).. here in Australia… United as ONE alot can and has been done, i do believe that with the W.R.S and other organisations that exist and many other events that have occured have gotten us exposure news papers in poland,sweden,UK,USA and TV: Germany,spain,france…, we all know we want whats best weather it be small or big.. it all adds up.
keep it real.
sure we can have wide spectrum of categories for rollerblading.. we know that aggressive inline/freestyle rolling… is firmly a stand out.. its hard to mistake us for some other category..
with the right foundation and visual represination in public and TV a solid foundation can and will be formed.. have our own pay tv and public tv channel eg like FuelTV…
April 8th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Great interview, a real insight into rollerbladings past.
Rollerblading will blow up again, it’s impossible for it not to. I happened to show the ONE video to some skateboarders over the weekend and they were completely blown away, we watched the clip of Sizemore doing the topsoul 540 out up the giant handrail 5 times.
Rollerblading is getting too big to be ignored, and the tricks being done are simply too impressive to be overlooked. Maybe 2010 will be a good year?
April 9th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
[...] » One: 15 MINUTES with Chris Mitchell | Rollernews.com [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 4:05 am
[...] » One: 15 MINUTES with Chris Mitchell | Rollernews.com [...]