#500 An exclusive interview with myself
Deli Skate Blog was born on 24th March 2020. in adverse times, but thank God, the world of skateboarding has never been slowed down. Now, after more than two years we can celebrate the 500th blog post. Even if you don’t know who is behind the blog, now it’s to be revealed. An exclusive interview with myself.
Make yourself comfortable and have fun reading.
Tricky situation is this. I don’t really used to talk to myself, maybe only in times if I have to make a wise decision or I tend to evaluate a season within myself.
Nice touch! So how would you evaluate the last couple of years?
The idea of this blog was circulating much more earlier, but arrived to its destiny only during the quarantine of covid. That was the time when I decided to post a video every single day until the quarantine would last. Since the lock-down hasn’t lasted for so long, but daily content creating has become a habit, and traveling in time two years, now we are at the 500th article.
Congratulations! But if I do the math you couldn’t keep up with the daily posting.
There are seasons when I’m literally not able to write beside my family and my job. And it’s not even an easy task to select a reasonable content.
That means you are filtering. Based on what? In other words, what’s the purpose of Deli Skate Blog?
You have a good sense connecting the two. The main principle is to “Entertain & Educate”, which means finding a good balance between entertainment and education, teaching and discipline. Nowadays tons of content wants our attention from every kind of sources. In my opinion not all of them are relevant. So we arrived to our first guiding principle. Another one is coming from the belief that we see and watch too many things that we shouldn’t. Today’s culture offers freedom in its own particular way, but not everything is good just because it was posted or was brought into your attention.
I tend to use contents that influence my audience in a positive way. That e.g. do not encourage drinking, smoking just to have an example, and leastwise profanity is minimalized.
But you were a youngster too.
I don’t feel myself old either and of course even if I understand and comprehend these behaviours I don’t think they’re good or would be virtues, neither I think they should be followed or copied. That’s why I share rather paths of lives which, at a certain point, arrived to the valley of decision, had to make a choice and then were turned 180 degrees. There are a lot of dramatic experience among well known skateboarders too but we see the so called catharsis or positive turnbacks as well. I try to dig up these stories to show them.
Tough ground. Because then you have to watch every single piece, have to read through everything to check if it fits. And it’s not sure even then that you can create a post out of it. Can you remember of something that didn’t make it at the end?
I remember some cases when the last some seconds cancelled to whole thing to be posted.
Ok. Then what’s the deal with entertainment?
Loads of content floods us every day nearly everywhere. I used to dare to think, who is reading Deli, shall get the whole picture even he doesn’t follow any other sources. This isn’t our goal of course, but if someone wants to have a nice dish he can eat it in our space, we used to say. The main focus is to have recent topics, news but we shall talk about the roots and the history of skateboarding as well. Skateboarding has its own philosophical depths that we can only understand interpret by and through the respect of the generations before. Then when I choose a certain content I post it in a digestable way, I write only that many text to a video with which it can be put in the context. I used to translate interviews and I show excerpts of old magazines and books. I deal mostly with american skateboarding, because that’s what I like and know, but I like to have delicacies from here and there too.
Coming back to the education of people part for a moment. It sounds a little bit rigorous to me. Why is it not at the end?
I try to explain it through an example. If skateboarding had its beginnings in the 70s, then it had its adolescent years in the 80s, became a young adult in the 90s and now it is deeply in its B-side of midlife. If I follow this analogy, which is now important but was not in teenagerhood is mostly nutrition and purposeful workout. So we have encouraging posts to make more and focused warm-ups, do workout so we could skate for longer without injuries.
Sounds like a PE teacher. I agree that this is not the most important thing for teenagers and not even in the 20s.
It’s not in focus and not even something like an investment for later. Nowadays we can see a lot of pro skaters complementing their skateboarding with workout and special trainings in order to be better at skateboarding. This is not lame it’s good.
At this point I take the opportunity to ask: Olympics or not?
For sure it’s a divisive topic. In my opinion, becoming a sport in the olympics is an acknowledgement that more and more skaters do it on a very high level. This way skateboarding is getting more recognition which is good for the industry, higher amounts are flowing into it. On the other hand for sure skateboarding would loose something from its subcultural substance and kind of exclusivity, where we have to be careful not to let loose its whole taste.
Are you telling me that in the future skateboarding would disappear from the streets and would be pushed back to skateparks?
No. But there will be generations who will grow up in skateparks, will train in skateparks and will consider and will practice skateboarding as a sport. For them skateboarding on the streets wouldn’t mean anything, neither the subcultural involvement, including dress codes or clothing habits. But competitions have always been a part of skateboarding. In the 80s tricks were invented during competitions. Skateboarding today is very versatile and colorful so I think olympics would fit in the picture too.
Who are your favourite skateboarders of today?
I have a lot, but whom I really like to watch are: Erik Herrera, Walker Ryan, Deedz, Mark Suciu, John Shanahan, Brad Comer, Tom Karangelov.
They are more likely the mainstream. Anyone else?
Ok, then: Nyle Lovett, Brian Delatorre, Aleka Lang, Hosea Peeters or in the middle field: Max Palmer, Cyrus Bennett.
Smart. They are the two extremes of the equation. Nyjah has never been among my favourites, but I really appreciate his performance. Eventually he has built up some kind of a rockstar-athlete lifestyle, which is strange for some, while he put everything on it, there are a lot of work and suffer invested into the whole thing. On the other end Tyshawn is a rockstar too, but he is more likely one of us. We don’t see him that much, but it doesn’t mean he is not doing awesome things.
Oh yeah. I started skateboarding in 1991 in Szeged and after that I found myself and spent most of my best skateboarding in the middle of an era in which nearly every year something new happened and something changed drastically. From the shapes of the decks to the sizes of wheels and jeans nearly everything had its upside-downs and back. As of the opinion of many, that was the golden era of skateboarding, which happened in the same time as my teenagehood so it made a deep impression on me.
My alltime favourites are: Mike Carroll, Rick Ibaseta, Lavar McBride, Weston Correa, Shawn Mandoli, Steve Caballero.
You have now everything here like in a grocery store. Do these things fit altogether?
Everyone gets his own inspiration out of different things. After all that’s why we watch skate videos. Or before social media rather to follow up what was happening, who was who and what were the trends. Nowadays more likely to have a spark to go to skateboarding. It’s not so easy to maintain motivation and to be inspired constantly, but a wide selection is given so everyone can have his regular motivaton for a nice session.
What do you like in a video?
I like the harmony of all components. I mean good skateboarding should be matched with good music. I need the harmony this way. Style, music, mood.
Basically yes. Additionally I miss the lines in today’s videos. We see nearly only solo tricks, maybe a bridging trick plus.
What’s the problem with this?
A line is happening on spot, real time so to speak. For me it gives back more the feeling and the relation between the skater and the streets or spots. Solo tricks, in most of the cases, are practiced for month before they are done and recorded. Don’t misunderstand me I’m not questioning that these tricks are legit I’m just talking about the proportions. I enjoi flow more. Alright, one more thing. For me hillbomb is a no go. I don’t like it, but this is my personal opinion.
Deli of course. (Déli means “Southern” in Hungarian)
You said it some minutes ago. By definition: ‘Delicatessen’ or shortly ‘Deli’ is a retail establishment, which sells a selection of fine, exotic or foreign prepared foods often known as delicacies.
I really like the concept of those cornerstores in New York where you can have a wide range of goods supplemented with special food, sandwiches and coffee. Or in which you can only eat good food. These are the Delis.
“Vegetables, sandwiches and coffee to go from the world of skateboarding.” Now I quoted.
Exactly. I’m writing about fine things with good taste, often rarities. If for no other reason that they appear in a Hungarian blog. As I told you earlier, people visiting us regularly would be up to date what’s happening in skateboarding.
Shouldn’t be considered something as a retail establishments if it’s selling something? A blog can only offer.
That’s why I launched a skateshop too.
Deli Home Skateshop. I suppose I should explain…
Now we know what a Deli is. Skateshop is clear too. Home in the name refers to a model in which I take advantage of the fact that I like to speak a lot about skateboarding in person, so I do it in our home, where the shop is located too. Even beside a coffee we can find out the best setup for you or can have a discussion on the latest magazine cover or can repair your semi-destroyed accessories. As I used to say, we are at home in skateboarding. Now I was the one who quoted. Whoever has been at us can prove that I like to taylor-make and personalize everything I suggest and sell.
Did you have a clear path from the blog to the shop?
Literally not and not even theoretically. Actually the shop was the first. I dealt with second hand accessories through a webshop.
Not exactly. I let it die, because I didn’t had the time and energy to run it.
So the shop returned. As I see you don’t have too many brands.
The goal is to have brands I believe are special ones in a way representing raw street skateing, supplemented with others which are well known and supposed to be top quality ones. We have a lot of brands from New York.
If I’m right when you are at home, the shop is at home too.
What if I wanted to buy a beanie at 9 pm?
Then you drop me a line, most probably you come by and you leave with your new beanie.
I usually see around you this dot-dot-comma-dash thing.
If I would like to interpret it in a philosophical way, I would say the blog, the writing is rooted in skateboarding and this skateboard shaped of punctuation marks and dashes, which I call the dotboard, is coming from the writing. So the formation of dash-dot-dash-dash-dot-dash became our logo. This kind of small skateboard can be easily inserted into any chat flow of text messages too.
What’s the situation here at home? I mean in Hungary?
In Hungary more and more people are skateboarding, parks are built a lot of good circumstances are given. I hope more and more talented skateboarders will grow up who will dedicate themselves and be very counscious and disciplined in what they want to reach with their skateboarding. Now we can see that the range of ages involved are wider so every age group wants to have possibilities and spaces according to their very own abilities and understanding. It would be optimal if everyone’s taste could be taken into consideration.
What can you to this issue?
Entertain & educate. In addition I try to back good initiatives and support dreams come true. I hope I can add my long lasting enthusiasm for skateboarding which would motivate others as well.
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I’m thankful for all of you who read, follow, ever read, ever followed, will read, will follow, and trust in what we write on this blog. You are keeping this blog alive and I wish you can skate as long as you want and to live your everyday lives in constant inspiration. Spread the good news!
