In addition to being funny, really smart, and courageous enough to occasionally call the ski industry on their bullshit, we’re also extremely narcissistic.  While we might not have a series of print ads dedicated to us by some no-name snowboard company, several media moguls have recently recognized the outsize wake our small blog produces in the stormy seas of endemic ski media.  After three years of not fact checking a single article, we’ve been given high praise for our humor and wit by ESPN Freeskiing/Walt Disney Company Freeskiing and the one and only Outside Magazine (online).

While graciously accepting our awards for Best Humor Site and #6 of Top Ten Snowsports Blogs, we must also in our vanity air some complaints.  Chiefly, that we’re funnier than you give us credit for.  I would have replaced “Skiing so rad and French it will melt your face… into a baguette” with “But it wasn’t long before the German house DJs/industrial designers at Oakley, still hungover from taking too much ecstasy in the 90’s, beat the simple, clean Crowbar into Klausian submission” or any of my insults intended for the Church of Latter Day Saints or more straight-forward industry celebrity callouts such as, “Fuck you, Freedle Coty!” 

From Outside Magazine Online.

Complaints aside, these episodes of public gratification come at an opportune time, as I am currently applying to several more traditional snowsports media outlets and softgoods companies that are no doubt pining for my bottomless talent.  It’s time to cash in on all this wit – after all, this freelance thing and coaching 5 year olds on the weekends has been fun, but sooner or later homeboy’s gonna want some benefits and a cubicle so he can finally go armchair quarterbacking full-time.  In an effort to let you all in on my professional life, I have created the following poll to see which of my current applications I should pursue the most aggressively.  These are all proxies for the actual organizations I’m applying to.

For those of you unfamiliar with my extensive talents, please refer to this video profile created for my failed bid to be the Association of Freeskiing Professionals’ Content Manager:

Words by Garrett Russell

Words are fun. You put them together and they make sentences. If you put a lot words together they will either make a run-on sentence or possibly yet, a paragraph.  They can even change your life if worded properly.

The word professional is a weird word in my opinion. It has many different meanings to many different people. I would prefer to not be labeled pro… I don’t know why. Maybe because I am on food stamps and I don’t get paid for skiing. Not that that matters. I hate money and what it does to this world. I can tell you I do have more sweaters and hats than any one person should. I want to sell them but then I usually just give them a way or hold on to them like they have some sort of sacredule (my own word — the meaning is whatever you want it to be).

I wouldn’t be writing this if my friend hadn’t asked me why I haven’t  written for his blog/website thingy. The last few hours I’ve been stuck thinking to myself as if I were writing or telling a story. I don’t even know why he would want me to write anything. I’m just a skier. But this wicked hangover is not helping my brain think of how to not think of things to write. So now I must write… I think I’m doing a horrible job so far.

Garrett, finding the elusive in Argentina this summer.

The snow. Lets talk about the snow. Where the fuck is the snow? I know Europe has it. I almost got to go to Europe for the first time this year. I felt like Europe was all I had left to do before I died. My book would have been complete. Instead, for some jackass reason I fatefully broke my collarbone skiing two weeks before the trip was to embark. Tickets were booked, everything would have been paid for. I would have been traveling in an RV skiing pow, a dream I think we all have, or at least I do.

Something weird I just remembered… when I broke my shit I hit my head pretty hard and didn’t know where I lived.  I knew I was in California, but I dreamed I just got back from Europe, or imagined I was there.  Do you think I warped? Perception is a hell of a thought.

Anywho, I haven’t been able to forgive myself or gotten the balls to get over it yet. I’ve spent days in my bed dwelling on how much of a little bitch I was or what would I be doing right now at that very moment if I were, in fact, in Europe.  The depression spiraled down fast along with the help of fucking downers like hydrocodone and blue skies. Those fucking endless Californian blue skies. God, why? It has been six weeks and it still hasn’t snowed and now my foot hurts from jogging for two hours the other day. Who the fuck jogs and how did I go for two hours? Is it possible to break a bone jogging… is this for real?  Reading this I sound like a wreck.  Just to let you know, I’ve always been a wreck and this is just a moving point in my life…

Back to the snow. I feel this sense of loneliness without it, a missing piece like the story of that round thing that endlessly searches for its missing piece. When it finds it, it realizes it doesn’t need it or want it, and continues on with its life. I think it was a rock, but who knows. Anyhow. When I find it (snow) I sometimes don’t know what the fuck I should do with it. It boggles me how snow dominates my life. It puts me in situations I can’t explain. It creates feelings beyond words I know.  Or I’m just too lazy to put those feelings into words…  this paragraph has a lot of “its” in it, doesn’t it?

I want to give a shout out to all the skiers and shredders out there who kill it on a daily basis or even just for one day. I’m not sure exactly what I think of these triples and crazy competitions these days. I guess I’m just getting old and skiing is doing a full circle back to its days before moguls and “freeskiing.”  Hold true to your dreams and cherish those moments with your friends and magical experiences in the mountains. I send my prayers to the Burke family and all families and friends who snow has touched so profoundly.  And just remember…skiing is a gift, a great blessing from the cosmos. Namaste, motherfuckers.

See that jacket on Mr. Pollard? Doesn’t it look an awful lot like the Holden Banks jacket (below)? Now, remember that the Causwell deal suspiciously sadly fell through, and that Eric is exactly the type of dude that could bridge that “gap” between skiers and snowboarders. All signs are pointing to Eric Pollard being a Holden skier, aren’t they?

For our part, we hope it’s true. Everyone we’ve met at Holden has been solid as hell, and the same definitely goes for Mr. Pollard (not to mention our fondness for their respective outerwear tastes). We’ll let you know when we hear more.

DON’T: Use a Slackline

You know what a slackline is, right? Yeah, it’s that dumb piece of rope hippies have used for eons to barefootlessly balance between two trees and ruin the view at your local park. Sometimes they even use them to cross creeks, rivers, or large gullies, ruining your day when they fail to fall off. Unfortunately, the favorite pastime of hippie scum and others that voted for Ralph Nader is quickly being adopted by skiing’s youth. Laden with tall tees and blaring hip-hop, these fools are suffering from enough of a teenage identity crisis to think that putting shots of them slacklining to “practice balance” in their summer edit that they edited to dubstep or The Game will simply be okay and no one will call them out for it. Read your history. Don’t slackline.

DO: Start Training with a Banshee Bungee

Possibly the only thing more confusing to a bystander than someone skiing in a city street is someone walking up a city street on skis with two buddies trying to pull a giant bungee cord. While the Banshee Bungee can be credited most readily with the death of the sketchy homemade drop-in ramp, its pre-season training possibilities are still unexplored. With a full spring, summer, and fall spent relaxing and not ruthlessly beating the shit out of your body on rails, jumps, and cliffs, chances are your corpse is feeling a mite soft. Time to prep for tombstoning on icy landings. Pack the bungee in the car, find an appropriate venue, and try one of several exercises:

a) Bungee ride on a skateboard with long, untied shoelaces
b) Bungee ride on rollerblades through your local skatepark, blindfolded
c) Bungee ride on your bicycle with your hands tied together
d) Bungee ride at your local intersection into moving traffic
e) Bungee self-flatulate
f) Bungee ride to slackline tackle (hippie must be present on slackline for an effective tackle)

DON’T: Go to the Gym

Oh boy, the gym. The favored after-work locale of meatheads and women who, 5 years out of college and without an engagement ring or even a boyfriend on the ballot, are now beating themselves silly on the elliptical in the hope of shaping up for the bar. Gyms are boring, sticky, exhausting places where you have the option of throwing some bars around, running pointlessly in place, or sampling one of a ménage of gimmicky workout stations designed to keep you confused until you get a workout, whether it was the intended one or not. The only thing worse than a gym is the “home gym,” in which you spend money to bring one or several pieces of gimmicky equipment to your living room, possibly the last place anyone wants to work out.

DO: Start Drinking Every Day at Four

It’s nearly October, which is almost November, which means before you know it, every weekend will be occupied by trying to remember how to ski again for 6 or 7 hours, followed immediately by cocktails that will leave your destroyed body in an even worse state. Then there’s the Sunday attempt at skiing, followed by the long drive home in the worst physical and mental state of the week.

Your only option for softening the blow is to drink as much as possible starting around mid-afternoon. While your roommate/girlfriend/spouse may force you into an AA meeting before Opening Day, if you can keep the practice alive until the snow falls, it’ll be them who’ll be sorry as they lay face-down in the bar at sunset while you continue to dance in your ski boots, spill beers on the server, sleep in your ski clothes, and still make it to first chair the next day.

There’s a suspicious lack of clear photo or video evidence of the actual pitch online. We will assume that means he either bounced it, or throws like a girl someone who spent his youth in a halfpipe. Lack of visual evidence aside, I’m sure the new 100-year curse began something like this:

720 yo!

You know how Newschoolers can get away without creating actual content because no one really cares about anything but reading the comments? Yeah, well I’m super jealous. So let’s try to get some of that going here. Did you go to any premieres, tour stops, festivals this weekend? Did you buy one of the early-release downloads and throw your own event in your living room? Well then share your opinion.

BroBomb, maker of snarky web shenanigans, welcomes Ben Pruess as the new CEO of Holden Outerwear. We have always been big fans of Holden and have widely bitched and moaned about how ski companies don’t offer anything that actually fits. In addition, we’d like to thank you for filling up our inboxes with three different press release mass emails about this same person. He seems like a real mench.

At Holden, even the CEO gazes thoughtfully into the distance.

The rest of you can leave the room now, it’s time for me and Mr. Pruess to have a heart-to-heart. Ben, your mass email said, “please feel free to contact me if you have any ideas for us to work together or just to say hello.” I’m one to take mass mailings literally, so yes, here are some ideas:

1. SPONSOR SOME SKIERS! I’ve bothered Mikey with this every chance I’ve gotten, and now it’s your turn. You’re here to make money Benjamin, and skiers are the most materialistic fuckers on the planet. Have you ever seen a teenage skier in last year’s gear? No, you haven’t. These kids make 53 page threads about a company that doesn’t even sell outerwear. They’re nuts, I’m telling you, but they’re also rich and their parents hate to hear them bitch. Imagine Eric Cartman (But maaaaaaaam!), but instead of Cheezy Poofs, they want “that new Holden kit.” It’s like that.

2. Don’t go Grenade on us. Skiers used to rep Grenade pretty hard, and they even tossed us some bones and sponsored Tanner. Then they got all “well run” and “profitable” and made those weird skeleton suits and other hideous gaper garb. However, if you come through on #3 you can do whatever you please, so keep reading.

3. Buy ad space on BroBomb. It won’t help, but still, you said to “feel free” so I did.

You give the word and this lady will be laying in a field at the top of this site. Once I learn how to make that happen.

-Dunfee, an SGT employee and therefore a professional summer adviser, will be reprising his role as hot-months-advice-columnist with a series on what to do with all that non-skiing free time.

-We’ll keep dropping edits from all of our loyal contributors. You can especially look out for official Hot Possie Dragon Fest ’93 coverage.

-I will be attending a Bright Eyes show next weekend. I intend to fully pretend that it’s 2002 while I scream for songs from Lifted. I may or may not write about it; or maybe I’ll make a video of myself painting to Lover I Don’t Have to Love…do you think Ant B. misses being the only arty kid in the room?

Rain is soaking the east coast, and many mountains have gone to a “weekends only” policy, at best. Then there’s Utah, from where Barberdude is texting me about 21 inches of snow and more on the way. Long story short, this is a big country (and an even bigger world) and some folks’ seasons are waaaaay shorter/longer than others.

So in the interest of gauging the depression/elation of our readership, here’s a poll question:

Feel free to add your own answers in the comments.

Overlong intro aside, this isn’t a history lesson. This is a Monday morning afternoon callout. If you’re a skier who has made a career through a mix of physical prowess and African American cultural appropriation, then get off your damn ass and give a little back. Skiing doesn’t need a Bono, we’ve already got JP Auclair (sans sunglasses and general creepiness) building schools in Africa. What we need is a guy who used a Biggie song in his legendary Superunknown video to lend his celebrity to something like Hoods to Woods. Or maybe a couple foreign kids who think they’re Red and Meth to help kids from the NY/NJ neighborhoods their heroes came from to enjoy the same sport that has made them snow celebs. It’s not even about being do-gooders, it’s about not being a dickhead. And since charity is 90% public relations anyway…just think how “G” you’d be if your next edit had a whole bunch of black kids in it.

Full disclosure: We aren’t associated in any way with Hoods to Woods, and for the record, we haven’t really done any good ourselves either. Also, this callout was inspired by a drunken conversation with the Hot Possie, they’re not just hot pants, they’re also hot brains.