Epicly Later'd (2011–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Heath Kirchart - full transcript
Legend Heath Kirchart, walked away from skating at the height of his career. He's gone from pushing his physical limits on a board to a new life of death-defying travel missions.
[ Groans ]
[ Groans ]
[ Winces ]
[ Laughing ]
- Oh, my God.
That scream afterwards.
- Sick.
- So, nine lives.
Got some footage.
Not much to show for it
but a fucking bloody asshole.
Reynolds:
He's got a thing about him.
It's, like, everything
is suffering.
Beagle: He always wanted to do
tricks he knew he couldn't do,
and he wanted to prove
himself that he could do it.
**
If he wasn't on top,
then he was gonna retire.
Regan: He's this amazing
skateboarder that's celebrated
by skateboarding
and by all skaters.
He's a legend.
But he's just such
a private personality.
Saari: He was operating
at the highest
possible level at all times
until, one day,
it was just like, "I'm done."
**
Woman: God damn it.
Give me my phone.
What's up? Welcome back
to "Epicly Later'd."
We flew down to Mexico
to catch up with Heath Kirchart.
He's rowing down the entire
Sea of Cortez, maybe 600 miles.
Heath was an amazing pro skater,
and suddenly, kind of almost
out of nowhere to fans,
he just retired, quit skating,
and since then, he's gone
on all these adventures,
bicycling across the country,
climbing El Capitan,
rafting down the Colorado River.
We came down
to film Heath Kirchart
have an adventure,
and we've found ourself
in our own adventure.
We saw him about half
a mile ahead of us,
and suddenly, the boat, smoke
started coming out of the engine
and the engine died.
Heath told me that always
the most exciting thing is,
if the trip goes smoothly,
then it's not that
adventurous, so...
Where your school is...
...we're having our own
adventure right here...
- ...past the school.
- ...just trying to find him...
They keep coming on...
...so I hope you
enjoy the episode.
It's a big boat.
They have to see us.
We are near shore.
I'm gonna have to take a shit.
You guys aren't gonna want
to film that, are you?
I haven't been doing much,
bartending and traveling.
You know, I kind of, like,
invite people on these trips,
knowing that they won't go,
take two months off,
and I was just
kind of getting bored,
and I think I just went out
drinking with Boosh one night,
and I was just kind of like,
"I'm gonna go down
the Sea of Cortez side of Baja.
Do you want to go?"
No one ever asks people
to do that, really,
so you can't
really say, like, no.
Yeah.
The first week,
I was definitely
thinking about going home...
Fucking shit.
...because he hadn't really
prepped much as, like,
where we're staying
or, like, beaches or everything.
I was like, "These look
like fucking rocks,"
like, do that, and then
he's like, "Yeah. Maybe."
He's like, "We'll be rowing
at night, I'm sure."
Like, "You haven't mentioned
any of this
until we're, like, in Mexico."
Then he starts dropping
all of these things.
I was like, "You don't know
what we're doing."
He was like, "Yeah.
But you know that."
He's like, "I, you know, like,
fly by the seat of my pants."
I'm like, "Thanks.
That's fucking --
That's fucking sick."
Kirchart: No.
I just make it up as I go.
I mean, I've never had
to filet my own fish.
First fish we caught, we didn't
know what to do with it,
and we're just like,
"Oh, well. It'll just, like,
suffocate in 5 minutes
or something,"
because we didn't,
like, have, like,
we didn't have, like, the will
in us to just fucking,
like, stab a live thing.
We were just like,
"Well, it's better
just to let it suffocate."
Turns out, like, it takes like
an hour for a fish to suffocate.
That's the best one, man,
that we've had so far.
It's a little raw, but not bad.
Burtch:
That is a tasty fish.
The whole time
I was skating, like,
it was a challenge
the entire time,
and so going on these trips,
it's, like, kind of like
a challenge again,
of like, you know,
just figuring out.
There's a lot of problems
that arise that you just
have to figure out,
and physically it's challenging,
just to kind of, like,
get through them.
I just want to make, like,
a '60s-style home movie,
but I don't know what
I'm doing with it,
so we'll see what comes out.
Romero: He's like a Bob Dylan,
where it's just, like,
anything he does, like,
people will like
just because it's him doing it,
you know what I mean?
Everyone in skateboarding is,
like, a fan of Heath Kirchart,
no matter who you are.
[ Indistinct conversation ]
Man: God, it would be so rad
if he did it.
**
Dude.
It's impossible.
You can't do that.
Kirchart: I mean, when I first
got into skating,
I think, you're talking
like, entry-level,
it was the Bones Brigade.
Like, the Bones Brigade,
the "Pow!!" videos
and Tony Hawk because, you know,
you're just a little kid,
and you want the big name,
the biggest one in the world.
That's who I like.
I like Michael Jordan,
I like Tony Hawk,
and that's just how it is.
Heath Kirchart sent Birdhouse
a small semi tape
when we first started in 1992.
My work's over with.
Hawk: He was a little kid
with gigantic pants.
Kirchart:
I was 14 at the time,
and Tony Hawk comes
and picks me at my house,
and he's like, "All right,
where are we gonna go skate?"
And I'm just like,
"I don't know.
I always skate in back
of this church."
And it's just me and Tony Hawk
skating in back of this church.
I, like, didn't know
how to skate.
I was like, "Do I try
to impress him?
Do I try, like,
my hardest tricks
that I don't think I can make,
or do I just act
like I'm cruising?"
Like, it was just, like, really
confusing on how I should skate.
I'm like, "Is he judging me?"
You know, his style was...
It was a little sloppy,
but he was going big.
Oh!
It's so fucking strange
Tony Hawk came up
and fucking skated with me
just to see my personality.
Hawk: Most of his
small semi tape footage
was his first park,
the Birdhouse,
and he hated the music,
and I'm sorry,
Heath, that I used
Nine Inch Nails,
and here I am on camera
begging forgiveness.
Kirchart: I just remember
when I saw it, like,
I went down to Tony's house,
and he showed me it,
and I, like, I was so, like,
distraught over it,
I think, I, like, almost cried.
I either wanted to cry,
or I think I cried, maybe.
Beagle: I skated with Heath
when he was on Birdhouse,
and I rode for Foundation.
Yeah, I heard about him a lot
before I finally met him,
but he was always,
like, super deck,
but he could do
big stuff, you know?
By the time I was, like,
17, maybe, 16, 17,
and I started to, like,
really hang out with Josh
and just go and skate with Josh,
it was just about
listening to music,
skating this parking lot and
sitting around this parking lot.
That's kind of what we did.
"Barbarians at the Gate"
was this video that Tod Swank,
the owner of Foundation, and
Steve Rocco, who were friends,
the owner of World Industries,
decided to take.
That was so much fun as a kid.
We had Rocco's Range Rover.
I mean, those things, even
today, are still like $100,000,
and we drove that thing
through, like, a corn field
and dented the fuck out of it.
He just did not give
a fuck about money.
$100 bills pave the way to fuck.
**
Beagle:
I guess the whole concept was,
"What would two
pro skateboarders do
if they had the boss'
credit card and went on a trip?"
That was the concept,
but it was nothing like that.
It was, like, what could
Steve Rocco make these kids do
to make them feel awkward?
One of the epic things that
we did was, like, we had Josh
and Keith judge a wet t-shirt
contest at a bar,
and then I was, like,
the water dude.
Like, I was, like, pouring
the water over the girls
to make their t-shirts wet.
It was funny.
Beagle:
And then right after that,
we had blind dates that night
with, like, these three
14-year-old girls.
Kirchart:
There was underaged girls,
and they ended up getting, like,
naked the first night and stuff.
Kind of creepy.
Beagle: Me and Heath are just
sitting there going,
"What's going on here?
This is creepy."
Whoo!
[ Man yells indistinctly ]
The stuff he did was unheard of.
It was twice as big as anything
that had been done.
It was stuff that people
only joked about.
**
All right.
Ready?
[ Speaks indistinctly ]
[ Both laugh ]
Give me another hit.
O'Dell: What is it like
having Heath be the dude
you're looking at?
I mean, is he, like...
Are you shitting
looking at Heath?
Yeah.
Show them how you take
a shit in here.
I don't want to take my fucking
pants off and do that.
No, but you can just sit.
Okay. I'm not taking
my pants off for this.
I think I do have to piss,
actually.
Is the piss jug
all the way up front?
A little spilled.
I'm gonna piss.
You can cut.
Show them that thing.
Piss.
He's about to show you
what he's famous for,
his big-ass dick.
- It's not that big.
I'm definitely more someone
that would rather be alone,
while he's someone that kind
of always needs someone around,
which makes it, like,
hard on a trip like this.
All right. We're in, like,
a row boat all the time.
Like, we're probably on
the water for 10 hours a day,
and this person is
10 feet away from me,
facing me the whole day.
There's been two versions
of Heath that I've known.
One is the little sidekick
to Josh Beagle.
I mean, I guess you can see
some of that in that, like,
that "Barbarians of the Gate"
movie.
But then there was, like,
such a switch from that Heath
to, like, the Heath
that everyone knows now.
I think I, like, turned
a little bit of a corner
and started, like,
taking skateboarding
a little more serious
and working on tricks
to film for a video part,
and, like, tried tricks
that maybe scared me,
and stuff like that.
**
**
**
**
Every month, I'd open up a mag,
and it's like,
"What did Heath do now?
Like, what the fuck did he do?"
Every single month,
he'd have an ad for somebody
where it would be just the
gnarliest thing you'd ever seen.
He was doing stuff
so big that no one knew.
I mean, can he ride away?
We don't know.
Like, he's gonna find out.
You know, he was pushing
the envelope like no other
when it came to, like,
gnarly street skating.
Mixing big with technical
was kind of one
of Heath's specialties.
There was so much
that he had done
that put him on such
a different level.
**
**
**
**
He's nuts, like, he's nuts.
He'll try anything, like,
you know what I mean?
Like, he feeds off that stuff.
He likes to do dangerous things.
Van Engelen: That dude pushed
how far you can push your body
physically,
and mentally,
in the sense of, like,
because that dude
didn't skate small shit.
He skated scary fucking shit.
If I were to go
do something scary,
I would stress
about it days before,
and so, like, the night
before would just,
like, be stressing,
thinking about it.
I think I'd drive to the spot
and look at it
and just focus on it
and just, like, be like,
"Okay, you're gonna
be here tomorrow.
You're gonna be rolling up.
Just know that you're gonna
have to overcome this," like,
and just, like, try to mentally
prepare as much as possible.
**
Hsu: The El Toro lipslide
is such a big deal.
First of all, he, like,
invented the spot.
You know, El Toro is now...
It's always referred to as the,
like, big rail stair set
in, like, skate conversation.
Kirchart: I wanted to skate
at El Toro High,
and it was a 20-stair rail
that no one had skated.
Jerry Fowler, who is,
like, a ledge skater,
showed me the rail,
and told me he tried to
noseslide it without a filmer,
and I was like,
"Oh, that's a lie."
El Toro, I think,
was the very first rail,
and maybe, like, the only time
it's happened to me
in skating that I was,
like, really scared of it,
to the point where, like,
when I was rolling up to it,
I was so nervous that, like,
I couldn't feel, really,
what was happening, like,
in my legs and stuff,
to where, like, I was like,
"I have no idea what's gonna
happen when I try this
because this just doesn't...
I can't really feel my legs
because I'm, like,
nervous and scared."
**
**
If you're trying something hard,
you just kind of hit this, like,
fuck it point before you try it
to where you're just,
like, you've arranged
all these people to be there,
you said you were gonna do it,
you don't want to do it
because you're scared,
but you're committed,
and so you have to, basically,
just force yourself and just go,
"I don't care if the
worst-case scenario happens."
"I have to go, like, right now,
and just get it over with."
**
**
He can endure pain so well.
It's like Heath gets off
on pain, really.
Man: Good job.
Hsu:
He was one of the guys
that, like,
took the harshest slams.
Definitely some of the stuff
that I've seen,
just in real life,
which isn't even that bad,
but the stuff
I've seen on video...
...like, some of
the most brutal stuff
I've ever seen.
**
**
Aah!
Kirchart: I mean,
that lipslide that, like,
basically pile-drived me
into the rail was probably,
like, the biggest rail
I ever tried to skate,
but it was also just, like,
this is a fucking...
Like, for how big it was,
it was steep.
So it just, like, like
a fireman's pole just, like,
into the ground.
Van Engelen: He will try shit
till he cannot walk.
That was, like, the biggest
thing I took from Heath,
and I'm just like, "Oh.
Like, the best in the world
fucking don't just land shit?"
Aah!
It's hilarious
what skateboarding did to me
as far as, like,
make me a psycho.
Aah!
Kirchart: Mileage-wise,
we're about
halfway through the trip.
After the first week,
my hands just,
basically, kind of seized up.
Yeah.
They feel like when you jam
your finger, like, bad.
My fingers feel like
they're jammed.
Yeah. Because they're
swollen and they can't close
and they kind of ache.
And so that constant
strain on them...
I couldn't make fists.
I still can't make
a proper fist.
Want to row for a bit?
Yeah.
Burtch: Being on a trip
with Heath like this,
there's an aspect of it
where you don't want to,
like, let this dude down
because you know, like,
he'll row forever.
It's like the same way
with skating.
He's gonna -- He's not done
until his body, like,
physically fucking can't move.
[ Speaks indistinctly ]
Hsu: Sometimes skate sessions
are just, like,
really, you know, fun and social
and it's very, like, easygoing,
but, I mean,
Heath's sessions are...
It's more serious.
It's more focused.
**
**
Heath does not like distraction.
Like, he needs a lot
of concentration
for the stuff he does.
He would just flip
out, you know,
focus his board,
throw it, scream.
I think he's done.
I mean, John Miner can tell you
all about those things.
I think at first, I was, like,
pretty intimidated by it,
but I kind of got used
to it over time,
and, I mean, after a while,
it just kind of started
getting entertaining in a way
because he would just
fucking lose his mind.
Aah!
It's hilarious
what skateboarding did to me
as far as, like, make me
a psycho when I was doing it
because I don't have that real
rage in me anymore, ever.
There's something about
physically exhausting yourself
and wanting something
so bad that,
like, will make you fucking snap
when you see it
kind of going away.
I tried to bail because my board
was going in
the fucking wrong direction!
Fuck!
Shit! Aah!
**
**
I would have no problem
in, like,
a fit of rage, like,
throwing my board.
And of course, anyone walking by
is gonna fucking stop
and stare at this
fucking lunatic
throwing a skateboard around,
and I would just fucking
look at them and just like,
"What the fuck
are you looking at?"
Just like, "Fucking stare at you
when you're doing
your fucking shit."
Like, I would have no problem
attacking someone staring at me.
Well, that sucks.
Okay.
Fine, then.
He really kind of puts off
this vibe of, like,
"Don't talk to me.
Don't look at me."
But that also really attracts
people's interests.
Ow!
Heath is very...
How do I say it, man?
He's a scientist.
He's just that person
in the lab working 24-7,
and he don't want
nobody around him.
I've never seen a human
being like him.
Regan: People that,
before they meet Heath,
are intimidated by him,
and I think that's because
they don't know what to expect,
and because he is quiet,
and it's really,
more than anything,
it's his shyness.
It's an interesting scenario
with Heath because his job
is to be in front of people
and skateboarding.
He puts on a really
incredible show, but,
in addition to the skating part,
you're supposed to interact
with the fans and the audience,
and after the skating
was over, like,
Heath would pull his hat
and kind of just disappear
back into the crowd.
The fame is not
what was motivating him.
There was something
else driving him.
Hsu: I think from, just
a skate-fan perspective,
he was intimidating, along
with all the other stuff.
Before I rode for Emerica,
I became friends with
Spanky and John Miner.
They had this house
on Fairfax in Hollywood,
and I would go visit Spanky.
I would go stay there.
Welcome to the Emerica house.
Heath had a room there,
and it was just a bed
and one of those giant,
like, 4-foot-tall giant TVs,
and then VHS tapes
just stacked everywhere.
He would just sit in his room
and watch movies.
Miner: I remember a time where
he didn't leave his room
for a week.
It was, like, dude, this guy is,
like, so introverted, man.
He hasn't left
his fucking room in a week.
I would see him, you know,
maybe once a day,
when he would come down
to cook his, like,
frozen pizzas in the oven
and then take them
back to his room.
It was like living with a ghost.
Hsu:
Heath is one of those guys
that people, like,
trade stories about.
He has that weird appeal
for a lot of skaters.
Like, he owned vending
machines for a while.
He had these vending
machines that he would go
and he would refill them,
collect the money.
He even would do things, like,
there would be, like,
a secret one,
like a secret soda.
It didn't have a label.
It would just be, like,
surprise soda.
You'd just be, like, "Yeah."
Like, people, they'd get so
curious that they would buy it.
It was so funny.
He told me he delivered
pizzas for a while,
but he wasn't even retired yet.
That was just something --
that was just something
that he did on the side.
Kirchart:
That was a great job.
One time, to my face,
I got recognized selling pizzas.
It was a basement in downtown
L.A. of this building,
and they were doing, like,
a photo shoot for some,
I don't know,
fashion thing or something,
and then all of sudden in back
of me, someone's just like,
"Are you Heath Kirchart?",
and I was just like, "Fuck."
It was kind of embarrassing.
He told me before, like,
he always lived the same way
his broke friends did,
to where he'd, like, live in,
like, the same spots,
eat the same food,
drink the same,
like, shitty, cheap beer,
and, like, just do that,
except he was,
like, saving his money
and investing it
in different things.
O'Dell: And do you know some
of the things he invested in?
I mean, it was, like,
properties, a lot of stocks.
Hunt: I mean, he has, like,
Baskin Robbins coupons
in his wallet, you know?
He buys fucking candy
after Halloween
because it goes on sale.
That's, like, Heath's sort of,
like, M.O., you know?
And that put him in a good
position to retire.
I think so.
Yeah. It's funny.
I remember when Heath
was spending a lot of time
with myself
and Anthony Van Engelen.
They were talking about 5 years
in the future and being pro.
Anthony was like, "Damn.
Five years. That's, like, 2012.
Like, fuck, that's crazy.
I'm gonna be, like,
30-something, whatever.
Like, what do you think
you're gonna do?
Are you gonna be
pro in 5 years?"
to Heath, and he's like,
"Fuck no. Like, no way.
Like, there's no way
I'll be pro in 5 years."
**
Jefferson:
Heath is always the dude
you think you know,
but you don't know,
and the Mega Ramp
was the start of that.
It was when he started
being extra weird.
**
Hsu: Quitting being a pro skater
is not your choice.
Usually something happens,
you get hurt
or your sponsors dump you
or you have a family,
or whatever it is.
Usually it's just not
your choice, so it was unusual
for someone to just be like,
"I'm done."
[ Horn honks ]
Kirchart: Well, skateboarding
to me was always, like,
I wanted each part to progress,
and there started to be less
and less progression.
And like, even if you just
look at the last part
I came out with, it was
just regurgitated tricks
that I'd done in the past.
Aah!
At that point,
everything was a battle.
I don't think there's a trick
in there that came easy,
and that's just
the way skateboarding was
as I started entering my 30s.
I tried to be, like, gimmicky.
I was like, "Well, I'll film
my part in all white,
and then I'll stand out
that way," or something.
And I was like, "You know what?
Like, why am I doing this?
I should just let them
know that, like,
I don't really care
to film a part, or I can't."
Aah!
You kind of just feel,
I don't know, inadequate.
There was also a lot
of good skateboarders
coming up at the time
for the companies I rode for.
If you're, like,
a 35-year-old man
that's just, like,
not really keeping up,
you're keeping those younger
guys from getting paid.
Shit.
Reynolds: So instead of,
you know, just milking it,
which Heath totally could've,
and everybody actually
told him he could have.
Like, "We will pay you to do
nothing and just be you,"
and he said no.
I just personally took it as,
like, "Damn.
That's a gangster way to go out
is just say, like,
no free money."
Like, I'd buy
a Heath board right now.
Templeton: To me, it's kind
of admirable and awesome
to just say, "You know what?
Like, I'm taking no money,
therefore, I have to do nothing.
Whatever I do now,
skating-wise, is for myself."
And, you know, that's awesome.
That's great.
I mean, clearly I didn't
follow this
because I still have
a board out right now,
and I barely skate anymore,
so go figure, but...
So what happened was,
I decided to, like,
call it a day as far
as skating and everything,
but I was like, "But I still
want to see what I can do."
It would be ideal
to finish my last part
with something that I've
wanted to do for whatever it is,
15 years.
Wilkins:
We were at the "Mag" one day,
and someone called us and said,
"Hey. Heath's going out to Bob's
today to skate his Mega Ramp."
And they're like, "You should
come out and shoot it."
**
The Mega Ramp is what
I would call
a Hot Wheels track on steroids.
It's probably two
or three stories high,
the scariest thing you can do.
I mean, people have broken legs
and knocked themselves out
and almost died on it.
You're one of my favorites, man.
Burnquist:
Heath, for a long time,
was my favorite street skater.
You don't, you know,
just street skate
and then go to a Mega Ramp.
I really want you to pull it.
I want you to make it.
I don't go to the streets
and go like,
"Okay. I'm gonna go 50/50
this, you know, 30-stair rail."
Jefferson: There's people
who skate Mega Ramp only,
and there's street skaters,
and street skaters
are not supposed to do
what these guys
are doing at all.
Wilkins: I think he brought
a motorcycle helmet,
and that was gonna be
what he rode the Mega Ramp on.
Kirchart: It's one of those
things where it's just like,
it's full commitment or none.
It's all or nothing,
and it's just such a mind fuck
because it's out of your realm.
You're clearing a gap that,
I don't know what it is,
60 feet or something,
and there's a fucking hole.
And you're going faster than
I've ever gone on a skateboard,
and now I have to go off
a fucking, like, whatever it is,
8-foot jump ramp
going the fastest
I've ever gone on a skateboard?
Like, I have no idea how my body
will react to that.
It was never his goal to just go
and jump this thing straight.
He just started spinning 360s.
[ Groans ]
He put one down hard, and went
to his shoulder, and I was like,
"Maybe that's it.
Like, he's done. He's slammed."
Ah, man.
The Mega Ramp thing
was just a rumor,
and the rumor I heard
that was he tried it,
but he broke his collarbone,
or whatever,
and he just gave up.
What we didn't realize was that,
when he took the slam,
he broke his collarbone.
Kirchart: I'd broken
my collarbone enough times
where I was just like,
"Something's, like,
fucked with it.
My arm's only
going up this high."
And I was just like,
"I've just got to give it,
like, one more try."
Man: Holy shit.
So when I was at the premiere
and saw it,
and he actually landed it, like,
I kind of almost started crying
because I was, like,
it was just so unbelievable.
He really went out with a bang.
[ Laughing ]
I don't know.
It was probably, like,
the most amazing feeling
I'd had in skateboarding, just
because it was the end, too.
It was, like, "Oh, like,
I'll never have to film another
trick if I don't want to.
I'll never have to be
scared again on a skateboard."
I was gonna do it
without a helmet,
but after that last one, man,
I would have fucking
knocked myself fucking out.
Yeah.
Jefferson:
Once you saw the boat,
that's when you're like,
"Dude, what are you doing?"
We're doing it!
[ Film reel clicking ]
Got you.
Think that's just...
I'm getting better at this.
I think I can hear
when it's exposed now.
O'Dell: You guys ever...
Spots?
This is -- I think
this might be the best one.
It's that... over
the rail onto a bank.
I saw that one.
This is, like, hip.
On the board, like,
you can see...
That's not really what we're
about on this trip, though.
So, like, after he retired,
he just kind of decided
to go on adventures,
I feel like.
I remember he rode his bike
across the country.
Kirchart: The bicycle trip
kind of happened
because I was like, "All right.
Like, I'm gonna be done skating.
I have to figure out
what I'm gonna do
with the rest of my life."
I think I was, like,
33 at the time.
And so I was just like,
"You know what?
I'll just, like, get a bicycle,
ride across country,"
and then I invited
my friend Jeff on it,
not thinking that he would go.
I'm pretty sure he knows
that's exactly the type of shit
that I like to do.
Definitely, like,
tons of people thought
that it was a bad idea.
Like, my sister was
really curious
how we knew nothing
about how to fix our bikes.
Kirchart: I mean, the whole thing
was just to kind of wing it.
You know, I had to Google
what type of bicycle to get.
Like, I wasn't a bike rider.
I mean, sitting on a bicycle
for 8 hours a day
for 53 straight days
kind of fucking sucks.
Three days in,
my ass started to bleed.
It's not your asshole,
it's just, kind of, like,
the in between your balls
and your asshole.
Like, I told all these people
I was gonna do this,
and then it's almost like
I'm gonna have to quit.
We were in Death Valley
at the time,
and it was probably,
like, 110 degrees,
and we just bought
a big tub of Vaseline
and just, like,
both went into a bathroom
with this tub of Vaseline
and just scoop a handful,
and you just basically lube
everything down there,
and that kind of fixed it
and made it all kind of,
like, stuff stopped rubbing.
Vallee: That's the part
of the story
that's not, fucking, very cool.
Like, you stop in some bathroom
and fucking rub
Vaseline on your taint.
Kirchart: I mean, Jeff,
he kind of has, like,
a personality similar to mine,
to where, like, we were both
willing to, like,
grind it out and work hard,
and not one person is gonna
carry the other one,
so it works well on a trip.
I'm doing it, dude.
Brr!
Vallee: We liked that
we didn't really know
how to long-distance bicycle
or fix a bicycle,
and we thought, "Okay.
Here's another one."
Kirchart: So then we did
the Grand Canyon next.
Ride a raft through
the Grand Canyon...
God damn it.
What the fuck?
...and you go all through
the Grand Canyon,
235 miles on a raft.
All right.
Here we go.
- Whoo!
- Yeah!
Kirchart:
We weren't guided.
We had no idea, like, what to do
or how to go through
them or anything.
[ Laughing ]
The big danger with that one
is that the water is,
like, freezing cold.
Once you go in
without a dry suit on,
like, you'll freeze
within, like, a minute or two.
Vallee:
When I went on that trip,
I was like, "This is the trip."
You get to shit your pants.
You get to, you know,
actually have, like,
fun with that risk,
and then you get to do
the whole thing.
And I was like, "I want to do
this stuff all the time, man."
Whoo!
I've been around Heath
when he pitches these ideas.
Vallee: Oh, fuck.
The rope got caught.
Slowly but surely, his missions
get so gnarly and so crazy,
people are like,
"Nah. I'm good."
Kirchart: What's most memorable
about all trips I've done
is the miserable times,
and those are the parts you look
back and, like, cherish.
This last day where
we rode 45 miles
and spent 16 hours on the boat
was just fucking hell.
It's the days that you look
back on and are just like,
"All right, like,
we got through that."
And that's, like, kind of, like,
the cherished moments.
Here, this is a picture from
the boat trip where we failed,
and we don't really
have any pictures
because, you know,
everything was kind of lost.
But he was super into buying
this football jersey
with the name of the boat
on the back, and I was like,
"Really?
I really can't picture you
wearing a fucking
football jersey."
The concept of that one was,
Jeff had read a book of people
kayaking down
the Pacific side of Baja.
We were kind of contemplating
how we wanted to do it,
and we went out to eat
in Los Angeles,
and this surfer came up to us,
and we were telling him, like,
"Yeah. We're thinking about,
like, kayaking down."
Like, he's just like, "Oh, I had
a friend that built his own boat
and tried to go down there
in a boat."
We're like, "Well,
how'd that go?"
And he's just like,
"He made it two days, and, like,
the boat capsized and, like,
he had to, like, swim to shore."
And we're like, "Fucking,
he built his own boat,
and he fucking lasted two days?
Like, damn.
That sounds like a trip that
would be fucking awesome to do."
**
So we would work hard
all day long, sanding,
doing all this other shit,
and then we would
go out at night,
and then we would wake up
in the morning.
And we had, like,
our little routine,
and those are some
of my favorite times.
It's, like, a lake boat,
you know?
It was made to, like,
sail around on a lake somewhere.
We took it through marinas
and stuff, and, like,
we had sailboats,
like, beeline for us
and, like, take photos of us.
Like, it was a beautiful boat.
The goal was to make it
from San Diego, Pacific Beach,
down to Todos Santos.
Vallee: The idea was that,
I think, we were gonna take
40 or 50 days to do it.
So we sail out
of San Diego Harbor.
We're fucking cruising.
Heath made a joke.
He was like, "This is easy."
Kirchart: The plan for that trip
was to, every night,
come into shore,
camp on the beach,
pull out, go back,
do that all the way down.
And we knew there were
some rocky points
to where we wouldn't be
able to pull in,
and we'd have to sail
through the night.
So the sun started to come down.
We're probably, like,
60 kilometers into Mexico
at this point,
where it's just cliffs
and super big waves,
and we, like,
couldn't get into shore.
All right, well.
We knew we were gonna
sleep on this boat
at least some nights.
Like, I guess it's gonna
be the first night.
Vallee: It's getting dusk,
and this guy comes out
on a Jet Ski
from Rosarito Beach.
He's a lifeguard.
Just, like, the look
on his face is just like,
"What are you doing?
Like, where are you going?"
We named a marina that was
probably, like, 30 miles down,
and he was like, "You're never
gonna make it there."
And we were like, "We know.
We're good,"
like, just trying to get
rid of him.
We didn't want him to have to,
like, pull us in.
We wanted to continue
on our trip.
He's like, "They're going south.
They're obviously Americans.
They have a shitload of, like,
random gear in their
little, tiny boat.
They're dressed weird."
And he was very perplexed
that we were like,
"Nope.
Everything's cool here,"
because he was looking
and going like,
"Like, I work on the ocean.
Everything is not cool here."
Kirchart: He was just like,
"All right. Give me your names.
Like, I need to, like,
know who you guys are.
Like, what's your name?"
And so we gave him our names,
and he's just, like,
he couldn't really do anything,
so like, he's just like,
"All right."
Vallee:
We rode through the night.
I told him, I was like, "Okay.
Well, why don't you...
There's no reason
for us both to be up.
Why don't you sleep right now
and I'll stay up?"
Yeah, basically, first day,
we were totally fucked.
Kirchart: Slept on the boat,
sailed through the night,
woke up the next morning.
Super windy.
There was, like, a wind called
the Santa Ana Winds.
We're not adept at sailing,
so I'm trying to sail
this small boat,
and when the wind would
really hit us hard,
I would let some of the sail out
because I was afraid it was
gonna capsize the boat.
Jeff let go of the boom,
broke our mast.
And so now we're just
this cork with the wind howling,
and it was blowing us
out to the ocean.
For the next, like,
I don't know how long,
I'd love to know how long
it actually was,
we were just trying
to row to shore,
and then we tried to
switch rowers one time,
and I, like,
tripped over in the boat
and it tipped the boat over,
and the boat was underwater.
We felt like we were, like, 400
or 500 yards off the shore,
and that's a long ways
to swim if you're, like, healthy
and there's no wind,
but the water was cold
and we were just cramping up.
We were swimming probably,
like, 45 minutes,
and I looked behind me, and
we just had made no progress.
Like, we were basically just,
like, treading water.
We were just basically,
like, stuck.
And that was the only time
I've ever seen Heath
where he was totally out
of control of the situation,
and he looked like
he was really scared.
I was just like,
"I can't believe this is it.
I can't fucking believe
that this is, like,
how I'm gonna fucking die."
That's all I kept saying.
I was like,
"I can't fucking believe
I'm gonna die doing this."
Like, this is it.
This is just... eh.
Vallee:
It was really fucking scary.
And I'm looking at the shore,
and I've swam my whole life
in the ocean, and I'm like,
"There's a fucking really
good chance
that we will not make it there."
And then, yeah, the dude
shows up on a Jet Ski,
the same dude
as the night before.
14 hours later, this guy
was, like, saving our life,
like, couldn't be happier
to see any other human.
By the time they put us
in the ambulance,
we were just shaking so bad.
So, like,
hypothermia had set in,
and they tried to put
an I.V. in me,
and I was just shaking too bad
for them to hit a vein.
They were just stabbing
my arm with a needle.
Vallee: And then the lifeguard
walks up to me and he goes,
"Are you Jeff?"
And I was like, "Fuck."
Like, "Yeah, man,
what can I say?
Like, you were right.
I'm wrong.
Like, we should not
have been out there."
Kirchart: I had
a waterproof case on my iPad
that I had around my neck
when shit hit the fan,
so when I put on my life jacket,
it just happened to be on me,
so we showed up at the hospital
with just shorts, t-shirt,
an iPad and a Leatherman.
Luckily, this guy,
he was just like,
"I'll drive you to the border."
So they drove us to the border,
and we just walked across
the border barefoot.
We skipped by my friend's house,
got Heath a pair of shoes
and literally dropped him
off at the train,
and he just rode
the train back to L.A.
Kirchart: I mean, you definitely
learn something new about yourself
on every one of the trips,
and sometimes it's, like,
not something you even want
to know about yourself.
Burtch:
Shit's coming, man.
When we jump out,
don't, like, jump...
Splash? Yeah.
I just need to put the swim
fins on, and then I'll jump.
[ Man speaks indistinctly ]
**
**
[ Chuckles ]
Patrick, do you want
to fucking do it?
O'Dell: No.
This might be, like,
a once-in-a-lifetime deal.
It took us three weeks for this.
That's pretty cool.
There's just a fucking
massive fish behind you.
No big deal.
Yeah.
Well, we've been freaking...
Our whole deal was
that we wanted
to find a whale shark
and jump in with it,
and we just did that.
I don't want to think
that I was, like,
ever, like,
an adrenaline junkie.
I think that's just kind of,
like, a lot of people
that's associated with
that term kind of just suck.
I think my whole life
was about, like,
accomplishing something
on a skateboard,
a trick, a video part
or something,
like something to look forward
to that you're doing,
and, like, now that, like,
I don't have that
with skateboarding,
it's like, what's going
to fill that void for me,
and I think it's trips
like this.
I like the unknown, I guess.
And, like, out here,
there's a lot unknown,
and there's a lot,
like, you know,
day-to-day, there's
a lot of stuff that can come up
that I'm not prepared for,
then you have to deal with it.
We're here for the adventure.
Like, I want something that,
like, you have to overcome.
So, like, we get blown out
or we get in a dicey situation,
like, I'm, like,
looking forward to that,
and, like, how you meet
that challenge.
The leak in the boat, it's just,
like, everything,
that's why we're here.
If it went perfect,
it wouldn't be an adventure.
**
**
[ Groans ]
[ Winces ]
[ Laughing ]
- Oh, my God.
That scream afterwards.
- Sick.
- So, nine lives.
Got some footage.
Not much to show for it
but a fucking bloody asshole.
Reynolds:
He's got a thing about him.
It's, like, everything
is suffering.
Beagle: He always wanted to do
tricks he knew he couldn't do,
and he wanted to prove
himself that he could do it.
**
If he wasn't on top,
then he was gonna retire.
Regan: He's this amazing
skateboarder that's celebrated
by skateboarding
and by all skaters.
He's a legend.
But he's just such
a private personality.
Saari: He was operating
at the highest
possible level at all times
until, one day,
it was just like, "I'm done."
**
Woman: God damn it.
Give me my phone.
What's up? Welcome back
to "Epicly Later'd."
We flew down to Mexico
to catch up with Heath Kirchart.
He's rowing down the entire
Sea of Cortez, maybe 600 miles.
Heath was an amazing pro skater,
and suddenly, kind of almost
out of nowhere to fans,
he just retired, quit skating,
and since then, he's gone
on all these adventures,
bicycling across the country,
climbing El Capitan,
rafting down the Colorado River.
We came down
to film Heath Kirchart
have an adventure,
and we've found ourself
in our own adventure.
We saw him about half
a mile ahead of us,
and suddenly, the boat, smoke
started coming out of the engine
and the engine died.
Heath told me that always
the most exciting thing is,
if the trip goes smoothly,
then it's not that
adventurous, so...
Where your school is...
...we're having our own
adventure right here...
- ...past the school.
- ...just trying to find him...
They keep coming on...
...so I hope you
enjoy the episode.
It's a big boat.
They have to see us.
We are near shore.
I'm gonna have to take a shit.
You guys aren't gonna want
to film that, are you?
I haven't been doing much,
bartending and traveling.
You know, I kind of, like,
invite people on these trips,
knowing that they won't go,
take two months off,
and I was just
kind of getting bored,
and I think I just went out
drinking with Boosh one night,
and I was just kind of like,
"I'm gonna go down
the Sea of Cortez side of Baja.
Do you want to go?"
No one ever asks people
to do that, really,
so you can't
really say, like, no.
Yeah.
The first week,
I was definitely
thinking about going home...
Fucking shit.
...because he hadn't really
prepped much as, like,
where we're staying
or, like, beaches or everything.
I was like, "These look
like fucking rocks,"
like, do that, and then
he's like, "Yeah. Maybe."
He's like, "We'll be rowing
at night, I'm sure."
Like, "You haven't mentioned
any of this
until we're, like, in Mexico."
Then he starts dropping
all of these things.
I was like, "You don't know
what we're doing."
He was like, "Yeah.
But you know that."
He's like, "I, you know, like,
fly by the seat of my pants."
I'm like, "Thanks.
That's fucking --
That's fucking sick."
Kirchart: No.
I just make it up as I go.
I mean, I've never had
to filet my own fish.
First fish we caught, we didn't
know what to do with it,
and we're just like,
"Oh, well. It'll just, like,
suffocate in 5 minutes
or something,"
because we didn't,
like, have, like,
we didn't have, like, the will
in us to just fucking,
like, stab a live thing.
We were just like,
"Well, it's better
just to let it suffocate."
Turns out, like, it takes like
an hour for a fish to suffocate.
That's the best one, man,
that we've had so far.
It's a little raw, but not bad.
Burtch:
That is a tasty fish.
The whole time
I was skating, like,
it was a challenge
the entire time,
and so going on these trips,
it's, like, kind of like
a challenge again,
of like, you know,
just figuring out.
There's a lot of problems
that arise that you just
have to figure out,
and physically it's challenging,
just to kind of, like,
get through them.
I just want to make, like,
a '60s-style home movie,
but I don't know what
I'm doing with it,
so we'll see what comes out.
Romero: He's like a Bob Dylan,
where it's just, like,
anything he does, like,
people will like
just because it's him doing it,
you know what I mean?
Everyone in skateboarding is,
like, a fan of Heath Kirchart,
no matter who you are.
[ Indistinct conversation ]
Man: God, it would be so rad
if he did it.
**
Dude.
It's impossible.
You can't do that.
Kirchart: I mean, when I first
got into skating,
I think, you're talking
like, entry-level,
it was the Bones Brigade.
Like, the Bones Brigade,
the "Pow!!" videos
and Tony Hawk because, you know,
you're just a little kid,
and you want the big name,
the biggest one in the world.
That's who I like.
I like Michael Jordan,
I like Tony Hawk,
and that's just how it is.
Heath Kirchart sent Birdhouse
a small semi tape
when we first started in 1992.
My work's over with.
Hawk: He was a little kid
with gigantic pants.
Kirchart:
I was 14 at the time,
and Tony Hawk comes
and picks me at my house,
and he's like, "All right,
where are we gonna go skate?"
And I'm just like,
"I don't know.
I always skate in back
of this church."
And it's just me and Tony Hawk
skating in back of this church.
I, like, didn't know
how to skate.
I was like, "Do I try
to impress him?
Do I try, like,
my hardest tricks
that I don't think I can make,
or do I just act
like I'm cruising?"
Like, it was just, like, really
confusing on how I should skate.
I'm like, "Is he judging me?"
You know, his style was...
It was a little sloppy,
but he was going big.
Oh!
It's so fucking strange
Tony Hawk came up
and fucking skated with me
just to see my personality.
Hawk: Most of his
small semi tape footage
was his first park,
the Birdhouse,
and he hated the music,
and I'm sorry,
Heath, that I used
Nine Inch Nails,
and here I am on camera
begging forgiveness.
Kirchart: I just remember
when I saw it, like,
I went down to Tony's house,
and he showed me it,
and I, like, I was so, like,
distraught over it,
I think, I, like, almost cried.
I either wanted to cry,
or I think I cried, maybe.
Beagle: I skated with Heath
when he was on Birdhouse,
and I rode for Foundation.
Yeah, I heard about him a lot
before I finally met him,
but he was always,
like, super deck,
but he could do
big stuff, you know?
By the time I was, like,
17, maybe, 16, 17,
and I started to, like,
really hang out with Josh
and just go and skate with Josh,
it was just about
listening to music,
skating this parking lot and
sitting around this parking lot.
That's kind of what we did.
"Barbarians at the Gate"
was this video that Tod Swank,
the owner of Foundation, and
Steve Rocco, who were friends,
the owner of World Industries,
decided to take.
That was so much fun as a kid.
We had Rocco's Range Rover.
I mean, those things, even
today, are still like $100,000,
and we drove that thing
through, like, a corn field
and dented the fuck out of it.
He just did not give
a fuck about money.
$100 bills pave the way to fuck.
**
Beagle:
I guess the whole concept was,
"What would two
pro skateboarders do
if they had the boss'
credit card and went on a trip?"
That was the concept,
but it was nothing like that.
It was, like, what could
Steve Rocco make these kids do
to make them feel awkward?
One of the epic things that
we did was, like, we had Josh
and Keith judge a wet t-shirt
contest at a bar,
and then I was, like,
the water dude.
Like, I was, like, pouring
the water over the girls
to make their t-shirts wet.
It was funny.
Beagle:
And then right after that,
we had blind dates that night
with, like, these three
14-year-old girls.
Kirchart:
There was underaged girls,
and they ended up getting, like,
naked the first night and stuff.
Kind of creepy.
Beagle: Me and Heath are just
sitting there going,
"What's going on here?
This is creepy."
Whoo!
[ Man yells indistinctly ]
The stuff he did was unheard of.
It was twice as big as anything
that had been done.
It was stuff that people
only joked about.
**
All right.
Ready?
[ Speaks indistinctly ]
[ Both laugh ]
Give me another hit.
O'Dell: What is it like
having Heath be the dude
you're looking at?
I mean, is he, like...
Are you shitting
looking at Heath?
Yeah.
Show them how you take
a shit in here.
I don't want to take my fucking
pants off and do that.
No, but you can just sit.
Okay. I'm not taking
my pants off for this.
I think I do have to piss,
actually.
Is the piss jug
all the way up front?
A little spilled.
I'm gonna piss.
You can cut.
Show them that thing.
Piss.
He's about to show you
what he's famous for,
his big-ass dick.
- It's not that big.
I'm definitely more someone
that would rather be alone,
while he's someone that kind
of always needs someone around,
which makes it, like,
hard on a trip like this.
All right. We're in, like,
a row boat all the time.
Like, we're probably on
the water for 10 hours a day,
and this person is
10 feet away from me,
facing me the whole day.
There's been two versions
of Heath that I've known.
One is the little sidekick
to Josh Beagle.
I mean, I guess you can see
some of that in that, like,
that "Barbarians of the Gate"
movie.
But then there was, like,
such a switch from that Heath
to, like, the Heath
that everyone knows now.
I think I, like, turned
a little bit of a corner
and started, like,
taking skateboarding
a little more serious
and working on tricks
to film for a video part,
and, like, tried tricks
that maybe scared me,
and stuff like that.
**
**
**
**
Every month, I'd open up a mag,
and it's like,
"What did Heath do now?
Like, what the fuck did he do?"
Every single month,
he'd have an ad for somebody
where it would be just the
gnarliest thing you'd ever seen.
He was doing stuff
so big that no one knew.
I mean, can he ride away?
We don't know.
Like, he's gonna find out.
You know, he was pushing
the envelope like no other
when it came to, like,
gnarly street skating.
Mixing big with technical
was kind of one
of Heath's specialties.
There was so much
that he had done
that put him on such
a different level.
**
**
**
**
He's nuts, like, he's nuts.
He'll try anything, like,
you know what I mean?
Like, he feeds off that stuff.
He likes to do dangerous things.
Van Engelen: That dude pushed
how far you can push your body
physically,
and mentally,
in the sense of, like,
because that dude
didn't skate small shit.
He skated scary fucking shit.
If I were to go
do something scary,
I would stress
about it days before,
and so, like, the night
before would just,
like, be stressing,
thinking about it.
I think I'd drive to the spot
and look at it
and just focus on it
and just, like, be like,
"Okay, you're gonna
be here tomorrow.
You're gonna be rolling up.
Just know that you're gonna
have to overcome this," like,
and just, like, try to mentally
prepare as much as possible.
**
Hsu: The El Toro lipslide
is such a big deal.
First of all, he, like,
invented the spot.
You know, El Toro is now...
It's always referred to as the,
like, big rail stair set
in, like, skate conversation.
Kirchart: I wanted to skate
at El Toro High,
and it was a 20-stair rail
that no one had skated.
Jerry Fowler, who is,
like, a ledge skater,
showed me the rail,
and told me he tried to
noseslide it without a filmer,
and I was like,
"Oh, that's a lie."
El Toro, I think,
was the very first rail,
and maybe, like, the only time
it's happened to me
in skating that I was,
like, really scared of it,
to the point where, like,
when I was rolling up to it,
I was so nervous that, like,
I couldn't feel, really,
what was happening, like,
in my legs and stuff,
to where, like, I was like,
"I have no idea what's gonna
happen when I try this
because this just doesn't...
I can't really feel my legs
because I'm, like,
nervous and scared."
**
**
If you're trying something hard,
you just kind of hit this, like,
fuck it point before you try it
to where you're just,
like, you've arranged
all these people to be there,
you said you were gonna do it,
you don't want to do it
because you're scared,
but you're committed,
and so you have to, basically,
just force yourself and just go,
"I don't care if the
worst-case scenario happens."
"I have to go, like, right now,
and just get it over with."
**
**
He can endure pain so well.
It's like Heath gets off
on pain, really.
Man: Good job.
Hsu:
He was one of the guys
that, like,
took the harshest slams.
Definitely some of the stuff
that I've seen,
just in real life,
which isn't even that bad,
but the stuff
I've seen on video...
...like, some of
the most brutal stuff
I've ever seen.
**
**
Aah!
Kirchart: I mean,
that lipslide that, like,
basically pile-drived me
into the rail was probably,
like, the biggest rail
I ever tried to skate,
but it was also just, like,
this is a fucking...
Like, for how big it was,
it was steep.
So it just, like, like
a fireman's pole just, like,
into the ground.
Van Engelen: He will try shit
till he cannot walk.
That was, like, the biggest
thing I took from Heath,
and I'm just like, "Oh.
Like, the best in the world
fucking don't just land shit?"
Aah!
It's hilarious
what skateboarding did to me
as far as, like,
make me a psycho.
Aah!
Kirchart: Mileage-wise,
we're about
halfway through the trip.
After the first week,
my hands just,
basically, kind of seized up.
Yeah.
They feel like when you jam
your finger, like, bad.
My fingers feel like
they're jammed.
Yeah. Because they're
swollen and they can't close
and they kind of ache.
And so that constant
strain on them...
I couldn't make fists.
I still can't make
a proper fist.
Want to row for a bit?
Yeah.
Burtch: Being on a trip
with Heath like this,
there's an aspect of it
where you don't want to,
like, let this dude down
because you know, like,
he'll row forever.
It's like the same way
with skating.
He's gonna -- He's not done
until his body, like,
physically fucking can't move.
[ Speaks indistinctly ]
Hsu: Sometimes skate sessions
are just, like,
really, you know, fun and social
and it's very, like, easygoing,
but, I mean,
Heath's sessions are...
It's more serious.
It's more focused.
**
**
Heath does not like distraction.
Like, he needs a lot
of concentration
for the stuff he does.
He would just flip
out, you know,
focus his board,
throw it, scream.
I think he's done.
I mean, John Miner can tell you
all about those things.
I think at first, I was, like,
pretty intimidated by it,
but I kind of got used
to it over time,
and, I mean, after a while,
it just kind of started
getting entertaining in a way
because he would just
fucking lose his mind.
Aah!
It's hilarious
what skateboarding did to me
as far as, like, make me
a psycho when I was doing it
because I don't have that real
rage in me anymore, ever.
There's something about
physically exhausting yourself
and wanting something
so bad that,
like, will make you fucking snap
when you see it
kind of going away.
I tried to bail because my board
was going in
the fucking wrong direction!
Fuck!
Shit! Aah!
**
**
I would have no problem
in, like,
a fit of rage, like,
throwing my board.
And of course, anyone walking by
is gonna fucking stop
and stare at this
fucking lunatic
throwing a skateboard around,
and I would just fucking
look at them and just like,
"What the fuck
are you looking at?"
Just like, "Fucking stare at you
when you're doing
your fucking shit."
Like, I would have no problem
attacking someone staring at me.
Well, that sucks.
Okay.
Fine, then.
He really kind of puts off
this vibe of, like,
"Don't talk to me.
Don't look at me."
But that also really attracts
people's interests.
Ow!
Heath is very...
How do I say it, man?
He's a scientist.
He's just that person
in the lab working 24-7,
and he don't want
nobody around him.
I've never seen a human
being like him.
Regan: People that,
before they meet Heath,
are intimidated by him,
and I think that's because
they don't know what to expect,
and because he is quiet,
and it's really,
more than anything,
it's his shyness.
It's an interesting scenario
with Heath because his job
is to be in front of people
and skateboarding.
He puts on a really
incredible show, but,
in addition to the skating part,
you're supposed to interact
with the fans and the audience,
and after the skating
was over, like,
Heath would pull his hat
and kind of just disappear
back into the crowd.
The fame is not
what was motivating him.
There was something
else driving him.
Hsu: I think from, just
a skate-fan perspective,
he was intimidating, along
with all the other stuff.
Before I rode for Emerica,
I became friends with
Spanky and John Miner.
They had this house
on Fairfax in Hollywood,
and I would go visit Spanky.
I would go stay there.
Welcome to the Emerica house.
Heath had a room there,
and it was just a bed
and one of those giant,
like, 4-foot-tall giant TVs,
and then VHS tapes
just stacked everywhere.
He would just sit in his room
and watch movies.
Miner: I remember a time where
he didn't leave his room
for a week.
It was, like, dude, this guy is,
like, so introverted, man.
He hasn't left
his fucking room in a week.
I would see him, you know,
maybe once a day,
when he would come down
to cook his, like,
frozen pizzas in the oven
and then take them
back to his room.
It was like living with a ghost.
Hsu:
Heath is one of those guys
that people, like,
trade stories about.
He has that weird appeal
for a lot of skaters.
Like, he owned vending
machines for a while.
He had these vending
machines that he would go
and he would refill them,
collect the money.
He even would do things, like,
there would be, like,
a secret one,
like a secret soda.
It didn't have a label.
It would just be, like,
surprise soda.
You'd just be, like, "Yeah."
Like, people, they'd get so
curious that they would buy it.
It was so funny.
He told me he delivered
pizzas for a while,
but he wasn't even retired yet.
That was just something --
that was just something
that he did on the side.
Kirchart:
That was a great job.
One time, to my face,
I got recognized selling pizzas.
It was a basement in downtown
L.A. of this building,
and they were doing, like,
a photo shoot for some,
I don't know,
fashion thing or something,
and then all of sudden in back
of me, someone's just like,
"Are you Heath Kirchart?",
and I was just like, "Fuck."
It was kind of embarrassing.
He told me before, like,
he always lived the same way
his broke friends did,
to where he'd, like, live in,
like, the same spots,
eat the same food,
drink the same,
like, shitty, cheap beer,
and, like, just do that,
except he was,
like, saving his money
and investing it
in different things.
O'Dell: And do you know some
of the things he invested in?
I mean, it was, like,
properties, a lot of stocks.
Hunt: I mean, he has, like,
Baskin Robbins coupons
in his wallet, you know?
He buys fucking candy
after Halloween
because it goes on sale.
That's, like, Heath's sort of,
like, M.O., you know?
And that put him in a good
position to retire.
I think so.
Yeah. It's funny.
I remember when Heath
was spending a lot of time
with myself
and Anthony Van Engelen.
They were talking about 5 years
in the future and being pro.
Anthony was like, "Damn.
Five years. That's, like, 2012.
Like, fuck, that's crazy.
I'm gonna be, like,
30-something, whatever.
Like, what do you think
you're gonna do?
Are you gonna be
pro in 5 years?"
to Heath, and he's like,
"Fuck no. Like, no way.
Like, there's no way
I'll be pro in 5 years."
**
Jefferson:
Heath is always the dude
you think you know,
but you don't know,
and the Mega Ramp
was the start of that.
It was when he started
being extra weird.
**
Hsu: Quitting being a pro skater
is not your choice.
Usually something happens,
you get hurt
or your sponsors dump you
or you have a family,
or whatever it is.
Usually it's just not
your choice, so it was unusual
for someone to just be like,
"I'm done."
[ Horn honks ]
Kirchart: Well, skateboarding
to me was always, like,
I wanted each part to progress,
and there started to be less
and less progression.
And like, even if you just
look at the last part
I came out with, it was
just regurgitated tricks
that I'd done in the past.
Aah!
At that point,
everything was a battle.
I don't think there's a trick
in there that came easy,
and that's just
the way skateboarding was
as I started entering my 30s.
I tried to be, like, gimmicky.
I was like, "Well, I'll film
my part in all white,
and then I'll stand out
that way," or something.
And I was like, "You know what?
Like, why am I doing this?
I should just let them
know that, like,
I don't really care
to film a part, or I can't."
Aah!
You kind of just feel,
I don't know, inadequate.
There was also a lot
of good skateboarders
coming up at the time
for the companies I rode for.
If you're, like,
a 35-year-old man
that's just, like,
not really keeping up,
you're keeping those younger
guys from getting paid.
Shit.
Reynolds: So instead of,
you know, just milking it,
which Heath totally could've,
and everybody actually
told him he could have.
Like, "We will pay you to do
nothing and just be you,"
and he said no.
I just personally took it as,
like, "Damn.
That's a gangster way to go out
is just say, like,
no free money."
Like, I'd buy
a Heath board right now.
Templeton: To me, it's kind
of admirable and awesome
to just say, "You know what?
Like, I'm taking no money,
therefore, I have to do nothing.
Whatever I do now,
skating-wise, is for myself."
And, you know, that's awesome.
That's great.
I mean, clearly I didn't
follow this
because I still have
a board out right now,
and I barely skate anymore,
so go figure, but...
So what happened was,
I decided to, like,
call it a day as far
as skating and everything,
but I was like, "But I still
want to see what I can do."
It would be ideal
to finish my last part
with something that I've
wanted to do for whatever it is,
15 years.
Wilkins:
We were at the "Mag" one day,
and someone called us and said,
"Hey. Heath's going out to Bob's
today to skate his Mega Ramp."
And they're like, "You should
come out and shoot it."
**
The Mega Ramp is what
I would call
a Hot Wheels track on steroids.
It's probably two
or three stories high,
the scariest thing you can do.
I mean, people have broken legs
and knocked themselves out
and almost died on it.
You're one of my favorites, man.
Burnquist:
Heath, for a long time,
was my favorite street skater.
You don't, you know,
just street skate
and then go to a Mega Ramp.
I really want you to pull it.
I want you to make it.
I don't go to the streets
and go like,
"Okay. I'm gonna go 50/50
this, you know, 30-stair rail."
Jefferson: There's people
who skate Mega Ramp only,
and there's street skaters,
and street skaters
are not supposed to do
what these guys
are doing at all.
Wilkins: I think he brought
a motorcycle helmet,
and that was gonna be
what he rode the Mega Ramp on.
Kirchart: It's one of those
things where it's just like,
it's full commitment or none.
It's all or nothing,
and it's just such a mind fuck
because it's out of your realm.
You're clearing a gap that,
I don't know what it is,
60 feet or something,
and there's a fucking hole.
And you're going faster than
I've ever gone on a skateboard,
and now I have to go off
a fucking, like, whatever it is,
8-foot jump ramp
going the fastest
I've ever gone on a skateboard?
Like, I have no idea how my body
will react to that.
It was never his goal to just go
and jump this thing straight.
He just started spinning 360s.
[ Groans ]
He put one down hard, and went
to his shoulder, and I was like,
"Maybe that's it.
Like, he's done. He's slammed."
Ah, man.
The Mega Ramp thing
was just a rumor,
and the rumor I heard
that was he tried it,
but he broke his collarbone,
or whatever,
and he just gave up.
What we didn't realize was that,
when he took the slam,
he broke his collarbone.
Kirchart: I'd broken
my collarbone enough times
where I was just like,
"Something's, like,
fucked with it.
My arm's only
going up this high."
And I was just like,
"I've just got to give it,
like, one more try."
Man: Holy shit.
So when I was at the premiere
and saw it,
and he actually landed it, like,
I kind of almost started crying
because I was, like,
it was just so unbelievable.
He really went out with a bang.
[ Laughing ]
I don't know.
It was probably, like,
the most amazing feeling
I'd had in skateboarding, just
because it was the end, too.
It was, like, "Oh, like,
I'll never have to film another
trick if I don't want to.
I'll never have to be
scared again on a skateboard."
I was gonna do it
without a helmet,
but after that last one, man,
I would have fucking
knocked myself fucking out.
Yeah.
Jefferson:
Once you saw the boat,
that's when you're like,
"Dude, what are you doing?"
We're doing it!
[ Film reel clicking ]
Got you.
Think that's just...
I'm getting better at this.
I think I can hear
when it's exposed now.
O'Dell: You guys ever...
Spots?
This is -- I think
this might be the best one.
It's that... over
the rail onto a bank.
I saw that one.
This is, like, hip.
On the board, like,
you can see...
That's not really what we're
about on this trip, though.
So, like, after he retired,
he just kind of decided
to go on adventures,
I feel like.
I remember he rode his bike
across the country.
Kirchart: The bicycle trip
kind of happened
because I was like, "All right.
Like, I'm gonna be done skating.
I have to figure out
what I'm gonna do
with the rest of my life."
I think I was, like,
33 at the time.
And so I was just like,
"You know what?
I'll just, like, get a bicycle,
ride across country,"
and then I invited
my friend Jeff on it,
not thinking that he would go.
I'm pretty sure he knows
that's exactly the type of shit
that I like to do.
Definitely, like,
tons of people thought
that it was a bad idea.
Like, my sister was
really curious
how we knew nothing
about how to fix our bikes.
Kirchart: I mean, the whole thing
was just to kind of wing it.
You know, I had to Google
what type of bicycle to get.
Like, I wasn't a bike rider.
I mean, sitting on a bicycle
for 8 hours a day
for 53 straight days
kind of fucking sucks.
Three days in,
my ass started to bleed.
It's not your asshole,
it's just, kind of, like,
the in between your balls
and your asshole.
Like, I told all these people
I was gonna do this,
and then it's almost like
I'm gonna have to quit.
We were in Death Valley
at the time,
and it was probably,
like, 110 degrees,
and we just bought
a big tub of Vaseline
and just, like,
both went into a bathroom
with this tub of Vaseline
and just scoop a handful,
and you just basically lube
everything down there,
and that kind of fixed it
and made it all kind of,
like, stuff stopped rubbing.
Vallee: That's the part
of the story
that's not, fucking, very cool.
Like, you stop in some bathroom
and fucking rub
Vaseline on your taint.
Kirchart: I mean, Jeff,
he kind of has, like,
a personality similar to mine,
to where, like, we were both
willing to, like,
grind it out and work hard,
and not one person is gonna
carry the other one,
so it works well on a trip.
I'm doing it, dude.
Brr!
Vallee: We liked that
we didn't really know
how to long-distance bicycle
or fix a bicycle,
and we thought, "Okay.
Here's another one."
Kirchart: So then we did
the Grand Canyon next.
Ride a raft through
the Grand Canyon...
God damn it.
What the fuck?
...and you go all through
the Grand Canyon,
235 miles on a raft.
All right.
Here we go.
- Whoo!
- Yeah!
Kirchart:
We weren't guided.
We had no idea, like, what to do
or how to go through
them or anything.
[ Laughing ]
The big danger with that one
is that the water is,
like, freezing cold.
Once you go in
without a dry suit on,
like, you'll freeze
within, like, a minute or two.
Vallee:
When I went on that trip,
I was like, "This is the trip."
You get to shit your pants.
You get to, you know,
actually have, like,
fun with that risk,
and then you get to do
the whole thing.
And I was like, "I want to do
this stuff all the time, man."
Whoo!
I've been around Heath
when he pitches these ideas.
Vallee: Oh, fuck.
The rope got caught.
Slowly but surely, his missions
get so gnarly and so crazy,
people are like,
"Nah. I'm good."
Kirchart: What's most memorable
about all trips I've done
is the miserable times,
and those are the parts you look
back and, like, cherish.
This last day where
we rode 45 miles
and spent 16 hours on the boat
was just fucking hell.
It's the days that you look
back on and are just like,
"All right, like,
we got through that."
And that's, like, kind of, like,
the cherished moments.
Here, this is a picture from
the boat trip where we failed,
and we don't really
have any pictures
because, you know,
everything was kind of lost.
But he was super into buying
this football jersey
with the name of the boat
on the back, and I was like,
"Really?
I really can't picture you
wearing a fucking
football jersey."
The concept of that one was,
Jeff had read a book of people
kayaking down
the Pacific side of Baja.
We were kind of contemplating
how we wanted to do it,
and we went out to eat
in Los Angeles,
and this surfer came up to us,
and we were telling him, like,
"Yeah. We're thinking about,
like, kayaking down."
Like, he's just like, "Oh, I had
a friend that built his own boat
and tried to go down there
in a boat."
We're like, "Well,
how'd that go?"
And he's just like,
"He made it two days, and, like,
the boat capsized and, like,
he had to, like, swim to shore."
And we're like, "Fucking,
he built his own boat,
and he fucking lasted two days?
Like, damn.
That sounds like a trip that
would be fucking awesome to do."
**
So we would work hard
all day long, sanding,
doing all this other shit,
and then we would
go out at night,
and then we would wake up
in the morning.
And we had, like,
our little routine,
and those are some
of my favorite times.
It's, like, a lake boat,
you know?
It was made to, like,
sail around on a lake somewhere.
We took it through marinas
and stuff, and, like,
we had sailboats,
like, beeline for us
and, like, take photos of us.
Like, it was a beautiful boat.
The goal was to make it
from San Diego, Pacific Beach,
down to Todos Santos.
Vallee: The idea was that,
I think, we were gonna take
40 or 50 days to do it.
So we sail out
of San Diego Harbor.
We're fucking cruising.
Heath made a joke.
He was like, "This is easy."
Kirchart: The plan for that trip
was to, every night,
come into shore,
camp on the beach,
pull out, go back,
do that all the way down.
And we knew there were
some rocky points
to where we wouldn't be
able to pull in,
and we'd have to sail
through the night.
So the sun started to come down.
We're probably, like,
60 kilometers into Mexico
at this point,
where it's just cliffs
and super big waves,
and we, like,
couldn't get into shore.
All right, well.
We knew we were gonna
sleep on this boat
at least some nights.
Like, I guess it's gonna
be the first night.
Vallee: It's getting dusk,
and this guy comes out
on a Jet Ski
from Rosarito Beach.
He's a lifeguard.
Just, like, the look
on his face is just like,
"What are you doing?
Like, where are you going?"
We named a marina that was
probably, like, 30 miles down,
and he was like, "You're never
gonna make it there."
And we were like, "We know.
We're good,"
like, just trying to get
rid of him.
We didn't want him to have to,
like, pull us in.
We wanted to continue
on our trip.
He's like, "They're going south.
They're obviously Americans.
They have a shitload of, like,
random gear in their
little, tiny boat.
They're dressed weird."
And he was very perplexed
that we were like,
"Nope.
Everything's cool here,"
because he was looking
and going like,
"Like, I work on the ocean.
Everything is not cool here."
Kirchart: He was just like,
"All right. Give me your names.
Like, I need to, like,
know who you guys are.
Like, what's your name?"
And so we gave him our names,
and he's just, like,
he couldn't really do anything,
so like, he's just like,
"All right."
Vallee:
We rode through the night.
I told him, I was like, "Okay.
Well, why don't you...
There's no reason
for us both to be up.
Why don't you sleep right now
and I'll stay up?"
Yeah, basically, first day,
we were totally fucked.
Kirchart: Slept on the boat,
sailed through the night,
woke up the next morning.
Super windy.
There was, like, a wind called
the Santa Ana Winds.
We're not adept at sailing,
so I'm trying to sail
this small boat,
and when the wind would
really hit us hard,
I would let some of the sail out
because I was afraid it was
gonna capsize the boat.
Jeff let go of the boom,
broke our mast.
And so now we're just
this cork with the wind howling,
and it was blowing us
out to the ocean.
For the next, like,
I don't know how long,
I'd love to know how long
it actually was,
we were just trying
to row to shore,
and then we tried to
switch rowers one time,
and I, like,
tripped over in the boat
and it tipped the boat over,
and the boat was underwater.
We felt like we were, like, 400
or 500 yards off the shore,
and that's a long ways
to swim if you're, like, healthy
and there's no wind,
but the water was cold
and we were just cramping up.
We were swimming probably,
like, 45 minutes,
and I looked behind me, and
we just had made no progress.
Like, we were basically just,
like, treading water.
We were just basically,
like, stuck.
And that was the only time
I've ever seen Heath
where he was totally out
of control of the situation,
and he looked like
he was really scared.
I was just like,
"I can't believe this is it.
I can't fucking believe
that this is, like,
how I'm gonna fucking die."
That's all I kept saying.
I was like,
"I can't fucking believe
I'm gonna die doing this."
Like, this is it.
This is just... eh.
Vallee:
It was really fucking scary.
And I'm looking at the shore,
and I've swam my whole life
in the ocean, and I'm like,
"There's a fucking really
good chance
that we will not make it there."
And then, yeah, the dude
shows up on a Jet Ski,
the same dude
as the night before.
14 hours later, this guy
was, like, saving our life,
like, couldn't be happier
to see any other human.
By the time they put us
in the ambulance,
we were just shaking so bad.
So, like,
hypothermia had set in,
and they tried to put
an I.V. in me,
and I was just shaking too bad
for them to hit a vein.
They were just stabbing
my arm with a needle.
Vallee: And then the lifeguard
walks up to me and he goes,
"Are you Jeff?"
And I was like, "Fuck."
Like, "Yeah, man,
what can I say?
Like, you were right.
I'm wrong.
Like, we should not
have been out there."
Kirchart: I had
a waterproof case on my iPad
that I had around my neck
when shit hit the fan,
so when I put on my life jacket,
it just happened to be on me,
so we showed up at the hospital
with just shorts, t-shirt,
an iPad and a Leatherman.
Luckily, this guy,
he was just like,
"I'll drive you to the border."
So they drove us to the border,
and we just walked across
the border barefoot.
We skipped by my friend's house,
got Heath a pair of shoes
and literally dropped him
off at the train,
and he just rode
the train back to L.A.
Kirchart: I mean, you definitely
learn something new about yourself
on every one of the trips,
and sometimes it's, like,
not something you even want
to know about yourself.
Burtch:
Shit's coming, man.
When we jump out,
don't, like, jump...
Splash? Yeah.
I just need to put the swim
fins on, and then I'll jump.
[ Man speaks indistinctly ]
**
**
[ Chuckles ]
Patrick, do you want
to fucking do it?
O'Dell: No.
This might be, like,
a once-in-a-lifetime deal.
It took us three weeks for this.
That's pretty cool.
There's just a fucking
massive fish behind you.
No big deal.
Yeah.
Well, we've been freaking...
Our whole deal was
that we wanted
to find a whale shark
and jump in with it,
and we just did that.
I don't want to think
that I was, like,
ever, like,
an adrenaline junkie.
I think that's just kind of,
like, a lot of people
that's associated with
that term kind of just suck.
I think my whole life
was about, like,
accomplishing something
on a skateboard,
a trick, a video part
or something,
like something to look forward
to that you're doing,
and, like, now that, like,
I don't have that
with skateboarding,
it's like, what's going
to fill that void for me,
and I think it's trips
like this.
I like the unknown, I guess.
And, like, out here,
there's a lot unknown,
and there's a lot,
like, you know,
day-to-day, there's
a lot of stuff that can come up
that I'm not prepared for,
then you have to deal with it.
We're here for the adventure.
Like, I want something that,
like, you have to overcome.
So, like, we get blown out
or we get in a dicey situation,
like, I'm, like,
looking forward to that,
and, like, how you meet
that challenge.
The leak in the boat, it's just,
like, everything,
that's why we're here.
If it went perfect,
it wouldn't be an adventure.
**
**