Colin Findlater Interview - Issue 123

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What’s Cooking with Colin Findlater?

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ISSUE 123

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What’s Cooking with Colin Findlater?

Words: Jordan Guzyk Photos: Sam Fidlin Design: Randy Laybourne

A

fter a long day of skating during a visit to Vancouver we arrived back at the residence of our gracious hosts— Josh Kline and Chad Dickson. As most of us began eating dinner, Colin Findlater started cooking nothing but frozen corn. Standing in the kitchen wearing only sweaty boxers, Colin strained said corn, put it in a bowl, and topped it off with salt and pepper. He failed to notice that Brian Caissie and a few other guys had come over for some pizza, so when Colin was ready to eat his corn, he turned around to find a group of skaters staring at him. “Put on some clothes, dude!” snapped Chad, which drew a response from Colin that was reminiscent of an irritated housewife: “You didn’t tell me we were having company!”

Colin’s popularity within the Canadian scene has been on the rise throughout the past few years. With RDS, Mystery, Fallen and The Boardshop backing his cause, he isn’t the kind of guy who likes to be the centre of attention. Colin keeps to himself, working overnight at a grocery store called Metro in his hometown of London, Ontario, and skating all day long.

This 21-year-old is an awesome dude to be friends with; shy at first, but he gradually speaks out.

As for his eating habits? Well, let’s just call them “innovative.”

d Frontside smith grin A lot of people think you have a really strange diet. What do you eat in a day?

I don’t think what I eat is that strange. Like, in the morning I’ll almost always start with a couple eggs, some toast, and probably a couple bowls of cereal after that. I munch pretty hard in the morning ‘cause I don’t eat very much during the day. While skating I’ll usually cop a bag of candy for $2. Get those sugar levels up. My mom usually tries to make me normal food at night, like taters, corn, and meat—stuff like that. But if I come home late from skating, I’ll just eat more cereal or jalapeño Doritos.

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What are some recent food favourites?

Costco has these boneless chicken wings that are pretty freakin’ good [laughs]. And you can pretty much throw anything between bread, like mini pizza bagels from Costco [see recipe below]. Eat Sriracha with everything—shit’s good.

with your buddies to get in on the sesh, you know? It’s easier to keep in contact with sponsors, too. I should do that more. It’s way more fun now that I have it. I don’t know why it took me so long, actually. Money? I was lazy? But I’m glad I got it ‘cause Instagram’s the best thing in the world.

Follow me: @pbitnutter.

Not very light on the carbs. Why did you only eat corn and candy while we were in Vancouver?

So now that you’re on that Insta tip, what’s your favourite thing to lurk on there?

I think this was when I tried watching what I ate.

I thought corn was really healthy; you can pepper that stuff up and eat as much as you want and you won’t blow up like a balloon. Plus, we got a candy hook-up, but maybe we should keep that on the DL [laughs].

The girlfriend’s always got some funny photos, ‘cause her friends are weird, and they’re the best.

But after that, weed photos [laughs], or skaters like Nyjah Huston and Ryan Decenzo. Nyjah’s Instagram gets me hyped ‘cause he’ll post gnarlier skate photos than we shoot, so it’s hype.

I’ll never understand your diet, man. You recently got a new cell phone after being on a seven-month hiatus. What took you so long?

You work overnight shifts at Metro pretty often. Do you ever get some strange characters coming in late-night?

I don’t know, man. I get stressed out when I have messages and I know people are waiting to hear back from me, so I kinda took the time to enjoy it. But now I know it’s necessary to keep in touch

Well, I used to work cash overnight and all the liquor stores and beer stores are closed at that time. So one time this woman comes in hammered and she’s probably at least 50-years-old. She comes up with a big bottle of Listerine, so I knew

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what was going on. She wants to pay with her credit card so she’s chatting me up, calling me sweetie. I just felt bad for her so I was like, “Fuck it, I’m gonna sell this girl some Listerine. I hope it sorts out her problems.”

Between working overnight at Metro and skating all the time, do you still party?

Oh yeah, every Wednesday. London has a ritual; everyone goes to Jack’s for $1 beers. We’ve got homies that work for CDN Entertainment taking photos and videos. It’s always a hype time. Usually those nights I work until 10 p.m. and we end up going to the bar at like 11 or something. It gets pretty sloppy sometimes—all the time [laughs].

Have you ever been kicked out of the bar before?

I know I have. I’ve gone to the bathroom, puked, and then came out looking for my friends. The bouncers were like: “You gotta go, you gotta go.”

I don’t think I was being rude, but I ended up almost getting beaten down outside, man [laughs].

That’s not even an uncommon occurrence at Jack’s. Jesse Belrose got tossed down the stairs.

What about that time at Jesse’s apartment when you locked yourself in the bathroom?

I just woke up to my girlfriend and her friends knocking at the bathroom ‘cause they had to go to work. They finally got me out by finding me passed out in a shower curtain, which is a great

blanket if you’re ever at a party and you pass out in the bathroom [laughs]. So they literally drag me out of there in the curtain, I crawl into some closet and try to light a cigarette in there, which is obviously a dumb idea.

You’re clearly prone to hilarious situations; what happened when you took your parents’ car without telling them?

This has actually been happening to me a lot recently, but this is probably the best story of it happening. I had driven to Guelph that morning with some homies to meet up with Byron [Ready], who drove us to Toronto to skate the Scarborough junkyard spot. I had my keys on me the whole time,

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T he Findlater Fav

but when we started skating I put them down. We get back to Guelph around 9 p.m. and my brother had to work in like two hours. Guelph is like an hour-and-a-half away from London, so I start looking for the keys to my car and can’t find them.

Classic move.

I started freaking out. We knew almost right away they’re in goddamn Toronto. Then came the dreaded call to the parents that I feel like I’ve made so many times [laughs]. Thank God they were cool about it and let my brother borrow their car, but no one could get home because of me.

Luckily we ended up finding my keys, but I felt pretty crummy.

What’s your pet peeve when you’re skating a spot?

Cars driving by is always a big thing. It shouldn’t be, but it just annoys me more than anything.

Also, people fidgeting at the bottom of the set that are just watching and creating noise. I don’t know, I’m a real scaredy cat when I’m about to jump on something, so I need full silence.

There must be more…

Oh, if I’m trying a trick and my board lands wrong—not necessarily getting chipped, but when I ding it and it gets soft—I always have to rip the grip off and sand it down a lot. That’s a huge pet peeve. If you think your board’s soft, you don’t think you’re gonna land the trick, you know? It’s all mental shit.

2 eggs 1 English muffin Cheese (2 slices , or grated) Jalapenos Sriracha

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Frontside 50-50

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I think I’d rather have cancer than be fat. And I know I’m going to regret saying that one day.

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2 boneless chicke n wings from Cos tco 1 bun Sriracha Microwave chicke n wings on high for a minute and a hal f. Flip half way through. Slap on bun and smother in Sriracha. Grilli ng optional.

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p ial heelfli Switch var

T he Milky Way

Oreos Favourite cere al Milk Sriracha

Pretty self ex planatory, du mp your Oreos in your milk and cere al often dabble in this becaus . I don’t e of the amount of calo ries. Add Srir acha if needed.

You’ve recently been skating spots without a filmer and just getting photos. Do you not care about footage?

I care a lot about footage, but it all just comes down to filmers being busy at work or school. So, if you’re someone like me who’s just working and skating all the time, you have to use the resources you have. Thankfully Sam Fidlin is always down to sesh and we usually come up with some stuff.

It’s a bummer, though, because the majority of the stuff we’ve shot hasn’t been filmed. The video part is coming along a little slower than I’d hoped for, but we’re getting some stuff. At least we’re getting photos. They just mean different things than footage sometimes. Different end of the spectrum, you know?

You’re really modest when it comes to asking for product, or getting people to film or shoot photos with you. Why? I don’t feel like I’m a very confident person and I just keep to myself. All through high school I kept to myself and got my work done. Thankfully I didn’t smoke weed back then or else I might still be there [laughs]. I get really nervous around people and feel like I’m always being judged. I don’t know if I judge people a lot, but I’m just 72

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constantly worried about how this person’s going to feel about what I just did. I’m a nervous guy. I don’t know how I got me a girlfriend.

Do you feel a lot of pressure to produce footage and photos for your sponsors?

Of course I do. I see other dudes on RDS like Micky Papa, who’s always putting out the gnarliest photos, ads and footage. He skates contests better than a lot of Pros. So I see things that other people on the team are coming out with and I try to use that as motivation. I’m getting a little older now, but it’s still fun. We’re at the point now where we have to skate spots a lot differently than we used to ‘cause we’re skating the same spots that we’ve been skating for years. It always ends up being more gnarly or more technical. More stressful, too. But the final product always ends up being better.

Why diet soda over regular soda?

Don’t you know that shit is bad for you?

Well, I’ve heard that from many people. I like Aspartame, and if I’m not mistaken, doesn’t it cause cancer? Well, I may speak for myself on this one, but I think I’d rather have cancer than be fat.

And I know I’m going to regret saying that one day.

Backside noseblunt