Looking Sideways Action Sports Podcast

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.This week’s guest is Mario Molina, and what a chat this one is. Mario is a climber, snowboarder, mountain biker and guide who grew up in the highlands of Guatemala and today lives in Colorado. As I discovered, he is also somebody who has dedicated his life to the fight for climate action, firstly as deputy director at the Alliance for Climate Education, and then latterly as International Director at The Climate Reality Project, where he worked with Al Gore and helped oversee that organisation’s post-Paris Agreement strategy. Today, he is executive director of Protect Our Winters, helping to drive POW and sister organisation the POW Action Fund’s strategy during the busiest and most critical period in the organisation’s history. With the 2020 election looking, POW are using a highly targeted and calculated plan to try and mobilise a potential 50 million ‘outdoor state’ voters, and drive the narrative to depoliticise the climate conversation and move it away from a binary left/right argument. These are massive ambitions that stem from POW’s ultimate aim, which is to achieve systemic change in transportation and energy at the highest possible level. And it meant myself and Mario had plenty to talk about as we caught up over Zoom in August 2020.Naturally, I was also keen to tap into Mario’s depth of experience to see what we can learn from his own unique perspective on the challenges we face when it comes to climate action, particularly in the post-Covid world. The result is a rich, fascinating and insightful conversation with somebody with a unique take on our current situation. I found Mario to be a really generous conversationalist, and greatly enjoyed our conversation. Hope you do too. New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers.Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.comAuspicious occasion alert! Yep, I conducted my first face-to-face interview since way back in March. Even more excitingly, it was a guest who also happens to be a really close friend of mine - the great Ben Mondy. Mondy is a surf writer, journalist and lifer par excellence of the Australian surf industry genus. He was a staffer at Tracks for years, and over the course of his career has written about surfing for absolutely everybody with caustic wit, high intelligence and a keenly developed bullshit radar that makes him essential reading and has got him into plenty of trouble over the years. Today, he works primarily with the WSL and Wavelength - and is still getting into trouble, as we discussed during our chat. These days, Benno lives down the road from me in Tunbridge Wells, and is so surf starved that he’s even started turning up at the Hot Pipes for a sneaky session with me when the tides, sludge and wind aligns. So it was one fateful August day that the forecast looked good, the sun came out and we found ourselves sitting in a car overlooking the Hot Pipes recording this episode. As you might expect given that a) it was the first in person one for months and b) it was with one of my oldest mates, spirits were high. Hope you enjoy the episode. Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.comOur attitude to mortality is one of the great paradoxes of modern life. It’s the thing we have in common and the thing we all ignore, putting off the inevitable reckoning until we’re usually forced to face it under the worst possible circumstances - grief, loss, sickness. It’s a conundrum we will all grapple with at some point, and one that surfer, writer and journalist Tim Baker has spent the last five years becoming intimately familiar with following his 2015 stage 4 cancer diagnosis. During that time, he has written movingly, insightfully and honestly about his experiences, and the approach that has enabled him to cope physically and mentally with the biggest, most fundamental challenge of his life.In today’s show, we cover this territory and a whole lot more. We discuss the specifics of Tim’s approach to oncological care, a combination of traditional and alternative techniques he arrived at through much open-minded experimentation. We talk about the ethics of palliative and medical care, and our own shifting relationship to death and mortality. And we discuss Tim’s belief that by facing the great hidden experience of our lives, we can achieve an unexpected happiness and inner peace. I’m so grateful to Tim for this conversation, which I personally found to be a profound and moving experience. I hope you can take something similar from it. Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.This week’s guest is Alex Yoder, a snowboarder who is known for one of the best turns in the business and the series of thoughtful films he’s made in recent years about snowboarding in Turkey and Scotland. It was third time lucky for me and Alex - we had abortive attempts to record this episode in Portland and Niseko before finally jumping on Zoom to take care of it in time-honoured 2020 fashion. The timing was actually great, because Alex has just launched a new venture called Overview Coffee, an ethical take on coffee distribution. Overview sources its coffee from farms that prioritise environmental stewardship and is founded upon the principles of regenerative organic agriculture. For it’s proponents, regenerative organic agriculture offers an ethical vision for agriculture based upon a long-term approach to soil health, and a commitment to community and environmental sustainability; all of which which will become increasingly crucial if we’re to solve the many environmental issues we’re currently facing. That’s the thinking behind Overview, which for Alex is a kind of soft-power, pragmatic take on environmental activism - designed to educate people and encourage them to help create change with the consumer choices they make each week, which in the society we live in is still how most of actually get to exercise any influence or power.As you’ll expect if you’re a regular listener to Type 2, we also discussed Alex’s own story, including his passion for telling stories that sit outside the usual snowboard mainstream. The result is a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation that provides plenty of food for thought on different forms of activism, and how we have more opportunities to create change than we might think. My thanks to Alex for a great chat - hope you enjoy this one. New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers.Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.comThese days, using action sports as a tool for social mobility and mentorship is a fairly well known practise. In 2005, when this week’s guest Steve Larosiliere founded his organisation Stoked, it was new territory. Stoked was founded as a result of Steve’s own experience of mentorship and his ambition ‘to use action sports to teach 21st century skills to urban youth.’15 years later, Stoked has helped thousands of disadvantaged kids across the States, while Steve’s experiences in running the organisation have given him a unique take on social entrepreneurship and the power of action sports as a transformative tool. I’ve been following Steve for a while and we caught up in early August 2020 to discuss his life and career. The result is a quickfire chat that covers the above and also takes in issues of race, identity and nationality, using the wider global conversation as context and backdrop. Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.comThe search for our authentic self is a lifelong process. And not always a successful one. It takes a huge amount of self honesty, and a willingness to embrace consistent and at times not always comfortable evolution.It’s something we all have to face, whether consciously or not. But imagine undergoing this entire process as a world-renowned skateboarder - while also trying to juggle both wider societal pressures, and those of a patriarchal industry who have tied your own career success to their own restrictive definitions of gender. This is exactly the position Leo Baker faced at the height of their success. And it is why there is so much more to Leo’s story than their admittedly generation-defining feats as a skater. Today, as they explained during our conversation, Leo is in a very different place, proud to be living authentically as the most high-profile nonbinary trans skater in the world. And yet, as Leo explained during our conversation, gaining the understanding and self-confidence required to finally present as their authentic self has been a long and involved process.It has involved learning to deal with the collateral damage and mental health issues that have accrued along the way, and ultimately committing to a measured and long term approach to self-care. Leo’s story is one of the most important in modern skateboarding, and I’m grateful they’ve trusted me to tell it in their own way, and in their own words. Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.comWe live in an age of limitless content and endless progression. A period where a thumb-swipe can summon any film part in history, and where readily-available tools mean anybody can be a story-teller or documentarian.And yet what’s striking, in this age of digital plenty, is how rare - even now! - it is for an action sports film to have something to say something other than ‘Woo-hoo! Let’s shred!’ Films that dare to use comedy and pathos to say something universal about snowboarding, skateboarding and surfing? Almost unheard of. It’s why Jerome Tanon’s 2016 film Eternal Beauty of Snowboarding is so great. Here was a film that managed to have its cake and eat it. That sent up the ridiculousness of the very scene it celebrated with affection and poignancy, while also being very funny at the same time. Here was a singular new voice with funny, important things to say about our weird little world. Jerome followed Eternal Beauty with Zaberdast, a beautiful documentary about a high-stakes freeriding trip to the Himalayas, and has just launched his latest project Heroes, a book about modern women’s snowboarding. In typical Jerome style, Heroes is an ambitious and independent undertaking that looks set to redefine the perception of women’s snowboarding for a new generation. We caught up in July 2020 to discuss Jerome’s life and career, as well as creativity in action sports in general. It’s a good one. Hope you enjoy the episode. Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.comTo call Matt Warshaw’s Encyclopaedia of Surfing a labour of love would be to do the entire project a grave injustice. As the name suggests, EoS is Matt’s ongoing, crowdfunded attempt to document the history of surfing and surf culture through the site of the same name. It’s an industry ‘lifer’ project par excellence. And a beautiful, Johnsonian venture that, in essence, will never be completed. But then, Matt’s entire career has been about voyaging deeper than anybody else into surf history; whether as a journalist, the author of weighty surf histories such as his History of Surfing, or now through the Encyclopaedia.With this project, surfing has found the perfect cultural and historical custodian. And Matt has found the perfect vehicle through which he can continue to explore his life’s passion. It’s the living embodiment of the 1000 True Fans theory of art and creativity, and in its Borgesian infinity there is something surreal yet completely creatively pure about the entire undertaking. I’ve been looking forward to speaking to Matt for years, and this encounter didn’t disappoint. Like a river slowly making its way across a floodplain, our conversation meandered in its own slow, purposeful way and I enjoyed it very much.Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Type 2 is a podcast from Looking Sideways in association with Patagonia that explores the intersection between the outdoors, action sports and activism.This week’s guest is Dan Crockett, a writer, journalist and activist from the UK who is currently Development Director of the Blue Marine Foundation, a charity dedicated to resorting the ocean to health.Blue Marine Foundation do so by supporting various different projects, among them the recent virtual Rewilding the Sea conference, which brought together different interested parties in an attempt to further the conversation around the topic of marine rewilding and restoration. Their work is a great way into the subject of rewilding, the concept of restoring large scale ecosystems and reintroducing natural processes and missing species to a landscape in an attempt to allow nature to take care of itself, something we discussed in detail during our conversation. Dan is also heavily involved in the drive to introduce marine national parks to the UK coastline; an attempt, as he explained, to reset our own relationship with the marine environment that is such an important part of our life.And, of course, as regular listeners of Type 2 will know, we also explored Dan’s own story, including how he ended up working on such innovative and passion-driven projects, as well as the thread that links his work - the intimacy of the human relationship with the sea, and our changing attitude to the marine environment. It’s a really lovely, reflective chat this, with a nuanced thinker and a generous conversationalist. I enjoyed it very much - thanks to Dan for sharing his insights with us. New episodes of Type 2 are released every four weeks through my Looking Sideways channel. Hear it by subscribing to Looking Sideways via ApplePodcasts, Spotify or any of the usual other podcast providers.Thanks to Ewan Wallace for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Full episode and Show Notes - www.wearelookingsideways.comIt’s easy to forget, but all stories are editorial choices. And those choices have a big influence on the way we collectively perceive our shared culture and history. It’s why the standard narratives around our shared history tend to default to the same names and anecdotes. And it’s why She Surf, the new overview of modern female surfing and surf history by Lauren Hill, is such a much-needed breath of fresh air. Throughout her career as a surfer, writer and podcaster, Lauren has used her experiences and wider interests to tackle big, important themes in a graceful and accessible way. She Surf - a considered, inclusive, beautifully put together piece of work - is the culmination of that lifelong quest, providing the most comprehensive and alternative view of modern and historical female surf culture yet. The book was also the launchpad into a wide-ranging, omnivorous conversation that took in the importance of play, the toxic effects of female objectification on both men and women, the legacy of the male gaze in surf culture, and many more topics that don’t get an airing too often. And, of course, we also took a long look at Lauren’s own life and career. Very much enjoyed this one. Thanks for coming on the show Lauren! Enjoying the podcast? Want to keep it free and ad-free? Donate here: https://bit.ly/LSBuyPint Thanks to Matt Ward for the theme tune, and to my editor Fina Charleson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe