INTERVIEW - CAM KOESTER
Cam's a skateboarder through and through. No frills type of guy. Enjoys the finer things in life, like a pocket pussy, or a Budweiser. Read on to hear about Cam's...
Cam's a skateboarder through and through. No frills type of guy. Enjoys the finer things in life, like a pocket pussy, or a Budweiser. Read on to hear about Cam's shitty adventures through homeschool, his time in New York filming for Krooked's 2008 release of Naughty, penthouse play with Cat Power, and a new skateshop on the horizon. This is a lengthy one and full of details so grab yourself a beer and get prepared to be inspired and (or) possibly disgusted.
Cam, how you been?
I’m doing good man. (Laughs) Actually, the best I’ve been in years, honestly.
You ever done an interview before?
No.
You ever been asked to do an interview before?
Nope.
That’s nice, we have a fresh situation then. How’s life as a father?
It keeps me…responsible. (Laughs) No, honestly though, I live for my dogs and that’s all I fuckin’ think about are these two, and my other dude Gustavo. I really don’t care about much else.
You’ve got your priorities in line.
Yeah, exactly. I swear to God. All day, every day. Just waiting to get home to them, and then knowing that once I get home, exactly what they’re going to do. Which is just jump all over me, and it’s just the coolest shit ever. I never dealt with anything like it until I got them and it feels so good. So fucking cool dude.
What happened with Tiggy’s accident?
Well, thank God, nothing. I mean, thank God he didn’t lose his leg, which was the original plan. But yeah, came down from hiking and I used to always want to be the dog owner whose dogs could be off leash, and I thought I was in full control, thinking like, “Oh yeah my dogs, they’ll fuckin’ follow me and I can tell them this and that", and they clearly were not. Tig got wrapped up in something, a squirrel or whatever the hell it was, and he jetted across the park and I was screaming his name and the next thing I knew, I could hear him yelping. I fuckin’ knew what happened and I ran across. I found him just bloody, and limp. It caused a 3 car pileup. This dude stopped, luckily. His wife was still in the park and he ditched her, pulled his car around and was willing help us take Tig, Costa, and Gustavo to the vet. He drove my car, took my 4-Runner, just blazing through fuckin’ red lights and shit, all the way to Mohawk Alley Veterinarian on Sunset. I’ve actually been planning on text messaging that guy a photo of Tiggy, because that guy saved his fuckin’ life. Anyway, Tig went through almost 9 months worth of like, 4 surgeries, a hell of a lot of recovery, and it was the most rough time of my life. I signed him up to get his leg amputated. Luckily, some shit came up where it didn’t have to happen. And he’s all good now.
Looks like nothing ever happened to him.Every day that I see him, I tell him that he’s toughest, strongest, fuckin’ dude. (Laughs) He just has a gigantic heart. He doesn’t give up, and he’s just a tough dude. I’m so happy every time I see him.
When did you start homeschooling?
(Laughs) That’s a good one. Why or when?
Let’s start with when, and then we’ll go why.(Laughs) 5th grade I started homeschooling, and uh, oh man that was a lot of bullshit. Purely bullshit. I went through this place in Ventura and my tasks consisted of monthly check ins on my alligator lizard that I caught. The lady Victoria, she was cool. Her name was Victoria, she lived in a Victorian house downtown, in Ventura. She had this freaky mirror room that was shaped like a pyramid. Her assignments for me were to, no joke, give her a monthly update on how my alligator lizard was doing, draw my fucking thumb print and write a poem about it. I’m not even kidding. I was the only one homeschooling at that point out of my brothers and sisters. I would just spend time with my little brother Kahlil. Watched a lot of Bear In The Big Blue House and Teletubbies.
Quality time. Yeah, but then went back to school in 6th grade. My teacher, that was awesome. She loved me, and she would fuckin’...it was weird. She and I would email back and forth, privately. All the time. Took me out to lunch and shit, all the time. I went to her classroom during the summer between 6th and 7th grade and she said some weird shit, and uh, I would love to know the fuck she’s up to now.
What did she say to you?
I don’t know, she would just like...she just kind of...I mean, she wouldn’t...(Laughs) I don’t know. It’s pretty weird actually. Anyway. I’ve found her on the internet and shit before and I’ve been meaning to talk to her since then, because she’s really fucking cool.
Were you skateboarding at this point?
Oh yeah, I was skateboarding like, way before that. I remember doing an ollie that was I pretty proud of at Redwood Middle School. It was off the trailer where my math class took place. I went to school on Monday and told everyone about it.
All my teachers hated me because I just sucked. I remember laying in front of my fire place one night and pretending. Just fully bullshitting, laying there pretending to be asleep, and then pretending to talk in my sleep saying, “I wanna’ homeschool, I wanna’ homeschool, I wish I could homeschool.”
No shit.
I could hear my mom and sister discussing it like, “Wow, should Cam homeschool again?” That led to me dropping out and homeschooling. It was me and then my brother who also started homeschooling.
And that’s when the fun began...
Yeah! If you wanna’ call it that. Fun for us, and just a nightmare for other people.
Mayhem, dude.
We just started wreaking havoc, and it was so much fucking fun.
Crickets and the pizza delivery man?
That was a little bit before we started before we started homeschooling. But yeah, that’s fuckin’ disgusting. While the pizza guy would be at the door, my friend Eric would be climbing out the window and dropping, literally one thousand crickets into this guy’s car. We grew up with tons of reptiles so we were buying a thousand at a time. And then I’m answering the fucking door in my sisters underwear, in a fuckin’ jock strap, naked, whatever situation you can imagine. The final straw was the rat, throwing that in the dude’s car. They blackballed us, and we were literally at the top of list of addresses not to deliver to.
That is straight up brutal.
We were bad. My brother somehow would manage to shit in those Arizona Iced Tea bottles, the plastic ones with the long neck, and those things would blow up. He would shit in them and we leave them overnight and all day and they would blow up like balloons, so compressed and pressurized, full of shit and piss. We would drive full speed down the street and I’d be hanging out the window and toss it. We’d try connect with the back windows of pick up trucks. They would blow out the entire back window and just fucking cake the entire interior of these cars with the most foul mix. It was so bad.
Sick fucks.
It was so awesome to drive by the next morning and we’d see people just fuckin’ scrubbing, shirts over their faces and shit. It’s fucked, but anyway, that was homeschooling for us. Video games and shitting. Beat Perfect Dark. Zelda, Ocarina of Time. That video game changed my life.
Basically I’ll tell anyone these days, just don’t homeschool your kids. If you’re not going to discipline your kids along with it, don’t do it. I missed out on a ton of school shit, but whatever. I don’t really give a shit about that. So many funny experiences.
Did you skate a lot during this time period?
Yeah, definitely. Ton of time booked at Borchard. Our friend Mike Cyr would steal his parents van and we would just pack people in it. He would come get us at 7 in the morning and we would go pick up everybody. Pretty much an hour was spent everyday just picking people up and we’d go to all the cool little spots or whatever.
When was your first time in New York?
Just before 9-11. We went to the top of the Empire State Building. I think we have photos of the World Trade Center from up there. I was stoked to have seen those things when they were standing. For some reason, my brother and I were like, really bent out shape about 9-11, and we drew up like, two middle fingers in the New York skyline and it said underneath, “TRY KNOCKING DOWN THESE TOWERS”, and we hung them in our window. I don’t know why.
That’s very patriotic of you.
A lot of my family lives out there. Maine, Connecticut. I fucking love it though.
What’s the longest you’ve spent on the East Coast?
Like 6 months, maybe longer. I was living on my friend Alanna’s couch in Chinatown. Longer than that though, when I stayed at my Uncle’s in Connecticut. I lived in his Westfalia, behind his house. I was landscaping for him, which is actually a funny story. He’s some weird player. He’s a masseuse, has all kinds of weird jobs. He’s a hustler, basically. Fucking all these women, and he hooked me up with landscaping jobs with at every single one of their houses, and I got paid real well and it was fucking sick, and I lived in his van behind his house in Stamford. On weekends, I would go back to my friend’s place in Brooklyn. I would just go back to New York every weekend.
How old were you then?
I turned 21 then. I spent my 21st birthday in the hospital with this nasty, I don’t know what the fuck it was my mouth. I have pictures of it. It looked like the belly of a whale, with barnacles on it. It was so painful, and I had to eat carrots for a week. I think it’s called candidiasis. Spent 3 hours in the E.R. waiting room in Bushwhick, some shitty fuckin’ hospital there.
Was this around the time you guys were filming for Naughty?
No, Naughty was before. I was really fucking bummed on that by the way.
On your Naughty part?
Just the whole thing! I didn’t skateboard for fuckin’ years. I straight up did not skateboard at the time. I hadn’t skateboarded for so fuckin’ long because I just piled out entirely. Van (Wastell) came out, and he introduced me to Mark (Gonzales). The girl I was staying with at the time, she was Mark’s assistant. Mark just had an idea of making that video, and Sam (Salganik) who also made the video, he’s really cool. I was good friends with him; we were hanging out a bunch. Mark was like, “Oh yeah, I want Cam to have some footage in here too.” I really did not want to do that. I was like, down to be a part of the video, film or whatever. Which I did, and it was fun. I filmed a bunch of that shit. That was fun. But as far as the actual skateboarding and shit, I couldn’t do it at the time.
How long had it been since you had been on a board?
Not saying I hadn’t touched a skateboard, but as far as actually trying to skateboard, and trying tricks, it had been a year or two. You can figure that shit out, but it doesn’t come all that easy. It was frustrating. I remember one thing that was in the very beginning of the video and Mark was like, “Back tail this ledge.” I can’t fucking backside tailslide. I’ve done it on fuckin’ curbs. So anyway, he’s like, “Do this little line. Go here, go here, go here and then backside tailslide this ledge.” I was like, yeah sure, okay. I bullshitted and tried it. But yeah, that’s in the beginning of the video.
Through the whole thing though; they would be filming, and I would go around the corner and fuckin’ try to ollie these cardboard boxes. I had this stupid little Zip Zinger and I would just try to ollie these high cardboard boxes and was so proud to get over these things that were a little bit higher than I thought I could ollie. And then I’d go back and these dudes would be going crazy. Mike and Cromer, just ripping.
Those dudes are crazy to watch.
Van was out there, and I hate to say it, but he and I were completely piling out together. I remember there was a specific day when I showed up and Sam was like, “Where the fuck is Van?” He was with this Irish girl that we had met the night before at the bar. Her name was Susanne and we ended up going and meeting her in Dublin a couple months later. He was fucking off at that point and he showed back up and performed the best that anyone could have. He was the best shit that was in that video, but it was still funny. He just didn’t give a shit.
You have a Van memory that sticks out?
I got a couple. There’s some funny shit. I used to have this video of us at the golf course. He and I went to London together, and then to Dublin to meet that lady, and then Paris, or Barcelona maybe? Anyway, he and I fuckin’ went on a road trip with that lady Susanne through Ireland to go camping. There was a lot of weird shit that we did. We went golfing in Galway and ate some Xanax.
Were you under par?
(Laughs) Most definitely! I have this footage of us sliding down the hills of the golf course. It’s me running and sliding down the hills, eating shit, whatever. He’s just laughing behind the camera, sounding like Beavis. Dumbass, you know? It was just cool road tripping. Me, him, and this lady we had met a few months before. We went to her parent’s house to pick up camping gear and she started opening up cereal boxes that were just full of hash. I don’t know if her parents dealt hash or what. It was fuckin’ nutty, and we just sat on this little beach right there and smoked a ton of hash. We skateboarded a bunch. Those memories are cool. He was cool as fuck. Good skateboarder.
Would you say he inspired you a lot?
Yeah for sure. He was just a nasty fuckin’ person, you know? I think he coined the term “shitbag” and wore it well. Everything he sort of owned up to. If he said he was going to fuck some girl, he was going to fuck some girl. If he was going to fight someone, he was going to fight them. He, Fleming and I were in Switzerland one time and he was just kind of fearless. This dude came up and kind of shoulder checked him and then punched him in the gut and he just turned around and got in his face and was eye to eye with this dude like, back the fuck up. Just shit like that. He was a tough dude. Extremely fuckin’ tough. He knew what the fuck was going on at all times. Inspired by him everyday on everything. Skateboarding every time. I think about him all the time if I’m talking to a girl. What the fuck would he have done that would be funny? Cuz’ it was always a success. I’ve seen him pull girls. Seen him skateboard like a fuckin’ maniac, just party. He was cool, you know?
Can you confirm or deny living with Cat Power?
(Laughs) Definitely no living! That was like, a four day thing. My brother used to listen to her music all the time, and I never really liked it at all. It sounded like Norah Jones, to me. We were at the bar Max Fish in New York, and some lady sat down. I was 18. We got in a staring contest, and I was so fucked up. I remember beating her, and for whatever reason she was like, real impressed by that. I don’t know what the fuck we talked about, I was really drunk. I have a picture where I’m throwing up all over someone’s table and there’s two fuckin’ funny hipster faggots behind me all grossed out. I went out front and she came out to help me. I remember telling her that I had taken some pills. Chan was sober at the time. I think I was still gagging myself and she cleaned me up or whatever and then she had me come back to her hotel with a couple other people. They were all real cool. It was called the Mercer Hotel in SoHo. We exchanged numbers and that was actually the first time I ever text messaged. No joke, I never text messaged before that, and I think she actually taught me how.
She popped your cherry?
Got my first text message and she was like, “Hey, will you come watch my concert tonight?” It was at this place called The Hero Ballroom. Seen her that night, and then went to this club that everyone was all over called Sway and then she hit me up saying that she was going to come meet me over there. I actually didn’t even know who she was until I showed up at the concert. She asked me that night if I was a virgin and I told her I was. She told me, “I’m gonna take your virginity tonight.” I was just like, real nervous. She was just going crazy over it. I stayed with her for like, the next four nights. At the time, I thought it was cool to not ever like, show any signs of being turned on or anything, so she would like, try to get me going every night and I was just trying to keep my cool, all tough. The 4th night, Van was out there, and I was telling him how I had been staying at Chan’s place or whatever. I was telling him after three nights like, “I think I’m gonna go for it.” He handed me a condom, and I cruise over to her place. Home Alone 2 is one of my favorite movies, and it kind of felt like that. I went into some classy ass hotel and I’m checking into the penthouse and shit. Anyway, that night I was fully ready to get down, and she was like, “You blew it. I’m not horny anymore and I gotta leave at like 6 am.” She was going to London for an awards show and to film this movie called My Blueberry Nights where she plays a Russian girl with Jude Law. I was like, fuck.
I’ve seen her since then and like, e-mailed or whatever. I think she’s got a kid now.
What bars are you actively avoiding at the moment?
Black Bar.
Hanks or HMS Bounty?
I would take Hanks over HMS. People are real cool there. I feel like I see less people who I dislike at Hanks, than I do at HMS.
You have plans of opening a skateshop?
Who knows if it will ever happen, I hope it does. It’s called "Drunk Driver”. The inspiration kind of comes from this shop called Circle Sports that we all hung out at a lot when we were younger. It was like a real skateboarder’s shop. A lotta’ fucking off going on. You should be able to go somewhere and get away, watch skateboard videos, sit on the couch. Dip around to the back of the shop, do what you wanna do. It would be cool to have a beer tap and a rattlesnake for live weekly feedings. I’ve got the logo drawn up; it’s a Volkswagen Bug fully smashed. I want to have an actual smashed up Volkswagen in the middle of the shop for people to skate or paint on. Basically, a complete free for all. And if you steal, my dogs are going to fucking eat you.
Any last words?
Yeah, I really, really appreciate Zac Clark. He’s the most observant person I’ve ever met, which is the coolest shit to me. Andrea, too. They're the two people I’ve ever met who actually observe and remember things. All of my fuckin’ friends are idiots and it pisses me off sometimes. It’s like, man, I told you this shit a week ago. I’m so fucking happy to know those two people, and I’m really thankful to know that what I tell them actually means something, and that they’re on the same page. More people need to take notice of what the fuck is going around them.