The Science of Pyrophytic Growth and Other Boring Stories
I have the most un-unique story of uprooting my entire life in New York and moving west for skateboarding, warm beach blanket winter days and watching the sun set every chance I could get. I decided to move here after a 2004 cross country skateboarding trip entirely inspired by the “Barbarians at the Gate” VHS skate tape. I filmed our entire trip, tapes full of tom-foolery and great friends. It took me a decade to move. In 2014 I bought a massive 16 passenger tour van from the band Polar Bear Club. For those that know, another move inspired by “Birdhouse: The End” on VHS. That spring I packed every square inch of that van and drove across the country to Long Beach, California. I’ve skated about about 5 times since I moved here.
I owe all of the proceeding career driven gear shifting to my friend Aaron who somehow went pedal to the floor and never managed to hit the wall. That October, I began looking into fire while spending a significant amount of time parked at a campground in Joshua Tree. I would go miles into the park just for a few more on my running shoes. I’d often opt to transfer the 50 pound car jack from the trunk to my back, wrapped in a horse blanket, stuffed it in my backpack, pushing down the road, driven.
From then on I was traveling. It was summer in Chico, California, summer in Flagstaff, Arizona, circling right back to Joshua Tree. I was stationed right where it all started, right next to the campground. The following years I spent mostly in Los Angeles with a stint just outside of Seattle before making my way back to LA. For the better part of a decade I pushed myself beyond capacity and never hit the wall, but by a careless driver instead. Texting at the speed of 30 miles an hour he drove into the back of my parked car with enough force to alter the order of a few discs in my spine and subsequently my career. So much done and so much lost in nearly a decade that passed almost as shortly as I had summarized for you.
I took my entire investment of blood, sweat, tears and lung quality and bought a house right out side of Joshua Tree National Park. The house just a few miles from that campsite, next to the fire station. Joshua Tree brought me to fire and fire brought me to Joshua Tree. In a philosophical way, cyclical patterns, reoccurrences, every alignment of the spiritual idea of the unseen “meant to be’s” are not too dissimilar from the hard science of the behavior of fire.
Because of fire I rooted, I grew. I was shaped, burned and hardened. With that, fire will always be a part of the branding story I have to tell. I guess it is unique. Hi. My name is Matt.
<3 Matt
