Name, age, state, employer, hometown? Bartholomew Wilhelm Jones, 28, single, Skateboard Magazine’s son!, Geneva, Illinois.

Lets start by the beginning. I want to know what it took to father you. Tell me about your parents. What kind of people were they, what did they do, how did they conceive you?

Oh! That’s deep. I don’t know. I think my dad was originally from Plainfield, Illinois, a bit of a cornfield town that’s all big now. He went to a private Catholic school or something, but he’s not religious or anything, he keeps it real. And my mother is originally from Germany and she actually lived in Israel for a minute when she was a kid too, but then I think times were tough there, so her family committed to a boat trip to the United States and started living in St. Louis, I think maybe… Moving on, dad went to college in St. Louis met my mom badda boom batta bing, got married and made me… I wonder if they were taking any kind of drugs at the time, because I’m pretty screwed. My mom has had a lot of odd jobs over the years, from teaching school, to running an antique store, to working in real estate and my dad used to run a chain of record stores called Apple Tree Records, which was a time awesome, because until I was 16 my dad could plug in any music for free, plus free tickets to just about anything, I wish I still had that, but because of things like Best Buy, a circuit city, and places like that; Apple Tree sank. I went with my family to all the stores to close them, which sucked, but I found a lot of products. Now my dad runs a Play It Again sport, so pretty much my mom and dad go to auctions and garage sales and stock up on used sports equipment, so we used to have a lot of music in the house, but now it’s the sport. equipment.

Let’s go to your childhood. Any traumatic event that still haunts you today?

I don’t think anything from my childhood is still haunting me anyway, but yeah sure… I’ve had plenty of those… I nearly blew the heads off our family’s new puppies with a Draino bomb, my nanny tried to have sex with me once, I don’t know, but yeah, I was definitely a spoiled kid, I still am.

What was your first encounter with skateboarding? When did you know this was going to be a long-term relationship?

I probably don’t remember the first meeting, but I know I was really excited when I saw these guys skating on flat ground and ollying over these road barriers at this festival downtown that we have where I lived called “Swedish Days.” All the guys had like two different colored Airwalk shoes taped on, painter hats, all decked out, I remember thinking, “These guys are bad, that’s how I want to be!” Around the same time, I was always excited if I could see “Skate TV” on Nickelodeon. Obviously, he didn’t have a clue about skateboarding, but he was super excited nonetheless. I didn’t really start skating until a few years after that, when a skate shop opened up near my house called Rich’s, which is funny to think about, because the place was like a ‘circus’, but I just skated around the store and for me that was the worst thing that had happened at that time.

The funny thing is, one of those guys I saw skate a long time ago at the festival is now my good homeboy Steve Davenport, he still skates, he still rips! But yeah, I never really knew it was going to be a long-term relationship… I guess I never really got into anything else. When it comes to anything else relatively athletic, I’m full of goonbat panzy steez. I remember when some of the kids in high school were getting involved in other things like Golf, Cars, ETC… I really didn’t understand. I just remember thinking “Don’t you want to go skating?!” I went through a little phase when I was going to art school, where I didn’t really like skating, I didn’t know what was really going on, I didn’t see the magazine or the new videos; at the time I was more interested in becoming a “fine artist”, but I think I’m a bit above that.

Being from Illinois, what are your thoughts on Barack Obama?

Being totally fried, I don’t really pay much attention to that sort of thing, but I sure agree with Obama. I remember when he ran for senator or whatever in Illinois, and there were all these billboards with him, and I said to my dad, “Look at this guy who looks all pimpy,” and he said, “That’s the guy you’d expect.” be the first black president.” Then in my photojournalism class, I was assigned to take photos of Barack’s victory speech. And like any other fool, I was eating it; Obama only talks to things like… I don’t even know! Power I guess, and then just looking at all the people so happy, there was just good vibes everywhere. And now it’s like the same thing again, but the whole country. I’m sure at some point I lived in the same city as Obama. It’s a very exciting time, but what do I know…?

Skate Photography Interview with Bart Jones

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