Would you risk your cock and balls to go pro? Would you do it without any money or major sponsors?

I only ask because that’s what it seems to take to make the plunge these days. Take Cole Wilson for example; this dude may be one of the best handrail skaters in the world, but is now just scraping enough money together to pay rent on an apartment with a friend. With little regard for his health or finances, Cole finds the most fucked up, wonky, curved, bastard handrails, and grinds them as if they were a safe little rollercoaster ride.

Curious to know what makes him put it all on the line, we called him up in his new apartment to find out how the career is going and the best way of maintaining gooch and other cock related injuries.

How many times do you think you’ve taken a crazy sacking on a giant rail? You ever done any serious damage?
Too many to count. I just try my hardest to get out of it in any way possible. Not that serious, but I remember I was trying to skate this kink rail, and for some hilarious reason my girlfriend was at the session with us, and she was like, “You’re gonna sack it!” And I was like “Nah, fucking right here!” Boom. I like underlocked trying to feeble grind it, and my truck got caught and I got sent right to the kink. I wasn’t even tall enough to touch the ground, so it went all to the gooch. Sure enough there was blood. I had a black and blue gooch for like two weeks. That was probably the worst one. You just gotta let it do its thing.

What’s it like to take a shit with a ripped gooch?
I guess if you have to take a shit, the gooch just sits right in the center in no man’s land. It’s not really affected, but I remember I had sex that night and it was fucking painful, but it had to be done.

Did it start bleeding in the middle of sex?
[Laughs] Ohhh no, I think the bleeding already stopped. That’d be fucked to like tear it back open. Nah, nothing like that.

How long after sacking do you usually have to wait before you jerk it or have sex again?
[Laughs] I don’t know, being the horny bastard that I am, I’d probably just tough it out. If the chick’s down, I’m not going to say no. I’m not going to be like, “Oh no! My gooch!”

“You just gotta tone the gooch up and get it strong”

Have you ever considered wearing a cup when you skate rails?
You just gotta tone the gooch up and get it strong. I think it only takes so many sacks before that muscle is just tough enough to take a beating… Take some impact. But no, that’s a cop out. That’s jock shit. I think after so many fucking times, you’re just used to it. It almost just pisses me off these days. If that happens I just get pissed, and I just try to make the trick more so than the last try.

Do you think you would have Kyle Walker beat on a biggest handrail contest?
[Laughs] I can’t call it. Dude, he’s the fucking champ. He’s done it. He did the gnarliest one. Well, gnarliest kink rail. Gnarliest rail overall goes to Dane Burman. That’s the heaviest ride. That’s in Philly right? Yeah, I think he wins.

Who gave you your start, where you first thought you could skateboard for a living?
I’m just figuring that out now. I have only just recently gotten to that point within the past few weeks. I was able to move into a two bedroom house with my friend David Reyes. This is all just coming into play right now as we speak. It’s been a struggle, like the past two and half years since I moved out here.

I used to have a four bedroom house with just me and my lady back in Kentucky, just working manual labor jobs and still skating on the side. Then Mike Sinclair started flowing me boards and the Foundation team took a trip out here, essentially to meet me, and it was like two weeks of us being in the midwest. We hit Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio. A bunch of pros stayed at my house, and then a few months went by and he invited me to the Dekline premiere and we took a team photo and I didn’t even know I was on Dekline. He was like, “Wanna get in the photo?” I was like, “Shit, I guess I’m on.” The premiere was in early December, then by January 1st he was like, “Hey, a check will be in the mail.” I got the check, I cashed it, then I just started driving out to California.

Then I went from just living on couches to a closet for two years. If I was fucking hungry, my friends would hook it up. I’d be like, “I don’t have any fucking money,” and they’d just get me. For years, my friends have got my back so hard.

Could you ever see yourself joining the competitive side of skateboarding?
Like contests? It’s not that it’s not my steez, those dudes are just next level. Those dudes are the best in the world, at like everything. They got it all, and then they got it all switch. Flip in flip out… Not too many people can hang with those dudes, and I’m not one of them. I just don’t think that I have what it takes [laughs]. They’re just so fucked up good at skateboarding. I don’t see myself being able to do that.

Before you went pro you were going to go to culinary school, right? What’s the Cole Wilson chef specialty?
Yeah that’s super true. That’s what I wanted to do straight out of high school. I went to orientation, signed up for all the classes, and I just never showed up… I did a lot of baking when I had to hold down jobs. I could make a pretty mean scone. Baking is the shit.

So are you a master weed edible maker?
[Laughs] Hell no dude, those give me way too much anxiety. I get violently high off of them. I don’t really dabble in that. You’re just high for like two days straight. You wake up stoned.

I ate an edible early in the day once and just tried to go out. I don’t even know if we went skating that day. I don’t even know if I could have skated, but dude I was just trying to do anything to be not high. I tried to shower to wash it all away, but that didn’t help. I was in and out, and I would just fall asleep, and I just had terrible anxiety. I was indoors and safe eventually, but I was fucking losing it.

What advice would you give to a lazy skater that wants to start making their own meals?
I would just keep it simple. Get a protein, like chicken breast. Season and marinate that for a couple hours. Have some greens, make a little fucking kale salad. Maybe incorporate the chicken into the salad or have the greens on the side. Then you probably want some sort of carb. I usually do three really simple things, like a vegetable, a protein, and something really easy. Maybe you just wanna do like potatoes, meats, greens. Done.

I’ve been told you have quite the record collection. What are some of your gems?
Yeah I’ve got quite a bit, I guess. Not a whole lot, but probably like 80 records, maybe 70. I have this acoustic Johnny Thunders record. It’s super sick. It’s just him and a guitar and he does some of the jams. I have this Robert Johnson Double LP, I’m a pretty big fan. And I got some Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood records that fucking rip. But the Johnny Thunders one is my favorite, I’ve never seen it anywhere else. I paid probably like $12 for it.

One I really want to find is the Death Proof soundtrack. The soundtrack to that movie rips so hard. And I know it goes for like $150 on eBay, so what I did instead, I probably spent like a fraction of the cost buying every song on the soundtrack. I compiled it together with like 12 other records.

Have you looked up how much it’s worth?
No, I actually haven’t. I’d never part with it so I’ve never been curious enough to do my research.

Damn. You never know, you could be sitting on $1,000.
[Laughs] Maybe! That’d be sick. Dude, I’d like to know. I could use $1,000. So now I want to retract on what I just said and kiss that record goodbye.

I saw on your Instagram that your dad is a cop. Has that ever gotten you out of any trouble?
Damn, you did some fucking soul searching! Yeah, he’s a military police officer. He was in corrections, like in the prisons.

How did growing up with a dad who’s a cop influence how you think about police?
Dude, I almost just kind of ignore them. I’m just like super short, don’t think give them anything to work with, don’t say anything incriminating. Be super easy, real casual, like, “Hey how’s it going?”

It’s a lot better to approach a cop when they come to kick you out. If you go up to them, they’re like, “Oh, he’s not scared. He’s not worried about anything, he’s coming to me.” That’s just a really good way to conduct yourself when you’re getting kicked out. Approach them, like, “I know I’m in the wrong. Whats up?” If there’s a huge group of us, I don’t say anything. I just let other people talk and I just walk away without even fucking speaking to them. The respect thing goes a long way with the cops, like if you have any sense of respect, let them know. Then they’ll fucking let you go usually.

“It’s a lot better to approach a cop when they come to kick you out”

Do you ever miss being from the middle of nowhere now that you’re out in California?
I definitely do. I miss the quiet. Everything is green and quiet… no traffic, you can shoot guns. I used to skip school and take out my dad’s pistol and walk down train tracks and shoot shit.

Do you hunt too?
No, I’ve been out a couple times with my friend and his dad. I would tag along, but I’m not into like shooting a deer or anything. I don’t want to kill an animal. I’ve had the opportunity but I backed out. That animal never wronged me. Maybe if somebody got gored by a deer, maybe I’d have to kill the deer…

Do you think that you could ever bring yourself to shoot a person?
[Laughs] Oh man, I’ve been watching a lot of Forensic Files lately, I don’t know if I’d ever get away. But it depends on what they did. If I was in the situation, like I have a gun and they just killed my mom, yeah. I guess I wouldn’t have a choice [laughs].

There was a rumor floating around that Foundation is only paying royalties to riders. Do you think whatever paychecks you’re getting are worth all the potential injury that you’re facing?
[Laughs] Uhh, I was actually talking to Sinclair [Foundation TM] about this the other day because he actually came across the same thing. Dude, they take care of us for sure, they’re not fucking—I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but they take care of us. It’s all worth it. Yeah, hell yeah. I signed up for this. This is my dream come true. Of course it’s worth it.

As far as your sponsors go, seems like you keep it to skater owned companies. How do you feel about the presence of bigger brands in skateboarding?
Fuck, some of them could be a bummer sometimes for sure. I think they’re more or less taking away from the smaller guys. It’s harder for a smaller brand to get a leg up when you walk into a skate shop and all you see is fucking all these gnarly corporate brands taking over. It’s like 3 different brands of shoes on the wall, but it’s all the same shit.

Do you actively avoid them or do you just naturally gravitate towards the smaller brands?
Yeah, I haven’t gone for like a big fish or a corporate brand. I kind of fucking hate them honestly, but I guess if I got the offer, it’d be hard to fucking say no. The funds are there you know? It’s so gnarly what they can pay. I guess that’s the object, to get a house out of all this when it comes down to it, so you might have to give in if the opportunity rises.

Is getting a house really your end goal?
Well, really the end goal is to not fade away. Just like, have a solid career and be happy, and not just be left with nothing. But yeah, I don’t see myself getting a house in California, just with how expensive everything is. I don’t even know where I see myself, but in the end it would be nice to have a house but also be happy and not walk away from skateboarding bitter. I know I see some people who are just jaded, rubbed the wrong way, blew all their money, or whatever it is. I don’t want that. I’m lucky enough to be able to support myself just off skateboarding right now.

Interview: Alexis Castro
Intro: Ian Michna
Photography: Ben Karpinski
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