Wednesday, January 22

Kelly's Death Hits Hard

By Glen Seelenbrandt
EXPN

I've always been one of those people who has loved disaster. Give me more earthquakes, sinking luxury liners, man eating sea creatures, and killer bees. The world needs to be shaken off its complacent, self-important ass every now and then. I've never been one to shed a tear for the well-loved celebrity battling terminal disease or for the plight of some rural turnip that People Magazine dug up for an emotional piece. Don't get me wrong, I am not a hard man by any means, rather I am one properly anesthetized by my televised, third person vicarious experience of so many "important" events in history. I've been coerced into believing in the fabricated dramatic importance of games played with a ball by genetic freaks on TV and to dismiss the real life implications of declaring war on a small Middle Eastern country. So it was an odd experience today when, upon learning of Craig Kelly's death in an avalanche in Revelstoke, British Columbia, I first gasped and then started tearing up. Let me first state that I did not know the man personally nor have I ever had the pleasure of making his acquaintance (I did have the chance in Mt Hood a few years ago, but I clammed up and ran away like some pathetic pre-teen boy band groupie). So what made this different from any other celebrity death that usually involves some sort of fleeting guilty voyeuristic entertainment?…. Everything!

Craig Kelly was not someone who made a lot of money pretending to be someone else and then dying in a car and into legend. He was not someone who became famous for marrying a bucolic descendent of some long dead glorious European family and then dying in a car and into legend. And he certainly was not someone greasy northwestern nerd who killed himself after he realized he sold his soul to become a rock star and became a legend. What he was, was something closer to what we all imagine ourselves to be. He was a snowboarder plain and simple. That he was an amazing snowboarder, who when fully realizing all the material implications that the activity had to offer, walked away to follow a more spiritual pursuit of it is why he is a legend.

Why his death is so meaningful to me has most to do with my age and when I started snowboarding. In 1988, he was my first snowboarding hero... and why not? According to a Transworld Snowboarding interview, he had grown up racing BMX, was into skateboarding and surfing, and liked punk rock music. These were all things that were all true of me as well. This allowed for me to make this seemingly irrefutable connection to this seemingly otherworldly being. It was as if I had a direct lineal descent from Solomon if you will. In a pre-"right guard extreme game skateboard sneaker culture" sense, it brought me closer my preconceived subcultural perception of being down. What also brought me closer was the accessibility of my early snowboard heroes. Imagine if you will that after game 7 of the NBA Finals that you could go shoot around with Shaq and Kobe on the floor of the Staples Center. Well that was what it was like for me as a kid, except that I was sessioning the Stratton pipe with Craig, Brush, Roach, and Richards. These guys were not the traditional beefed-up heroes from some story taking place a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. They were guys like us. They rode the same mountains, drank in the same bars, and lived for the same pursuits of friends, fun, and powder turns.

Back to the reason why Craig Kelly's death means something to me. Just like most heroes, Craig was one who gave us an example of a path to follow. He showed us how to turn with style, how to push out our methods, how to creatively push the limits of something and most importantly how find something real and meaningful in a seemingly pointless and childish activity. For me Craig Kelly never seemed that far ahead of me on the path, he was about 8 years older than me. That was just enough time for him to set up a nice firm boot pack for me to look for. Now however with one less guide I'm feeling a little lost. I feel as though I'm without a favorite traveling companion and it feels a little lonely and sad.

I like to imagine that without the influence of 20 years of history, 16 years of magazines and videos and a population of unnecessarily, surely, vociferous and condescending park adolescents, that what pure snowboarding would look like would be Craig riding at Powder King, B.C. in the movie Board with the World. Back knee tucked in, feeling the terrain through his boots and pumping off the natural contours, airing when the snow could not hold him any more, and looking for the next interesting roll or transition.