Editor's Note: We caught up with Danny Kass in Mammoth, CA to document an execution, talk a little more about his roots and to try and find out why the media loves to talk sh*t. The following is a closer look at snowboarding's most infamous post-olympic media darling.

What was the NJ experience like?
"It's a lot different than what I'm used to now. It was fun, like I got to ride with my friends and it was open at night so we'd just go from when school ended until about 8 o'clock at night and then get up early. It was just cool to ride with my brother and some older people and then it's pretty close to Vermont. So we'd take a 3 hour car ride… It was fun; it was kind of icy. Seasons weren't too long, like 2 or 3 months. It was fun when it softened up in the spring but there weren't too many jumps. There actually weren't really any jumps. They were all sidewinders and sidekickers, highway hits into the trail and you'd just dodge other people. And then I came out here (Mammoth, CA) and it blew my mind."

What once was old is new again... Danny bringin' it back at the Mammoth park.

How big of an influence was your brother?
"He's the reason I started snowboarding. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have gotten into it. I mean he's super cool. He'd always take me, and let me hang out with his friends. He always pushed me really hard. He always made me try tricks that I really didn't want to try… But I'm glad he did."

Was Mt. Hood your first experience with good riders?
"I saw Terje ride when I was a kid and it was crazy to see how big people go out of the pipe… But I rode in Vermont for 2 seasons before I went out west with my friend. We kind of pushed each other the most because we were about the same age and we always try the same tricks."

When did your riding go to another level?
"The season before last, it was the first Triple Crown actually, I was just riding and getting into the pipe and really feeling it and flipping off the first few hits and doing all sorts of inverted maneuvers and my friends were like…Man, I thought you were some crazy Japanese guy. A lot of it was just coming out here and riding everyday with my friends like Lane and Kyle and just pushing each other.

Is skating a big influence on your riding?
"Yeah because skating started it for me. I lived in Florida when I first started going to school (1st through 4th grade) and that's all I did was skateboard. We had a mini ramp in back of my house… every house I've ever been in I've had a ramp in backyard. My brother knew how to build them. I'd hold the wood and he'd nail it. It definitely helped. It has the same feel for it, like pumping a mini ramp or vert ramps and then riding halfpipe. It's definitely got the same thing and then all the tricks are the same. So it definitely helps a lot. It helped me progress a lot faster in snowboarding… My office is the ramp.

Click on the image above to see Danny spin a finely tuned backside 540 mute.

Pre-run thoughts?
"I'm kind of a worrier; I got that from my mom. She's always worried about us. I just have a tendency to block out the bad things by thinking about them. Usually when I was a kid, whenever something bad happened I never thought about it. So I'd just be like, 'Yeah I'm probably going to fall or jinx myself' but it usually doesn't work… It makes me feel a little safer. Cause once you're not nervous that's when it happens I think."

Were your parents always behind you?
"Yeah, my Dad would always take me and my brother to competitions on the weekends, just like the local ones, it was always such a good time. He tried snowboarding a little bit too. He got into it. But he tried to do a double back flip or something at Stratton and there wasn't really a jump there and he broke his leg in a few spots and that put him out of commission for a while. But he's going to get back into it… this was 3 years ago, 4 years ago in Stratton. He was actually forerunning for the competitions we were doing. And he was all stoked because it was his first time riding the halfpipe and he was following us on the lift but then we lost him. And apparently he took a digger behind us… It was funny. Everyone was poking fun and it was a funny thing to see. Him kind of surf-turkeying down it. I wanted him to do it a lot more and get into it but he hurt himself. That kind of canceled his halfpipe career pretty quick."

What's your Olympic memory?
"Just getting there in the beginning and training and wondering what was going to happen. Getting a medal was a huge one. Right after that we did the flower ceremony and then went to a press conference. The press conferences were pretty weird. You see them on TV so you know it's kinda weird, but when you're on one it's definitely the weirdest thing. That's when you know there's media from all over the world who are there to figure out what snowboarding is in that press conference so you get some of the weirdest questions ever. And it was crazy, because we were like, hanging out with the Foo Fighters and they were all super cool, getting ready to go on. So we just went out. Going from just being with a few people, and then you have no idea about the crowd. Like that morning we watched the medal ceremony with Kelly and it was just like crazy. We didn't even know. We come out from behind this curtain and see all these people. It was pretty scary. I was definitely nervous."

What did you do when you heard the Star Spangled Banner?
"I was trying not to get too emotional but it was definitely a touchy situation. I guess you just stand proud."

The turd burgler smearing his brown self down the kinked rail.

What about meeting the president?
"I never thought I'd get to meet him. I kept hearing rumors that we were going to meet him but nobody knew for sure. We marched all around Salt Lake and we stopped at the local high school and we sat there for a little and he came and gave a speech and I was so excited. Just seeing the president in real life is so cool, seeing someone so powerful. And then I ran to the edge (of the crowd) because I saw him shaking hands and I got to shake his hand twice. It was definitely pretty cool."

How do you think people see you?
"I don't know. I don't really care because if I did it would be even worse. To be considered a rebel and crazy things? But I'm just a kid from New Jersey… It's kind of like an urban legend. I've heard some crazy stuff about me that's not true and gets exaggerated so that's funny. I said a lot of obnoxious things and I'm surprised a lot of them didn't come out. At times I thought I was going to get Ross and JJ in trouble (at the Olympics) just saying random things. Yeah, I was just kidding about the 2 year drug binge because so many people just kept asking me about the next one and the next one… It's definitely scary 'cause people believe me too so I guess it's dangerous… They're always digging for some dirt so I just gave it to them. I like to joke around and have a good time. Sometimes people take me a little too seriously."