When Jason Newman was 12, he accidentally tried to load his snowboard into the wrong gondola car. The lifty stopped him, saying, “Woah there, Hondo.” The name stuck and now at almost 27, most people don’t even know his ...
When Jason Newman was 12, he accidentally tried to load his snowboard into the wrong gondola car. The lifty stopped him, saying, “Woah there, Hondo.” The name stuck and now at almost 27, most people don’t even know his real name. Hondo’s day job is powering twsnow.com, but he’s also hard at work getting overalls to catch on in snowboarding and commenting on Yobeat as “The Red Haired Intern Jeff.” Despite his busy schedule, he managed to take some time to answer our questions.
Do you feel like you’re living in Laura Austin’s shadow?
Yeah, it sucks, she does everything cool. I always get made fun of by Peter for having a job that a chick can do way better than me. She’s not better than me by the way, just making sure that’s clear. She’s just as bad, if not worse.
Speaking of, how did someone who can barely text get a job as a writer?
I got lucky. My skateshop closed and Preston asked me if i wanted to come back to HCSC and do their online content. Because I can write. I have a degree in English. So I went out there and happened to be riding the chairlift with Annie Fast one day, who was at that time the Editor in Chief at TransWorld and we got to talking, and she said she was looking for a new online editor, and I told her I’d applied. So we talked at the cafe, the one the Gremlinz hang out at in Gov’y, then she flew me out to So Cal and I interviewed there. I think she thought I was Pat Moore’s manager, but I was just his roommate. I think she was bummed when she hired me.
How responsible for your success would you say Pat Moore is?
Well considering I’m not successful and I can barely make rent I’d say not very, ha. But for getting this job, 100%.
Why can’t you pay rent? Isn’t the life of a snowboard journalist glamorous and exciting?
No. Well maybe for some people, but not for me. Maybe I’m just broke now cause of the switch in ownership, so our last check wasn’t direct deposit, and my mailman is a dickhead, and doesn’t give me my mail, and sent my check back to California. But I think I’ll be ok again soon. I think I get paid on Friday. I’ve also been drinking a lot so my money is gone from that.
Are you allowed to talk about the change in ownership? Or is that against corporate policy?
I don’t think I’m supposed to, but it honestly doesn’t seem any different right now.
What’s more exciting to you: being in a video on Transworld, or being in one of Pat Fenelon’s snap chats?
I deleted snap chat, so I don’t get to see how retarded I look, but I do know he sent one to Annie, so now she thinks I’m an even bigger moron.
We tried to find photos of Hondo snowboarding, but apparently they don’t exist. This is close enough.
Do you think you’re relevant to snowboarding?
Not really. It’s funny. Like who cares what I think about snowboarding? I’m just some guy who’s not even good at snowboarding, that for some reason, gets paid to kind of give his opinion on snowboarding. But not really. Like I don’t even give my opinion. I have to say everything’s sick. When in actuality, most of it is whack as fuck.
Wait, so you’re saying the snowboard media is biased?
Of course it is.
Do you think the “merger” will alleviate some of that? Isn’t the idea for the mags to no longer compete against each other for advertisers?
Well it might, but not really. Competition is good. It keeps us from becoming lazy, and forces both mags to make stronger products.
Ok, so what do you think makes a magazine, or website for that matter, good?
It’s tough. It has to be good, relevant content, presented in a nice way. Look at something like Colour mag, or Desillusion magazine. Like the way those things look and feel — awesome paper, awesome interviews, cool photos. And all the shit that should be online
