Always adapting, innovating, progressing. That about sums up Bobby Puleo. He manages to keep people guessing with his fresh tricks and obscure spots. He also stays clear of the industry limelight, making his photos or video parts gems that leave the kids craving for more. Bobby has always let his skateboarding speak for him, now Bobby speaks about his skateboarding.

BM: How old are you?

Bobby Puleo: 31

BM: How long have you been skating?

BP: 21 years.

BM: It's the beginning of December, have you been skating at all in the cold weather we’ve been having?

BP: It only really started to get cold about six days ago. Like, unskateably cold.

BM: Other than that you’ve been skating regularly?

BP: Oh, yeah, definitely.

BM: Who have you been skating with?

BP: Well, I recently had a filmer out here from Cincinnati, so I was skating with him. I pretty much just skate with whoever’s around. The building that I’m staying in has a bunch of dudes, so I skate with people in the building. I skate with Tino a little bit. That’s all. I go out to Flushing, there are kids out there. There’s not really anyone who I call because there are not a lot of people who have the same schedule as me.

BM: Do you skate spots, or do you like to cruise around the city?

BP: There really aren’t spots. I’ve been battling with the whole spot thing for years. As far as New York City and spots, well, when I was growing up, the [Brooklyn] Banks was the spot. All of Downtown was filled with spots, but then September 11 ruined that whole thing.

BM: Because security is so much tighter?

BP: Because everything got fucked up down there, the streets are just torn apart. Flushing has always been a spot. It’s just a bitch to get out there -- sitting on the 7 train for 45 minuets just to get there. There are spots all around, but most of the spots are like basketball courts. For instance, I know two good ledge spots, but you have to deal with people playing basketball. I never like skating around people doing whatever the hell they do. I like to go to spots where there aren’t a lot of people and have the entire surface clear of obstructions. That’s why skating in New York is difficult sometimes, it’s not like schoolyards in LA, which are obstruction-free.

BM: Have you lived in or around New York for most of your life?

BP: Yeah.

BM: What’s kept you there?

BP: Inspiration. There’s a lot of energy. There’s also a lot of anonymity. Take Manhattan for instance, it is always being reinvented, and that allows me to constantly reinvent my skating. It’s always changing, always moving forward.

BM: You mean the actual landscape and architecture is changing?

BP: Yeah. I like to think of Manhattan as a controlled environment. In the history of the island, there’s no room to spread out, it can only be built upon. Your only option is to build up; build on top of what is already there. That’s what I think of in terms of my skating. I’m just constantly trying new approaches, constantly trying to reinvent myself. It’s fun.

BM: How much has skateboarding in New York changed in the last ten years?

BP: We had a boom from ’92 to ’99. The only thing that dictated that boom was the industry’s interest in what was happening here. The industry really used New York as a marketing tool, and that allowed people here to be recognized, and to make some money. Skateboarding is pretty much the same anywhere, as long as there is stuff to skate and people to skate with.

BM: So, it was it a good thing for the industry to use New York that way?

BP: Yeah, definitely. There’s always exploitation in any kind of business marketing, but skateboarding relies on that exploitation to move forward and to maintain its appeal. It’s what keeps new kids interested in it.

BM: What has happened to skateboarding in New York now that the industry isn’t as focused on what’s happening in the city?

BP: It returns to a survival of the fittest mentality as far as making a living. It just becomes business as usual. Skateboarding will continue to happen, whether people are paying attention to it or not.

BM: Does it make people in New York have to work harder to get recognized?

BP: Not really, skateboarding itself does that. Skateboarding is always dictated by skateboarding. Whatever tricks are “in” affect the way that people skate. People decide what they want to get out of it, what level they want to skate at. If someone really wants to do something, then they will be more motivated to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

BM: Do you look to trends in skateboarding to decide how you want to skate?

BP: Sure. I’m a consumer. I look at skateboard magazines and videos. Everyone has their abilities and limits, though.

BM: Is there anyone in particular right now who you look to?

BP: Marc Johnson, Guy Mariano, this kid Louis Talatino, he’s super sick, Alex Olsen is super sick. Anyone who is creative and looks good, like that Devine Calloway kid. I’ve never seen him skate in person, just in videos and photos. Everyone is inspiring to me in some way, or the opposite, which can be inspiring too.

BM: By showing you how you don’t want to look when you skate?

BP: Yeah, exactly.

BM: What made you start skating in the first place?

BP: My friend came back from the Jersey Shore with a Town and Country skateboard, and it blew my mind. I looked up to this kid, he had a sick Diamondback bike when we were growing up, and I was like, “Wow, I want to ride a Diamondback.” The next summer he came back with a skateboard, and I was like, “That looks fun to ride.” It was funny, the actual Town and Country board that he had, there was something about the graphics that appealed to me as well. It was in the whole design. It wasn’t just because it was a skateboard; it was about the way it looked. It was like a prize object, it looked so cool. I remember just going into the skate shop and looking at all the decks, and it was just a very appealing thing. It was like a little secret club that I wanted to be a part of.

BM: How long after you started skating did you first get sponsored?

BP: I started in ’85, and by ’86 I had progressed a lot. I progressed quickly in the first year or so, but by ’91 or ’92 I was getting free boards.

BM: What was the first company to hook you up?

BP: My friend made boards in his basement, it was called Public, but it was different than the Chet Thomas Public. It was Mike and Quim Cardona, Pat Guidotti and me. I don’t even know if I got boards from them, though. They were going to hook it up, and then I got introduced to this guy Charlie, who made a brand called Nimbus. It was loosely affiliated with the homemade brands from back then, like Shut, which was the inspiration for all the do-it-yourself board brands. I was on Nimbus, and then I rode for Zoo when they first started. Then Dune started hooking me up with Metropolitan. From Metropolitan, he and Jason Lee put me on Stereo, and I stayed on Stereo for a little while. Stereo cut me, and then I rode for Mad Circle. When I was on Stereo I was out in SF a lot, and I met Aaron Meza, who introduced me to Scott Johnston, who introduced me to Justin Girard who put me on Mad Circle. Then Mad Circle went out of business, and after that I sort of got jaded with the skateboard industry. I was living in New York at the time, and I was thinking about quitting skateboarding professionally. I rode an Infamous board because I liked the shape, and I saw potential with them to build something cool on the East Coast, so I rode for them. They had non-skateboarders running the show, who didn’t understand the flakiness of the skateboard industry. It’s a dangerous, fluctuating industry, with no security, and they didn’t know how to handle it. They didn’t understand that what’s cool one day can be a pile of shit the next. Infamous went out of business, then I got a phone call from Marc Johnson, and they wanted to put me on Enjoi, so I said, “Alright, lets do it.”

BM: Have you traveled recently?

BP: A little bit, I don’t travel all that much, but I just went to Russia, and Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Paris, and then Holland, it was cool.

BM: What’s skateboarding like in those Eastern European countries?

BP: There’s nothing. There’s skateboarding, but it’s really behind. There’s no money there, so there’s no industry, there’s only shitty board brands, it’s just really crappy. There’s a bunch of shitty skate parks, only a couple good ones.

BM: Was it a productive trip? Did you film at all?

BP: Yeah. I wish I had more time there. I don’t like traveling because if you don’t make a trick at a spot one-day, you may leave the country the next and never get a chance to make it. Bulgaria had this one rad spot, but I never want to go back there because it’s such a mess.

BM: What do you do besides skating?

BP: I’m constantly doing other things. Lately I’ve been taking a lot of pictures. I’ve been couch surfing a lot so all of my other ventures in making art are on hold right now. I was in Holland because I had a solo art show there, at the Contemporary Arts Center. It was really cool. I want to get a studio and start concentrating more on art.

BM: It seems like skaters in New York are exposed to a lot more than just the world of skateboarding. Tell me about some of the things you’ve experienced as a skateboarder in New York City.

BP: There’s a lot of stuff going on in New York, it’s the chaos capital of the world. There’s a lot of energy here. It’s a rad city for skateboarding, but it’s also the hip-hop capital of the world, as well as so many other styles of music. It’s the capital of entertainment, so there is all sorts of shit going on all the time. I’ve seen all kinds of weird shit. The other day I was skating down by the Banks, and I looked up at the Brooklyn Bridge and it made me remember one time when I was skating down there. I saw this woman on top of the Manhattan side anchorage, which is the beginning of the foundation of the bridge. She was standing on top of it, and she was going to jump on to the on-ramp. She was a suicidal jumper. This was about six years ago. It was crazy, and I was watching it. I saw a cop talking to her, and she looked maniacal, like totally out of her mind, and I watched this S.W.A.T. cop come up from behind and grab her as the other cop distracted her. He pulled her over on to the roadway. It was so intense. You see all kinds of stuff. Just being in the city will expose you to that kind of stuff. I still see shit every day that just blows my mind.

BM: Being in New York in general exposes you to that kind of stuff, but it seems like being a skateboarder in New York, you are exposed to even more than the average person sees.

BP: Oh yeah, I’ve seen all kinds of shit. People getting their asses beat, I don’t want to sound sensationalistic, but yeah, you see some weird shit, and weird characters. It’s a fun place.

BM: What do you think of the skate industry right now?

BP: It seems like the industry is starting to regress a little bit. It seems like skateboarding is becoming less exciting, as far as breaking new ground. It seems like skateboarding is starting to fall apart in a weird way. It’s starting to break free of its traditional confines, the way it used to be. Now it’s becoming this cultural thing. The age of skateboarding is allowing for all kinds of skateboarding to be acceptable because it’s not progressing as fast. You have people that will rise to the top though, and those are the people that are fun to watch, and then you have this whole batch of others. They have the ability to float there because skateboarding is so big. That’s one of the negative things about the industry growing. In the late 80s when I started skating, there were only so many skateboard pros -- now it’s just crazy how many people there are out there. It would be nice if skateboarding started to scale down a little bit, but then a lot of people wouldn’t be able to survive off skateboarding, which is a nice thing to be able to do. I always try to take a respectable approach to the way I present my skating, which people may or may not agree with. Who knows? I just try to use my instincts and intuition, it’s the only thing I can do. It’s all based on your personal decision-making, what you choose to go with.