Step into Jeff King’s shoes for thirty seconds

Hello shred boys and shred girls, Jeff King is lucky enough to host the raddest skateboarding show on television, Built To Shred, but it’s not as easy as it looks. By the time you see King’s beard in your living room the show is edited all pretty and he’s having a gay old time building and skating fun stuff. Well, sit down with a cold beverage and let him tell you how not rad it is to skate when you have three cameras pointed at you, five minutes of sunlight and every bone in your body aches because you just pushed a big-ass phone booth around town for three hours. Put away your tissue ‘cause this ain’t no sob story, just a quick glimpse behind the scenes … of life on the small screen.—Ted Newsome

To do a proper Built To Shred we are forced to hunt down things to skate that wouldn’t ordinarily get skated. The hunt leads us to all kinds of weird places. In this case we found a phone booth in a back-alley prop shop in Hollywood. We got there not knowing what we were looking for, hoping something would jump out at us, and of course, the phone booth almost fell on me.
As usual we got a late start and since we don’t plan our shoots until the night before, or the morning of, making it all happen in one day is rough. We hit fifteen different locations that day, and at each one we had to unload the phone booth, skate around with it, and load it back up. I don’t know if you’ve ever weighed a phone booth, but it’s heavy-and awkward, and it has glass on it. As the day progressed, I started to wonder if we were going to make it. The show was supposed to be turned in to the network in two days and we hadn’t even finished filming the intro!
We ended up at a foundation of a building in a pretty sketchy part of La La Land. The locals were eyeing our cameras like coyotes would watch a family of cute little bunnies. Then to make matters worse it started to rain. Fuck! We lugged this thing onto somebody’s private property and a neighbor came over to have a little talk with us. He barely spoke English so I had to break out my Español skills. Somehow I convinced him to let us skate. Luckily there happened to be a huge junk pile with TVs and old lumber for us to work with. The sun was going down quick and with dark clouds rolling in, our chances of pulling this one off were slim and getting skinnier by the second.
This setup was one of my most dodgeball creations to date. The ramp consisted of a wayward door, a busted piece of plywood, two cinderblocks and some chick’s panty drawer. Dave B. set down his camera to smash a home stereo into a usable piece of metal for the bottom of the ramp. Suspect. The phone booth was even better. No anchors into the ground, it was strictly a balancing act. This was the most emaciated set up. Definitely not what I had imagined for a show intro that will play over and over again, but classic Built To Shred style. The phone booth was made out of aluminum and I realized that the only grind about to go down was this production coming to a grinding halt. Luckily quick-draw Newsome stepped up. Not only is he the filmer, editor, graphics master, demo crew dog and general backbone of the shreds, he also has a lead foot. Ted bolted toward the nearest hardware store for angle iron and the clouds kept rolling in. Things were looking grim and I started having second thoughts. Looking at this thing more and more though, I saw that it was nothing more than a skatepark setup. Little jump ramp to a slanted ledge—basic.
Ted rolled back and within minutes the ledge was ready. Now it was my time to be the ripper. I stood at the top of the runway, a slight mist in the air, one of my most janky rigs ever, three cameras pointed at me, about to shoot the intro for my own show. My toes hurt. My shoes were too tight. The weather was weird. My board felt off. What else could I think of? There was no time. A big black cloud was looming. I rolled up to it ten times and each time couldn’t get myself to do it. The temper started coming out. No excuses. I rolled at it, clicked my tail, touched my trucks to the booth and bailed. That was the only taste I needed. I jumped up quick and with a couple cheers from the crew I skated back to the top. My toes hurt. I should have picked other shoes. No time. The black cloud above was peeing on our parade and I could see the crew stashing the cameras under their shirts until I was ready.
I jumped on my board, took three pushes cuz two wasn’t enough, popped my tail, set down my trucks, grinded to the end, popped off and rolled away. Shit! I made it! It felt good. The sun disappeared and it actually started hailing. We were tripping out as little balls of ice bounced off our heads. If the cloud passed we could get one more trick. All hands on deck. We quickly turned the phone booth sideways and propped it up on some sketchy car seat, the payphone and a TV. It was tall but the ramp was good and I knew I could do it. My toes hurt. The cloud passed and it was go time. I ollied it first try but it hurt my feet bad. Laban shouted from the sidelines, “One more!” Dammit. I knew that I could do it, but it was going to hurt. It hurt to walk so I knew another ollie would be brutal and if I bailed it would hurt even more. A no win situation, but I knew it had to be done so I buckled down.
Apparently I’ve developed a grunt when I skate big gaps, and followed by a yelp of pain, I rode away across the dirty foundation. This intro encompassed all that is Built To Shred—making something out of nothing and shredding it. And that’s what it’s all about.
Built To Shred premieres September 28 on Fuel TV.