Hump Day Gets Weird with Cale Zima

Photos: Sean Kerrick Sullivan

Cale is gentle and kind. Almost too kind if you ask me, always considerate to another’s’ time and space. Always holding doors and asking if your day was alright. Always sending small texts to try and cheer his friends up, and always caring and loving the people around him. I guess now that I write this stuff down, my annoyances are actually positive traits to an amazing friend. Cale, thanks for the good (and bad times).– Jon Stark

Brooke: Let’s start with the CAPiTA Movie. There’s a lot of buzz, but no one’s really seen anything. Can you fill us in on anything?

Cale: It’s gonna be really sweet. I’ve seen most of the footage, and it’s definitely way better than the last capita video. My favorite part I want to see is Johnny O’Connor. That’s who you should look out for cause that kid is crazy, and on the come up.

Is it cool to do a team project like this vs working with a video crew like Absinthe?

I like doing Absinthe, but that’s more like snowboarding with my friends like Bode and Cocard. But doing a video for one of my sponsors and a team video has a little cooler feel to it. It’s kind of like family stuff, I really love CAPiTA and I’m not just saying that because they’re my sponsor. I’ve always thought they were sick. When you get involved in something like this, it almost feels like you want to put more effort in for stuff like that.

Do you ever miss filming with Bozwreck?

Yeah. I do, for sure. What I miss is seeing Matty (Ryan) and Nate (Bozung). I see Nate every now and then, he’s in Salt Lake. And I see Matty once a year, maybe. But I still film pretty much with the same dude I filmed with, like, my actual filmer. My best friend Brock was the filmer the first year I did Bozwreck and I’ve filmed with him ever since then. There’s things I miss and there’s things I don’s miss for sure. Sometimes the trips were a complete shit show. Other times they were awesome, it just depends I guess.

A redirect; to splat onto a wall, and try and survive.

What’s it like hanging out with Bozung?

Honestly, I haven’t hung out with him in a long time. I’ll see him out at the bar or house party, but there’s no real one-on-one hang time. But, it’s fun, it’s sweet actually. There’s never a dull moment, so that’s good.

Do you have any good Nate Bozung stories?

It’s been a long time. We had a pretty awesome trip to Quebec once. I was 18, so I was hyped cause I could drink and go out with people. Basically our program was we’d go out and film one day and all celebrate that we got shots that night and just get completely wasted. Insanely wasted. The next day we were worthless and we wouldn’t do anything. We wouldn’t even leave the hotel room. We were out there for like two and a half weeks, on this program. I went to my first strip club out there, which was overwhelming. I almost got kicked out. No one spoke English. First drink, at my first strip club I spilled my drink all over a stripper that was sitting next to me at the bar. My first instinct was, oh my god, I’m sorry and I grabbed napkins and started wiping her legs off. She lost it, she was yelling at me and the bouncer came over and was like, are you touching her? And I was like, no! Well, yeah, but not like that, I was just trying to clean her leg off… But yeah, that trip was the shit. It was good too, it was one of the first years I met Bob Plum and he’s like amazing. The best dude to have on the trip. Cause he’s like really fun and crazy, but also really responsible.

How much do you weigh?

I weigh 130 pounds, on a good day.

Do you think the fact that you weigh nothing has helped you stay relatively healthy?

Yeah, I guess so. It’s not that much impact. But then I also wonder if maybe it’s not good because there’s not a whole lot to me. Speed is actually sometimes an issue. But with the bungee, even though I hate it more than anything in this world, I’ve been to so many spots where we spend hours setting it up and no one else can get speed except for me, because I don’t weigh anything. Everyone else is like, fuck!

Cale, finding tranny in even the smallest places.

Tell me about your roommate Butters.

He’s basically the best dude ever. I met him when I was like 15, just through snowboarding. He’s probably the most obsessed with skateboarding person I’ve ever met in my life. He loves skateboarding and he rips at skateboarding. Really good, filmer, really mellow, I’ve never seen him lose his temper. The reason he got the nickname Butters was on that Quebec trip. Basically like me, Brock and Keegan were on this trip and we didn’t know anyone at all, but those guys all kinda knew each other. Us three just hung out because we had more similar interests, I guess. Brock had never really drank, never really smoked anything and so Matty or Nate were like, you’re just like Butters from Southpark. Super naive kid, which is totally true. But that trip kinda ruined him I feel like. (laughs)

Did you really ride all season with a broken elbow? Does your doctor know this?

Yes, yeah. Basically it was the first trip of the year in November and we went to Canada. This place called Hundred Mile House, which is past Whistler. There’s really nothing out there. First spot of the year fell on a rail and came down on it all weird. I couldn’t move it for two days, and it was huge and it turned black. I was like, what the fuck? What happened to my arm? I talked to (Mark) Dangler and was like, something really fucked up is going on with my arm. I’d never seen bruising like that. But I just kept snowboarding on it, which sucked. When I got home to Salt Lake I went to the doctor to see what we up, cause I wanted to make sure nothing super gnarly was happening that needed immediate attention. They were like, oh, you have a broken elbow. It’s a rare break, I guess. And I was like ok, what do we need to do? Like cast it up, or whatever? And he’s like, no, you need surgery. I was like, what!? How long is the recovery. He said 3 or 4 months and I was just over it, like, no, can’t do that. I’m like let’s just cast it up! It was funny, he knew what had to be done but I was trying to get around it. But yeah, it’s still fucked up, I was gonna get surgery this summer but I’m over it.

I heard that wasn’t your worst fall this season, either.

No, I had the scariest fall. I actually partially tore my MCL this winter too, which sucked, because knees are the worst thing ever to hurt. That was in February, so I was out for like a month and a half. I pretty much got sandwiched. I fell hitting a rail and at the bottom was a fence. The fence post was a few inches from the pole. Somehow I fell in the weirdest way, and my skinny leg — this is why I should be bigger — my leg magically slid in there and it stopped me and my whole body bent around the fence. And then we couldn’t get my leg out. It was terrifying. Like I’m trying to stay calm and I’m like alright, something hurts, but I’m stuck and upside down with my board. I was looking at Jon Stark and he had the most terrified look on his face. I was like, dude, get me out of here and he’s like still shocked. I’m like, Jon, get me out dude! And he started trying and eventually I was losing my shit. Get me out! Get me out! So yep, there’s that one.

Where are your trucks, Cale?

Well, I’m glad you’re ok! In your 2009 Hump Day with Nick Lipton you said you’d never shave your mustache. Have you?

Ok, yeah. I basically look fucking weird without a mustache. But my friend little Jeff, he’s like my best friend, he’s the shit, but he always gets me to things that I don’t want to do. He paid me $20 to shave my mustache when I was 21, so four years ago. I looked fucked up. I would always make bird noises at him because I feel like I look like a bird. I have a small little bird mouth with like no lips. So I haven’t shaved since then. But I actually was thinking of shaving when I get home. Just try something new. Maybe my face is less birdlike now.

Tell me about your relationship with Brandon Cocard?

Oh man. Well, I met Brandon at Mt. Hood when I was 20 I worked at High Cascade and he worked at Windells. It was right as I got on CAPiTA and so I saw him and I knew that he rode for Capita too, but we didn’t really know about each other. It was a rain day and I went out to smoke and he came out too. He was like, hey can I bum a cigarette and I was like, sure and there’s an awkward silence for two seconds and then we started talking. I didn’t really get to know Brandon until we filmed for DOA, the CAPiTA video. I remember we went on our first trip together was in the end of November to New York. I don’t know, basically he’s just like the coolest dude of all time. He’s the shit. Like if we lived in the same zone we would most likely live together. He’s just a cool dude, he’s funny but he doesn’t know he’s funny, he’s so talented at snowboarding and musically too. Even if you’re super hungover one day and stuck in the house you’re still not bored cause he’ll just play guitar and shit. He’s just got a cool outlook on life. We did a lot of premiere tours together which I feel like it strengthening bonds because you get into some weird situations that most people probably aren’t in and we’re like, oh yeah, I survived. We’ve been though some weird shit for sure.

Like what?

For example. This wasn’t a premiere tour, but this was last year in Switzerland. I had recently gotten knocked out. You know the longest rail that he did? I was trying a front board on that and I fell and got knocked out for like a full minute. It was so scary, I was so fucked up. Some Swiss magazine was putting on a contest in the city and we forgot that we had to go judge it and like make an appearance or something weird. I was like, dude, I’m pretty sure I have a gnarly concussion, I don’t really wanna go. The guy wasn’t having it. So I went and I was like, what do I do? And Brandon was like, well you’re not supposed to sleep, and you’re not supposed to drink either so I don’t know what you’re gonna do. So like an idiot, I just started drinking.

So I ended up getting blacked out drunk and me and Cocard are staying at this guy’s house we’ve never met. He was French, didn’t speak any English. His name was DeDe. He was really nice but it was really uncomfortable because we didn’t know him. So basically we got wasted at the bar, somehow wandered back to the zone the house was in. I woke up the next day to Brandon pounding on the door, cause he didn’t remember anything either, and he’s like dude, are you bleeding? I was like, what, no I’m not bleeding? And he’s like I’m pretty sure you are. I was like, why would you say that? And he’s like, well, there’s a trail of blood through the house and blood on all the doorknobs and shit and I’m not bleeding. The French dude was super confused where all this blood is coming from. Turns out it was from my arm and we are not sure what happened, but I had a huge cut on my arm. We decided it was from a barbed wire fence cause we had to venture through these fields, which we did everyday, but it’s easier in the daytime on your snowboard and there’s some sketchy barbed wire fences and I think we walked back that way to avoid the traffic. But yeah, that was super weird. I felt so bad too. And then I slept for two straight days.

And that was when you guys hit that rail. What was that like?

That in general was kinda weird, because Brandon wanted to go back to it and try something else and I was like, alright you should. And he was like, you hit it with me, and I was like, no. I can already tell this is gonna be a nightmare battle for me. He forced me to hit it with him. We went back to it like three times, three days in a row. We basically hit it all day for three days until he got his trick. But then at that point I had gotten so close to getting my trick I was like fuck it, might as well keep trying. That rail’s crazy, it’s in the middle of nowhere. I guess they just rolled up on it, it’s in like a canyon with a treatment plant. The guys that work at that plant are really cool. They moved their cars for us and stuff. Two old bearded Swiss guys. They would come out and smoke and drink beers and just watch us for a second. They probably thought we were out of our minds. Like, why are these kids doing this?

You only dug for a year, why, you couldn’t hack it?

Yeah, cause I’m a bitch. Nah, I liked it and I can understand why you would wanna work at a snowboard camp if you didn’t snowboard all that much. But when summertime comes I’m just so exhausted from traveling that I just wanna hang out in Salt Lake. I filmed all year and then worked at the camp, got back to my house like September, did premiere tours until November and then started snowboarding again. I was like fuck, I just had no down time. So I just decided that I would not work there again. But it was hard work, it was hard as shit actually. Just getting sunburned every day, but it was also really fun. We had some weird drunk times up there too.

Gentle filming, a gif, and that same redirect.

Do you think you have a drinking problem?

I wouldn’t say it’s a problem. It’s more like the people I’m around, if I see them drinking I’ll be like, oh I’ll drink, whatever. I always try to keep up with people and I realized I can’t do that anymore cause I’m far too small. All my friends are bigger and way better at drinking than me.

Sponsors? Thanks? Shout Outs?

Capita, Union, Coal, Holden, Celtek, Sabre, Milo Sport. Thanks to those guys, thanks to Yobeat, thanks to Brooke, thanks to Gerry.