Stepen Colbert’s interviews are nearly always cold, relentless, and circuitous offensives, leaving most people turtled on their backs, pawing at the sky. Some try to fight back (they lose), others try out some deflective Judo (“the way of gentleness”) only to end up saying almost nothing at all.

I have such a deep respect for professional athletes. I am actually writing this blog at the breakfast table here in Aspen with revered Olympic field hockey player, Taeka Takema. My friend, who I will be headed down the mountain with today, won the silver medal for Holland in the Athens Olympics, and is on break before the world championships begin. We are trading war stories from the road and realizing the similarities and the differences in what we do.

I write this one to you from Aspen, Colorado, where I am celebrating life and the New Year. I started snowboarding when I was about 14. Up until then, I was skiing since I was very young, but made the transition when the sport was still quite new. I remember being looked down upon on the mountains. It was like a mountain racism towards this new sport that the old-school did not quite approve of or understand. Since then, we have seen it become very much an equal and it is even an event in the Olympics.

When I was a kid I remember the day Mark Foo died. This revolutionary big wave surfer never came up after riding his wave in. It was as if this liquid mountain was his chariot to the world beyond. He was riding in his passion and will always live on in the hall of greats. As a kid I grew up surfing on the east end of Long Island. Montauk is the place that I consider my birthplace–where I learned who I was. Spiritual is how I felt the day I heard Mark Foo died doing what he loved. I didn’t think about his beliefs, his status, or his bank account. I thought about a man who was in one moment living out his purpose and then the next literally ceased to exist. He was a hero to me and that is because fear could not follow him where he was going. I like the idea of living without that fear.

Mixing off-piste sound and slopes is a short but storied tradition: perhaps due to temperature, cool music has always gone well with snow sports. The illustrious annual Snowbombing festival – which features acts like 2 Many DJs, Dizzee Rascal, Alex Metric and Reverend and the Makers in a dope Austrian Alpine resort setting – has always seemed like the ideal ski and snowboard escape

Ari has been shooting the zeitgeist that is his life, from snowboarders and skateboards that he calls friends, and the obligatory downtown characters, for over 20 years. He came up alongside the Haring and Basquiat, and had deep connections to the art community that nourished his raw talent.