Elijah Berle is on Former
A technological skate drama in three parts.
ACT I: A text is sent to my phone one cold and stormy night in April. It’s from Campbell Milligan. ‘Elijah is on.’ Foreboding, elusive. The anticipation builds. Suddenly we have a secret, and it is big. As big as Elijah’s arms. As big as Jake’s heart. I will carry it with me to the grave, or at least until someone on Slap starts a thread about how Elijah has a FORMER sticker on his board at the Brooklyn Banks.
ACT II: Another text is sent to my phone on a slightly warmer, but still very stormy night in May. Again it is from Campbell. It is the entire Welcome to Former Berle part in the smallest and crappiest 420p imaginable. With the video, the text reads ‘You will die in seven days.’ just kidding, it reads, ‘this will go live in six days’, and like that, my heart is all aflutter. A butterfly taking flight having burst from the cocoon.
I think back. My first memory of Berle is of him dancing in Mexico wearing only slacks and a bolo tie at Adrian’s wedding. My most recent memory of Berle is of him walking down Houston in the Lower East Side of Manhattan - slacks, still no shirt. ‘The man cannot afford shirts, how sad,’ I remember thinking. Bless his heart, now he will get them for free.
I am drawn back into reality and decide to take action. I email Berle. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t strike me as an emailer. Instead, I must speak to Former founder/rider/TM. I text Austyn. It is three in the morning. He does not like this and he lets it be known. ‘24 hour friends’ I say. He does not respond. A couple of days later, I call him. He is on an elliptical. I don’t ask why, but check his stats. Then we get down to the burley Berle-y business.
ACT III: Berle’s on Former. It is official. You watch the part linked above. You read the interview below. You feel warm inside. How wonderful life is now Berle is in the world.
You’re on an elliptical?
That’s correct.
What’s your time and distance?
It’s not really a distance thing, it’s more about time.
Okay, what’s your time and calorie burn?
Twenty minutes and about three hundred calories. I don’t really pay attention to the calories, I count the time and the rest is bullshit.
How sweaty are you?
Dripping.
How many pints?
I’d say probably a quart of sweat.
So Berle is in Nicaragua?
I think he’s back now, he was surfing with some of the guys from Girl.
How does it feel to have him on?
It’s good. It’s very new, he hasn’t even gotten his first check yet, I was actually just talking to the accountant to make sure that that goes through. Imagine if we blew it on his first check as his welcome part came out.
Is now a good time to disclose his salary?
Yes, definitely. We gave him 100% of the company. It was more of an equity play to get him on. Sweat equity. If he doesn’t grind a triple kink this year, then we deduct 20%-25%.
So it's about measuring kinks, not quarts of sweat. It’s not literal sweat equity. In thirty seconds or less, tell me how this came about.
It actually happened in about thirty seconds. He called me, I don’t know what happened with his previous sponsor, but he was looking for a clothing company to ride for and he didn’t really want to ride for anybody else, he wanted to talk to us before hitting up other brands. The call was actually really short, he didn’t need my approval. It was more about talking to the rest of the team and seeing if we could logistically afford him.
When we are making decisions about people getting on the team, we want to make sure that they’re supported financially, but also that we can actually help them travel and support their visions - it takes a lot to support someone that works as hard as Elijah, so about a month later it was decided to put him on.
How long did it take to film his welcome part?
He filmed that in about a week. It was like three or four tricks, but they are really good tricks. We just didn’t have time, we needed to announce him this month because we have so much else happening and we want him to be at all of the surf premieres and skate trips. We don’t want to keep it a secret anymore.
Was this decided like last year?
No, about two months ago it would have been?
When assessing a vibe to join the team, what is the criteria?
Hmm… I like that he skates. I like that he’s a fucking workhorse. I was like, ‘do you really want to keep skating and filming video parts?’ and he was like, ‘yeah, I love it, that’s what I want to do.’ That was pretty much all I needed to hear because that’s kind of what I need. I wouldn’t like to put someone on the team who thinks they’re fucking cool and don’t have to do anything. This is a company he likes and wants to be a part of, that’s important when putting someone on the team.
Loose criteria.
We are accepting sponsor me tapes.
How do people send those in? Should I just post your phone number?
I think it's easy to get a hold of people - it's easy to figure out where you live or where I live, they’ll figure it out.
When can we expect some Berle Former merchandise?
He has a collection coming out Fall 2027. We already finished designing it maybe two weeks ago. We didn’t waste any time. He was designing before he even signed the contact.
