S8E2 - AJ Waters
In this captivating episode of 'More Than Work,' our host Rabiah Coon engages with AJ Waters, the visionary behind Stronger Skatepark. From the initial spark of passion for skateboarding to the creation of an inclusive community space, AJ shares the journey of founding Stronger Skatepark. Listeners will gain insights into the hurdles of entrepreneurship, the power of community-building, and the significance of personal growth through adversity. Whether you’re a skateboarding enthusiast, interested in the startup world, or looking for inspiration on overcoming personal challenges, this conversation offers valuable takeaways for all.
Introduction to AJ Waters: The episode kicks off with Rabiah welcoming listeners and introducing AJ Waters, highlighting their unexpected journey from skateboarding hobbyist to the founder of an inclusive skatepark.
Starting Stronger Skatepark: AJ delves into the early days of skateboarding, the inspiration behind founding Stronger Skatepark, and how a single event sparked the idea to create a welcoming space for skaters in Portland.
Challenges and Triumphs: Overcoming financial, legal, and personal hurdles, AJ shares the resilience and determination that carried them through the toughest times while founding the skatepark.
Running a Business: AJ compares past experiences to the challenges and rewards of running Stronger Skateparks, drawing parallels between caregiving and entrepreneurship.
Inclusivity in Skateboarding: Emphasizing the core value of Stronger Skatepark, AJ discusses efforts to create a skate park where everyone, regardless of age or ability, feels welcome.
Personal Journey and Mental Health: AJ opens up about their personal growth, mental health journey, gender and sexual identity, and the profound impact of creating a space that supports diversity and accessibility.
Expanding During a Pandemic: AJ recounts the challenges and opportunities of expanding Stronger Skate Parks despite the pandemic, underscoring the importance of community support in uncertain times.
Advice and Personal Insights: Wrapping up the episode, AJ shares wisdom on the importance of slowing down and being mindful amidst life's busyness, offering listeners a moment of reflection.
Note from Rabiah (Host):
This episode was recorded last year but of course delayed until now. As I mention at the start of the episode, AJ was introduced to me via friend of the pod (and friend of me) Eriko Ono who knows AJ from the Portland, OR skate scene. In December, after the podcast was already recorded, we got to meet in person and I got to see Stronger Skatepark myself. It is a special place. I even bought a sweater that is too cool for me to own but I wear it anyway! This is a fun interview and a very open discussion I enjoyed with AJ. I appreciate so much when my guests are willing to talk about things that could be difficult. In addition to talking about the work AJ is passionate about, as a trans man, he was willing to answer some of my questions about his transition which gave me a rare insight into that experience as it will you, the listener. Enjoy the episode and let me know if you visit the skate park!
Host Rabiah (London) chats with the founder of Stronger Skatepark, AJ Waters (Portland, OR) .
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Mentioned on the Episode
Transcript
Rabiah Coon: [00:00:00] This is More Than Work, the podcast reminding you that your self worth is made up of more than your job title. Each week, I'll talk to a guest about how they discovered that for themselves. You'll hear about what they did, what they're doing, and who they are. I'm your host, Rabiah. I work in IT, perform stand up comedy, write, podcast.
Thank you for listening. Here we go!
Hey everyone, welcome back to More Than Work. This week I have a guest that was really recommended to me by a good friend of the pod and who's also been on the podcast, Eriko Ono, or Ed as, as we call her, also on that episode.
And that was a while ago on my Mother's Day episode when my sister was on and my friend Erin and and Ed. And she does a lot of skateboarding, which is pretty cool. I won't say how old she is, but [00:01:00] basically in our age group- and my guest is already laughing- in our age group it's cool that anyone does skateboarding because we're all at risk for hurting our hips or breaking something.
But anyway, ed does a lot of skateboarding and met this guest at a skate park in Portland. And so we're gonna talk to AJ Waters who is the owner and founder of Stronger Skate Parks? So, AJ, thanks for being on today.
AJ Waters: Thanks for having me
Rabiah Coon: Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm excited to get to talk to you just 'cause I've heard so much from Ed.
But first of all, where am I talking to you from today?
AJ Waters: I am in Portland, Oregon.
Rabiah Coon: Awesome.
So AJ, I mean, we have a lot that we can talk about and I I don't know if you've heard about me from Eddie 'cause she usually says how awesome I am, but I've heard a lot about how awesome , I've heard a lot about how awesome you are.
And so I am, I'm really excited to talk to you. So I guess you just want to get into, first of all, just talking about like, founding your skate park and, and how you came about doing that
AJ Waters: Yeah, I've been a skateboarder since I was like 12 years old. And I moved to Portland in [00:02:00] 2012. And when I moved to Portland, I met some other local skaters and got involved with a, not-for-profit group called Skate Like A Girl. And then we did went to this big event up in Seattle where they had a big, a whole week weekend of women's skateboarding events. Not just for women, but women focused through Skate Like a Girl, who I'm sure Ed has told you about.
Ed loves Skate Like a Girl. And it was, well we were up there that people were like, let's do something like this in Portland. Let's do this in Portland. I'm like, we don't have an indoor park to do this at in Portland.
And that's what really got the gears kind of turning that I was like, why don't we like, someone should make one.
And I realized like, well, if I'm thinking that, you know, I, I'm, I'm the type of person who acts on those things and a lot of people aren't. They're like, well, someone else to do it, that would be cool. Then they move on. And I did not move on.
Rabiah Coon: Nice. And so that was in 2012 you said, right?
AJ Waters: Uh, that was like 2015
when I [00:03:00] started thinking about that. 2012 was when I first moved to Portland. It was a couple years of just skating and getting to know the community, volunteering for Skate Like a Girl for a while. I was, had a paid position with them.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Awesome. So when you were with your position with Skate Like A Girl, were you an educator or what were you doing with them?
AJ Waters: At first I was a volunteer skate coach just at their clinics at Commonwealth, which is another little indoor skate park here in Portland. And just, you know, teaching kids how to skate. It was all youth that we were working with at those clinics at the time. And then later I ran some afterschool programming for them at the Boys and Girls Club, where I came up with the programming, ran the programming, coached at it.
Rabiah Coon: Cool. So you were starting to do all that kind of that kind of stuff, and then you were like, okay, now I'm ready to do my own skate park, basically?
AJ Waters: Yeah, well, I mean, at the time I was between jobs when I started coming up with the skate park idea. [00:04:00] I had been nannying when I first moved to Portland which was a pretty good job when you get a nice family to work for. And I had had kind of a mental health crisis and had to quit my job and just lay low for a while and was just doing like gig work and little things here and there. And it was really like going to that big event in Seattle and seeing how powerful it is when you can do stuff with the whole community together. Um, and their event was hosted out of a skate park called Altogether Skate Park in Seattle. And it was not that big, but it was enough space to be able to like do stuff and we didn't really have anything big enough in Portland to do that 'cause Commonwealth is like, I don't know, 1500 or 2000 square feet. They're pretty small, so you just, you can't get a hundred people in there.
So being able to see that and see how powerful it was, I was like, man, we have got to be able to do stuff like this for the Portland skate community too.
And it just kind of spiraled from there.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Yeah. And [00:05:00] did it help you kind of through what you were going through too, to have something that you were planning and looking forward to? I mean, I know when I've had, I don't know what happened, but I know when I've had different bouts even recently, kind of having future plans has helped certainly.
AJ Waters: Yeah, it definitely gave me like a project to be excited about and passionate about. So I was basically just like in my spare time, which I had a lot of at that time basically like making a business plan to see like how much would it cost for rent and payroll and insurance and like how much would we need to charge for you know, entry fees and memberships and lessons and things like that to be able to make this workable.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Well, and did you look at different skate parks? I mean, if you've been skating since you were a kid, you've probably been in, you know, outdoor community parks that were free and then gone into ones that weren't that way and saw different programs than being with Skate Like a Girl and seeing that.
Did you have anything that [00:06:00] you knew, this is what I want it to be, as far as like, I've seen this stuff happen before and I don't want that, I want this or I do want that for sure.
AJ Waters: There's unfortunately not a ton of indoor skate parks in the U.S., um, because they're a notoriously difficult business to, to keep in business. I got to work in an indoor park as a teenager in the suburbs of Chicago. So I got to see a little bit of how it ran then, and there were things about that park that I really liked and things about that park I really didn't like. And so, yeah, I got to, you know, have a few experiences here and there. And really for me, like the most important thing was building a place where everyone felt welcome and not just teen boys.
Because a lot of the outdoor parks are very teen boy, young, adult men centric because that's who your skateboarder typically is. But for me, like the most important thing was [00:07:00] building a place where anyone could walk in the door and even if they're nervous, still feel safe to skate. And not every indoor park is like that, but some of 'em really are. Some of 'em really work to make that, and that's a lot of what Skate Like a Girl does.
Even though they don't own their own space, they work really hard to make the spaces that they use for their programming feel really welcoming and inclusive.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, even I took my nephew a long time ago to a skate park with one of his his friends who's a girl. And even seeing how that, like, she had to be really brave just to kind of get out there and interact with people because it was intimidating. It was intimidating just sitting there like looking at that.
So,
Inclusivity is basically key, right? So then when you look at, at building a skate park and then having that be an objective I guess you had to find the space and you had to fund it and all that. What year did you actually end up founding this park and how did you go about starting this business?
AJ Waters: I mean the challenges were [00:08:00] everywhere, basically nonstop. But the biggest ones were like funding and finding a space. And finding a space ended up being so much more difficult than I thought it would be initially. And that was partly because I didn't know what I was doing when I started. I didn't understand what occupancy laws are and how those work. I knew what zoning was. I think a lot of people are familiar with the idea of zoning, like this type of business could be on this street or this place, but then there's a whole separate set of rules that say what the building has to have to allow that kind of stuff to work in there.
And I didn't understand any of that.
Um, so I learned the very hard way by going down to the city and being like, what if I rented this warehouse and put a skate park in it? And they're like, okay, well you're gonna have to upgrade the sprinklers. You're gonna have to make it seismically upgraded. And I'm like, okay. I can't afford any of that so what do I do? So I basically found out what municipalities would be a little bit [00:09:00] easier to work with. 'cause the city of Portland is not which is partly why I ended up in Milwaukee, literally a stone's throw from Portland. I'm in Portland right now. Five minutes south of me is the skate park,
um, over the border in Milwaukee. It took me two to three years to find that space from the time I
started looking. And we opened up our doors in April of 2019. So almost almost five years ago now.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah, totally. That's you staying dedicated to an idea for five years without it happening. Did you have any ups and downs with it in that time? Did you ever think about giving up or were you always gonna do it.
AJ Waters: During that time, I was pretty headstrong, almost in an unhealthy way. I had to grapple with that. I was just like, if this doesn't happen, then why am I even gonna keep living? And I'm like, no, that's, that's not healthy. But at the time I was not healthy. So, you know, this has really helped me to get to a much more healthier place. [00:10:00] And now I can look at it and be like, you know, this is a thing that's really, really important to me, but if for some reason it ends. Like, I'll be okay.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah.
AJ Waters: But at the time I was so headstrong, like no one was gonna stop me. Even if it ended up being something that, that wasn't as big as I'd hoped it was, something was gonna happen.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Yeah. So how is it now being a business owner and someone who's op operating a business versus like what you were doing before? I mean, you enjoyed even being a nanny at some point, right? But what's the difference for you?
AJ Waters: I mean, there are honestly a lot of similarities in my mind because like when you're a nanny, you get to choose like, who are you working with and why are you working with them and negotiating rates with them. And obviously it's a simpler job because It's a difficult job in that taking care of children is incredibly difficult and undervalued. But there's not so much paperwork,
Rabiah Coon: Yeah.
AJ Waters: and [00:11:00] legal loopholes and, and bills and things that you need to pay all the time. In that way it's a lot more straightforward. But yeah, I, I find it to be honestly pretty similar because I'm kind of in charge of my day and how I spend my time and I like having lots of different things that I have to manage and juggle.
And when you're caring for kids, it's like, alright, I gotta think about the next three meals and when are we gonna go on a walk and is this baby tired now? Does he need a nap now? Or should we go play first and then take a nap? And it's a lot of the same stuff when you're running a business. It's like, okay, well I've got all these different things I need to do and I can kind of do them when I want to, but others are gonna become more pressing at different times. Like, oh shoot, we're running outta this thing and now I need to allocate the resources to pay for it and the time to go get it, or, you know, whatever. So it, it feels like it's honestly in a very similar vein to what I was doing before.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, and [00:12:00] it is interesting, and I, I've talked to people about like, when they're losing a job and, and some people who are in service industry, for example, and they want to go into another industry and they worry about not having skills for whatever the industry is. But I always tell people the certain things like the people skills, right? And the ability to communicate those things are transferable across, across everywhere. And so when you have those, you can learn a technology or something, but if you don't have those, they're very hard to learn.
AJ Waters: Yeah, yeah. And if you are just like interested in learning new things, it's not terribly hard to learn any new skill or job you need to, you know, depending on where you find yourself.
Rabiah Coon: yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So what's been one of the more rewarding things for you otherwise about owning the skate park? Is that maybe unlimited skating for you, , or, or what? What
AJ Waters: Uh, honestly, like the longer I'm in it, the less time I spend skating for better or worse. I probably should skate more and [00:13:00] I'm making an effort right now to skate more. But like, the most rewarding thing is getting to see people enjoying what we've made. Like getting to see people having a great time, getting to see different types of people meeting each other and becoming friends who probably just wouldn't in their everyday life. To see like groups of different non-traditional skaters get to meet each other, like Ed and all of her skate friends. Some of those people she would've never met if it wasn't for going to classes at Stronger and going to Skate Like a Girl sessions. We have a crew of like old guys who skates together, and I'm the youngest "old guy". And a lot of them are like adults who are new to skateboarding. And even for like men in their forties and fifties, it's super intimidating to be the beginner around all these 20-something dudes. So letting them get to come back and live out something that they missed when they were younger is really cool too. And that's, that's the rewarding part, is just [00:14:00] seeing people have joy, you know, getting to do what they like.
Rabiah Coon: And that you've created a space where that's allowed because I especially, I'm older compared to a lot of people. I don't know how old you are , but I'm in, I'm in my mid forties and so I will sometimes be in spaces where I'm the oldest person, like when I do standup comedy.
So I'm definitely older than a lot of people in that case. And having a place where that's okay is nice. And I mean, classes are often a place to do that. One thing that you do too is you have special programs, like in the mornings you'll open up earlier for kids on the autism spectrum, right? And so what brought you to do some, a program like that, for example?
AJ Waters: Well we don't currently have any like ongoing autism specific programming, but we've done one-off events here and there, and we also do private lessons specifically for disabled people or people who need a little bit more space or time in the park. A lot of that has been a passion of mine, like my whole life.
I [00:15:00] grew up with a lot of disabled family members in all sorts of different ways. Down syndrome, autism, ADHD, just like all sorts of things that presented challenges for different people in my family. And that was well before I learned that. I was also one of those people, which happened during that mental health crisis when Stronger was being born.
When I was just like struggling to function. And that's when I started seeing a therapist and I went to a psychiatrist and, um, gained a few diagnoses over those couple of years. And there's probably more that I haven't figured out yet, but at least found out that I am autistic and dyslexic. Both of those came out of that time. And at the time I was having really bad panic attacks and things like that as well, which are doing much, much better now.
AJ Waters: So a lot of anxiety. So yeah, so even before I was dealing with my own struggles with that stuff, it was really important to me to make sure that people [00:16:00] with disabilities; physical and intellectual disabilities or developmental differences, all have a chance to access the same stuff that everybody else gets to access.
So we try to make it as accessible as possible, you know, for folks to come in.
Rabiah Coon: And just thanks for sharing about, about your diagnosis, and... actually there's a comic, I saw her show at Edinburgh Fringe, Sikisa, and she got diagnosed with like dyslexia in her thirties
AJ Waters: Yeah,
Rabiah Coon: her mid thirties.
Right.
AJ Waters: yeah, yeah. I was
Rabiah Coon: She's lawyer.
AJ Waters: yeah, I was 30 or 31 or 32, somewhere in there, , when I started gaining all these diagnoses. And it was just like the stress of that nannying job had gotten so much that it kind of just pushed me past my, past my breaking point, and then it was like, oh, well, let's dig in and find out why life is so hard.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. So just exacerbated a bunch of things that.. . Do you mind talking about that at all?
AJ Waters: No. [00:17:00] Yeah. I, I don't mind at all.
Rabiah Coon: So, I mean, I guess just, I know, and I, I don't have those di more like, OCD was a big one when I
found that out. And that was in the last year. I mean, it was obvious later on, but
AJ Waters: it always is when you look back, like I, I feel that so hard. I look back at myself in a child and I go, why did nobody see this? And I actually had some teachers who recommended to my mom multiple times like that. She get me tested, but she figured all they were gonna do was put me on Ritalin and she didn't want me on Ritalin.
So she's like, what's the point of getting a diagnosis of all they're gonna do is put my kid on meds.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Which is fair in a way because
AJ Waters: Yeah. It was the nineties.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah, it's a lot different now. And now they're like, oh, we shouldn't have done that because now look what we've done to people. But did you, even if you didn't have questions, maybe you got answers and, and did that change the way you viewed yourself, or how did that impact you?
AJ Waters: It, yeah, it changed the [00:18:00] way I view myself a lot. At first it was really hard though. ' at first, like I didn't believe it. I was like, how is this even possible? And then I went from that to like having a lot of shame and embarrassment, to eventually having like grace and understanding and acceptance, which has allowed me to like, let go of a lot of that shame and things that I was carrying around.
So it's a lot easier when I'm like, okay, this thing is hard for me because this is just how my brain works.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah.
AJ Waters: so it lets me like be patient with myself.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Well, and probably you acquire these tools now that are available to you, even, like if they're cognitive tools or if they're actual.
So that's, that's cool. That's great. And then I think too, I don't know, but just, I'm just thinking about like the fact that you've been compassionate towards other people for most of your life anyway.
It's interesting when you have to apply that grace to yourself all of a sudden.
AJ Waters: Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely the more challenging thing to do, I feel like, for me,
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Like, I would never [00:19:00] talk to somebody like me this way, but I will talk to me this way, .
AJ Waters: Yeah, Yeah. And I've, I've really gotten a lot better over the past couple years about that. Much, much better
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. And then I guess just another thing, I mean, I think it's important to talk about, and I've certainly had guests on the show at least, I try to have guests on the show who, you know, share their stories, but also who represent a lot of different, I guess, communities or, I don't know what the best way to say it is. But you're trans and you came out as trans a couple years ago,
AJ Waters: Yeah, not until after I started the skate park, So, a cute little video on our website. I don't know if you've seen it that some college students who are working on, I believe their master's in journalism was the program they were in. They came out and did like a mini documentary and, uh, I said a quote in it that I have keep pulling from myself, which is funny, which is like I was unintentionally creating the space that I [00:20:00] needed to feel safe to come out in.
By creating it for other people, I was able to create it for myself at the same time. Yeah, so that was a whole nother journey and part of me was like, why do I have to keep going through these, like personal identity crises? Can these just like, please stop? Because I felt like it was just one after another. And before, before I had gone through that mental he health crisis and figured out that I was autistic we had left our church and our faith and all of that, which was a whole nother thing. And I was like, can we just like, please be chill for a while and it's been relatively chill since that, but that was in 2019 that
Rabiah Coon: Okay.
AJ Waters: realized that I was also trans and came out
Rabiah Coon: Yeah, that's Well, and did you grow up in the church?
AJ Waters: That journey is a little interesting because I grew up Catholic. And then we kind of stopped being a part of that around [00:21:00] the time I started high school because my mom was just kind of over it by that point. I was in Catholic school through freshman year of high school, and then I transferred to public school my sophomore year and I.
I don't know if it was that year or the next year, all of my friends started going to this evangelical youth group.
And so I ended up getting caught up into that because there just wasn't a lot to do in our town. There was like the skate park and the town square, which is interesting 'cause I saw you had a question about Groundhog Day and Our Town squares where that that movie was filmed
Rabiah Coon: Oh, really?
AJ Waters: Yeah. So that's a side note. But anyway, I basically got swept up into this Evangelical
youth group and I was like all in. I was like, yes, this is, I am here for Jesus. This is everything. And that was my life until like 2009. Like I ended up going to Bible college and I thought I was gonna become a pastor. I led our church's children's ministry, which is another place where I [00:22:00] feel like I got a lot of skills that helped me run a skate park. 'cause I learned we started a church from nothing and I was part of the team that did that.
And they're like, here, all the children's programming, your job nursery, children's church afterschool programs on Wednesdays, like VBS in the summertime. And that is all so, so similar skills to running the same programming at Stronger.
So yeah, it was through going to Bible college that I started to deconstruct what I believed and that was a whole nother crisis that I had to kind of slowly work through over a couple years.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Well that's, I mean, it's a lot. And I, it's funny because I was never, I didn't, wasn't brought up religious. I'd say my mom, definitely believed in God and probably, probably still, I would say she still does. And I, we didn't grow up in a church though. She grew up going to church and, and in a very specific way, like the evangelical thing in the Midwest, and then moved to California and then they weren't really in church anymore. [00:23:00] And I, I kind of played with it. Like I had someone, well, very inappropriately actually the assistant principal at my high school would invite me to go to church with him and his family.
I didn't know that, you know, those things that you didn't know were inappropriate...
AJ Waters: yeah, yeah. 'cause you don't know better. Yeah.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. So now I'm like,
AJ Waters: But now you as an adult is like, I would never do that. Why would someone do that?
Rabiah Coon: no one, my mom even says like, well, she thought things were weird, but then I seemed safe. And so anyway then in college I ended up like, you know, going all in and accepting Christ.
AJ Waters: Mm-Hmm.
Rabiah Coon: then I did it again. I did it. I did twice plus plus I was baptized when I was nine months old, which I still don't think counted.
AJ Waters: Yeah. No, I, I was also, I was baptized Catholic as a small baby, and then I did it again in high school,
Rabiah Coon: Yeah.
AJ Waters: because I had to do it for me this time and for Jesus.
Rabiah Coon: Right, right. And it was a big emotional thing, so I get it. And then it was like, but then all the time going, ah, is this really what I believe? And then for me, and I don't know, you know, of [00:24:00] course for you, but like for me, a big, a big catalyst for me to say, you know, F this completely was, I was in Texas.
My boss at the time wanted me, it was very important to him. I went to church. That was a whole weird thing too. But he, I went, I was in the church the day after the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned, right, by the Supreme Court, or it was the day or two after whatever day that was. It was the Sunday after that.
And the people were all upset, you know, this is mega church in Texas. And they were all just up in arms, you know, and I was sitting up in the back, there was like a balcony and stuff. I was sitting there. And the, the pastor said something like, I know a lot of, you're asking what's gonna happen, what's gonna happen with all these people, you know?
And he said, and he said something like, "the gays", you know, it was like that. 'cause they're they need an article before them
AJ Waters: Yep.
Rabiah Coon: and and what's gonna happen to them. And he said, don't worry, God will take care of them in the afterlife. You don't worry about their sins on Earth. God will take care of them. Meaning they're, you know, whatever he'll do. And I was like, [00:25:00] I got so mad. I stood up, I made sure the seat slammed up. You know, it was one of those seats, when you sit down, it goes down. So I slammed up, I slammed the door on my way out. I was like, I'm not gonna listen to this. I'm not gonna sit in this room. That I knew they were like this, but I was, I, I had proof now.
AJ Waters: they said the quiet part out loud.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. And it's like, you know what, I'm not doing this man because I don't believe it.
AJ Waters: That is so similar to what happened to us, except we were in our tiny church that we had helped start that at this point. Probably had like 30, 40 like regulars and then a few others who would come in and out. Like we never had more than 50 people in that building at a time.
And at this point, my wife and I are both on staff at this church. She's running, helping run like the music and the youth ministry, and I'm running all the children's programming. And they had a guest speaker come in who basically did the same thing who got up and was like saying "the gays" this and "the gays" that, and was like, "the [00:26:00] gays should not even be allowed in this building". And me and her and one of our friends, we walked out, we were like um, no, we. and like to see all of the other church leadership being sitting there and being like, "Amen". Yeah. And we're like, wait, what? What is happening here? you know, that was, that was the beginning of the end for us.
Rabiah Coon: And for you, that's so painful. 'cause you built this thing and you're with people who are your friends who,
AJ Waters: Oh
yeah. We, we lost almost our entire friend community from that, um, besides a handful of people who also were like, yeah, no, we don't hate gay people. We were like, cool, good. Let's hang out
Rabiah Coon: You just find out who the people are. So then when you, so then when you I mean, I guess you, I don't know, I don't wanna make sure I'm using the right words and I didn't discuss this with you before, which is great. But like, you basically, you started to transition, I guess from 2019
AJ Waters: Yeah. Yeah. That was in 2019, and it's like, I feel like transitions have never, for some people, [00:27:00] they have a moment where it feels done.
I don't know if it's ever done because you're always like kind of figuring out who you are and how you want the world to perceive you,
Rabiah Coon: Even as a, just like I'd say, I guess cisgender person, like there are parts of my life that are changing constantly that might not be related to my, my sex or, or or gender or anything like that, but other things, right? So, did you, I guess thinking about when you came out, when you were younger, whenever that was, right, with your sexuality and then coming out later
AJ Waters: Mm-Hmm.
Rabiah Coon: with with gender, like, did you find anything different or did you feel like I came out as bisexual and I haven't said that even on this podcast, I don't think last year, and it was really difficult
AJ Waters: Mm-Hmm.
Rabiah Coon: I was holding onto this idea that no matter what, I could be straight 'cause I didn't wanna give, I didn't wanna be, it kind of . I mean, we, similar to you in the sense that you like, can I stop doing stuff? Like I have MS. So I thought that was enough. [00:28:00] So why am I gonna add a complication to my life, was my idea, right? So I'm just going to be straight because I can, 'cause that's fine.
AJ Waters: Yeah. Uhhuh
Rabiah Coon: I couldn't anymore. And it was like this big relief. 'cause there was a lot of shame I held, which was silly in a way, but also is my experience. So I guess, and then the shame yeah, has to go away. And it's same with any, anything. So did you find any difference, like for you or any relief or, I don't know if you wanna talk about any of that, but just
AJ Waters: Yeah. Well, I never had like a young coming out moment because I didn't realize also that I, I feel like I'm definitely on the, like, asexual spectrum, but I didn't really realize that. Like I fell in love with my best friend.
So it was just like, oh, okay, cool. We're, we're straight.
Now neither of us are, but at the time, so I never had any kind of like queer coming out as a young person. But I had like a sister who was openly out as bi, and then my other sister would come out later. And, you know, lots of gay friends and family, like tons of them.
So it was not like [00:29:00] a strange thing to have queer people around. Uh, I just didn't realize I was one of them yet until 2019. ,which again, looking back is absurd. Not everyone has that like kind of stereotypical, "I always knew" trans story, but I kind of do So like even as a kid, my cousins, we would hang out with our cousins a lot. My, both of my parents had a bunch of siblings, so we had a bunch of cousins and somehow they all had kids at like the same time.
So we all had these like pairs. And we would always split into boys and girls. The older siblings were the boys. And I was always that all the time. And it made perfect sense and none of the kids questioned it at all. Like, they were like, yes, all the older siblings are the boys and all the younger siblings are the girls. And like the parents sometimes would be like is this okay? Whatever,
you know? And the, the kids did not question it in the least. And it was like, [00:30:00] in a way I got to live a pretty affirmed childhood for several years 'cause my mom let me cut my hair short. She let me dress however I wanted. You know, I just didn't get to change my name or pronouns because neither of us knew what being trans was. We didn't know that was an
Rabiah Coon: Yeah.
AJ Waters: you know? so for a couple years there, it was actually pretty great And then, you know, you hit puberty and then that's when things were really, really hard for me. Basically from 12 to 32
Rabiah Coon: Wow.
AJ Waters: yeah.
Rabiah Coon: now
AJ Waters: I don't remember what the original question about coming out was.
Rabiah Coon: I guess what it was like, I mean for you like, or what it is like now. I mean was, I mean, that's a big deal.
AJ Waters: Yeah.
It was.
Rabiah Coon: like,
AJ Waters: It was the most terrifying thing in my life. Like I had said, I had these other big life transitions with faith and then, uh, coming out as autistic, which was another like coming out. You have
to tell [00:31:00] people if you want them to know, you know? And not everybody does, but all my good friends do. And I kind of had learned from experience that it's best to just rip the bandaid off.
I was like, I just need to do this and get it over with. But it's like a process, you know, because at first you just tell your partner, you know, like, I think this is what's going on. And then you tell your really, really close friends and then a little bit bigger circle of friends.
And then you're like, can you try these names and pronouns for me? And kind of see how it feels. And you know, once I kind of got to the point where I felt like I was living two lives. Like I had
my work life and the rest of my life where at work I was still going by one name and then everywhere else I was going by a different name. I was like, it's time to just rip
that bandaid off. So I made a video for the skate park's Instagram. It was like, this is the deal. This is what you're gonna call me now. Like it's okay if you mess it up for a while, but we'll we'll get there
Rabiah Coon: [00:32:00] Yeah,
AJ Waters: And that was absolutely terrifying.
Rabiah Coon: yeah, yeah. I mean, you don't know what people are gonna do, and then I don't, one thing I I was surprised by is like how once you come out, you have to, all the time, like it never stops. Like,
AJ Waters: No, it never stops. Yeah.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. I mean, for you it's different than me, but like, still, like there are times when I go, "oh wait, you're saying that thing to me, but you don't know that you're actually talking about me."
AJ Waters: Yeah. Yeah.
And even like when you get to a place, like most of the time now people read me as a man, which is great. That's that's what I want. But then they'll say really weird sexist or transphobic stuff to my face because they think I'm just a short cis guy. And I'm like bro, no, we don't do this here. Like,
what are you doing? Like the stories that men tell me now that they see me as one of them are insane. Like that random people will just say to [00:33:00] me, and I'm like, this is the, this is not the part of this world. I wanted.
Rabiah Coon: Mm-Hmm, . Yeah.
AJ Waters: but it, I've got to live both sides now. And now I can tell people like, oh my goodness, you would not believe what men will just tell other men. thinking It's okay,
Rabiah Coon: yeah,
AJ Waters: Yeah, it it's, it's wild. And luckily all of my friends, I feel like I have a relatively good, like, I don't know compass or radar for finding like good people to surround myself with. So like none of my friends Who are my good friends are people who do that crap.
But working with skaters and being in a public business where just all sorts of random people come in is when I is, when I run into this stuff most. And they don't realize one, that they're talking to the owner of the business and that this person is trans. They're just saying wild stuff to me.
And it's always hard to navigate, like, when do I call this out and when do I just let it go? 'cause I know that they're just some random [00:34:00] dude who's looking around at the space and then they're gonna walk out and I'm never gonna see him again.
So, you know, a lot of times I'm just like, okay, say your stuff. Get out. Bye
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. And it's all learned, right? It it, it's all learned behavior. And I think the men who have learned to not do that took a lot of effort because they were taught to do that
AJ Waters: yeah,
Rabiah Coon: generally,
AJ Waters: yeah. If not, if not directly from, you know, their families, then from TV and culture and school and you know, the places that they just socialize.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. And then, and even I, I'd say, you know, like just again, at any issues or any, any, I mean, I hate to say issues 'cause a lot of these things are all people's lives, right?
Like you can say, oh, there's trans issues, or there's race issues, or whatever. But then there's also there, there, there are people's lives.
They're not issues. They're actually
AJ Waters: They're real people. Yeah.
Rabiah Coon: yeah, it's like real like, oh, if you say, oh, there's a race issue, no, there's actually people
who are [00:35:00] experiencing things because of their race. So that's the issues like, right. And so
I think it's interesting just knowing that how much people have to learn and unlearn and relearn
and, and all that.
And like, but yeah, it's not always worth saying something. And, and sometimes it is, and you know, it's hard to know when, but yeah, I can imagine that's, that's difficult. So, but I mean, thanks for, you know, talking through all this too. I really appreciate it. 'cause I think, you know, maybe someone will be listening who's never heard any conversation like this.
I appear to have never had such a conversation a . I'm like but . But yeah, like, no, it's, it's really good. And I think it, it is telling that, that you, even before you realized anything about yourself, were, were trying to live a life in such a way that you were being inclusive of others and, and sensitive to them and stuff because it's, it's important, you know,
AJ Waters: Mm-Hmm.
And if, if, if everybody was doing that, man, how much better would this world be? [00:36:00] Just, and I'm not like, and I don't even think I'm super duper good at it, but I'm just being intentional and trying, you know. And that's really all it takes.
Rabiah Coon: yeah, it's not being perfect or never, never saying anything wrong. I mean, I certainly do, and then I certainly go, oh, I shouldn't have said that. Or, oh, why did I, like, sometimes I'll ask myself, why did I even think that?
AJ Waters: Mm-Hmm. .Yeah.
Rabiah Coon: You know? But then that's how you, you challenge things and, and I think if you're willing to challenge yourself to do good most of the time and to be compassionate and all that, then yeah, you're right. I mean, and, and when you're not, then, you know, challenge yourself to do it next time. But,
AJ Waters: Mm-Hmm.
Rabiah Coon: So AJ getting back to the park, just because , we went off on some, on some tangents, I would say, so both of us were around, when we were younger around, people had their business, my parents had an auto repair shop, and your parents had the restaurants, and I would see them kind of struggle with their business sometimes. Sometimes they'd do well, but they were always having to work really hard at it. And have you found that kind of thing with you? [00:37:00] I mean, you opened a year before a pandemic, so that's one thing.
AJ Waters: Yeah. That was definitely a, a huge challenge. We were literally open for business for about 11 months. And then Covid hit. And our first winter went great. Our first winter went awesome. We could not get all the people in the space who wanted to be there. So COVID happened. We were closed on and off several times. Like Oregon was one of the strictest states for business closures which I don't have any problem with, except that it's just hard to survive.
Like I think that stuff is important. And actually through that process, the business next door to us ended up calling it quits the second or third time, everything shut down.
Or not everything, just restaurants and gyms, which includes us.
Everything else got to stay open, but they shut down restaurants and gyms. And so the business next door to us ended up closing up. And I took that as an opportunity to expand. And I talked to the landlord and convince them, even though we're behind on rent, please [00:38:00] let us have this space. And no one else was gonna rent it at the time.
So they seemed pretty open to it. So we, we got the space next door. But that more than doubled our rent. And ever since then, it has been a monumental challenge to keep that rent paid. Like the rent is absurd. Um, and it's really like not for the, you know, area we're in and the size of space that it is,
but Skate Park just doesn't make that much money to be able to pay rent on these massive spaces that we need. To be able to operate.
And now that we have so much space, we're able to do so, so, so much more. We can have so many more people in and they have so much space. We have different types of things to ride. That new space is like probably the most popular of the kind of, the space is kind of divided into two giant rooms. And that what we call the expansion is probably more popular than the original park that we built
just in general when people are coming in and [00:39:00] riding. But yeah, it is just an unending struggle to keep the bills paid. And I think from the outside people see this really cool space that's obviously like doing a lot of things right.
And we have like good branding and a good logo and people are like, oh yeah, they're killing it over there. People ask me all the time like, when are you gonna open your second location? I'm like, after this one It cannot even necessarily be profitable, but can just like, maintain itself.
That's when we'll consider it.
But right now, like we need a lot of community support and I'm constantly like reminding people like, we need you actively supporting us to
survive. Like we're always like, we playing catch up on rent all the time. But I've also learned so, so much and I'm really excited to take that moving forward.
Like I've learned what's popular at the park and what's not,
like what works and makes money and what events are we gonna lose money on, and kind of how to balance those better. So really like for [00:40:00] us, it just comes down to doing lots of programming classes, camps for kids, lessons, all of that stuff is really what keeps us afloat.
And not the open skate sessions.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
No, I mean that's, yeah, that's gotta be hard and a lot of business. I mean, it takes a few years for 'em to really
make money. People think, oh, I opened a business. It's busy.
Good. But yeah. So, no, it's a good
AJ Waters: Yeah. And I remind myself that we're like, essentially like kind of started over in
2022, like really we shouldn't be considering 2019 our start date. We got a little heads up on being able to market ourselves, you know, because then we were closed for most of 2020.
So, and then people were still being really careful and staying at home a lot in 2021. And it wasn't until 2022 that people started going to things again.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. Yeah, same over here. And now , now it's just kind of weird, you know?[00:41:00]
AJ Waters: Yeah.
Yeah.
It is just weird.
people are like, we're doing stuff even though we know there's risks, we're just doing it
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. And then, and then, oh, my friend got Covid. That's, I forgot about it, but I didn't, but...
AJ Waters: yeah. Like, oh, surprise, not surprise,
Rabiah Coon: I know. Exactly. Exactly. Cool. Well, one thing I like to ask guests, like if they have an advice or mantra they wanna share with people, just something they like to impart, or maybe it's something like they do every day, or.
AJ Waters: Whew. I guess for me, like one thing that I have to constantly remind myself is to like slow down, slow down from the busyness. It's really easy to keep yourself busy all the time without like actually paying attention to what you're doing. It's easy to go from, I'm doing stuff at work and running, running, running, and I'm doing stuff at home to like actually just like slow down and take stock and [00:42:00] be mindful here and there.
I fall into that all the time of like not taking time to just breathe and sit and just be mindful of what's going on in the world.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah, definitely. 'cause when we have a lot to do, and you definitely do. Yeah. It's hard to remember you can get more done if you slow down a little bit, honestly,
AJ Waters: Yeah.
And it's just like taking care of yourself because if you just keep running yourself ragged all the time, you won't be able to keep going. You'll burn out. And I experienced that the really, really hard way. Back
in like .2014, 2015. I don't even remember. I need to go back and figure out what the years for all these things are. So I have to force myself even to just take little moments here or there. Like all right, I'm just gonna go sit outside for five minutes. No phone, no nothing.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Great.
Rabiah Coon: Now we get to the Fun Five. These are five questions I ask every [00:43:00] guest just because it's fun for me. So . The first one, what is the oldest t-shirt you have and still wear?
AJ Waters: That's funny 'cause I kind of outgrew all my T-shirts. Um, uh, because in 2019 I started taking testosterone and it made my shoulders get big. So I outgrew all my shirts. So probably the oldest one I have that still fits is one of our early Stronger shirts.
Rabiah Coon: Yeah,
AJ Waters: like early, early, before the park opened, we did like a fundraiser where we printed up, I don't know, like two or three dozen t-shirts that people ordered, and I think that's probably the oldest one I have that I can actually wear.
Rabiah Coon: Nice. That's cool.
AJ Waters: Yeah.
Rabiah Coon: Did you experience temperature increase too? My one friend said like, their
AJ Waters: Oh, oh yeah. I'm hot all the time. I used to be cold all the time. Now I'm warm all the time. I can handle cold temperatures in a way I never could, but also I cannot handle the summer at all. Like the summer is [00:44:00] brutal so yes, I did
Rabiah Coon: Yeah. My friend's like, I saved on heating now. I was like, good for you.
AJ Waters: Yeah,
yeah. No, we're, we're always like kind of arguing about that because I'm like, open all the windows. It's ice cold, and my, my family's like, what are you doing? We are freezing. And I'm like, but I'm hot .And they're like, but we are cold. And I'm like, well you guys can put on sweaters. I can't take off more clothes.
Rabiah Coon: Exactly.
AJ Waters: You can only take off so many clothes till there's none left.
Rabiah Coon: Well, that's what I made this joke, which is dumb, but I'll say it on here 'cause maybe someone think it's funny, but that I think nudists are the people who suffer the most during a heat wave because we can all remove layers, but they can't.
AJ Waters: yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Rabiah Coon: So, alright, so the second one, if every day was really Groundhog's Day, which this is a callback now because you mentioned Groundhog's Day earlier , what song would you have your alarm clock set to play every morning?
AJ Waters: That is [00:45:00] a really hard question because I don't know what vibe I wanna wake up to. I do actually have like a funny meme song set as my alarm and my ringtone, I don't know if you've ever heard of this, he's a prolific internet creator called uh, his name is Neil Cicierega. And he makes really, really funny, goofy, not quite parody.
Some are parody, some are mashups. And I have one of his songs that's my ringtone and my alarm, so I'm sorry if that's weird and and not the direction you were looking for.
Rabiah Coon: All right. That's what you'd , that's what you'd wake up to. Alright. Next one. Coffee or tea or neither?
AJ Waters: Tea all the time. I got a cup right here. Tea, black tea.
Rabiah Coon: Cool. Lipton or some other one?
AJ Waters: This is Stash. That's kind of my go-to, 'cause they're like easy bagged teas, but they're a lot better than the cheaper brands like Lipton.
Rabiah Coon: Okay.
AJ Waters: And then I don't have to, I used to be [00:46:00] all about loose leaf tea and now that's just, it's too much of a pain in my butt. So I think Stash is actually based outta Portland, but they're like a national brand.
I don't know. They're good.
Rabiah Coon: Oh, that's cool. Well, yeah. Oh, that's good. I'll have to check that out. And then can you think of a time that you either like laughed so hard, you cried, or something that just always makes you crack up when you think about it?
AJ Waters: Oh, since I'm already talking about, like, I talked about Neil Cicierega before, there's a certain song of his where he takes like a Lenny Kravitz song, and remixes it and puts it like, makes it really hilarious. And my brother and I are constantly texting it to each other anytime we hear the actual version of the song, which I can't even remember what song it is 'cause I can only think of the like, weird parody version of it. We're always texting each other about like dragonflies and stuff. And it cracks me up every, every single time So like, literally this man is, [00:47:00] you probably know something he's made without realizing he's the person behind it. 'cause he's had so many viral YouTube videos, just an unending amount.
Rabiah Coon: Cool. And then the last one, who inspires you right now?
AJ Waters: Man, that is a excellent question, but I, I feel like, when it comes to like celebrities or big name authors or anything, I've been burned so many times that I've stopped, idolizing those types of people.
Rabiah Coon: Mm-Hmm?
AJ Waters: and my wife and I were just talking about this like with the Russell Brand thing, we were like, alright, like who, what other people? Not that either of us particularly cares about Russell Brand that much, but it's just like, alright, if it turns out that all these people are terrible, like who's gonna be left?
Like, are there gonna be any actors out there that we can idolize anymore? Or are they all, are they all like this? So I feel like I have a hard time. Cause a lot of my, like most like inspirational people are [00:48:00] people who are dead because then nothing, we can't find out anything. Mr. Rogers is probably a good, safe one. He's very inspirational and a wonderful human. I also am always into basically everything Carl Sagan ever said. He was another great person. So like. You know, a lot of the people who I'm most inspired by are no longer living Before we found out he was terrible, I used to really like Elon Musk. but that was several, many years ago, like 10 years ago when I moved around, the time I moved to Portland, I was like, oh, this guy's really interesting and he's doing all this cool stuff. And I'm like, no, So,
so I'm always, I'm always really careful about that. I'm like, I can't put anyone on too high of a pedestal. 'cause the higher you put them, the harder the fall is.
So, I don't know if this is a terrible answer or not.
Rabiah Coon: No, no. And people say all different [00:49:00] stuff, so it could be, could be anyone, so, no, that's great. Cool. Well, before I let you go, AJ, I just wanna know like, where do you want people to find you or the skate park and where do you want them to follow?
AJ Waters: Well the skate park is kind of everywhere we are the most active on Instagram and it's just Stronger underscore skatepark (@Stronger_skatepark). Really easy to find. We also have our own website that has like lots of info on all the things we do. It's stronger skatepark dot com (strongerskatepark.com). Again, real easy I am trying to get more active on TikTok with the skate park, so if people are on TikTok, we're there.
And then my own personal Instagram is A
Rabiah Coon: underscore J underscore Waters (@A_J_Waters).
Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks so much AJ. I, it was really fun talking to you, and I'm glad we got this chance to do that. I'm trying to catch a fly while we're talking , but yeah. So anyway, it is, it is been really great and thanks so much for taking the time and, and being so open and honest too.
I appreciate it.
AJ Waters: Yeah. [00:50:00] Yeah, I really like getting to do things like this once in a while, so I appreciate you reaching out.
Rabiah Coon: Thanks for listening. You can learn more about the guest and what was talked about in the show notes. Joe Mafia created the music you're listening to. You can find him on Spotify at Joe M A F F I A. Rob Metey does all the design, for which I am so grateful. You can find him online by searching Rob, M-E-T-K-E.
Please leave a review if you like the show and get in touch if you have feedback or guest ideas. The pod is on all the social channels at at more than work pod (@morethanworkpod) or at Rabiah Comedy (@rabiahcomedy) on TikTok. While being kind to others, don't forget to be kind to yourself.
