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Vlife
February 2004
WMA’S BONES BRIGADE
Forget golf, these agency types spend off-hours terrorizing skate parks
By Andrew John Ignatius Vontz
On a recent Saturday morning at the Burbank skatepark a white Excursion disgorges a load of preteen skate punks eager to swing on the perfect concrete jungle gym. The park boasts a large ‘crete reservoir ringed by 4-foot high curved walls, street obstacles, and a kidney-shaped pool. As the kids pad up, 30-something William Morris agent Jeff Kolodny drops into the kidney pool and a little shredder half his height waits for a turn. Kolodny is geriatric compared to the kids at the park, but this old school shark still has stoke aplenty.
Five months ago entertainment lawyer Warren Dern told Kolodny that he’d been ripping at the Burbank park every Saturday. After a twelve-year hiatus from the sport Kolodny, who grew up skating classic So-Cal skateparks in the 70’s, dropped back into the sport and found that the feeling of a 4-wheeled magic carpet ride hadn’t changed. “It’s just as fun as when I was a kid. I look forward to it all week every week,” says Kolodny.
Kolodny didn’t have to troll long among his peers at William Morris before he reeled in a posse of stuntwood coelacanths, guys who had quit skating but never shaken skate fever. Saturday morning sessions at the Burbank park quickly became an institution for a veritable William Morris Bones Brigade that includes Kolodny; Brian DePersia, 25, assistant to president Jim Wiatt; Nick Santana, 27, assistant to agent Philip Button; and attorneys David Taghioff, 32, and Todd Weinstein, 29.
The five sometimes talk shop between runs and Taghioff and Weinstein have been inspired to pursue a TV project with legendary skater Lance Mountain. But when these guys skate show business places a distant second to the business of having fun. “My focus is so on staying on the board and doing tricks and having a good time that I forget about everything,” says Weinstein who like Taghioff, Santana, and DePersia grew up street skating and is new to the skatepark scene. “I’m finding a nice circle of friends that skate and so it’s like my golf,” says Kolodny.
But as Taghioff learned concrete isn’t as forgiving as a carefully manicured green. “As I was airing out of the bowl there was a kid in my direct path and he wasn’t paying attention. My two options were tackling this little kid and breaking every bone in his body or hurling myself into the chain link fence. I chose the second option,” he says of a mishap that left him with a torn thumb ligament. Kolodny has smashed his right hip so many times that he’s taken to wearing padded shorts, DePersia nearly broke his wrist, and all five have become painfully reacquainted with the feeling of wood and concrete colliding with their shins. The aches and pains that come with the sport have done little to deter the five, though. Taghioff has made plans to have a halfpipe built at his new Calabasas home. And at the end of the day, as DePerisa notes, “It’s more fun than going to the gym.”
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