A Day at Travis Kennedy’s Place
Action Sports, Snow No Comments »
By Drew Bennett
Blue skies, sunshine and rocky peaks….not exactly Truckee’s version of a winter wonderland, but certainly not a good enough reason to skip out on a chance to pop in on Travis Kennedy, King Duce’s professional snowboarding phenom.
Just minutes after passing Boreal and Northstar ski resorts, we wind our way up the steepening grade and eventually pull into TK’s driveway, on a brisk but sunny weekend morning. From the outside, the house appears to be a rather conventional winter cabin that blends right into the surrounding neighborhood. But on the inside, there’s nothing standard about it.
Instantly my eyes began fixating on the array of art strewn about TK’s walls. Large, colorful pieces of psychedelic cartoonism – over-exaggerated and abstract, but emotionally charged and powerful. Several of the pieces were painted directly onto the house’s white walls. One in particular sprawls out over the kitchen wall, wraps around a corner and spills down onto the microwave in a waving pattern reminiscent of a snowboard’s carving path.
Here “The Kid” is in his true element – basking in creative surroundings, smack dab in the middle of snow country. Comfort, hospitality and sincere friendliness emit form TK’s persona as we all make ourselves at home, while we chill out and wait for one more piece of the King Duce puzzle to show up, hip-hop warrior Yaberation.
Making the day-trip up from the Bay Area, Yaber, as he’s often called, made it just in time to catch a little bit of the photo shoot action that had been going on in TK’s front yard. Strapped with every bit of gear that one photo taking man could need, Beiron Anderson had turned TK’s entry-way into an outdoor portrait studio. As the mid-day lighting began to fade in the yard, Beiron was able to slip Yaber in the mix with TK and get some good shots of him as well. After Beiron utilized every bit off good lighting in the yard, it was time for us all to roll down to Boreal and get some shots in the snow. Well, what snow there was.
As we were packing the cars, Yaber cracked out a little surprise – a fresh jam that he’s been working on back in the Bay. Before you could even say “new song”, that disc was in the player. Even in it’s rough, uncompleted form the song had “summertime -jam” written all over it. So, needless to say, we bumped Yaber’s song about nine times on the way to Boreal for the next stage of the shoot.
Craggy, jutting peaks surrounded the park, and despite the lack of plentiful snow, Beiron used this to his advantage and flipped the scenario. An artistically off-kilter shoot with TK in street clothes, kickin’ it in a ski lift surrounded by a snow-less forest. Great imagery and masterful use of the conditions. After finding a nice little snow patch up the hill, TK and Yaber took some nice shots together in the setting sun. It was quite entertaining watching Beiron work – rolling around in the snow with his camera, searching for that shot where they “just look good”. Despite the odd conditions and lack of true winter-ness, we were all pretty stoked on the results of the shoot. It was time to eat, BB-Q at TK’s. It’s on boys!
Chris Rockwell, our man with more than one plan, cooked up some kick-ass steaks on the grill. We all grubbed down fat, barely able to murmur out a word about “moose steaks”, or something. It was a relaxing end to a fulfilling day. I don’t know about anyone else, but I couldn’t take another bite. I sat down, watched some football and had a nice talk with Travis. He was quite the host on this day, and I was really glad that I went. I think we all were.
