Thrasher Magazine

If you’re a skater in your mid 30s, chances are that one of your first skate videos was a Jon Miner production. For me, it was his and Mike Manzoori’s masterpiece This is Skateboarding. From the green tint to how fucking cool Heath Kirchart and Andrew Reynolds looked, I couldn’t get enough. Even now, I regularly pop on Chris Senn’s part to get hyped—that shit has aged like fine wine, as have all of Miner’s amazing videos. I’ve had the pleasure to get to know this curmudgeonly genius over the past ten years and have always been fascinated by his career and curious about his past as a pro skater. I recently visited his old stomping grounds of Santa Rosa to check in and ask him all the stuff I’ve always wanted to know. If you’re a Jon Miner fan, strap in, because this story has more twists and turns than the Santa Rosa Skatepark. ––Kyle Seidler

Let’s start with growing up in Santa Rosa. What was that like?
Growing up in Santa Rosa was a lovely experience. My parents gave me freedom to do basically whatever I wanted, as long as I was getting good grades and was home at a reasonable hour. I lived here until I was in my early 20s, made friends growing up there that became like family to me.

Kids crew, 1988

Can you tell me a bit about your crew growing up skating?
Yeah, I grew up skating with Charlie Watts and Joel Price then Brian Gaberman moved to Santa Rosa around 1993 from Connecticut for school. We actually met at a contest—the Battle at the Bay—at the Civic Center. Brian had no idea there was a skate scene here at the time, but once he found out, we started skating together. From there, we all built a solid crew. Back then we weren’t taking filming or photography seriously, just filming each other and being skaters.

Catching tail on tiny wheels, 1994

Before getting into filming, I understand you were taking skateboarding kind of seriously. Who was your first sponsor?
I got some flow from Think skateboards, but New School was my first real experience with a company. I didn’t know much about the brand at first—didn’t recognize most of the names on the team—but I was stoked to get free boards.


Did you expect it to go anywhere at that time?
I wasn’t super ambitious about being a sponsored skater. And even if I was, I wouldn’t have known how to make it happen. The extent of those dreams was just putting out a solid video part and maybe getting an interview in a mag. Going pro and making a living off skating wasn’t even a thought.

Physics wheels ad, 1995

Come Together video box, 1995

Were they taking you on trips?
Yeah, I went down to SoCal with them and met guys like Mario Rubalcaba. One trip was with Gaberman, who was trying to get on ATM Click—that’s actually when I met Mike Manzoori.

How’d meeting Manzoori come about?
We met because I skated for New School, and he skated for ATM Click. Eventually, he started overseeing both brands and became my team manager. Around that time, 1994, the Santa Rosa skatepark was being built, and there was a lot of excitement there. Mike took charge of marketing for both brands, and we built a connection through that.

With Jaya Bonderov, 1999

You guys ended up riding for Adrenalin skateboards together. Tell me a bit about your experience with those guys.
Manzoori and my buddy Hanzy Driscoll skated for them too. Adrenalin at the time was the coolest company to me. It was headed by Chris Senn and Jaya Bonderov in San Francisco. Their skating was on another level—raw, fast, and just insane, truly living up to the name Adrenalin. Through sessions at Santa Rosa Park, I got to know Chris and Jaya, and eventually, I started spending more time in San Francisco. Then, to my surprise, Jaya asked me to join the team. I honestly wasn’t sure he even liked me; he had this unreadable, stone-faced demeanor. As we skated and traveled together, I saw his kinder side, and we became close friends. His passing was absolutely heartbreaking.

Local mastery at the Santa Rosa park, 1997

When did you start getting more into the video side of things?
Well, at the time, Manzoori was becoming more focused on skating. Sole Technology reached out to him wanting him to work on the Sheep video. Living in Santa Rosa then, he asked if I’d help with the project. So I had the opportunity to assist mainly on the shooting side.

Who was in the Sheep video?
Let’s see: Mike was in it, Brian Anderson, Sergei Trudnowski, Rick McCrank, Charlie Wilkins, Frank Hirata and Ed Templeton. That’s off the top of my head.

Damn, that’s such a heavy squad.
Yeah. It was an interesting process. I had put together a homemade editing bay with equipment I had gathered—like, I found a mixer at a television repair shop. I had taken a class at Santa Rosa Junior College, so I had a basic knowledge of how to use it. When Mike started working on the Sheep video, he was able to edit using that setup. It was a raw process, just straight pause-and-record style. Back then, editing software was still new, and neither of us had really stepped into that digital world yet.

Were you messing with analog film early on?
When I was young, I shot a roll of Super 8 on my dad’s camera, but had no clue how to process it. After meeting people like Mike, who knew the whole process, I started figuring it out. I took a film and video course where the teacher loved Super 8, and though most students were focused on digital, my enthusiasm stood out. The teacher supported me, even giving me free film and processing vouchers. That support was everything at the time.


Yeah, having access to stuff like that is huge.
Totally. I took full advantage of having access to the editing suite. It was a linear VHS tape-to-tape beast of a machine! The teacher saw what I was working on and was like, Yeah, this is cool. Let me help you out. A lot of what we learned in that class was about shooting and editing fundamentals. I specifically remember one film about motion—how different patterns and flows affect the way movement looks on screen. Another one was shot entirely with a macro lens, close-up shots of someone peeling an orange, showing textures in a way that evoked emotion. The teacher had a very unique approach to filmmaking. One of the biggest lessons I took from that class was about just making things happen with what you have. The teacher told a story about a friend who kept talking about this big film he was going to make, but he was always waiting—waiting to get the right camera, the right computer, the right equipment. The punchline was that he never actually made a film. The lesson was simple: Get out there and do what you can with what you have. That really stuck with me.

That’s a great lesson, a skater mindset.
Between that class and being around people like Mike Manzoori and Nanda Zipp who were so resourceful, it shaped the way I thought about video and film. I was surrounded by people who made things happen.

When was your first big career opportunity as a filmmaker?
That’d be when Mike Manzoori offered me a full-time job at Sole Technology. Before that, I’d just been freelancing. But when Mike took over the video department, things grew fast, and they needed more help. I didn’t fully grasp what the job would become, but my wife Sarah—then my girlfriend—pushed me to take it. I was hesitant about moving to SoCal, but we went for it—before I even knew my salary.

Salad days with Gaberman and Manzoori, 2000

So by this point you were pretty much all in on pursuing filmmaking. Was there a point you decided you were shifting your focus away from skating to be a filmmaker?
It’s hard to pinpoint an exact moment. I was passionate about every project I worked on, but I still saw myself as a skater. It was actually injuries that forced me to throttle back. While filming Kids in Emerica, I realized skating came at a cost. For example: If I skated, I would later have to deal with the soreness while shooting a line. I couldn’t balance both. At the same time, I was given the opportunity to take the lead on what would become Stay Gold. Justin Regan decided it was time to start working on another full-length Emerica video. Mike Manzoori casually asked me, “You got this, right? You’re good with this one?” That moment was huge for me. I just said, “Yes. Yes, I do.” From then on, I fully committed to the job—not by choice, but out of necessity.

Blond ambition, 2003

You mentioned some medical issues. This was around the time you had your hip surgery, right? Can you talk about that and some of the struggles you faced?
It was a procedure called hip resurfacing, which is basically an implant. That was something I had done right after Stay Gold, but the issues with my hip started way before that. It all stemmed from a car accident when I was 14. It was a head-on collision and I fractured my femur. Because of the impact, my hips got jammed up as well. Even after surgery to put a metal rod in my femur, I kept having hip issues. I was just a teenager and I didn’t know how to pinpoint what was wrong. I just pushed through the pain and kept skating. Eventually, that caught up with me at a young age.

What was it like working on Stay Gold while dealing with all of that?
One trip that really stands out was when we went up to Oregon on a skatepark mission. We were shooting a lot of lines, getting follow footage through different parks, and I took a couple of pretty hard slams. At some point, my hips just locked up completely. I remember thinking, Dude, I can’t do it. That was probably the only time I’ve ever had to throw in the towel and say, “I just can’t.” What made it even funnier, was that Manzoori was on that trip too, and he got wrecked as well. It became this running joke with the crew: “Dude, the filmers are down.”



Stay Gold line up, management included, 2010

Damnit! The filmers are dropping like flies. So you were hurting.
Years of shooting skate videos took a toll—always crouching, sitting in terrible positions and battling gravity on concrete. That can be rough on anyone, but with my hip issues, it was a disaster. I knew something was seriously wrong but didn’t fully get it. After Stay Gold, a doctor told me I had arthritis—my hips looked like they belonged to a man twice my age. Physical therapy helped for a bit, but an orthopedic specialist was blunt: “You need a hip replacement. If you keep doing what you’re doing, it’s just going to keep deteriorating.” That was a tough reality to hear.

Filmer down!

Yeah that’s some pretty rough diagnosis to get in your line of work. What’s that mean in terms of skating?
The way he talked was brutal, and it honestly broke me, sending me into a depression. I remember talking to Leo Romero about it. He told me Josh Harmony had a hip procedure and was skating again. I reached out to Josh, and he shared his experience with multiple procedures, but the one that worked was hip resurfacing. He gave me a doctor’s name and fully supported me, saying, “This is what you need.” Leo had once spoken about Josh like a hypochondriac, so hearing Josh so confident about what worked for him meant a lot. And he was right; it worked.

Heavy metal

So you were all good?
The first year felt fine, but then my other hip started to deteriorate. It was connected to the femur I’d broken years earlier, which had hidden the discomfort in the other hip. It took a while for those issues to show up, and when I got X-rays, doctors could see the damage. But I hadn’t even noticed it. It wasn’t until later that it really caught up with me. But, at the time, I was pushing through the pain, just focusing on getting the second surgery done.

Did it become as much of a jam up as it was filming for Stay Gold?
Oh yeah, definitely. At the end of Made: Chapter Two, I was in pain, but also under a lot of stress. I had taken on a lot more responsibility at Emerica, and I think those were the initial years when things started to really go downhill for the brand.

In the streets with Hsu, 2009

Yeah, a lot of big changes were happening around that time.
I mean, you were on staff at that point. I think you might remember when guys like Timothy Nickloff and Jeff Henderson eventually quit. I decided to step up and take on team manager responsibilities in hopes of protecting the team, but it was a difficult time. The company was offering much lower contracts to skateboarders, which created a lot of tension.

I can imagine it was hard to keep skaters motivated creatively in that position.
The nature of trying to work together on a contractual level while also balancing being in the streets, shooting and working on a creative level, those two things were in direct conflict. I didn’t really anticipate how hard that would be. I honestly started to feel like I was becoming a toxic person.

Capturing Spider at the DO Banks. Ohio, 2009

That’s a lot of pressure. So, was that when you started to consider leaving Emerica and exploring other options?
It wasn’t overnight. The opportunity to work with Element came gradually. I had some connections through Brandon Westgate and Brian Gaberman, and I’d helped with a few projects like Brandon’s Welcome to the Family video. It was casual but got me connected with them. Cole Mathews, knowing that things at Emerica were tightening up, reached out offering to explore options at Element. At first, I didn’t really think about it. I was focused on Made: Chapter Two and still loyal to Emerica. Looking back, I can see the shift happening. I’d say by the end of 2016, it became clearer. I had 17 years at Emerica by that point. I had invested so much time and energy into building something, and it was hard to accept that it was kind of falling apart. But I had to recognize that the writing was on the wall. The company was going through a rough time, and personally, I felt like I had plateaued. Managing the team and handling video responsibilities just wasn’t working anymore. It was putting a strain on my relationships with the riders. There was this point where I had to ask myself, Am I really able to suck it up, move forward and still work with these people in a positive, constructive way? At the time, I wasn’t sure I was capable of that. So, when Element started reaching out more seriously, with a real offer for a full-time position, it was something that felt fresh. I had started to really feel like a change was necessary, and Element was offering an environment with a lot more support than what I had at Emerica at that time. It was a huge draw, for sure.

And he's back!

Getting to work with some familiar faces in a new environment was probably refreshing.
Absolutely. At the time, they had such a diverse and talented group. I mean, Brian Gaberman was there, a close friend of mine. Cole Mathews, who I had been building a friendship with. Thomas Campbell, who was a huge inspiration for me—he and I had worked on a few projects outside of Emerica. Then there were people like French Fred; these were all people I had a lot of admiration for, and the idea of working alongside them was exciting. I had even worked with Fred back at Sole Technology, helping out with some éS Menikmati stuff. So, for me, the chance to collaborate with all of these creative forces at Element, in a place where I’d feel supported, was incredibly appealing. It was a stark contrast to what I had been dealing with at Emerica, where support had become so limited.

How did it feel to switch to a new environment after so many years at Emerica?
It was really difficult to part ways because of my love for the team, but I was proud of everything we achieved. By that time, I was a little older, had a daughter, and wasn’t as focused on being out in the streets all the time. I was looking for a way to slow down and trying to detach from that psycho energy that I had exhausted working on Emerica videos. Signing with Element at that time meant completing a massive video project that had already been years in the making. I knew it was a challenge but also felt confident that collectively it would be handled. My hope was for that video to be a solid foundation to expand upon when developing future video projects.


How did your time at Element play out from there?
At first, it was hopeful. But over time, things started to shift. The people who brought me in either left or got let go. What I had hoped for was that it could be a truly collaborative and supportive space but the reality turned out to be very different. Honestly, it might sound harsh, but it felt like I was on a sinking ship. Without realizing it, I had transferred unknowingly to another one that was just as doomed. That’s when things started to unravel for me.

This was around the time of your second surgery, right?
Yeah. My plan was to film as much as possible before surgery, then take a break and focus on editing. But the recovery hit me way harder than I expected. I thought I’d bounce back quickly, but I was in my early 40s and needed a full hip replacement. It really knocked me down more than I was ready for. Element offered to bring in a second editor, which was both generous and smart on their part. That’s when I reached out to Matt Bublitz. I had already done quite a bit of editing, and when I showed him what I had so far, he was like, Dude, this is solid work. We’ve got this. We can finish this. That support was crucial in getting that project across the finish line, especially with the project nearing its end, resources running low and the budget nearly gone.

You mentioned struggling with addiction. Can you talk a little about that?
Right before my first hip procedure, I was already in pain and started taking pain pills just to get through work. After my first hip resurfacing surgery, I was prescribed more pain medication, and I got addicted. That addiction carried on through all my years at Element. I was drinking much more heavily around that time as well. At the time of my first surgery, opiates were widely prescribed, and I didn’t even realize how dangerous it was. Then, as regulations changed, doctors started pulling back on prescribing them, but I was already hooked. I had to figure out how to wean myself off them, and that process was brutal. Everything that anybody’s ever said about how challenging it is to get off those pills is absolutely true. The withdrawals were intense, but the worst for me was vertigo—not sure if that’s a common symptom. It felt like I was moving in slow motion, like my brain was operating at a lower frame rate, and I’d lose my balance before I even realized it. It was like being extremely drunk, like hammered but without any of the euphoria. On top of that, my brain just wasn’t functioning properly. The most basic mental processes, like filtering background noise, were breaking down. Every sound became piercing, torturous. It was a terrifying glimpse into what it would be like to lose my mind. The fear that I might never recover was overwhelming.

Livin' the dream

How did you pull yourself out of that?
I had to carefully wean myself off those pills—going cold turkey wasn’t an option, with the amount of meds I was taking, it could have been dangerous. Once I stopped, my strategy to combat the vertigo was just hiking and walking to process it all. As I started to slowly regain my balance skateboarding became the best way for me to cope with the depression and mental shifts from weaning off the drugs. Depression, especially with physical pain, carves pathways in your brain that are hard to break. At one point, I felt like skating was over for me, and that realization brought sadness. I wasn’t fully honest with myself, but deep down, I knew something wasn’t right. Over time, though, as I started skating again, I found I could still surprise myself. The joy of landing something, of achieving, helped pull me out of that state. During lockdown, we needed to move, so I’d skate around the block with Joni. In true skater fashion, I turned it into a challenge—manualing certain distances, hitting gaps—almost like my own personal training course. It was an opportunity at the time to focus on rebuilding strength after surgery.

The journey back to the ramp starts with a single pull-up

Was that when you were skating a lot with Ray Barbee?
Yeah, right around then he reached out to me to work on a welcome to Krooked project. I wasn’t feeling inspired to film. But it was Ray, so of course, I said yes. We ended up just skating. He was getting his legs back after recording an album, so we didn’t even bring out the camera at first. That was the first time in nearly 20 years I’d skated without filming. I’d forgotten what that felt like. What started as a project turned into something bigger—just skating with a childhood hero and rediscovering my love for it. I remember reading an interview with Jerry Hsu where he said something about Ray, like, Do I believe in angels? And I get it, like, Is Ray an angel? He could be.

Gracing the heavens with a gorgeous 360 flip to fakie. Ray would be proud

So Ray Barbee was your skate angel? That’s so rad.
Absolutely. Watching him skate—the way he flowed, the simplicity of just rolling—was mesmerizing. I had lost touch with that. I was burned out, jaded after my time at Element. But through skating with Ray, I started to realize I still had gas in the tank. I could still surprise myself. And that’s when I made a conscious decision: I still love skateboarding. I still need it. That realization changed everything for me.

When I visited, I got to check out your setup: the ramp, the way you start your mornings. Tell me about that.
So In 2019, we moved back to Santa Rosa onto a compound where our friend Charlie Watts was living. It’s a large compound with a mini ramp. The ramp was six years old by the time we arrived, and Charlie had begun remodeling it. It was a dream come true for me—having consistent access to a ramp—something I’d always wanted but never had. It felt like the scene from Step Brothers: “Could you imagine if we had this when we were kids? Even better. We got it when we’re 40.”

Black eye-wise

That’s so awesome.
I never took the time before to truly commit to learning the basics; the ramp helped me do that. It was a chance to fine-tune things in a way that made sense for me at this stage in my life—something lower impact but still engaging. I developed a warmup routine using our basketball hoop. Shooting hoops helped me clear my mind, focusing on something simple. It became a meditative process—dribbling, shooting free throws and feeling my body loosen up. Once I felt good, I’d head to the ramp to skate. Next to the ramp, we have a pull-up bar. I spend a lot of time just hanging from it, letting gravity do the work of loosening up tight muscles and joints. And then there’s the simple joy of sitting there, staring at the ramp, fantasizing about tricks, picturing how things might play out. That became a daily thing—visualizing, and then sometimes, actually making those dreams happen.

It's called style, sweetie

Hell yeah. That’s such a good way to approach it. I remember you posting the back 360 off the extension on Instagram a while back. I’m stoked we got to shoot a photo of that.
Yeah! Man, I got really fixated on landing that 360. It started off as something I’d flail poser style and slowly became a real battle. I kept trying and trying, getting beat up in the process. On one of those sessions I ended up with the worst black eye I’ve ever had; my eye was completely swollen shut. That trick messed me up. Felt good to land it, though.

Still got that dog in him, hard-fought backside 360 to fakie    Photo: Seidler

Wow. That sounds brutal.
Yeah, the satisfaction of battling a trick like that now comes at an immense cost. Definitely isn’t something I can keep doing. At this stage, with my limitations, I can’t be obsessing over skating like that, it’s simply unsustainable. I’m no longer in a position to dictate terms—just kinda see what’s on the menu that day and go with the flow.

That’s a healthy approach. To wrap it up, can you talk a little bit about your personal connection to skate media? Growing up was there a video that sparked it off for you?
Growing up, I skated for a long time before I ever saw a skate magazine or video. The first video my friends showed me was The Bones Brigade’s Search for Animal Chin. Seeing that video was a seismic moment in my life. Back then, I had to convince my parents to drive me to the local video store so I could rent a copy. I became like a junkie; all I could think about was skateboarding. That video altered my brain. When I saw The Bones Brigade documentary and heard Stacy Peralta talk about Search for Animal Chin. He described how he was embarrassed by it. He talked about various aspects of his filmmaking qualities that were disappointing. I understood what he was saying—it all made sense—but at the same time, I thought, Dude, you have no right to talk about my video like that. That’s not his video anymore. That’s my video.



I feel like I could say the same about This Is Skateboarding or Stay Gold. I know for a fact my generation growing up has the same connection to those videos as you did to The Bones Brigade. If you started ripping on old Emerica videos, we got problems.
I’ve been told that before, and it’s hard to understand because of my own experiences. But what I take away from that is there is a responsibility I have when making these videos. When I talk about these projects, whatever challenges, trials and tribulations or mixed feelings I have about them now, it doesn’t really matter. My opinion doesn’t change what the video means to someone else. Maybe it’s not my video anymore. It’s their video.

The Miner story is far from over. Pressure flip nose slide. LA, 2024   Photo: Seidler