Dan Plunkett

Dan Plunkett
Photography: Ryan Flynn

Words by Cheyne Dowds

So you want to dive right in? I heard about a funny story recently where you had some crazy mess up with your Nike per diem, and Mic-e at Deluxe saved your ass.
Yeah, I came to Tampa Am with a certain amount of money and I didnt know that they (Nike) were going to give us a per diem. They were preloaded American Express cards, and I didnt know that they would run out/expire at 12:00 a.m. on Sunday night. I spent all of my cash first, and was saving the cards for my gas money back home. I was on E when I pulled into Atlanta with no cash, and Justin (Brock) called Mic-e and asked if I could use the Deluxe gas card. So, Mic-e saved my ass. Thanks Mic-e if you read this.

As long as youre thanking people
Thanks to Darin at Deluxe for hooking me up with Spitfire and Thunder, Ricky (Oyola) and Traffic for boards, the shop (Fairmont) for going on trips and everything, Henry (Panza) at Direction East for clothes, Mike and David at Palmetto Brewery, which is probably my favorite sponsor, and of course Nick Halkias at Nike. Nicks the best, and hooks me up more than I could ever ask for. The shoes are a blessing.

Didnt you have a funny run-in with a sneaker-head while working at the Savannah Georgia Fairmont?
I was wearing the Nike Eclipse Dunk West Coast color, but I didnt like the way it was, really white, so I spray painted over it black, and this shoe-dude customer flipped out on me saying I was retarded, and how you cant get those anywhere. Basically chewed me out for about fifteen minutes about how I was the dumbest dude ever for destroying one of the sickest shoes to ever come out. Theyre just skate shoes. Theres nothing sacred about em. Theyre for skating.

Werent you the co-creator of the worlds first drinking/skate video?
Oh, Now you do it is the name of it. Well, Kevins the craziest guy youll ever meet. Hes a really cool dude, but he had this idea, Yeah, you know how we drink all the time? We should make a drinking game. So we filmed a bunch of stuff, but no real filming, like we just set the camera on the curb or something and started skating. Then he filmed a bunch of people taking drinks and saying, Now you do it. Basically every time you see a person take a drink, you take a drink. Somebody says, Now you do it, take a drink, and there are random tricks of skating throughout. And if you want to get really drunk you have to play, take a drink every time Kevin does a no-comply. I wish more people would see it. You drink about four or five beers in about thirty minutes. It gets really hard towards the end. I threw up the first time I played it.

Are you more psyched to get a photo or footage?
I really like to see footage. I like to see the land rather than just I mean I love photos because there are so many different things in a photo that make it cool looking. Im just really more psyched on seeing footage. I just like watching footage. I could watch footage all day of anyone.

Trick: Frontside 5-0
Photography: Cheyne Dowds

So, you currently live in Charleston. Where else are you claiming?
Anywhere Im allowed. Thanks to everyone in Columbia, the Nobyl dudes in Sumter. Atlanta is a big one. David Clark, Justin Brock, Pat McClain, Sturgill, Sturg is my boy, Creasy, you cant forget Creasy, Ryan Flynn. Keir and Jimmy in D.C. just let us stay at their house with Rodent last month. Ricky lets us stay with him when were in Philly. My friends Pat and Braden in Orlando those were my best friends from back in New York, which is where Im from, Buffalo, New York. Also shout out to J.P. and the Sunday dudes.

Tell us about D.T.E. I even saw a few D.T.E.s on decks in Miami this past weekend.
I cant remember exactly how it got started. It was a big group thing. It stands for down to earth. I think somebody was trying to explain someone else to us, and they said hes, really humble, really down to earth, and we kept saying it. We ended up quoting this guy and saying it all night long. It turned into this thing that everybody writes on their board.

Have you ever had any run-ins with any pros who were dicks, or cool-guyd you?
Yeah, I dont really want to talk shit, but at a Birdhouse demo, when I was fourteen, Mark Appleyard was a really big dickhead to me. I just tried to ask him some questions and he was like, Yeah, whatever. And I told him how he was really good in this video I saw, and he said, Oh cool, whatever, in a really mean way. When youre a little kid you take that to heart. I was fourteen. I dont want to say anything bad about him though. Hes really good, but that still stings a little bit.

Trick: 360 Flip
Photography: Cheyne Dowds

Were you psyched that Jack Sabback wound up on Traffic. Its gotta be cool having the only two dudes from Charleston winding up on the same company.
Its really cool that hes on there because hes one of my favorite dudes to watch skate. And he skates with Puleo, and all the dudes on Traffic all the time anyway. It just fits. I cant wait to see what footage hes holding out on.

So before you were on Traffic, we were staying at Ricks house and, at that point, you were hoping to maybe get a few tricks in the video, and Rick was showing us the new posters and you were on it?
Yeah, that was strange. No one ever tells me anything, it just turned out of nowhere. He got my tape and I never heard anything. I met him at this Masa contest in Fayateteville, and skated with him without him even knowing who I was, and he started hooking me up after that. I think skating with someone is way better than sending footage. It was random, just really random. I still dont even know how it happened, but I cant thank Rick enough.

Tell us about the time Rick yelled at you for some dude losing the premier copy of Traffics Via. I remember you saying how it felt like your dad was yelling at you.
There were two premiers at two different places during the Surf Expo in Orlando, one of which I had to pick the tape up from. The one I had to get the copy from was at a skatepark, and I didnt know how to get there, or what I should do so I figured Id call the dude and get the video. Turns out the guy left early for some bullshit he was telling me about, left the video at the park, and then went back the next day to find it missing. So the next morning, when Im talking to him, hes like, I dont know, I dont have it, I guess Ill try and find it. But even before that, the dude met me at the Nike hotel room and was saying how he had it and had to get it. Then on the phone later, he was acting like a dick and acting like he didnt lose it. The dude fully blew it, and then I had to get yelled at by Rick. I think Rick stayed mad at me for like a month. Ricks an intimidating guy, super nice but scary. And that was like the week after I got on.

Trick: Backside Tailslide
Photography: Cheyne Dowds

If I remember correctly, doesnt Javier Nunez owe you about five hundred bucks from that Masa contest?
(Laughs) Yeah, actually a funny story. I was really nervous, but somehow I kept qualifying. Then in the finals, we had this jam session and I was doing really well. Not trying to blow my own bubble, but I was doing pretty well, and he landed literally two tricks in the fifteen minute jam session in the finals. He tried one trick the whole time, and I managed to land a bunch of stuff and I was really stoked, and it turned out that I got one place behind him. We werent going to qualify either way, but the place above me, the one he was in, got five hundred dollars. I guess if my friends were the judges, I wouldve done better (laughs). It was neat having people come up to me telling me how I was robbed.

Didnt you get kicked off your first shop sponsor back in Buffalo for being a drug addict?
Yeah, they called me a drug addict for no reason. And it turns out now, that the two dudes who own it, basically run their shop off of selling pot, which is a kick in the teeth to me. Kinda rough.

Whats the closest youve ever come to quitting skating?
My friends stopping and quitting had a lot to do with it. Back in Buffalo, every time winter would hit, it would get harder and harder to skate. Even if there was a skatepark, it was still really cold. Probably about two or three years ago I almost quit. I wasnt feeling it anymore, but then I moved to Charleston and met all of you guys, Fairmont, and just started skating a lot more. Basically I started skating after about two years off. I had a full-time job welding, and I was going in, and job placement (in Charleston) was 100 percent. I was skating more, and I wanted to do part-time, but they wouldnt let me. So, I started working at the shop and have been skating a bunch ever since.

Didnt you once quit a job to follow a Phish tour around?
I was working at this place, Boulevard Produce, and my one friend that worked there was going to a Phish show that night. I didnt have a ticket and I hadnt asked off, but he somehow convinced me to go. I figured this wasnt a good idea. Its sold out, and with 70,000 people going to this festival, I didnt think I could get in. My grandma let me borrow some money, and I got a ticket off some random guy on the side of the road somewhere in Maine for 100 dollars. Everybody thought it was fake cause the hologram was different from everybody elses, and the ticket number was 666. So I figured I just spent a hundred dollars on a fake and Im not getting in. Then nine hours later, driving to get there, and another nine sitting there waiting to get in, we cooked out in the back of some dudes truck while we waited, and played skate in the middle of some country road. I ended up getting in, and two days later we were out, taking half the time to leave.