Ski Bum Poet

Whatcha think? In case you’re reading this months from now in a distant archive you can click here to see the v1.o header graphic I built. Here is the descriptions of the photos from left to right:

1. Classic GravityFed.com cover photo circa 2002 (or thereabouts). Johnny B took this picture in Westward Ho. Click Here for the large version of this photo in the GravityFed archives.
2. Photo taken at the rope line on the shoulder hiking up from Wildcat chairlift. A friend of mine Erik Gauger took this photo on a ski visit to Alta. Check out Erik’s award winning travel/photography site: Notes From The Road.
3. That’s me digging out a room at the Alta Peruvian Lodge the morning it was hit by a Toledo avalanche in March of 2003. I was in the lodge and felt her shake on impact.
4. My season pass picture for the 2002-2003 season. I was looking to the sky for snow. Slow start but ended up being a killer year.
5. Powder explosion photo when I was skiing early AM with Andy and Jeff from WaHsatch Powder Productions one morning.
6. It’s actually me on the the fall 2005 cover photo of Bike Magazine. What do you know. Photo by Keith Carlsen in Albion Basin, Alta, Utah.
7. Another cool photo Erik Gauger took while in town. This is the little shot off the knob at the bottom of ‘The Church’ proper…skier’s left of High Rustler (in the trees).

Of course, all photos are from in and around Alta, Utah

You may remember the infamous column ‘Ask Johnny B’ in the early days of GravityFed. When we first launched the site back in December of 1999, Johnny single handedly drove 100% of the traffic through his wit and sense of humor. I still have most of the archives stored away on an old PC box (that I plug in twice a year to extract old content and charge), and I’ve vowed to dig them out and re-publish one of these days. Actually, there’s one classic now on GravityFed: Johnny B’s Mexico Thrashing

At any rate, we’ve gotten Johnny involved on the web again and this time he’s producing podcast interviews with some of Alta’s best known personalities and living legends for AltaCam.com. The most recent, was his 3-part interview with ski photographer Lee Cohen. Here’s a snippet of the transcript:

Johnny B: Let’s take it back. Who was your first cover shot? Bring us back to the day. Who was it? Where was it?

Lee Cohen: It was my buddy, Steve Garrett. It was kind of…

Johnny B: Oh the legendary old man.

Lee Cohen: The legendary old man. It was in 1988 and I remember when it came out, it was at Alta, I didn’t even know I was getting the cover and somebody in the Rustler… I was in the Rustler hanging out, going to the bar and one of the employees said, nice cover shot! February ’88.

Johnny B: No way!

Lee Cohen: I was totally surprised and blown away.

Johnny B: That’s awesome, man! That’s great. I’m sure that really propelled the old man to greatness himself.

Lee Cohen: Yeah, the ancient one, he’s still out there turnin’ em.

Johnny B: Yeah.

Lee Cohen: For the crotchety of old dude that he is.

Download and listen to this full interview (you can also read the transcript). Very entertaining. Nice work Johnny B! I’ll keep ya posted on any old Ask Johnny B archives that come out.

Over and Out, Gary M

Well it’s begun. I’ve started blogging (running a couple of other blogs with WordPress and I’ve really enjoyed learning the platform) and now it’s AOBTC…as they say. Oh yeah, that stands for ‘All Over But The Cryin’ in case you were wondering. I’ve always wanted…better yet….needed a place to spew my words in babbling fits of semi-structured paragraphs and my own grammar. I’ll do my best to keep compelling topics and articles moving through these pages. But sometimes I do hope to lose the readers, too.

On a more serious note, my name is Gary Marcoccia and I do web junk full-time. That’s my job now. Internet marketing, web publishing and I also head up the marketing efforts for a new and very innovative Affiliate marketing network called AvantLink.com. My job throughout my twenties was to survive 1000 days of skiing in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, Alta specifically while staying motivated to make my mark on the world of web and content publishing.

I fortunately learned to recognize my limits skiing and pedaling my bike, but with that recognition I have always enjoyed getting after it and pushing harder. It is definitely an addiction that I have worked hard to break in the last couple of years. I’m getting through the withdrawals by way of settling in to a wonderful life with my wife Danette (and our first child on the way).

So I guess that’s a good start for this project. I’m linking this sucker up from several sites right out of the gate. In time I’ll work on the aesthetics of this weblog but for now…just my words

Over and out, Gary M