Robert Brink - Writer

Hilliard Sulpher’s Pursuit of Happiness

July 26, 2011 | Skip To The Comments (0)

Hilliard Sulpher’s Pursuit of Happiness
By Robert Brink
SBC, Fall 2011

Prior to speaking with Hilliard Sulpher, his friends told me all sorts of quirky things about him to help make this article entertaining.

Things like how he’s nicknamed “The Hobbit” because he has hairy feet. About how he barfs a lot and how he’s into motorcycles. That he lived in the infamous Windsor Hut with his crew in Toronto. That he has a back tat of his last name (a-la Sheckler and TJ Rogers) that his parents bought for him as a Christmas present when he was 13. That his sister is a world-record holding professional jump roper and his mom makes the best nachos in Ontario and even parties with Hill and his homies.

But all that’s just fluff—the fodder you include when there’s nothing better to talk about—or when you’re filibustering—avoiding the large elephant in the center of the room.

Hill is currently residing in Windsor, Ontario. He’s 23 years old and knows what he wants from life—to just live and be happy.

Easier said than done. Such simple wisdom and aspiration always comes with a price. In fact, as Fight Clubbingly cliché as it sounds, sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to know that happiness is all you really want or need.

Hilliard is blue collar—straight up. From growing up skating the less-than-optimal streets of Detroit, to working landscaping jobs while trying to build a career in skateboarding, to unemployment and sitting in garages building motorcycles—he’s a far cry from the droves of privileged, home-schooled southern California kids born and bred in perfect weather and skate plazapalooza.

“It’s nice I guess but I’m not jealous of it or anything,” Hilliard explains. “I’m glad I didn’t have everything handed to me. My dad is a woodworker so I’ve been around tools building shit my whole life. It’s pretty fun. I just went to a union meeting for carpenter’s apprenticeship so I’m waiting on a call for that. I was fucking hurt all last year so I had to work. I gotta make money. I gotta pay the bills.”

And part of those bills, despite being sponsored by a small company called Change for seven years, was sometimes buying boards.

“It was weird being on Change,” Hill says. “It was my good friend’s company, so I hate to say this, but I stayed on longer than I should have. He didn’t have boards for a year. I was buying boards and stuff, living on a real tight budget, fucking riding hand-me-downs. And I break a board every couple days. Finally I was just like, ‘Fuck, man, I can’t pay for boards anymore.’”

After Change, Hill had a brief stint at Black Label through a distributor with the help of his friend and then-team manager, Dave Ashley. Then, recently, when Dave jumped to the Spain-based, Jart, the same opportunity arose for Hill.

“With Jart, it seemed like I might be able to find a home—and not with a distributor,” Hill continues. “I feel like I’ve found what I had with Change again—only with more support coming from the other end. Another deal sealer was that Bastien rides for them. Bastien is sick.”

So, about that elephant …

I caught word that Hill is diagnosed as schizophrenic. Instead of springing it on him during the interview and catching him off guard, I first asked his permission via email to discuss it. To my surprise, considering what pussies most skaters have become as far as speaking openly about their lives on record, Hill was down and embraced the opportunity to tell his side of things. He even thought it might be good to put out there so that other kids like him, or going through a similar situation, might relate a bit and feel better about their situation—that perhaps he could actually help others by sharing his story.

“I’m sure there are some people out there who think I’m fucked because I have schizophrenia—or that I’m a fucking kook or whatever,” Hill explains. “But they don’t know me. They can think what they want. I don’t care.

“I moved out pretty young—at 19,” Hill continues. “I was smoking a lot of weed. I was doing acid and mushrooms all the time. Not having a steady job and being fucked up all the time is definitely what brought schizophrenia out of me. When I wasn’t high, I wasn’t a happy person. I was really edgy. They say it’s genetic or something but I don’t know. I totally could’ve brought it on myself. I was lying and shit. Fucking trying to be a different person. I realized that everyone knew something was wrong with me. Everyone knew I was on all these drugs, smoking fucking five blunts a day to be normal—but that’s not normal. Everyone was acting different towards me and I thought they were fucking with me. I actually thought people were out to get me. My family and my friends were trying to tell me what was up and I’d freak out and start crying. I’d go to my friend Chris Quick and be crying, like, ‘Why are all these people talking about me?’ And he’d be like, ‘Listen, man, it’s not like that.’ And I just had to take their word for it. I believed and trusted everyone close to me. They knew something was wrong.

“I was in Vancouver and freaking out over the phone to my parents one day. They knew it was bad and fucking flew me home right away and got me in the hospital for a couple weeks—a straight-up fucking mental institution, like a psych ward. I hated everyone in there. But now I realize it didn’t hurt me. It only did me good. Whatever, it was just two weeks out of my life and it sobered me up. The weirdest part was actually being sober for two weeks. But the thing I hated about the hospital is as soon as you get in there, they give you all these drugs to make you a zombie—like not even a living human being. I knew that was wrong right away. That’s not fucking how it’s done. I’m not supposed to be knocked out 18 hours a day and eating a lot of shitty food. So when I got out I realized I could deal with it on my own. I told them I wanted the lowest dosage possible of all my medication.

“And once I was sober and my head was clear, I started remembering everything I said or did in the last couple years when I was acting all crazy. It all came back to me and I was like, ‘Why would I do this? And why would I do that? Why would I say that to this person? Why would I fucking rip this person off?’ I knew I had to skate and fucking get back with my friends and back to reality.”

It’s been about four years since Hill left the hospital and got back to reality. And, like so many of us over the years, skateboarding is the thing keeping him on track and his absence from it while in the hospital only made his appreciation for it grow fonder.

“After everything that happened, I knew I just had to skate. It actually fucking made me go way harder than ever. It just fucking made me wanna skate and get shit done. I knew that’s all I had. Everything got better. I learned how to control my brain. I filmed the best video part I’d ever filmed in my life. I had my Concrete interview. I was on a mission. You know the feeling—you skate—skating and being with the homies … it’s like a filter.”

Then, the injuries came. Last year Hill did both ankles in pretty good. He dislocated one last summer and popped it back into place himself. “Which is the gnarliest thing I’ve ever done,” Hill recalls.

Next, Hill broke his wrist, then two bones in his hand, which required surgery and five screws to fix.

“Ever since then I’ve been so scared. I’m just trying to get back into it, you know?” Hill continues. “It was just a rough year but now, I feel like I look at shit differently. I don’t want to jump down something and not be able to skate for a week. I don’t want to be under too much stress anymore with skateboarding. I’m just gonna be more conscious about how I skate from now on because I don’t want to get hurt. I want to skate everyday, so I’m just gonna fucking go fast. John Cardiel … he’s the fucking best ever. His skating, the way he skates, his attitude and shit, just everything about him is fucking awesome. I don’t want to roll up to a spot and be like, ‘Okay, what’s been done here?’ Then shoot a photo of this and that. I just want to fucking cruise and go really fast. I love street skating, just cruising. I’m really into filming lines and shit like that lately. That’s Detroit and Windsor—there are no good spots really—it’s really just shitty ground and fucking choppy ledges but it’s awesome. It’s seriously like a hidden gem.”

Maybe it’s not a bad thing that Hill’s skating changed a bit, considering some of his footage is reminiscent of mid-nineties Sub Zero “Real Life” or “Eastern Exposure 2 and 3” Oyola, Puleo, Gall and Reason Philly lines—nothing to scoff at one bit. In fact, many would argue that skateboarding could use a bunch more of that right now.

Hill draws inspiration from a non-skateboarding realm as well. People like his motorcycle crew, the Slimeballs, keep him going in the ways that skateboarding sometimes can’t. And when he’s off the board, chances are, you’ll find him in the garage, Simeballin’ out.

“They used to skate, but now they’re all married and have kids,” he says. “They just hang out in garages and work on bikes. I look up to those guys pretty hard. They’re just living it—just everyday people. They talk shit about the good ol’ days and they fucking chill in the garage and drink beers. I have a Kawasaki Vulcan 500 and I’m building another one right now with a good friend of mine. It’s like a cruiser but I’m building a ‘70s British chopper. It’ll be done in a couple weeks. I’m just wiring it up, putting it all together. It’s pretty fucking badass.

“I want to learn new things,” Hill says. “I want to learn more about bikes. I’ve been reading books and shit lately. I really want to learn how to weld and fabricate. I’m trying really hard to learn patience too. That’s key with a lot of things. I never try and rush anything anymore because that’s when the bad shit happens—even little things. If I’m rushing in my car, I’ll run a red light or get pulled over or something like that, you know?

“I’ve learned from my past with drugs and the hospital and stuff—but it just has to happen. You’re gonna learn it one way or another and that’s how I learned it. The wisest Slimeball I know once said ‘No drugs are easy— they’re all hard.’ And he’s right. I got burned pretty badly, but I also feel like I’m the best person I could ever be now. If that’s what it takes—getting burned to make you a better person—then I’m saying it’s worth it. That’s just the way I learn shit, I guess. I think everyone who knew me before all that, during it, and knows me now is probably pretty impressed and happy for me because I’m smiling all the time. I don’t worry about shit anymore. I just want to live—that’s it—seriously. I just want to live everyday and do whatever helps make me have a better life. Working puts me into a routine so I’d really like to get a job going again, but I still want to go on skate trips too. So if I do get into the union, I could go on a couple trips a year.”

“No one said life was supposed to be easy,” Hill says, “but if you fuck up—bounce back and get it together. Live and learn. Thanks to everyone who has had my back over the years, and all the sponsors and my friends and family.”