Date: 10/28/02

Setting: Morning, A cafe in Coconut Grove, Miami, Florida. Paco De La Torre and Thomas Horrell sit comfortably eating baguettes with lattes. Their topic of discussion turns from the weather to work. Paco takes another sip of coffee and puts his shades in his pocket.

Thomas: Finally, an all wakeskate book.
Paco: That's right. Butter is an all wakeskate publication with 132 pages of quality paper, photos, interviews and culture featuring Scott Byerly, Brian Grubb, Collin Wright, Tim Kovacich, Leif Erkkila, Jim Leatherman, Myles Vickers, Drew McGuckin and this unknown guy named Thomas Horrell.

Thomas: What is the concept behind the book's logo "B2002+1?"
Paco: The elaborated mathematical equation suggests the year of publication. The addition is for the year 2003 but it tells the visual story of wakeskating in the year 2002.

Thomas: How long have you been wakeboarding/wakeskating?
Paco: Just a couple of days.

Thomas: How did you get into publishing?
Paco: As a graphic designer I felt the need to create my own creative outlet as a way to do and show my work. So I started a magazine a couple years after college with like $500. It got huge in a couple years.

Thomas: At what age did you start doing Tiempos Magazine?
Paco: I was 23.

Butter Magazine cover (Josh Letchworth)

Thomas: And how did that go?
Paco: We started as a monthly publication in Spanish about fashion, music, skate, lots of surf photos from Hawaii to Puerto Rico. It was nine years of hard work and a crazy lifestyle. The day we reached two million copies printed I knew it was time to get out. The creative edge was already dull. It got too repetitive. I sold it and ran away from that whole scene.

Thomas: Have you ever met Ricky Martin?
Paco: I knew you were going to ask me that. Whatever, you are definitely obsessed with Ricky. That's why you always want to Wakeskate around Star Island every time you come to Miami. I should have never given you the inside scoop on that whole champagne scene.

Thomas: Why are you going to Spain so much?
Paco: To see Guernica. No, my wife, Arancha, is from Spain. We go to visit her family when we can. It's full of culture, great food. Great art museums in Madrid. They are very hip about skateboarding. People ride everywhere and in parks. Barcelona is looked upon as being one of the best places in the whole world to skate. There is also an emerging wakeskate movement that I want to check on the next trip. I found a link on WakeWorld.com to this site in Spain and they got everything. Can you imagine wakeskating there? How sick would it be?

Thomas: Yeah, and I talked to these guys from Spain right after the Expo and they're from Spain and they kill it on wakeskates. They had their own boards that they made using some of our (Cassette) decks... they just tricked them out. Alright, we'll go soon enough. So is this book going to be an annual thing or what?
Paco: For now it is. But it could be published twice a year, there's definitely enough going on to do two quality books every year with relevant photos and information. It ultimately depends on the public. Butter doesn't depend on advertising dollars, so if people don't buy it, we can't continue. But if things continue the way it's going so far, it seems there's going to be many more issues to come.

Cassette Wakeskate Team (Paco De La Torre)

Thomas: Are you planning on moving to Orlando?
Paco: Not permanently, but I will like to be closer to the action and contribute in other ways to the movement. It's just that the whole art thing is blowing up in Miami. It's culturally diverse. It's a very colorful place.

Thomas: What influences your direction to the Book? Are there artists you feel inspired by?
Paco: Good or bad design is everywhere and it influences me as an artist even at the supermarket. As far as inspiring... well the artistic movement surrounding skate culture is very inspiring. Jenkins, Mueller, Hecox. Hopefully wakeskating can follow that direction and develop an artistic movement as creative as wakeskating itself.

Thomas: What do we have to look forward to in Butter's future?
Paco: Besides more books and other printed materials for Butter Publishing, I will like to design for the wakeskate industry. Continue to do my interpretation of what wakeskating really is: an art form, instead of a sport.

Paco takes his shades out of his pocket and puts them back on. Breakfast is finished.

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