14:12 - "i got fired, dude, from a company for it. xyz. like straight up. they called me and were like, 'fuck you. you're fired, like, you fucking bitch.' those dudes hated me."
never really knew much about xyz, but i guess i'm not shocked to hear jason say that based on the little bit of history i've gathered from skately:
XYZ was founded by Danny Way and Tommy Caudill in the early 1990's as a skate shop and mailorder based out of Carlsbad, CA. Then in the later 1990s, introduced XYZ Clothing as a full apparel and accessory brand. XYZ Clothing team riders included Danny Way, Pat Channita, Pat Duffy, Peter Hewitt, Jason Ellis, Justin Bokma, Ben & Tas Pappas, Chet Thomas, Brian Emmers and a young Trainwreck amongst others. XYZ Clothing eventually called it quits around the year 2000 due to lack of sales.http://skately.com/library/brands/xyz-clothing15:32 - "i got, like, homophobed out of skateboarding, kind of."
in looking at his wiki page, though, (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Ellis_(radio_host) - never knew about all his mma stuff), it does seem that jason was still pretty involved in the skateboarding world post when this xyz firing must have occurred. lots of hosting gigs for mainstream stuff, like x games, tony hawk's gigantic skatepark tour, op king of skate. the same can't be said for tim von werne, who, in 1998, had his skateboarder magazine interview pulled by birdhouse when they learned he planned to talk about being gay in it. i don't think he was ever really heard from much after that.