Category: Articles

“After Hido lost the love of his life, Maria, in a riot in Peru, he decided to buy a black market Russian nuclear submarine funded by cyber-crimes. In his own mind, he is the patron saint of whales and must protect all the endangered creatures from becoming extinct.

After sinking whaling ships from Norway to Japan, the Maritime Commission and the superpowers of the world’s navies start their cat and mouse game with Hido. Will Hido be sunk or captured? Can he make it past the arms dealers and Somali pirates? Will his future hacks into the banking system to fund his eco-terrorism succeed, or will he be put in a cell and executed?”

 

If you don’t know, well, you need to know: Nate Sherwood is an underrated skateboarding legend. Best known as “The Pressure Flip King”, he had a lengthy pro career (and a cult following) before becoming the current owner of Eduskate Skate Shop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is also a ridiculously funny bloke; I called him up last week to talk shop, and spent about fifty nine point nine minutes of the hour I spent on the phone with the dude sprawled out on my back, on my floor, laughing about three quarters of my ass off. My belly was aching by the time I forced myself to hang up the phone. Nate is straight hysterics, all the time. Basically, he’s the best.

Here’s a couple video clips to get you caught up on who Nate is, and what he’s all about. Note the flippery genius. That’s pretty much what Nate is known for, kiddies:

 

Nate Sherwood’s Greatest Flips for Hellaclips:

 

Nate Sherwood Interview on The Ride Channel:

 

Nate and I are Facebook friends, and his new novella popped up on my news feed sometime last month. It was only ten bucks… thirteen with shipping… so I figured I’d pay Nate some props, plunk down some duckets, and buy one, if for no other reason than to satiate my own curiosity. Skaters supporting skaters, right? Isn’t that what it’s all about…? Besides, Nate wrote it. So it was probably gonna be a pretty spiffy read, just by default.

 

 

I definitely was not disappointed. Nate can really craft a carefully concocted a story. Interestingly, the whole story is only 79 pages, and can probably be digested by an intermediate-skilled reader in less than two hours. It is also well-produced and well-packaged, with quality paper and a colorful, yet handsome, cover drawn by Nate’s sweetheart and better half, Lindsey.

 

 

The other notable tidbit about this short story, is that it somehow ends up being about ¼ hyper-violent action-adventure, ¼ golden comedy, ¼ enviro-drama, and ¼ psychological thriller… an odd combination that you don’t see every day, but works pretty damn well for Nate. It definitely keeps the story interesting, while keeping you strapped tight to an emotional roller-coaster ride.

 

 

The Doctor’s action prompted all of his men to pull out their weapons and follow his lead, training their weapons at Hido, with one enthusiastic gentleman rocking a belt-fed PKM machine gun.

Hido, in as calm of a tone a he could muster, asked the PKM-wielding goon, “Where did you hide that fucking thing?”

“Under my cape”, the goon said flatly.

“Of course you did”, Hido offered before muttering, “Fucking queers…” under his breath.

“Note to self”, Hido thought, “watch out for Russian dudes in capes, because they might be hiding a fucking belt-fed machine gun…”

 

Of course, the whole thing is pure fiction. Outlandishly so. It has no roots whatsoever in any sort of sensible or relatable reality… but that’s exactly what makes it so massively entertaining. Take it from me, click the link here, and buy one for your own damn self.

 

 

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I’m getting older. As unfortunate as that is, it is still uncomfortably true. This year, Everything Skateboarding is once again hosting several long-distance longboard cruises in and around Phoenix. These cruises tend to be slightly torturous on the aging ‘ol knees. For some time now, I’ve wanted to get my grubby, product-geeking hands on a drop-through, lowered longboard in an effort to give my tired old knees a brief respite.

 

Thankfully, the folks over at Seismic helped my knee-saving dreams finally come true. This month, I get to review a setup that is truly exceptional. This is the Seismic Compass, in its shorter 36” length; the other Compass on the market is a slightly stretched, 39” version.

 

 

This skateboard is truly greater than the sum of its parts. That being said, you really can’t talk about it at all without breaking it down into its major components, and talking about them individually. Maybe they’re not “revolutionary”, per se… that is up for open debate, as always… but they are all strongly evolutionary in some key way or another. That said, let’s take a look at the components that make this board what it is: a fast, fun little urban rocket that can find a comfortable home just as comfortably in a bustling cityscape as it can on a wide-open mountain road.

 

 

 

The Deck

The deck is, at first glance, a fairly standard drop-through platform. The shape, the concave… they don’t look too impressive right away. The graphics are rather understated, nothing too remarkable (although they are very attractive in their elegant simplicity). Basically, it looks like a lot of other boards on the market. It’s only once you stand in it, and examine it a little more closely, that the true strengths come shining through.

First of all, it is remarkably stiff. I am no small, skinny chap. What I am, is 320 pounds of all-American beef wrapped around some super big bones that form a 6’5” frame. Yet this board hardly buckled or budged under my mass. You can thank a composite structure of bamboo, fiberglass, and maple for that.

It is also extremely comfortable. That can be credited to the heavily rockered, medium-deep concave. The rocker enhances the truck geometry (making them a little more responsive than they would be if they were mounted on a straight-centered deck) while bringing your feet a bit lower to the ground, enhancing the overall stability. The concave is assertive enough to minimize foot slip, while not being overbearingly aggressive on the ‘ol feets.

 

 

 

The Griptape

Seismic calls this stuff “Lokton”, and it features a bunch of hex-shaped cutouts all over the deck. It looks unlike anything else on the market, giving it a unique aesthetic, while still being some of the best griptape I’ve ever experienced. The griptape is very, very aggressive indeed. It reminded me a bit of the old “Pizza Grip” from decades ago in its coarse sharpness. That means your feet aren’t going anywhere when they are stuck to this stuff. It is brute effectiveness.

 

 

 

The Wheels

Seismic is known for outstanding urethane formulas that are known for being highly resilient, but with lively rebound characteristics. The wheels it came with… the new 72mm, 80a tantrums… are designed for freeriding in mind. They are centerset, mid-wide wheels with rounded radiuses to facilitate easy, predictable sliding down fast mountain runs. This is not exactly my forte, so we’ll be recruiting a few downhillers to review those a bit more thoroughly. But for my pedestrian purposes… quickly commuting around town… they were far more than adequate enough.

 

 

 

The Bearings

This board is quicker than a greased bullet, and the wheel/bearing combo has everything to do with that. The bearings in this case were Tekton self-centering bearings with built-in spacers. I’ve loved the built-in spacer system ever since Biltin pioneered them several years back, and I’m still loving it with the Tektons.

The advantage of built-in spacers (and washers) is that the whole bearing system is optimized to work exactly as it was intended to work: in a self-aligning manner (where the bearings are always perfectly parallel to each other, regardless of how the wheel or axle might bend and flex around them) with no rub, no slop, no play, no shaking, and no shimmying. They are very precise, and very solid. That equates to jackrabbit acceleration and higher top-end speed. It also makes for a smooth, gliding, vibration-free ride, and some real long-term payoffs in the durability department.

 

 

 

 

The Trucks

The trucks were probably my favorite part of the setup. The Aeon truck is a true evolution in reverse-kingpin truck design, maybe the best on the market today.

The magic is in the bushing/hangar/baseplate interface, and in the shape of the bushings themselves. The bushings aren’t quite “conical” as we’d traditionally define it. They’re triangular in cross-section, which means that they have some pretty unique rebound qualities. Simply put: they offer just the right amount of resistance and centering, while also being soft and pliable enough to allow for snappy turns and deep carves. That makes them stable, yet responsive at the same time. Most truck and bushing designs tend to sacrifice one in order to maximize the other. Aeons simply don’t compromise; they do them both, and they do them extremely well.

 

 

 

Each piece is also precision-contoured to fit snugly and precisely into it’s mating part. That eliminates “bushing squish”, which is the unofficial name for when your bushings pop out of their retaining washers, and squeeze out of the hangar when you’re making hard turns. Everyone knows what I’m talking about, and it f’n sucks. Your board sticks to one side or the other, the bushings get chewed up (or split), and everything ends up feeling and riding like shit.

I tried with all my might to get the Aeon bushings to squish out on me, and they never did. They stayed in place, stayed snug, and snapped back to center with every single turn, without fail. How will they stand the test of time? Well, give me some more time, and I’ll tell ya in a few months.

 

The Final Verdict

What can I say? It’s fast, it’s responsive, it’s precise, it’s solid, and it’s fun. And it made my knees feel twenty years younger, to boot. It’s a dream machine that I’ll be riding, and loving, for a long, long time.

 

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It is the simplest of things in life that can bring a person the most joy. As skateboarders, we often overlook this idea and strive to push our abilities to the limits, sometimes trying for hours on end to land a trick that tests the pinnacle of our skill. At times, it is worth it to step back and enjoy just riding the damn thing, feeling the vibration on your feet as you navigate over rough asphalt.

 

 

 

 

In a world where every up and coming grom can skate double-digit rails and man-sized transition, it’s daunting to think that skateboarding will continue its steady progression. Undoubtedly it will, though, and it’s an exciting time to witness the expectations of what’s possible on a skateboard being shattered by a new generation of rippers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supreme satisfaction can still be found in things we overlook and often take for granted. Set aside expectations of switch flips, inverts, or back smiths, and remind yourself that simply rolling around is fun in itself. Moments of clarity can be found in the still of night, pushing down a lonely street, testing your manual distance on a discolored patch of asphalt. Full- speed ollies over man holes and sewer drains, or resisting a final powerslide to feel the rush of speed while bombing a hill into your city.

This is to take nothing away from the mind-boggling things that are happening in skateboarding daily. With technical ledge wizardry combined with robot-like consistency being the norm, preteens spinning 1080s, and skaters literally dropping from rooftops, skateboarding is expanding in all directions, in all corners of the globe.

 

 

 

 

The point is that while all of this is happening at such a rapid rate, it’s worth it to reference our roots from time to time, and remind ourselves of why we started. The silly stuff, the simple things, they’re still there, and that’s where the fun began.

–Coltyn Nelson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The second annual Phoenix CitySkate longboard cruise… the first grassroots skateboard event to be organized and hosted by Everything Skateboarding Magazine… happened this past weekend. Here’s the rapid-fire field report of the day’s happenings:

 

The Phoenix CitySkate series of longboard cruises are meant to be easy-going, relaxing, recreational skateboard events that anybody and everybody… regardless of age, gender, or ability… can freely come and participate in. The whole idea is really simple: to get a bunch of people that wouldn’t ordinarily skate together to meet up, mingle a bit, and go for a fun roll through the beautiful cityscape. Thus, “CitySkate”.

It’s the type of event that’s extraordinarily easy to put together, organize, and host. I actually introduced myself as the “disorganizer” for the event as people arrived on Saturday morning for the cruise, which everybody found kinda funny. But it’s not entirely untrue, as I took great pains to explain. It’s just a matter of defining an enjoyable route, making up a [crappy] flyer, making a zillion copies of it, and then leaving those zillions of copies at every skate shop in the city, and/or posting the hell out of it all over social media. And then, hoping that every body else shares the shit out of it. It totally worked! People actually showed up!

 

Photos from last year’s event, and the [crappy] flyer. Clockwise from upper left: the sky-high view of the crew rollin’ into town, photo by Jessie Pena; Jon, Alex, and Andrew; the flyer; the crew; Alex and Sketch, rolling along and having fun, photo by Jessie Pena. 

 

Last year, when we did our first CitySkate cruise, we had about nine people participate. This year, that number jumped to about twenty-two. That’s quite an accomplishment, I suppose. But that’s not the part that I’m the most proud of.

 

All attendees received “Thanks For Attending” prize packs, filled with goodies provided by our our sponsors: Concrete Wave Magazine, Carver Skateboards, Seismic Skate Systems, Loaded Longboards, Orangatang Wheels, Bamboo Skateboards, Abec 11, Concrete Disciples, along with local skate shops Scottsdale Sidewalk Surfer, Freedom Boardshop, State Rideshop, and Cowtown Skateboards. At my events, “nobody has to compete, and everybody is a winner”.

 

 

The best part of the cruise, were the participants themselves. They were all so cool, so happy to have been invited, and so respectful of everything and everybody, that it was basically an organizers’ wet dream come true. The whole thing went off without even the slightest hitch, a feat that everybody that came can take credit for.

The cruise started at 9 am at the lightrail station at Central and Camelback in midtown Phoenix, a swanky part of the city that’s defined by the crash-up of ‘50s moderne, Bauhaus, art deco, and cubist architecture. This lightrail station also features a huge park-and-ride parking lot, which makes it an almost perfect place to host a huge skateboarding meetup.

 

Clockwise from top: the demo boards, provided by Loaded, Seismic, and Carver; Roosevelt Row street art; bold ’20s-era architecture in the upscale Kenilsworth historic district. 

 

Skaters never arrive anywhere on time. You know this, I know this, and everybody else knows it, too. Knowing this as well as I do, I brought along some “demo” boards to kill the time while we all waited on the inevitable stragglers to arrive. The boards were a Carver CI Flyer, a Loaded Icarus, and a Seismic 36” Compass. The Carver got a lot of parking-lot use, while the drop-through Icarus and Compass came along for the seven-mile push, and got shared by everybody along the way.

The itinerary took us through the historic Pierson Place, Yaple Park, Willo, Encanto-Palmcroft, Kenilsworth, and Roosevelt neighborhoods, with a restroom-and-water break at Encanto Park. The whole route runs slightly (but imperceptibly) downhill toward the Salt River Basin, and through Phoenix’s most diverse architectural specimens, representing the city’s history of growth from a burgeoning agricultural center to a modern residential, commercial, and cultural oasis.

 

Clockwise from upper left: happy skaters; the crew rolls down 3rd Ave to McDowell Road; art deco home in Yaple Park.

 

The cruise only took a couple of hours, even at our leisurely pace. Afterward, we hopped on the lightrail, took the electric trolley back to our cars (that were parked under the handy shade structures all morning long that kept everything comfortably cool), and made the quick, half-block commute to Joyride on Central Avenue for platefuls of gourmet tacos, and pitchers of margaritas and craft beers. Our brand of longboard cruisers is a sophisticated bunch of skaters. As such, we like to eat, and eat really well after a full morning of fun exercise and fresh valley air.

The participants ranged from about eight years old, to roughly forty-eight. That’s a 40-year spread, right there. Yet everybody got along famously, and everybody had a great time. The group would spread out, with the faster skaters charging ahead and the stragglers slowly making headway farther back in the pack… but the faster skaters stopped pretty regularly, shot the bull, and waited on the group to re-form. That’s probably the bit that I’m the most proud of- that everybody meshed so well, and nobody felt left out.

 

Clockwise from upper left: winners of the Orangatang hats; Roosevelt Row street art; the crew 2018; and more street art.

 

We have a few more of these on the schedule throughout the summer. If you want to come out and join us, feel free! If you want to host something like this in your hometown or your neighborhood, I’d say go for it. You can take it straight from me: you’d be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable, and a more rewarding way of spending your free time and energy. See ya at the next cruise…!

 

 

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A couple of months ago, the Brazilian skateboarding scene was rocked by the election of Bob Burnquist as the new president of the CBSk (Confederação Brasileira de Skate, the Brazilian skateboarding confederation). Along with him in the new board are names like the 6X-World Champion Sandro Dias and Jorge Kuge – a local entrepreneur whose Urgh brand supports the scenario since 1982. These guys brought a whole new level of visibility to the entity in the big media and seem to be quite prepared to face the challenges ahead of them, the biggest one of them being the selection of an Olympic skateboarding team.

(One thing you must know beforehand: our scene is mostly based on competitions, so it’s more than logic to have the guys who have been top competitors to be the leaders of this new pack).

A few doubts arose ever since this movement took place. First, are these guys really prepared to face the huge challenge ahead of them? Well, Bob is the person who has won the most golden X medals in the XGames ever, Sandro has won the WCS vertical world circuit for 6 times, and Kuge owns the oldest skate brand in the country. This means: Yes, they’re used to winning their challenges. Besides that, there are other members in the entity who have been working for the scene for some years now. Bottom line is, I don’t think they’d risk their reputations if they weren’t capable of performing accordingly to their specific tasks.

 

Photos, left to right: Rodrigo Belli, Bruno Splenger, Murilo Cesino, and Rodrigo Schutt, Piracaia 2017; João Pessoa, Curve 2, 7CRVS.

 

The next doubt came when it was revealed that some of the names in the board aren’t skaters. Oh man, really?! Simply being a skateboarder doesn’t make that person an expert on everything that’s related to the scene. Just look at the ISF and the man behind it, Gary Ream, whose roots are in gymnastics. He became noticed when he introduced skateboarding and BMX to his Camp Woodward, much before it was a trendy thing to be done. This shows that the required qualities have to do more with having a different view of the sport and being a good administrator than with being a skater. There are competent people everywhere out there, skaters or not, so adding them to a working crew has a good chance to end up well as far as the results are concerned.

Another big doubt: how can this help the scene as a whole in the long run? This one is still to be seen. We all know that their main concern is to organize competitions to prepare local skater to compete in the Olympics, a goal that will remain a priority until 2020. There are some powerful partners in this effort, such as the largest media group in the country: their open TV channel has already showed two live skate competitions in two different Sunday mornings (No good fellows here, they own the transmission rights and need to promote their product). These actions can and will reflect positively on the general public’s perception of skateboarding, which is already being regarded as one of the most popular urban sports in the country.

You may think, “everything looks fine to me, so what seems to be the problem?”

As a veteran who has already skated everything (except for longboard freestyle, aka “dancing”), I have a good transit among skaters of all ages who ride all the different disciplines out there. The general impression is that the scene as a whole already has two different sides, just like the old vinyl records. The A-side would be consisted of street and vert skating (the brand new Olympic disciplines) and their big events, plus the major interest of big media, plus the addition of major sports corporations to the scene. All this adds up much more visibility – and bigger marketing budgets as well.

 

Photos, left and right: Victor Ikeda, Por Allison De Carvalho

 

The B-side would be consisted of all other disciplines out there. “Hey, this is pretty much what happens all over the world, no news here”, you may say. OK, that much is true. The difference is that the Brazilian scene is focused on contests (you already know that) and national skaters have already become world champions in all types of skating. Moreover, downhill sliding has such a high level of performance down here that it’s reached a true state of the art and became a whole new discipline on its own; just check any video by the Yuppie family (Sergio, Fernando or Junior) and you’ll see what I’m talking about here.

CBSk’s hardest job nowadays should be to prevent this gap between the two different sides from growing. That’s not easy now and it won’t be easy in a few months, when one can be able to analyse the work of this new crew in the entity in a fair manner. A local downhill speed professional skater has made a very good point in his social media profile: “No discipline demands as much investment from the skater as downhill speed, just check the values for a good competition setup + a certified race helmet + leather suit + gloves + countless wheels etc. We’ve had only one single race valid for the national circuit last year. There were a couple of state circuits but nobody from the CBSk had the Idea of picking up one of these contests to be valid for the national rankings. How can you convince a talented skater’s family that it’ll be worthy for them to invest in equipment, travels, registration fees etc when there’s no acknowledgment from the scene itself?” Such question is also valid for all disciplines besides street and vert. Slalom, freestyle, push racing, downhill slide: you name it, they’re all in the same basket.

Notice the paradox here. Our scene is based on competitions; skaters in general like to enter them, and the general public loves to see them in open TV during Sunday mornings. At the same time, the entity does little for the disciplines below the water line. The million dollar question is: how to change that situation?

Only time will tell the answer. I have a personal mantra: “it’s all skateboarding and we’re all skaters”. I hope the guys behind the CBSk manage to understand the dimension of this simple phrase and work according the expectations of all skaters from the scene. Talk to the skaters out there, from the top pros to the beginners, see what their favorite disciplines need and do their best to improve the different scenes. After all, we’re the world’s second scenario in the skateboarding planet. It’s time to work accordingly to the status.

Guto Jimenez is the editor of CRVIS3R Skateboarding Magazine out of Brazil. Feel free to friend him here; you can also visit the CRVIS3R Skateboarding website here.

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Michael Brooke is a legend. This simply cannot be denied. You can cry, whine, squeal, and bitch all you want. But, deny? Deny, good chap, you cannot do.

But Michael is also a visionary. That’s another entirely undeniable truth. And ten years after meeting the guy, this simple factoid still astounds me. He’s basically the Marshall McLuhan of skateboarding. If you don’t know who Marshall McLuhan is, he’s the fellow that coined the phrase, “The Medium Is The Message”. Google it. You’ll see.

Michael’s mantra is no less significant, especially as far as skateboarding is concerned. Michael is, after all, the guy that simply (and sincerely ) believes that all skateboards are good skateboards. Everyone should ride a skateboard, and there should be a skateboard for everyone. This, of course, ran headlong against the views of our established industry, and a great many skaters themselves, who thought that certain forms of skateboarding were “stupid”, or “gay”. Michael basically built the critical-mass paradigm that attacked that “core” philosophy, and attacked it head-on.

“Everyone should ride a skateboard, and there should be a skateboard for everyone”. It’s now twenty years later. Take a good, long, hard look around. What do you see out there? Even his most ardent detractors make longboards, old-school boards, cruisers, slalom boards, freestyle boards… everything that they once hated and rallied against. That’s the landscape of Michael winning, right there. And everyone else wins as a result. 

You have to remember something- something that most heads in and around this industry are far too quick to forget. Before Concrete Wave Magazine, there was no longboarding. It existed in the dark, dusty, and long-forgotten corners of skateboarding history. Yes, a few longboard brands were starting to make some quality longboarding product- and Michael gives them due credit in the interview below. But there was no longboarding scene, no longboarding community, and no longboarding movement. Concrete Wave Magazine changed all that, and changed it forever.

Magazines, back in 1998, gave movements something that they so desperately needed to survive, thrive, and prevail: a spotlight, and credibility. You know it’s true, you can’t deny it: once a counterculture has it’s own print magazine… especially if it’s a big, glossy, large-format magazine… then that counterculture immediately ceases to be “fringe”. It becomes solidified and legitimized… or, in the skater’s vernacular, “solid and legit”.

Concrete Wave was certainly not the first skateboard magazine. Nor was it the biggest, best, or most profitably pandering. What it was, however, was significant. It brought entire disciplines of skateboarding back from the virtual dead, and breathed life into them on a massive, global scale. It might have happened anyway… that’s completely debatable… but in any rate, Concrete Wave certainly sped up the inevitable, if nothing else. In the process, it made skateboarding far more diverse… socioeconomically, stylistically, and geographically… than it had ever been. Mr. Warren Bolster- Michael’s immediate inspiration and mentor- surely would have been proud.

In this interview, I sought to nail Michael down on the dirty details of where he, and the magazine, have been… and maybe far more importantly, where they are going in the future. Michael was kind enough to cede to my request. In laying out and editing the interview, I have decided to highlight key, pertinent points in yellow, for the benefit of the readers.

Do yourself a huge favor, and pay special attention to those. In those yellow bits, you will see quite clearly within the crystal ball of Michael’s psyche, and thus be able to predict the next twenty years of skateboard history.

And don’t even think of denying that, either. The man’s been right before. And I suspect he’ll be right again. 

 

Left: Michael doing what he loves to do best, photo by Perry Mason. Right: Michael and Chris Koch.

 

What is the long-term prospectus for the mag, and the website?

My number one goal since I started this journey in 1995 (with the skategeezer homepage) is to create new skaters. My second goal has been to keep people IN skateboarding for as long as I can. I have always, and will always shine a different light on skateboarding. But in a nutshell, I sell skateboarding – that’s it. I am propaganda machine for skateboarding. Once we are clear on this, everything else I am about to explain to you will make sense.

You have to think of CW as being a memento to the next 10 years or so in skateboarding. I won’t say 20, because by that time I’ll be 64 (which is in 2028). By then, I’ll be too busy with Longboarding for Peace and my grandchildren, assuming I have some! I will still skate… but as Kenny Rogers says, “You gotta know when to fold ’em, and when to hold ‘em”. In 2028 (assuming the USA, Syria, Iran, Russia and North Korea haven’t blown the world to smithereens), I will happily fade into the background. 

But back to the idea of a memento. Think of the magazine as a keepsake. Before circuses shut down, you’d be able to get a program. The idea of having something tangible in your life (as opposed to digital) only appeals to a select few. But those select few drive the other 95%.

If you wind up in CW, it’s special Why? Because print is scarce. Scarcity is a precious resource. Print needs to be relevant, and that’s what we’re doing. How we are doing this is something I will share with you in a moment.

No matter what happens, 2028 will mark 33 years spreading a message. 33 years is a long time in publishing. Most folks don’t know this, but I had a website on skateboarding since 1995. So bowing out in 2028 seems like the right plan.

When I first started publishing, there was a mystery as to other types of skateboarding. Rails and ledges ruled the day. There was a handful of companies making unique skate products. These include: Sector 9, Seismic, Gravity, Randal, and Dregs. Just getting some attention was key, and it was brutal because not one magazine in skateboarding would acknowledge there was something other than street and transition/vert.

Shops would always say to me, “We don’t carry longboards because there is no demand. And the reason there is no demand is because the kids don’t see them advertised in the magazines”. This is why I created a magazine called International Longboarder in 1999. After this, it was a natural step to Concrete Wave.

We didn’t just document the change in skateboarding, we were part of the movement of change. Our magazines and DVD’s got people’s attention. Now that other types of skateboarding is on people’s radar, the question is how do you build demand?

There are over 1.8 million magazines and DVD’s floating around out there that have my name on them. I was happy to give it all away. Sure, we have some subscribers, and we did go into Barnes and Noble (along with a few other stores), but the vast majority of my work was given away for free. The ONLY WAY I could have spread this message was to have the financial backing of my advertisers.

I am proud of my track record and know that at on any given day, someone, somewhere is picking up a CW Mag, and absorbing information that they might not know about.

ONE CRUCIAL THING

A number of people who thought skateboarding had to be one thing (STREET), were soon manufacturing and marketing the very thing they had railed against a few years yearly. Now these people trash longboarding, and sell the product off for pennies on the dollar. Once the money comes back, however, they’ll be there extracting the most for the least. Those people will find a very different publication than the past.

So everyone knows that print is evolving. We’ve changed too. We used to print 20,000 copies at the height. We used to have 116 pages. “Used to” is not about the future, but the fact is that most advertisers have moved a lot of their budgets to digital. They make their own videos and have their own media empires.

A few companies have come up with their own publications. Good for them. But they are not independent. In the final analysis, their goal is to sell their particular brand of skateboards. My goal is to sell skateboarding, and to present unusual stories that you won’t find anywhere. Since we print these stories, they can never be deleted.

We’ve created a new website, and it will take time for it to evolve. Will we get money from digital? Absolutely. But it will take time. I spent a lot of energy trying to figure out what I wanted to do with digital. Now I have a team in place, we’re seeding things.

So, we adjusted. We’ve made the mag smaller – and I’d like to think more special.
It’s also been brought down to 2,500 copies. Now it’s a collectable.
You will be able to subscribe to the magazine, and get it at select shops.
But- and this is crucial for everyone to understand – the magazine is not what you think it is.

What I mean by this, is that there are actually easter eggs inside the magazine. There are hidden and secret messages.

You will have to take the time to find them. And because my magazine is scarce, it becomes a bit more mysterious. And mystery and the joy of discovery is something that sucks people in.

How do I know this? Simple. I hired the right people who have a totally different perspective than me.

Take Ninja Master Lou. NML has a deep love for skateboarding and burying easter eggs inside magazines. I also have Sean P. handling digital. Like NML, he’s 33 and merges a love of skateboarding with technical prowess. I am getting the hell out of the way, and letting these folks do their job.

 

What changes for each are on the immediate horizon?

We have made the magazine and web look different. We are combining events WITH the magazine. And I am incorporating some of the work I’ve done with Longboarding for Peace to triangulate things. Skateboarding + social action = powerful messages.

Here’s proof: Get A Gun, Get A Skateboard

(Btw, we’ve exchanged over 1,000 guns for skateboards thanks to the generosity of our advertisers.)

 

 

This year, CW will be at the following events-creating a buzz and handing out copies of the magazine:

1. Earth Day – April 22
2. Go Skateboarding Day – June 21
3. Day of Balance – July 25 (Magic of Balance day)
4. International Day of Peace – September 21 (Roll For Peace)
5. International Wrongful Conviction Day – October 2 (Push For Justice)

These events bring in both skaters, and non-skaters. It is that combo that creates new customers. It is going to be very interesting to see longboarders mingling with tens of thousands of people in NYC this Earth Day.

 

 

Where are the current readership numbers?

We are at 2,500 copies. The response to the new format has been exactly as Ninja Master Lu predicted.
As advertisers start to understand what we’re creating, we anticipate a return.
As for the website, we just launched in February but the numbers are very promising. Much better than what we had before.
Ask me again in 6 months.

 

How are they trending?

Things are moving up. But it will take time.

 

How do you plan to grow that metric over the next 1-5 years?

We will continue to refine our work with the magazine and website and work in the area of video.

 

How are you reaching out to new skate shops, and new readers?

Besides the 5 events I mentioned, we are making a targeted effort to bring people into the distribution mix who really care about the message of inclusion.

We used to give the magazine to hundreds of skateshops. We’ve decided to work more closely with those shops that really want to be part of what we’re doing, and that message is about the joy of skateboarding. We are not using our magazine to exclude and marginalize fellow skaters. That road just leads to heartache and depression.

So, rather than a push strategy, we’re aiming for a pull strategy. We will work with shops who have their hearts in the right place. We will support mom and pop shops, and there are no plans whatsoever to work with chain stores. The magazine is not available on Amazon. If people do find a subscription on Amazon, we’ll shut it down immediately. If any shop wants to be part of what we’re doing, we welcome them. Slowly and methodically, we’ll build this whole ecosystem to a place where those with soul and heart and a true love for skateboarding will be rewarded for their efforts.

 

What are the current ad rates for each? Are there package deals available?

Based on the circulation of 2500 it is $500 for full page ad ; $300 for half page ad; and $50 for your logo on the back cover (we have a maximum number of spots for this ad space).

As we increase circulation to 5,000 and then 10,000, rates will increase.

And yes, there are package deals that incorporate a web ad too.

 

How are you cultivating new writers, artists, and photographers to curate better content for the mag?

The mag is at 36 pages and if and when the time is right, I’ll move it to 52. When it was 116 at the height, we had the luxury of doing 10 to 16 page stories. We also filled our Noteworthy section with dozens of companies. Now, most of that is on the web. So, as people discover the Easter eggs and mystery contained within the publication, I fully anticipate that artists and writers and photographers will be intrigued. We will be at four issues a year, and 52 pages seems to be about the right amount. Again, most folks just don’t have the time or energy to read anything in print these days, so what we publish must be relevant.

 

 

Will CW remain a largely longboard-focused mag, or will it re-embrace the “everything skateboarding” mission that it originally started with?

We were originally International Longboarder. I co-founded this magazine with a chap named Tom Browne. Tom and I ran that mag for 3 years. In September 2002, I launched CW mag by myself. I wanted to differentiate myself from ILB, so the focus was mostly on nostalgia, vert and pool skating. There was, of course, freestyle and longboarding and slalom in there too. But as longboarding became more popular, most of our advertisers wanted to see more longboard stories. We rode that train for many years, but we never forgot to put stories in the mag that covered all types of skateboarding. We never lost the spark of “everything skateboarding.” Now, as the mantra of “everything skateboarding” is everywhere, we have positioned the magazine to embrace it all in a vastly different way than other publications. Skate Slate is taking on more types of skateboarding, and that pushes the message forward.

Life on planet earth is going to get more complex. People will need the immediate joy that skateboarding provides. I’ll be here along with my staff and contributors to document it all and ensure that people are stoked on skateboarding on the platform of their choice – whether that platform is print, or digital.

Enough words. I’m going skating today!

Cheers, Michael

 

?>

There are a lot of things that SkaterCon is not. It’s not quite a contest (although there were contests that happened throughout the day). It’s not quite a trade show (although there was a very large vendor’s area). It’s not quite a swap meet (although there were vendors there, buying and selling lots of neat stuff). It’s not quite a punk rock show (although there were several punk bands playing that day, including D.I., Chuck Treece, Steve Steadham spinning some reggae beats, and Since We Were Kids!). It’s not quite an art happening (although there were several artists represented, and represented well, at the event). It’s not quite a skate clinic (although those are available to anyone and everyone). It’s not quite a demo (although there were several pros and ams on hand, skating). And it’s not quite a skate jam (although that was also a huge element of the day’s festivities). 

SkaterCon is fascinating because it is a little bit of everything that you could ever imagine, yet it can’t quite be pigeonholed as anything specific. The only way that it can really be described, is as a celebration of skateboarding (and our culture) that ends up being a shit-ton of fun for skaters of all ages, genders, and abilities. It’s also completely timeless, in that it celebrates yesterday, today, and tomorrow in the very same breath. And everyone that was in attendance would probably agree with that assessment.

If they don’t, then they either haven’t gone to one… or they’ve gone, and missed the whole point.

 

Left: Steve Steadham and Bill Danforth. Upper right: The new STDMZ kicks. Lower right: The prismatic Steadham decks look gorgeous in the sparkling Arizona sunlight.

 

This year’s SkaterCon was cut back to a one-day event, with various pre- and post-event happenings surrounding the day. That was actually a bit of a relief, as far as I was concerned; previous SkaterCons were a flurry of activity, all weekend long, that left me completely spent and exhausted by Sunday evening.

The single-day event, on the other hand, was just about right. You got to see and enjoy everything that the day had to offer, but it didn’t tucker you out too terribly.

 

 

Left: Cover guy JJ Brown backside disasters the 8′ narrow, rickety Shiner Gold (aka, the old Bare Cover) trailer halfpipe from the 1970’s. Right: The Time Traveler getting in some pumps and kickturns on the former Bare Cover ramp.

 

This event is extremely forward-thinking. That gentle reminder cannot go unstated. Adam [Richards, the man behind the SkaterCon plan] has come up with a template that blends the best of every single imaginable skateboard-related good time, and tossed them all into a giant stew where the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. This was the third year for SkaterCon, and this year we saw some real industry heavies come out to participate, including Steve Caballero and Christian Hosoi, along with alumni such as Billy Ruff, Steve Steadham, Jesse Martinez, and Bill Danforth (among a whole host of others).

 

 

Left: Bill Danforth and fan. Right: The overview of the festivities, drone photo by Jessie Pena.

 

However, a large part of our industry was also conspicuously absent. I’m not sure how long it takes our beloved (yet hyper-conservative and notably un-innovative) industry to recognize that something of unique significance is happening right under their noses, but apparently it’s more than three years. Maybe Year Four will be the year that we see some of the bigger players step up, and decide to play the game, play it well, and play it right.

 

 

Left: Adam Richards, the event founder and organizer. Right: Famed skateboard collector Daymond D. Dodge loved Adam’s pose so much, he had to jump in on the action.

 

The best part about this event is that, unlike trade shows, everybody is invited. The manufacturers, companies, the brands, distributors, retailers, fans, kids, families… the arms are wide open for everybody to join in on the fun, and participate on an equal footing. It recognizes that every link in our industry chain, from the marketer to the consumer, is vital and integral to the overall health of our pastime, and our industry.

 

 

Left: Christian Hosoi in the pit. Right: Christian phone-films Omar Guerrero flying around. I think that’s a Christ air that Omar’s about to land right there, as Christian (and the Jesus on Christian’s arm) look on.

 

It’s also extremely inspiring. And that’s saying quite a bit, considering that I’ve become a little bit jaded after working in this industry for over twenty-five years now. The fact is that these events… due to their innate relate-ability, and their relative ease of organization… are well within almost any community’s grasp. Adam has proven, three years running, that one guy (with a little bit of mojo, and a whole buncha help from his friends) can put together quite a juggernaut of an event, and take on much “larger” events on a relatively equal footing, while staying remarkably true to the spirit of skateboarding the whole time.

This is a template that more and more skaters will surely be adopting in the near future. Many of them are adopting it already in their own communities, and making it work; even here in Phoenix, there are also a whole host of event activists that are putting together smaller-scale events in and around The Valley on an almost weekly basis that were probably inspired (to some greater or lesser degree) by Adam’s initiative, and subsequent success. Austin’s Stupidfest (coming up in October) is another upstart regional skate event that is quite  different in the finer details, yet remarkably similar in the sense that it’s a small group of skaters putting on a rather large, ambitious event that attracts skaters from far farther and far wider than anybody might have dared to imagine. The “if you build it, then they will come” cliche is, after all, an ages-old truism that still manages to surprise some of us from time to time. But a big ‘ol reminder from time to time never hurt anybody.

 

 

Left: Beautiful, three-dimensional skateboard art by some guy I’ll have to chase down and remember. Right: Lonnie Hiramoto with a Kanoa re-pop. If you look real hard, you can spot Daymond D. photobombing in the background.

 

We’ll see how it goes… I’ll be there, covering that event as well… but the bottom line is that events like these are a sign that skateboarding activism is finally working the way it should have worked all along. It represents skaters taking skateboarding back from The Industry, taking it back to its roots, and doing things by, and for, ourselves on a massive scale.

That is something that our industry should be supporting far harder than it is. At the end of the day, it only helps them. It might even help them more than they realize: namely, by taking the massive pain-in-the-ass of organizing these super-ambitious gatherings off of their shoulders, while presenting them an immensely personable (and popular) platform from which to promote themselves in a genuinely meaningful (and sincere) manner to their immediate customer base, ie, skaters and skate retailers. It’s a win-win-win-win for everyone… provided that everyone shows up, lends a hand, and participates.

But when the skaters show up (in droves), the shops show up, the artists show up, the bands show up, the pros and ams show up, and the living legends show up, but a critical mass of brands is notably missing… it creates an obvious chasm that is pretty difficult to reconcile.

 

 

Left: Eight-year-old skate entrepreneur Jeff Holmes (of Skate Jerk) studying up on his skate history, and showing off his autograph collection. Upper right: More of that artist I wish I remembered right now. Lower right: The crowd at the raffle.

 

Phoenix is only a six-hour drive from LA, and counts 4.6 million inhabitants in our metro area- the 12th largest in the US. Surely, this is a metro market that’s well worth paying attention to, isn’t it…?

 

 

Left: Wray Bros representing. That’s Jonas Wray on the right. Right: Jonas Wray and a fan, mugging it up for the camera.

 

SkaterCon is already slated for late-February, 2019. That’s only about 320 days away. Put it on your calendar, for pete’s sakes, and be there this time around. It’s the sort of event that you really shouldn’t have missed in the first place.

 

Left: Airbrush art by Sean Treves. Right: Lamebrain has some of the funniest graphics ever.

 

Left: Flying Aces teamrider Skyler King contemplating his next move. Right: Skyler balances high astride a backside nosepick in the fading Arizona daylight.

 

 

?>

 

I really don’t like contests. As a journalist, I think it’s important to put my biases straight onto the table, right off the bat. However, the Phoenix Am (PHXAM for short, or “The Am”’ from here on out) is such big deal every year, and such an ingrained institution… this was, after all, the 17th year for The Am… that I really had to go and check it out, just to say that I’ve gone and checked it out. It seems like you can’t really call yourself “a local” around here, until you have.

The other big bias that I should point out is that I didn’t go as “a reporter”, per se. The PhxAm has its own website, complete with live streaming, that will surely have all of the results, photos, footage, et cetera. And given that Thrasher Magazine was one of the title sponsors of the event, I can only assume that they’ll have some pretty in-depth coverage of it as well.

 

Park Check, PHXAM 2018, from www.phxam.com.

 

PHXAM 2018 Practice Day, from www.phxam.com.

 

So, no, I didn’t go to scoop “the story”. Rather, I went and experienced the PhxAm in much the same way that any other kid in the world might have gone and experienced it for themselves. The only difference between me, and them, is that I had press credentials, which means that I didn’t have to stand in line (thank heavens). Besides that sole distinction, however… once I got into the gate, I became fairly anonymous, fairly quickly. And that’s exactly the way I like it.

 

The line of eager kids awaits as the humanity piles up down the sidewalk and around the corner.

 

The Entrance

Due to my unfortunate manual labor commitments, I didn’t get to The Am until noon on Saturday. Parking looked like a real challenge, with cars overflowing the parking lot, and spilling out onto Encanto Ave for a solid mile and a half or so. But my good fortune is predictably unflinching and unfailing, and usually kicks in precisely when I need it to. So, with a little bit of mojo, I pulled straight into the parking lot at Desert West, blowing right past the “parking lot full” signs, past the security guys that were vainly trying to point the way out and turn my little car around, and pulled straight into a pretty convenient vacant parking spot, only a short walk from the front gate. Good fortune scores a fatty once again…!

I strolled up to the front gate, saw two lines (one for regular ‘ol people, and one for Very Important People)… guessed that maybe I should try the Very Important line, just for shits and giggles (still convinced that they’d never let a jackass like me in)… and immediately got handed my Very Important Pass. The guy behind the table didn’t even bother to check my name; he just handed me my wristband, and ushered me straight into the party. And that was it. I was thus given free reign to do whatever I pleased for the rest of the weekend.

 

Clockwise from upper left: The Volcom vintage bus; more lines, this time waiting to play games and score swag; Lamebrain had the funniest kid- (but not mom-) approved ring-toss setup.

 

The Venue

Desert West resides in the west suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, at the intersection of 67th Ave and Encanto. It’s one of the oldest skateparks in the Phoenix Metro, but it’s still a great one. It features a large, left-hand kidney bowl with an oververt pocket in the shallow end (that probably didn’t see a whole lotta use this weekend), and a sprawling “street” course with a lot of still-modern features (which was, naturally enough, the focus of the festivities). And even more importantly: it features a heap-ton of flow. In addition, Cowtown brought in even more obstacles for the event, including a large car-feature with slide bars on the roof and trunk, and handrails at each corner, as well as a couple of unique hip and quarterpipe features. Thankfully, Desert West is a really, really large facility. So it can easily accommodate all of the additions, and still have plenty of space to push around, set up tricks, and draw lines.

 

Clockwise from upper left: The vendor area at the height of the game craze; tailslide on top of the car; the abandonment that occurs when the freebies run out.

 

The Vendor Area

The Vendor Area was right outside the skatepark gate, and featured booths… well, pop-up tents, really… from maybe two-dozen skateboard companies and brands. I probably spent more time here than anywhere else over the course of the weekend, just because that’s where most of my friends gravitated to, where the free water could be found, and where the shade was most plentiful. It’s was also the place to be, if you wanted your fair share of handouts, prizes, and freebies from our favorite branding empires. Thus, most of the kids in the crowd spent the better part of their days in the Vendor Area, too.

The big thing with the vendors were the games. That’s probably the thing that I’ll forever remember about The Am (besides the skating). Lots of fair-type games like beer pong (but without the beer); boob pong (courtesy of the funny chaps over at Happy Hour); darts (including, at times, real darts, which I have to admit mortified me slightly); craps (DGK, of course); “The Finger Fling” (Lamebrain’s funny-as-hell invention); and lots of other imaginative games that the kids had to play (and play well), in order to get their free swag. The kids actually seemed to really enjoy all of the various challenges; there were lines for the games for most of the day, on both days of the event. The fatass-journalist contingent approved pretty highly of them as well.
What can I say…? Darts, dude! Shut up. That shit was fun.

Of all the brands at the event, Vans and Volcom had the biggest and best setups. They both had large, plush RV’s from which they made their presences felt. That’s probably one of the perks of title sponsorship, having a parking space for your own giant-sized bus. Vans probably had the busiest booth, because they were spending so much time and so many resources promoting Chima’s new shoe; I’ve never seen so much promo for a single shoe model in my entire life, as I did for The Chima this weekend. And the entire Vans crew (including the illustrious Steve Van Doren himself) was super cool, and generally welcoming as hell. But Volcom’s retro-vintage, 1983 Bluebird Bus won the Vendor Prize Of The Weekend in my book. I’m all about vintage campers, and as far as vintage campers go, Volcom’s setup was super sweet. They were kind enough to let me stick my head in and have a look around… an opportunity that I was more than happy to take full advantage of… and let me tell ya, that thing was legit plush, as well as being remarkably period correct. As I said at the beginning of the article, I do have my biases.

 

The Sound Of Silence

Once I got past the dueling Vans and Volcom party shacks, I entered a part of the vendor area that I’ll refer to here as The Ghost Town. There were pop-up tents, tables, and chairs … but no people manning the gates. Now, I’m not gonna name names or anything, because I’m not that sort of chap. Suffice to say that maybe a few of the participating brands should give me a call, and ask how their promo outreach fared over the weekend.

In many cases, there was no “promo outreach”. Just The Sound Of Silence from a good many of the vacant booths in the vendor area.

 

Left: the Dead Canary booth, gettin’ ready to get down. Right: Skate Jerk always knows how to have a good time.

 

The Cool Corner

At the far periphery of the vendor area were the smaller, local, upstart brands that were relegated out to Left Field for the weekend, along with… conveniently, as it turns out… the food trucks, the port-o-potties, and the artificial-shade area erected for the benefit of the spectators that complemented the few extant shade trees that provided shade of the organic variety. This is where the hearty party happened for the bulk of the weekend; unlike The Ghost Town, there was something happening here all the time, every time I stopped by.

The Bigger Brands could probably learn something from these smaller-scale upstarts. Namely, if you’re gonna be present, then be present at all times, and take the time to interact in some meaningful way with your market (rather than just blowing out a wad of freebies, and then bailing early for the hotel room or the pub). Anything less is just a waste of time, money, and energy for everyone.

The Cool Corner was the place to be this weekend, and The Big Brands blew it. End of story.

 

The Contest

Saturday was the prelims for Sunday’s finals. The skaters were broken up into heats of four skaters a piece, each heat having a three-minute session in order to determine which of them would make the cut. It made me really f’n glad that I wasn’t a judge; I have a hard enough time focusing on one thing at a time, let alone four things whizzing around all over the place causing chaos and destruction in unison. Everything flowed remarkably smoothly, though, and I was genuinely impressed with the general order and efficiency of the proceedings. Y’gotta hand it to Cowtown: they did a really great job. They locked it down, and they locked it down solid.

There were 50 heats of skaters. That’s over 200 amateurs to put through the meat grinder. Again, the vast expanse of Desert West allowed four-skater heats all the room they needed to skate together, and not cause too much confusion or collateral damage along the way. And some really great skating went down, although it all became a blur after a couple hours, and the specifics are somehow totally escaping me at the moment.

 

Left: Daniel Griego busting out the 5-0, not the fuzz. Right: The Muska and a bashful fan.

 

The Muska

The PhxAm brought out a few luminaries from skateboarding’s history, the first (and maybe most memorable one) of the weekend being The Muska. If you don’t know who “The Muska” is, or why he’s so significant, then stop reading this article right now, go Google that shit, and stop living in abject ignorance. The best part about The Muska… and The Muska made this supper apparent, almost right away… is that he’s a really sweet, down-to-earth, super-vivacious people-person. Especially with little kids; he really loved hanging out with them, giving them high-fives and stuff, and joking around in a really well-mannered sort of way. He seemed super stoked to be at The Am, and maybe even a little bit surprised that everybody bum-rushed him so hard to shake hands, say thanks, pat him on the back, or to get a selfie (or two, or three) with him. It was kinda refreshing in this modern world of rock-star mega-egos to see one so solidly happy and humble. The Muska immediately became my hero of the weekend.

Of course, I couldn’t resist the urge to say a quick “Hello, and thanks”, myself. It is, after all, The Muska.

 

Left: Rowley, the legend, and adoring fans. Right: the timeless (and apparently ageless) Steve Van Doren.

 

Steve Van Doren

Some of these names might be unfamiliar to the clueless kids of the world… but if you don’t know who Steve Van Doren is, he’s basically the living, breathing personification of Vans shoes. “Vans”, the mega-corporation, formerly being the “Van Doren Shoe and Rubber Company”… I’m thinking that maybe you’re starting to mentally put two and two together to come up with four right about now. Here, we have another icon of the skateboarding industry, on hand at the PhxAm. And once again, I made the time to say my gracious hellos and thank yous.

The freaky thing about Mr. Van Doren, though, is that this guy never seems to age. At first, I was wondering if the fellow I was shaking hands with might have been Mr. Van Doren’s younger twin brother or long-lost nephew or something. It just wasn’t adding up; this chap looked almost exactly the same as the “real” Steve Van Doren did way back in 1994. I was so confounded that I actually had to ask one of the Vans reps, “Hey, bub… is that Steve Van Doren right there?”

“Yup, sure is!”

“Can I ask you something…?”, feeling just a little bit embarrassed.

”Sure.”

“Does he ever age…?”

The Vans rep started laughing his ass off. Either he hears that all the time, or he’s thought about it a few times himself. He leaned over to me, patted me on the shoulder, and whispered in my ear, “No, I don’t think that he does”.

Thank God, I hadn’t made a complete ass out of myself.

 

Left: Kendall’s look of genuine surprise. Right: a family affair,  fans  young and old.

 

Jeff Kendall

Once again: I can be a real dipwagon sometimes. I’m standing at the edge of the contest course, leaning on the back of a very stout quarterpipe, enjoying a little bit of solace and shade, when I suddenly spotted a shorter, slightly older, and noticeably quieter gentleman stroll up beside me and take a quick rest break of his own.

“Man”, I thought to myself. “That guy looks a hell of a lot like Jeff Kendall”. Once again, kids: if this name leaves you clueless, it’s time to go do the Google. Do not resume reading this until you’re suitably wiser and older, and that’s an order.

Anyway, as I’m standing there thinking how much this guy looks like Jeff Kendall, I start to wonder to myself, “Hey! I wonder if this guy just might be Jeff Kendall…?” So, I yell over to him… he was only a foot or so away, but there were about fifteen loudspeakers right behind us, blaring in our ears at about fifty-thousand decibels… “Hey, Jeff!”

He whirls around. “Hey, Bud! What are you doing here…?!” He seemed almost as shocked to see me, as I was to see him.

“I live here! But, forget that! What in the world are you doing here…?!”

Turns out, Jeff came out with the rest of the NHS crew for the event. That was kinda neat to see. Maybe that’s why NHS is always so on top of their A-Game. Because they take the time to get out of their offices, and go check out what’s new and hot in skateboarding.

And judging by the skating happening all over the course, the newest and the hottest kids in skateboarding were all in Phoenix this weekend.

 

Handrail carnage photos by Trenton Olson.

 

That reminds me…

I wasn’t quite prepared for how heavy of a contest this was, internationally speaking. For whatever reason, my clueless ass thought that this was a very “southwestern regional” amateur contest, mostly made up of Arizonians and the occasional Californian. Oh, Lord, how embarrassingly wrong I was. Skaters flew in from all over the world… literally, all over the world… for this event. Every United State seemed to be well-represented, along with countries like Japan, Brazil Mexico, France… and I remember Germany being in there, but I might be remembering that one incorrectly. I’m an old dude; that sort of short-term memory lapse just kinda happens at my age. Shit, man, I can’t even pick the Jeff Kendall out of the one-man Jeff Kendall lineup for fuck’s sakes, let alone all of the foreign countries represented at a 250-skater-deep amateur contest.

But, yes… this contest is truly a global event. I was pleasantly surprised by that tidbit.

 

Kickflip over a car (and an annoying light pole insistent on getting background props). Whoever this kid is, he sure did catch these clean.

 

After The Skating Is Over

Once the prelims were over, the cut finalized, and the names of the advancing skaters announced, the loudspeakers quickly and efficiently ordered (in no uncertain terms) everybody to clear the course, and head on out of dodge. There was an after-party to attend, after all, and Cowtown had to shut the skatepark down to prepare for Sunday’s finals.

The funny thing about skaters, though, is that they have the most selective in selective hearing, ever. It doesn’t really matter how loud a loudspeaker might be: if it’s talkin’ some shit jive that no skater wants to hear, than no skater will hear that shit jive, and that’s all there is to it. And thus, the course did not clear, and nobody headed out of dodge. Rather, the skating continued unabated as if the loudspeaker was loudly speaking nothing at all. I used the opportunity to head on down to the course, and shoot a few desperately-needed-for-my-article skate photos. My selective hearing is at least as good as anybody else’s, and I took full advantage of it.

 

Vincent Milou PHXAM 2018 Golden Ticket, from www.phxam.com

 

I did not attend the after-party, however. I’m old, fat, and tired, and I was feelin’ all three of the above by Saturday evening. My idea of “partying” these days is to go home, take a four-hour nap, then wake up and draw funny pictures (or write funny words) while I listen to some smooth jazz fusion. Does that sound boring to you? Well, just wait ‘til you’re forty-fuckin’-five years old, buddy. It’s gonna sound a hell of a lot better when you’re shaking in my shit shoes.

 

Feeble on the most popular obstacle of the weekend, the car roof rail.

 

Keith Wilson

One of the more memorable chats of the weekend came to me via Keith Wilson, the brand manager over at Independent Truck Company. Once again, I didn’t quite recognize him at first, as it’s been a solid ten years (or so) since we last spoke in person. Thankfully, he didn’t recognize me at first, either, so I didn’t feel quite so bad about it. And Keith is a really mellow, low-key, humble, friendly fellow, so he’s definitely not the type of guy to get easily offended by my random shitheadedness.

Talking trucks with Keith is always a real treat. I still remember the first time we did it, nearly ten years ago; my, how the good times fly, don’t they? And I’m a total Indy Pride guy, anyway, so we sort of share that in common right off the bat; there we go with the unabashed biases all over again. But Keith is also a super-sharp engineering and marketing mind, with the heart of a true skater’s skater. That means he always has a great story to tell, and some neat new ideas floating around inside that noggin of his. That’s the sort of wisdom that even Google won’t be able to help you with, because as much as Google may know, they can’t possibly know everything. Keith may be little bit under the internet radar, but he’s still one of the most important people in all of skateboarding.

Surprisingly, our discussion began with the recent re-release of the storied 101 (now marketed as the new-and-improved 109), and some recent re-engineering and re-tooling work he’s been tinkering around with for a brand new iteration of the fabled 215. I’m not sure if I can say much more than that… and even if I could, I’d probably leave it at that, just out of simple respect. But I did have to ask, just for journalism’s sakes, why they were putting so much time and energy into re-tooling such niche-market products? Surely, they don’t have the sell-through to justify all those R&D expenses; I’d have to imagine that not too many skaters are out there these days buying up bucketloads of 109’s and 215’s.

“Sometimes, you have to do things for reasons that aren’t all about the money. Sometimes, you just have to do things because they need to be done, or because they’re fun. We’re a truck company; we’re the backbone of skateboarding. So, we make all kinds of trucks for all kinds of skateboarding. That’s really important to us, regardless of what the sales may be.” That’s a really refreshing answer to hear these days. I told you guys (and gals) that Wilson’s good peeps, didn’t I…?

With that being said, Keith also gave me the sneak-peek heads-up on the next Indy release that, quite frankly, made my jaw drop and my head spin. It was something that I never, ever thought I’d hear out of Independent… but it sounded super exciting, and I can’t wait until we get the green light from Wilson to tell you guys (and gals) all about it. Might even end up being a feature article. But that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

 

Left: Back lip banger on the car roof. Right: all hell breaks loose for the Best Trick bailfest.

 

Sunday Funday

Sunday was the final cut, which led to the finals themselves. Again, the skaters were broken down into four-skater heats that skated for three minutes each, with the final runs being one skater at a time for two solid minutes. That determined who “won” and who “lost”. Of course, I have no idea who won and who lost. In my book, they’re all winners, and I refuse to see it any other way.

After the last final run had been taken, the course was quickly crowd-controlled to make way for the final event, the Best Trick Contest.

Now, most of the contest had been, up to this point, pretty smooth sailing… a study in efficiently controlled and collected chaos. But once you put $2500 on the table for winging one single trick, then all hell tends breaks loose. Watching the best trick contest was a lot like watching lemmings trip over each other in a hurried stampede to throw themselves off of the nearest cliff; it was pretty much flying boards and flying bodies everywhere, the whole time. There were heaps of impressive bails and slams, but very few landed bangers… mostly due to the every-man-for-themselves ethos resulting in about twenty skaters dropping in at a time, every time there was the slightest opportunity to do so. It seemed to me that maybe the lemmings should have been herded up, and let loose maybe ten to fifteen at a time, so that some of them could stand an icicle’s chance in hell of landing something… but that’s just me. Maybe nobody really cared about skaters actually landing tricks. Maybe the non-stop train wreck was deemed more entertaining.

 

The Best trick contest highlights, from www.phxam.com.

 

The Wrap-Up

It’s now 5:28 pm, and I’m sitting in my office, smearing aloe vera all over my face and neck to stifle the persistent pain from my long weekend’s worth of sunscorching. I still don’t know what the “results” were, or who won what; I’ll swoop the results from the PhxAm website later tonight.

To be honest, none of it really matters to me. I was lucky enough to see some really great skating from a handful of tomorrow’s pros… names that I might not know just yet, but will surely know, and know well, soon enough… and hang out with some remarkable people all weekend long, living the skateboarding-journalist’s dream. For being the type of guy that doesn’t really like contests all that much, I had a super-enjoyable weekend, and got a few memorable stories out of it. Maybe that’s the best compliment I could ever give the event, right there. Thanks, Cowtown, for having me along for the ride. And thanks to Vans, Volcom, Red Bull, Thrasher, Independent, Bones, Real, Happy Hour, Pro Tec, Mob Grip, Stance, and the rest of the sponsors for supporting the fun times. See you next year.

 

 

Ivan Monteiro, First Place PHXAM 2018. Congratulations, good sir…! Video from www.phxam.com.

 

The Results:

1: Ivan Monteiro

2: Maurice Jordan

3: Jack Olson

4: Jake Ilardi

5: Maurio McCoy

6: Vincent Milou

7: Henry Gartland

8: Giovanni Vianna

9: Lucas Alves

10: Tyson Bowerbank

11: Patrick Praman

12: Marcos Montoya

See the rest of the photos, videos, and results at www.phxam.com.

 

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There were a small group of elite skateboarders who got together on January 13, 2018 to test their unique abilities at South Mountain Park (SoMo) in Phoenix, Arizona.

According to common lore statistics, many skateboarders are fully content maintaining daily life in transit to their destinations, be it atop a short deck rolling briskly along the sidewalk. Meanwhile there exists core groups of riders taking the term ‘shred’ to a whole new level. Downhillers quietly advance an industry within their own cutting-edge niche. Whilst to those involved, the notion of a cutting-edge niche simply does not apply. Truth be told, downhill riding can be dangerous. Amidst the risks and armed with fundamental skills, everyone comfortingly has each other’s backs. Cutting edge friendships, for lack of a better term, may ensue over time. These guys endlessly test and tune their beloved setups and accompanying gear, on into the future.

I like to akin downhill riding to a figurative dance with the notion of fear and physical limitation, while having little to no intention of impressing bystanders. While some might be found pouring their morning java to the same-old Sunday morning routine, these guys might be found somewhere on the mountain spraying a rooster tail of dust at 30+ mph. They might then be found beaming down over the crest; transitioning from full race tuck to pre-drift stance.

Under helmet at these immense speeds, riders must squint out to discern the horizon from a hazy guardrail while holding statuesque forms to maintain serious levels of balance. Riders must focus to uphold their balance throughout their run to attain max levels of grip. Somewhere in this duality of high-speed and high-intensity… the upper limits of joy are elevated once more. A sport and its legends live on, albeit *rashed up* but intact, nonetheless.

But enough corny skate poetry. Ever hit 45mph in the world’s largest city park, in 75 degree weather beneath bluebird skies….?

 

 

The race was announced in early January, and was hosted by Valley of the Downhill. Tom McCarthy and Joe Lupia called the race and ensured traffic conditions were safe for racers. Valley of the Downhill put together another epic cutthroat one vs. one single elimination race day. We started with our first warm up run at 11:00 a.m. with OG rider Lonnie Leonelli leading the pack complete with follow-cams, sponsored riders, a shuttle bus, and morning heats. At that moment, I knew Arizona was in for a treat.

An assortment of riders of all ages from all walks of life began to ascend upon the twists, turns, and sweeping corners up the moderately graded pavement bypassing the ‘Scenic Lookout’ signs that highlighted the birds eye view of the Phoenix skyline. They knew they were in the right place. A solid attendance was in check at fourteen riders deep. Everyone was properly equipped with a helmet and slide gloves. Some even brought out their full race leathers for the occasion.

The first heat consisted of Hooligan-sponsored rider Austin Cole rocking his new high fiber Yellow Jacket against Ryan C. The second heat consisted of Advance Slide Labs-sponsored rider Jason Pool and Seth S. This was a close race as both riders were inches from one another throughout each corner of the run. With some close calls coming into the final corner, Jason Pool and his Rastafarian style triumphed. The third heat was an epic battle between Alex Dunning and Colton D., with Colton taking lead into the first corner. The first fall of the race occurred during this heat as Dunning passed Colton coming into the second switchback.

The fourth heat consisted of Jafet Ramirez and Ryan LeSueur. This was a close race but with the steadfast hours of practice LeSueur has been dedicating to the sport, he took the heat as he is improving exponentially. Overall excitement continued to build as the race progressed. Dylan Skaggs and Matt rounded out the younger age bracket of the crew with Matt winning the fifth heat, but not without a toughly-fought battle from Skaggs. William Wright took on Connor S. with William taking the sixth and final heat of the first round. After many adrenaline-scooting runs and a few minor pavement-kissers later, a winner for the early-morning heats was established.

Moving along from the first portion of the race onto the later-morning cooldown runs, slide shenanigans and fresh urethane lines were thoroughly established. With the cooldown runs following the first round concluded, the first heat of the second round was ready to commence.

 

 

Jason Pool and Austin Cole lined up for what would become one of the closest races I have personally ever witnessed. Joe Lupia waited at the finish line. The race turned out to be a draw as Joe made the executive decision as he was present on the finish line. The second heat of the second round consisted of Ryan LeSueur and Alex Dunning. With Alex Dunning’s explosive muscle strength from playing college hockey and extensive running background, he took the holeshot off the line leading into the first curve. Upon corner entry, LeSueur drafted off Dunning’s tuck followed by a tactical shake-and-bake-like pass leading onto the second straightaway. Dunning attempted to catch LeSueur on the outside throughout the last two corners, but LeSueur tactfully defended his position taking a close win. The third heat of the second round was one of the wildest heats of the day between thirteen-year-old Matt and William Wright. This race was sweat-inducingly close with every approaching turn. These guys certifiably pushed their urethane-clad wheels to their limits. Coming into the final toeside corner, Wright’s wheels eventually gave out resulting in some gnarly road rash along his left side as he managed to miss the 15mph street turn sign by mere inches. I would not put it past Wright to hold back in a race situation scenario. He doubtlessly brings the term “go big or go home” to a whole new level.

 

 

Concluding the event, the final heat consisted of three riders going head to head with Jason Pool, Ryan Lesueur and Matt. This was a downright epic battle fought between the best riders of the day with Jason Pool taking home the cash prize along with a brand new deck generously donated for the race by local Arizona company Black Longboards.

 

 

At the end of the day, something becomes increasing clear. Together, these guys aid in the acceleration of a sport into a new perspective; a new age of skating. An age of dudes who know how to shred pavement; who also collaborate utilizing social media technology tailored to the skateboarding community. With technology comes the ability to share timeless memories of skating across generations- something we as a community should continue to strive for. That is, doing our individual part toward building a larger skate community, not only here in the valleys and foothills of Phoenix, but in unsung portions of the Southwest.

Big thanks goes out to the organizers of this downhill race event and their sponsors. Check out the photos, and be sure to check out Everything Skateboarding for the up and coming local events here in Phoenix!

 

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I heard of Skate True by running into them… and their very large, very comfortable, multi-passenger van… at a bunch of local skate events in and around Phoenix, Arizona. They certainly do seem to spend a lot of time out and about promoting themselves, which is great exposure and really smart business. Their business model also looked really interesting: they pick up kids up all around the valley, and take them out on day-excursions to skateparks within the Phoenix Metro, and all around the state of Arizona. It looked kinda fun, sort of like the badass skateboarding version of day-care. That, right there, is my kind of idea on how to raise kids right. I decided right away that this was something that I just had to check out for myself, up close and personal.

 

The van, my home for the day…

 

When I write a story, I like to get my hands dirty, and really get into it, reporting on it from my first-hand experiences. So I made my arrangements to cough up a quick $25, and reserve a place in the van for a little day-trip excursion of my own. As I made my reservations, I offered up a few bits of entree to sweeten up the deal: I thought it might be fun to bring along a few skateboards from my extensive quiver of fun for the other kids to check out, and skate around. I figured it might be a nice diversion for them to experience a bit of skateboard history for themselves, and they might even be duped into thinking that I’m a little bit cooler than I really am in the process. The deal was sealed, plans were confirmed, and my itinerary was set. The pickup was arranged for Saturday, April 21st, at Kids That Rip (also known as “KTR”) in Mesa, AZ.

 

Left: Markus steers the ship. Right: First stop of the day. That’s Markus tryin’ to rustle up some kids that have been afflicted with sudden-onset sugar highs…

 

I was really excited to go and see skateboarding through the eyes of a fresh-faced little kid again. A 6’5″ tall, 320 lb, 45-year-old little kid perhaps… but still, a kid at heart nonetheless. As an added bonus, KTR recently re-built their pint-sized, spined mini ramp, and they open promptly at 9am- more than early enough for me to take a few dozen warm-up runs before the van would show up for the rendezvous.

When I arrived at KTR, I was a bit surprised to find that their “Skate Rising” girls’ event was going off in a really major way. While I was certainly stoked to see so many girls skating at one place at one time… far more than I’ve ever seen in my life, actually… it did put a bit of a damper on my warm-up plans. “No worries”, I thought, “I’ll just warm up at the first park!” Skateboarding has, if nothing else, taught me the value of being instantly adaptable.

The itinerary for the day was to leave KTR promptly at 12:15, and head out to Snedigar Sports Complex in Chandler, followed by Tempe Sports Complex in Tempe, more commonly known to us locals as “Big Tempe” or “Tempe 1”. Both skateparks are large, well-maintained, concrete parks with lots of transitions; my kind of program. The return to KTR was scheduled for about 4:30 pm.

As I approached the van, I was surprised to find that:

– It accommodates at least thirteen little kids, because
– The seats are remarkably tiny, which meant
– My fat old ass was gonna have a really, really hard time sardining myself into one of ’em.

Thankfully, the quick-thinking kid that had already called (and settled into) shotgun, kindly let me have it instead. That was Gavin, and trust me on this one, that was a really nice gesture. Apparently, I had already made a good impression, and made my very first friend of the trip. The fact that Markus had already told all the kids that I was a reporter working on an article probably helped that good vibe along just a little bit. Suddenly, I was the most popular kid in the whole van. Having a handful of free Concrete Wave magazines probably didn’t hurt matters all that much, either. No kid in the world has ever hated free stuff, and I’m totally unafraid to use that to my immediate advantage.

This might be a great time to note that the kids in the van ranged in age between… oh, maybe 10 or so, to around 16. There were several girls represented, and the abilities of skating represented were all over the board, from relative beginners to relatively experienced. The entire program had a very welcoming and accepting “come one, come all” vibe and feel to it, which felt instantly comfortable. Even for me, the obviously ginormous oddball in the van that was at least three times everybody else’s age, and fifty-two times their size.

Strangely, our first stop was at everybody’s favorite gas station/convenience store/car wash. The kids were unusually excited about this; apparently, it’s a regular stop on their Chandler itinerary, and everybody really looks forward to it. It’s a great place to watch cars making their way through the automated maze of squirters, rollers, scrubbers, foamers, and flashing neon lights and buzzers while the kids spectate with wide-open eyes while sucking down giant-sized soda pops. It’s no mystery to me why the kid contingent was so enthused about the pit stop. Sugar and stimulating entertainment wins every single time with the youngsters.

 

Snedigar Sports Complex, trannies everywhere. Now that’s my idea of a good time.

 

Snedigar is a massive skatepark, with giant-sized bowls everywhere. The street course is even surrounded by a giant bowled perimeter, which made the crusty old man in me pretty darned happy. However, my attention was quickly seized by Gavin (Kempton) and Koston (Eaton), who were clearly the best skaters of our bunch, as they tried launching (the long way, grabbing stinkbug) over the taco hump in the middle of the park. I tried to take a few photos, but the lighting was just all wrong for soul stealing. Sorry, fellas.

 

Ollie Nothdurft, varial flip body varial shenanigans at Snedigar. Yes. Seriously. He landed it.

 

Gavin quickly shifted his focus to the triple-kink handrail at the entrance to the park. This kid clearly had gonads, because he was all set to take this thing down, although he had never slid a triple-kink in his entire life, and this thing was a monster as far as skatepark handrails go. Everybody jumped in to lend some genuine moral support, while Markus and I tag-teamed the doling out of practical, experienced advice. It was just completely ridiculous, watching this pin-sized little kid taking on this hammer-sized battle. But about thirty attempts, and a whole buncha mojo later, our buddy finally stomped a solid landing, and the whole van decided to celebrate the major victory by stopping at another gas station for some more sugary after-skating entertainment.

 

The little kid that could. Gavin Kempton, comin’ down the mountain.

 

Strangely, I’m not a particularly large fan of Tempe 1. Especially when the temperatures are starting to push a hundred degrees, and the concrete is sizzling hot. That created an opportunity for me to shoot a few photos of the kids for the article while I rested and relaxed away the pain from my Snedigar shenanigans. Predictably, Gavin and Koston stole the better part of the show with their hubba-sized ledge prowess and EuroGap tech skills… but I also made a point of getting photos of the other kids as well, at least as much as the sizzling concrete would allow. By this time, the kids were dreaming up tricks to do (and camera angles to capture them with), and I had a sincerely fun time trying to accommodate them all, while imparting some basic photography wisdom here and there along the way.

 

 

The kid that let me ride shotgun shows similar grace on a lengthy nosegrind. Gavin Kempton, Tempe 1.

 

The Quiver was a lot more popular than I thought it was gonna be. That’s worth noting. Kids these days… the next generation… they don’t see skateboards as “street boards”, or “bowl boards”, or “cruiser boards”. They just see skateboards, they see fun to be had, and they have no problem whatsoever picking one up and skating something entirely new. A couple of the kids actually spent more time on my boards than their own, and I don’t think Cole (Nash) skated anything else the entire day, besides boards out of my quiver. I liked him. He knew how to have a good time.

 

Unafraid to step out of the box and show a little soul, Cole Nash carves a high line at Tempe 1 (with a little help from Brad Bowman, and some giant-sized Abec 11 super-stompers).

 

 

Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Just press “play”, and then resume reading…

 

The funniest part of the whole trip were the kids’ musical tastes. Naturally, they were all over the map. What I didn’t expect, was for the proverbial map to consist almost entirely of gangsta rap and ’80s metal, punctuated by bits of bubblegum pop, a few crank calls, and topped off with “Come Sail Away” by Styx as the very last request of the day. Now, I happen to be old enough to still remember Styx back when they were pretty popular, and I still make every available effort to not remember those tortuous times of my life. These kids not only remembered Styx; they actually requested Styx on our drive back to KTR. If I were Styx, I’d feel pretty accomplished right about now. Somebody still cares. Who woulda thunk it.

 

“They climbed aboard their starship and headed for the skies”. Kai Gale takes his Styx literally. Ollie over the hip at Tempe 1.

 

Having experienced Skate True for myself, I can not only say that this is a great program for skaters of almost any age and ability (including my own); I also have to openly wonder why nobody had thought of such a thing earlier? Of course, similar programs might well exist elsewhere; I cannot know absolutely everything about everything going on around the world. But the fact that this is the first time that I’ve ever seen (or experienced) such a thing does surprise me a little bit. If your town or city does not have a similarly-themed program, well, maybe it’s high time that it did.

 

If you want to check out Skate true for yourself, surf on in here: www.skatetrue.com

Thanks to Mike (at Concrete wave) for the free mags. If you want to check out the mag for yourself, you can do it here: www.concretewavemagazine.com

 

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And The Road Goes On: The Sierra Vista Round
Saturday, March 17th-Sunday, March 18th, 2018
By Bud Stratford

 

Friday, March 16th, 2018, 11:38 pm

I never sleep well the night before a big road trip adventure, and tonight is no different. I’m laying in my brand new memory-foam mattress, quite comfortably curled up beneath my blankets… yet I’m still tossing and turning restlessly, impatiently waiting for the midnight hour to strike. I’ve been in bed since 8:30, and I am becoming increasingly frustrated with myself for not being able to fall asleep… which, ironically enough, is making my task of falling asleep that much harder. My calves are cramping up because I’m not eating enough bananas these days in my ripe old age, so I angrily hop out of bed, throw on some shorts, grab one of my trusty longboards, and kick down to the store for some quick provisions, hoping to tire myself out a little bit so I can at least squeak in a quick, four-hour power nap before my 4:30 wake-up alarm goes off. This is heaven and hell, happening simultaneously. These, my frenemies, are the life and times of a rapidly aging, yet still all-too-enthusiastic-at-heart, touring skateboarder.

 

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 7:02 am

It’s about 7:02 am, and I just passed through the fertile valley of Oro Valley. It’s been a pretty uneventful trip so far; I’ve kept the speedometer pegged at exactly sixty miles per hour the whole time due to speed restrictions on the trailer that aren’t normally adhered to, but are being respected today in a futile effort to save a few hard-earned pennies on gasoline. I’m on a tight budget, as always, and every dime counts. I stopped to take a snappy picture of a hot air balloon on the north side of town as it was coming over the mountains, nearly causing a wreck and getting my ass rear-ended in the process. But the photo came out excellently, so it was definitely well worth the risk and the effort.

 

Left and right: Hot air balloon coming up over the mountains, Oro Valley, Arizona. Illustration by the author.

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 7:49 am

South of Tucson, at mile marker 280 or so, we’re back to vast, wide-open scrub rangeland with sawtooth mountains in the distance; their short, cropped peaks and highly defined ridgelines are casting sharp shadows in the bright morning sun. A few miles later, the landscape slyly morphs again, becoming a series of gently rolling hills with long bridges that span deep canyons- a markedly different sort of terrain from the flat, wide-open, tediously boring desert nothingness that has dominated my morning drive thus far. The car shifts down, and spools up the RPMs in a valiant effort to traverse this newly variable, hilly terrain.

 

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 8:08 am

“A raptor dinosaur with a ravenous appetite is poised on a rock outside McDonald’s along I-10. It’s not particularly huge, but offers family photo ops, especially if you can work in the electronic sign messages…”

– from Roadside America (www.roadsideamerica.com)

 

Businesses will do damn near anything to rope in unsuspecting tourists, and go about systematically emptying their wayward wallets. Dinosaurs, for whatever reason, are one of the go-to tourist-grabbing themes in and around Arizona. Many businesses will employ a humble Stegasuarus or a ferocious T-Rex in their expert efforts to rustle in road-weary travelers for a brief, sometimes funny, respite from the never-ending rolling of the asphalt ribbon. The McDonald’s off of I-10 exit 302 in Benson is no different, and of course I fell for it even before I left the house. Even as I was drawing up the itinerary, I was thinking that this might make a pretty convenient breakfast break. Score one for the rogue marketers of Americana…! I’m a sucker, just like anyone else…!

I stopped in, stretched my tired old legs, shot a few photos, marveled at the ravenous smile and the broken fingertips on the dino, and then went on inside to grab a bite of breakfast. It was only then that I realized just how effective these sorts of pandering props can be; half of Benson also happened to be alighting at this particular McDonald’s, grabbing breakfast bites of their own. The line was pretty lengthy, and showed painfully few signs of moving particularly quickly. I made my way back to the roadway, where I could restore my (increasingly hungry and uncomfortable) solace. 

 

Clockwise from left: T-Rex guarding the entrance to a McDonald’s; Amtrak station, vintage signage, and artwork, Bisbee, Arizona.

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 8:49 am

Benson is an old railroad town that is currently a bit of an RV haven. Naturally, there’s a lot of agriculture and rail history there; I stopped in at the old train station (the current visitors’ center) to check it all out. Luckily, there was an Amtrak passenger express parked on the ramp; that presented a photo-op that was far too good to pass up. The lady inside marveled at my postcard purchasing power. When it comes to scooping up piles of postcards, I always aim to impress.

 

Benson Skatepark

 

The Benson skatepark was pretty fun. Not quite the quality level of the elaborate concrete oases that have spoiled me in and around Phoenix… but for such a small railroad town, it was pretty solid. It was made up of simple skateboard obstacles on a smooth concrete slab; you know, your typical prefab park. But as far as prefab skateparks go, this one was pretty fun times.

The spine alone made my stop well worth the exploration effort. Within a few minutes of parking the car, I had done maybe 20 to 30 rapid-fire tricks on it, and was huffing and puffing my tar-crusted lungs out. As I stood there frantically trying to catch my escaping breath, I started to wonder how long it’s been since I’ve transferred a spine? Ruffling through the fogginess of my distant memory banks, I realized that I was unable to recall when that “last time” might have been. I also decided that there’s no better time then the present to give those a whirl. So, I scooted off to do another 20-30 rapid-fire spine transfers, just to re-acquaint myself with the long lost concept.

It didn’t take too long to get all sweaty and stinky from my hurried skating efforts. I thought that was a damn pretty spiffy way to start a weekend skating adventure.

 

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 9:40 am

St. David is a quick, scenic, peaceful drive south from Benson. After all that quick-hit skateboarding, I deftly decided that I could just as easily use a quick-hit breather break.

Pulling into the driveway of the monastery, I was suddenly awash in darkly beautiful, real-life movie scenes that might have fit well into a religiously inclined Tim Burton movie. Spooky, leafless trees with bent and broken limbs pointed the way to the monastery book store, and the giant cross that towers above the scenescape next door.

As I got out of my car and stood in the shadow of the cross to frame up a few photos, I suddenly heard a herd of screeching, loud “caw-caaaaaawwww!” squeals emanating from the trees surrounding me. I looked high and low all around, but saw nothing that i would consider particularly unusual, or too terribly out of place. Whatever it was that was making its presence loudly heard and physically felt, it was elusively insuring that it could not, or would not, be easily seen.

The bookstore was a trip. Many strange and unusual things for sale, representing dozens of patron saints. I bought a couple of souvenirs that featured prayers from the Patron Saint of Traveling, and the Patron Saint of Rheumatoid Arthritis. That was pretty funny; the Patron Saint of Predicting the Near Future must have told these people that a rapidly aging skater was going to be stopping by to pay them a visit. The postcards were a dollar apiece, though. That’s tantamount to highway robbery in the postcard-purchasing world, where most can be grabbed for four or five for a dollar. The Patron Saint of Cheap Tightwads must have been either running late, or wasn’t welcomed on the premises.

It was only after I went back outside, and hopped the small wall surrounding the giant cross to shoot a few more photos that I finally ran headlong into the culprit of my loud, caw-cawwing mystery: a large, aloof, and remarkably tame and unaffected peacock. A peacock! Yes! You read that correctly. Why in the world a peacock would be wandering the grounds of a monastery in southern Arizona remains a baffling mystery to me- a mystery that I made no effort whatsoever to resolve in the haze of the moment. I was far too busy being stunned and surprised to worry too much about solving such obscure mysteries.

The peacock turned around, stared at me impatiently in a “Hey, chump, follow me for a minute” sort of manner, and made its way… with curious me in tow… over to the meditation garden. There, hidden in plain sight among the tall trees and the reflecting pool, were more peacocks. Lots and lots of peacocks. A small army of them. None of them seemed too surprised at my presence; if anything, they seemed rather surprised that I was actually surprised by their presence. They seemed to note that I had a camera… again, nothing too terribly surprising to them… and made great pains to prance around, looking photogenic, as if they were posing for my benefit. So, I shot a few dozen photos. I certainly didn’t want to leave them disappointed.

 

Left to right: The entrance to monastery spookville; 70-foot-high Celtic Cross; one of the many peacocks wandering the monastery grounds. St. David, Arizona.

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 11:49 am

The strange stories never seem to end. I stopped in to the Cochese County Museum for a quick look around before I had lunch across the street at The Railroad Dining Car. The museum was small, but immensely informative and educational. There was a lot to absorb, with a clear factoid-focus on the native Indian tribes, and the atrocities that our Caucasian ancestry collectively committed against them.

Hidden in a tiny cove in the center of the museum was a mysterious exhibit about a Martin PBM Mariner that emergency-landed on the dry lake bed south of Willcox at the height of World War II. “PBM takes off from desert”, the headline boasted, relaying the story of the unfortunate flying boat that was forced down due to a broken oil line that resulted in an engine failure. Named “The Mirage of Willcox Lake”, the PBM was stripped of all military equipment, repaired, lifted onto wheeled beaching gear, and flown off the lake bed, a takeoff that “is believed to be the first of its kind on aviation history”.

 

Clockwise from left: The Cochese County Museum; Martin PBM, illustration by the author; “The Mirage of Willcox Lake”, preparing to take off; the headline in the museum display. Willcox, Arizona.

 

The dry lake bed where it all happened. Welcome to the literal middle nowhere. Willcox, Arizona.

 

 

Clockwise from left: “The Railroad Dining Car”, aka, Big Tex BBQ; inside the rail car; this was well worth starving all morning for; deep-fried cream corn (yes, I’m totally serious), and boy, it was f’n yummy; the historic train depot. Willcox, Arizona.

 

Murals. Willcox, Arizona.

 

As I was buying more postcards for my growing collection, the caretaker and I engaged in some small talk. She asked me where I was from, what in the world I was doing in Willcox? You know, the usual queries. When I replied that I was on a solo skateboarding tour, she looked at me forlornly.

“Man, I wish we had a skatepark in Willcox! Give the kids sumthin’ to do…!”

“Ummmm… well… you actually do have one. Right here, in Willcox. That’s why I’m here. To check out your skatepark, and to document it.”

She suddenly looked, like, so incredibly disgusted. “Awww, that little thang? That ain’t nuttin’!”

Turns out, she was right.

 

Willcox Skatepark

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 1:20 pm

It’s 1:20 Saturday afternoon, and I just found the coolest f’n thing ever. It’s a little ditch that I damn near dove right by as I was making my way back to the interstate. It starts really mellow, gradually gets a lot steeper, and features a grindable lip on one side. The grindable lip… get this shit… is already broken in! We’ve got some really cool kids in this town, somewhere. The line that I had to take to get to that grindable wall is a little bit weird… you have to dodge a bunch of reflector poles to get to it… but it was still the find of the day. Way better than that next-to-useless Willcox skatepark, that’s for damned sure.

 

Left: the find of the day; Right: RV park advertisement, illustration by the author. Willcox, Arizona.

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 2:51 pm

As I drove south, I sauntered past the abandoned airfields at Elfrida and McNeal. Arizona is littered with abandoned auxiliary [emergency] airfields, the leftovers of the sprawling WWII war effort. Many of these airfields were simply written off, and left to bake away in the harsh desert sun; over the years, the tar has literally melted out of the asphalt, leaving behind the raw aggregate and indefinitely-defined triangles of the former runways. A keen and educated eye in the head of a certifiable geek can spot these from a mile away. As a result, I spent a lot of time spotting old runways on my way to Douglas.

The modern-day, fancy-sounding Bisbee-Douglas International Airport is the former Douglas AAF base, where WWII-era B-25 pilots got their flight training during the war before heading off to bomb and strafe the living daylights out of Hitler, Mussolini, or Tojo. Today, a large part of the airport is leased by the Arizona Department of Corrections to house high-risk prisoners. That led to my immediate doubts about getting onto the old base. Security had to be pretty high around those parts, I thought to myself. But I am an airplane geek through and through, so I figured it was worth a shot in the dark anyway.

Turns out, you can drive straight onto the property, no problem at all. Yes, it is an “international airport” by name, but not so much by appearances. There were a few single-engined private airplanes on the flight line, including an out-of-place crop duster, and a few that looked like they should belong to enterprising drug cartels. Off in the distance, the US Army had a few temporary hangars guarding something that didn’t feel like getting shot or detained over, so I steered pretty clear of them. Everything seemed eerily surreal and creepy. And then, it got even better.

Douglas AAF is one of the few air bases where towering remnants of the war effort still stand. Namely, a massive array of old foundations… concrete slabs that once supported barracks, administrative offices, mess halls, and lavatories… while off at the north end of the complex, along the old runways, four huge hangars dominated the horizon, standing strong, just waiting for the ghost of a returning Mitchell to come home to roost. The wind has blown away bits of the sheet-metal sheathing over the decades, leaving the wooden framework exposed to the elements. These hulking hangars have been standing at their lonely guard, after all, for a long, long time.

 

Clockwise from top: hangars that used to house B-25s stand their silent ground (that’s a prison, off to the right); vintage Apache Air Lines logo found on one of the old hangars, illustration by the author; the camper out on the range; another lonely ghost of the war effort. Douglas AAF, Douglas, Arizona.

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 3:32 pm

Douglas, Arizona is, technically speaking, a border town. As such, I expected something that resembled Little Mexico- just like many border towns do. It completely surprised me when I pulled into the city limits, and found a small metropolis that looked much more like a Midwestern farm-field main street, complete with tree-lined boulevards and a small-town theater hosting a squad of Porsche Speedster enthusiasts out on a Saturday club excursion. It felt totally foreign, but in an altogether unanticipated way. This wasn’t little Mexico at all; this was much more akin to something that resembled, and felt like… well, home.

 

Clockwise from top left: The former Douglas International Airport; F-16 on a pedestal at 8th Street Park, Porsche 356 Speedster, illustration by the author. Douglas, Arizona.

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 3:52 pm

Okay, I’m here at the Douglas skatepark. Here’s a few quick-hit notes for Jeff Concrete Disciples: it’s right next to the police station. It is lit. There are bathrooms, and they are open. But the park looks much, much better from the satellite than it does once you’re standing here on the ground. It’s a cross between a midrange-to-badly-executed Skatewave steel prefab park, and a horrendously executed, built-by-rank-amateurs, concrete craphole. Clearly, the concrete portion was not designed, nor built, by professionals, or anybody that had any idea what in the hell they were doing. It is very bad, with lots of kinks, lots of transitions that are not quite round, and not quite elliptical, but sort of… well, sucky. I would say they are “DIY-jersey-barrier-kinky”, which is a great quality for DIY jersey barriers to have, but not so much for skateparks. The coping sits on top of the ledges, not embedded in them, but some of the concrete ramps have obvious lumps embedded in those that are best avoided. I’m not sure who’s responsible for this shit-show disaster… but somebody, somewhere, wasted a whole buncha money on this thing.

 

Douglas Skatepark

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 5:00 pm

Bisbee’s skatepark wasn’t really a whole lot better than Douglas’ was. It’s basically a very street setup with some quarterpipes at one end that are kinky as hell. The street stuff looked pretty legit, though; a kid with block and ledge skills would probably love this place. I did manage to finally meet a local skater here in Bisbee, though, after skating all day long, all by my lonesome. He was friendly as hell, too; he jumped right out of his car and practically ran me down to compliment me on the Dogtown Bulldog model I was carrying back to my car after I was done skating and shooting a few photos. It’s always nice to be complimented for having great taste in shred sleds. 

 

Bisbee Skatepark

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 5:30 pm

“Visiting Erie Street is like walking into a 1950s post-apocalyptic landscape. From all that is immediately apparent, it could have been abandoned in a hurry and forgotten for half a century. Rusting cars, trucks, and an old Greyhound bus sit deserted along the street as if their passengers had suddenly vanished (or worse).

Erie Street is most of what is left of Lowell, Arizona, a mining town incorporated into Bisbee in the early 1900s. Much of the town’s residential area was demolished to widen an open pit copper mine. Losing most of its residents caused the commercial district to struggle, and many businesses failed as a result. Today, the street’s special curiosities include a Harley Davidson repair shop with a now-defunct gas pump and Sprouse Reitz Co., a department store that is nearly empty except for a few appliances and a whole pile of manikin parts.

Despite appearing untouched since its decline, further investigation reveals that Erie Street is continually restored by a vibrant and passionate community of residents and volunteers who want to remember a different America. So although you can no longer see a show at Lowell’s movie theater or pay $0.22 for gasoline, the Lowell Americana Project has made it possible to experience the street as a living snapshot of another time. And not everything on Erie Street is purely decorative—visit the Bisbee Breakfast Club for an excellent Huevos Rancheros.”

– from Roadside America (www.roadsideamerica.com)

 

I pulled into Lowell just as the sun was starting to set behind the mountains to the immediate west. It was a ghostly place, completely abandoned, minus the few tourists that were slowly milling about, taking it all in, and quietly snapping photos. Yet the remnants were all still there, freshly tidied and organized, as if the whole town had been happily inhabited the day before. Clean, classic cars lined the street on both sides, while showroom windows touted the brand new, ’58 Harley Davidson collection. There was a young model sitting on the hood of one of the cars, being energetically photographed by some chap that looked like he may have been her manager or her handler, helping her to get her first big break so that she can blow outta Dodge and find fame and fortune out on the dusty horizon somewhere. Lowell’s main drag might have been a mere quarter mile long, but it is stacked full of retro eye-candy treasures that had almost no business at all being there.

Some tourists are real dumbfucks. As we were all strolling around, respectfully staying out of each other’s way (and out of each other’s camera view finders), some certifiable shit-for-brains decided to roll down the street in his brand-new GMC Tahoe at .005 mph with his whole stupid family, gawking at everything up and down the street from the creature comforts of his moron-sized sport utility tank. Most people park up in the parking lot at the head of the street, and walk down the main drag, so as to not spoil everybody’s photo ops with late-model luxury that would appear in everybody’s photographs, and look horrendously out of place. But not this dumbwitted chap. He was far too lazy, and way too clueless to care much about anybody else but himself. It took him a whole half an hour of precious sunset to get his stupid ass out of the way of everybody else’s enjoyment. Fuckos like this should really be banned from tourist attractions. All they ever do is wreck life for everybody else.

 

Clockwise from top left: ’58 Harley in an Erie Street showroom window; the Lavender Pit, an open-pit remnant of Bisbee’s mining history (that’s the town of Lowell way off in the distance); Erie Street in Lowell; 1953 Ford F-100, illustration by the author; an errant Continental Divide marker; The Fuzz serves and protects a restored gas station on Erie Street. Bisbee, Arizona.

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 6:20 pm

“There is a Continental Divide marker in the small town of Bisbee. Its high and lonely spot along Old Divide Road seems like it should be the top of Arizona, but its placement doesn’t tell the whole story of Mule Pass.

When the road over Mule Pass was built in 1913 and 1914, it was done by prison labor. The stubby concrete obelisk that marks the pass was placed here partly to proclaim that fact, as well as memorialize the triumph of pavement over nature. But for some reason the marker added another claim: that Mule Pass was right on top of the Continental Divide, the invisible line separating the watersheds of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

That line, however, lies about 120 miles to the east, along a low rise in New Mexico. Whether they flow west into the San Pedro River or east into Whitewater Draw, the rains that fall on Mule Pass both eventually empty out into the Sea of Cortez, and onto the Pacific Ocean.

Bisbee, Arizona, is a former boom-town that nearly went bust, just down the road from the more famous Tombstone. This small mining community once pulled millions of dollars out of the ground, and until the Mule Pass Tunnel (which runs through the mountain down underneath the marker) was completed in the 1950s, the ride up and over the winding switchbacks of the Mule Mountains was the only way into town from Tucson or Tombstone.

History hasn’t preserved how or why the erroneous Continental Divide claim came to be memorialized at Mule Pass, but the roadside pull-off is still worth a stop—whether you are looking to the east at Bisbee’s Tombstone Canyon, gazing west out over the San Pedro Valley toward the Huachuca Mountains, or simply contemplating geography errors.”

– from Roadside America (www.roadsideamerica.com)

 

Clockwise from top left: The Shady dell’s front office; the business end of a recently acquired vintage Cadillac; the living manikin that scared the shit straight outta me (I thought he was fake, at first glance; apparently that’s a common assumption that he just loves taking full advantage of); 1935 Chevrolet Master Deluxe on Erie Street, illustration by the author; a beautifully restored (and completely functional) Valentine Diner at The Shady Dell. Everything that is cool and retro, lives here. Bisbee, Arizona.

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 7:15 pm

I was one hell of a starvin’ Marvin. All I really wanted was a sandwich. Just a simple sandwich. What I got was a waitress with billowing mammaries falling out of her tightly-clinched corset. All of a sudden, I completely forgot what in the world I came in here for.

Tombstone is a western costume town. Everybody’s job is to look like the 1800’s all day, every day, and stage mock gunfights for the benefit of the play prostitutes, and the real-life nuclear families and modern-day motorcycle outlaws that serve as their loyal customer base. After work, everybody stays put in their costumes and in their characters, and heads over to Big Nose Kate’s Saloon or The Crystal Palace for a pint of their favorite spirits, and some raucously loud entertainment. Big Nose Kate’s was way too loud and far too crowded for my solitary tastes, so I opted for the slightly less hectic atmosphere of The Crystal Palace. All I really wanted was a simple sandwich, and some peace and ever-lovin’ quiet. I found neither of the above in Tombstone.

Sluts in the 1800’s, though… holy wow. Hookers back then had some high style and class. They had to; they ran shit like the bosses they were back then. The character ladies of modern-day Tombstone kept the fire of fashionable sensuality alive and well. My waitress at The Crystal Palace was a total knockout. She may well have been the single most vivid memory of my entire trip.

I ended up getting a burger. They didn’t have sandwiches there.

 

 

Saturday, March 17th, 2018, 8:45 pm

In November of 1846, the so-called Mormon Battalion encountered wild cattle along the banks of the San Pedro River. Aroused by the invaders, several bulls charged the column, tipping over wagons and killing two mules and injuring two soldiers. Stunned by the aggressive nature of the beasts, the soldiers loaded their rifles and charged the chargers, killing between 10 and 15 of the wild cattle. The soldiers sarcastically named the encounter the “Battle of the Bulls.”

This is where I was supposed to sleep on Saturday night: in the lush, green valley that had once been the scene of a violent cattle rebellion. Problem was, my tired mind was totally mistaken on where the road to my campsite should have been, verses where the road really was. It was only after I had already pulled out of Tombstone, dodged a couple of Border Patrol checkpoints, made my way into the blackness of the open desert, and drove a solid twenty to thirty miles that I realized that I was hopelessly and stupidly lost.

I had options, of course. I could shell out my left arm and cough up the duckets for a legitimate campsite in an overcrowded RV Park. I could park out in the boonies, and run the risk of getting busted by the Border Patrol. Or, I could do what I ended up doing: driving back to Tombstone, and alighting in the parking lot behind a Dollar General.

It wasn’t the prettiest of campsites, to be sure. But it did the job, and did it pretty darned well.

 

 

Sunday, March 18th, 2018, 7:23 am

“There are only a few wooden headstones, and only a handful of these have clever sayings. ‘Here lies Lester Moore, Four slugs from a .44, No Les, No more’ is the most quoteworthy. The Boot Hill gift shop sells miniatures of it as a ceramic bank.

Burials here were quick. A shallow grave was scratched into the cement-like soil, a wood casket was set into the depression, and rocks were overlaid to keep out the coyotes.

Boot Hill was pretty much shut down after 1884, restored in the 1930s, and hasn’t changed much since. It’s a crumbly, crunchy, dun-colored, sun-bleached, southern Arizona slope with slippery footing, lots of body-length piles of rocks, and some prickly pear and agave to hold the dead in place.

It’s a graveyard that every tourist in America should visit, but you’ll enjoy your visit more if you remember that it was designed for corpses, and that colorful Boot Hill characters such as Bronco Charley, Stinging Lizard, and 3-Fingered Jack Dunlap really weren’t poisoned, hanged, shot, stabbed, blown up, run over by wagons, or ambushed by Indians for your entertainment…”

– from Roadside America (www.roadsideamerica.com)

 

It’s far too early for such bright sunshine. I woke up at 7 am sharp… just a little too sharp for my liking… kicked open the rear door of the camper to take my morning pee, and was immediately engulfed in 150-spf bright sunlight. Holy shit, it made my eyes blind, my feeble brain bleed, and my poor, tired old head pound. I had to claw at the doorway to find my slippers, and at my trousers to find my wee little willy. It may have been the most brutal wake-up alarm I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

Thirty minutes later, after running the gauntlet of a few dozen motorcyclists to grab some gas and a Big Gulp of caffeine at the Circle K, I was standing reasonably solidly at the entrance to the Boot Hill Graveyard on the outskirts of Tombstone. It’s a creepy way to begin the day, wandering around the tombstones, having a laugh at the victim’s unfortunate demises, and the witty, understated simplicity of the headstone summaries. Everybody died with their boots on, thus the graveyard name. The “accidentally hung” headstones were my personal favorites. Hanging is a pretty elaborate process; you’d think that there would be more than ample time to get stuff nailed down just right before we start stringing up necks, but apparently not so much in Old Western Arizona. Maybe people just didn’t think quick enough in old Tombstone. Or maybe, like, me, they were suffering from miserable, bright-sunlight-induced migraines, and just couldn’t muster the mojo to sort things all the way out. I was already living that struggle, so I knew just how real it could be.

 

Clockwise from top left: Welcome to The Creeper Zone; buy your deathly souvenir here; horse-drawn buggy in Benson, Arizona, illustration by the author; the famous Birdcage Theater; here lies Les Moore; beware all intruders (and tourists with fat wallets); Boothill Graveyard overview; The Miner Shak at Old Tombstone, illustration by the author. Tombstone, Arizona.

 

 

Left: the art deco facade of the Cochese County Courthouse; “Not very large, but we’d marked this for investigation because of the distorted body and the plaque dedicating it to ‘those virile men,’ the copper miners. A local artist was paid $180 in 1935 to make the copper-covered, bare-chested figure”; Roadside America’s users describe an unusually erotic manument. Bisbee, Arizona.

 

Sunday, March 18th, 2018, 10:20 am

This is the best story of the whole trip, right here. Guaranteed.

I was driving through Palominas this morning, making my way from Bisbee up to Sierra Vista along AZ 92, just a few miles north of The Border, when I made a quick diversion over to an old abandoned auxiliary airfield up in Hereford. Hereford was an emergency landing strip for those B-25s that were stationed over at Douglas AAF, and it was only two miles away from the main highway, so I figured that a quick leg-stretching exploration might be just what The Doctor and The Airplane Geek in me ordered. I barged right in to the housing development… Hereford has been recycled into some sort of suburban-style ranch community… drove straight up the former airstrip (it’s now a road through the development), and parked on the old tarmac while I shot a few photos of the last remaining hangar on the site. It only took a few minutes out of my hectic schedule, but it totally satisfied the nerd that lives, and lives quite well, inside of me.

As I was making my hurried way back to the main drag to continue my skate-day, I drove over a long bridge and immediately spotted something concrete-colored down in the craggy wash underneath. “What in the world is that…?!”, I loudly wondered over my breath to myself, and immediately started standing all over the brakes to whoa ol’ nelly down. I parked the car-and-camper combo as far off to the side of the road as I could safely manage, hurriedly grabbed my board, and pushed my big ‘ol butt right back to the overpass to investigate.

 

 

I simply could not believe what I was seeing. Down in the wash was one of the most elaborate ditch complexes I’ve ever laid my eyeballs upon. It was a solid six feet deep, with a massive rollout deck on the top of one side, hips all over the place, and… get this! Totally skateable pyramids at either end of the rollout deck. It was entirely possible to do a trick up and off the pyramids, and roll down into the ditch; you’d almost swear to God that this place was purpose-engineered for skateboarding. There were wheel tracks all over the place, too; clearly, the few kids in this town (that skate) know what’s up, and have this place at the top of their go-to lists. I can see why. It immediately made my go-to list as well. This was the most fun I’ve had all weekend. Hell, maybe the most fun I’ve had all year.

And it’s all because that nerd that lives, and lives remarkably well in me wanted to check out an old abandoned airfield. Score a big one for the skater squares of the world…!

 

Clockwise from upper left: crumbling hangars at Hereford Auxiliary Airfield (now an upscale ranch housing development), Palominas, Arizona; Shrine of Our Lady of the Sierras, near Miracle Valley, Arizona; Asa A. Allen’s abandoned legacy, Miracle Valley, Arizona; propane tank art at Sonoita Propane Company, Sonoita, Arizona; another one bites the dust, Sierra Vista, Arizona;  Sonoita Propane Company propane tank cowboy, illustration by the author.   

 

Sunday, March 18th, 2018, 12:03 pm

It’s 12:03, and I’m at Sierra Vista skatepark. It’s concrete, it is lit, and I do see bathrooms here. Tony’s Board Shop used to be right next door to the park, serving up fresh decks, snacks, and sugary soft drinks; the mural on the wall says that it was painted in 2015, but Tony’s appears to be long, long gone. It looks like there might have been another shop that was in there called “Sk8 48” at some point, probably Tony’s similarly failed successor. There was only one kid at the skatepark. Once again, I practically had the whole place to myself.

 

 

Two views of the Sierra Vista Skatepark

 

As I left the skatepark and started making my way back to Highway 90, lightning managed to strike thrice. For the third time this weekend, some concrete-colored contraption caught my peripheral eye as I was driving down the road, and I squealed the camper-combo to a screeching halt in order to hop out and investigate. And yes, once again, a huge ditch complex of immense proportions greeted me warmly, as if it too had been waiting on some skater, somewhere, to stumble upon its shredding potential. My good fortune really bowls me over sometimes. This weekend is as good as it’s ever been, no doubt about it.

 

Wistful daydreaming. The Sierra Vista ditch, right up the street from the skatepark, illustration by yours truly. 

 

 

Sunday, March 18th, 2018, 12:25 pm

Huachuca City is just a few miles up the road from Sierra Vista. Surprisingly, they also have a skatepark within the city limits. I’m not sure why they felt like they needed one, because Sierra Vista is so close… but, hey, I’m not one to complain about having too much stuff to skate, and neither should you. To call Huachuca City a “city”, however, is a horrendous overstatement; the whole town might be a mile long, at the very most, and is really no more than a collection of houses and gas stations at a prominent crossroads in the middle of nowheresville. Believe it or not, the mellow-transitioned steel mini ramp was actually a lot of fun. Hot as hell to the point of scorching your skin off when you fell on it… but as long as you could manage to stay on your feet, it really wasn’t too damned shabs.

 

Huachuca City Skatepark

 

Sunday, March 18th, 2018, 2:03 pm

Sadly, I’m at the very last skate stop of my weekend-warrior tour in Nogales, Arizona. Nogales is almost exactly what I imagined Douglas would be like (but wasn’t); a typical border town that looked much more like Mexico than anything you would expect to find in America.

The Nogales skatepark was surprisingly solid. The mini-ramp was damn near perfect; if my knee wasn’t swelling up so damn bad from the weekend-long festival of frantic overexertion, I might have stayed and skated it a lot longer, maybe even moved there permanently. Alas, my old age demands short skate sessions, or it will make me suffer by paying me back in spades for the next week and a half.

The rest of the park had some strange peculiarities. Transitions that didn’t quite blend well with the flatbottom, narrow walkway ramps with handrails on both sides, manny pads littered with obstructions; by the looks of the BMXer that was casually cruising around, it looked fairly bike-friendly… but, skate-friendly? Not quite as much.

But that mini-ramp, man, whew. That thing was to die for.  

 

Nogales Skatepark

 

 

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The Introduction, March 2018
By Bud Stratford
Tuesday, February 20th, 2018

 

During the course of planning and preparing the March issue of Everything Skateboarding, I quickly (and quietly) decided that the theme of this issue should be the “Spotlight On The Skateshop”. There were a few inspirations for this that all came together in a flurry throughout January and February, that ultimately led to my decision. That’s where I’m gonna start my introduction this month.

The biggest inspiration was obviously my Summer Camper Tour 2016/2017 , which is represented on Everything Skateboarding by January’s Tucson article and February’s Buckeye article. Having finally finished those two pieces, I started to round up the rest of the unpublished (and previously published) Summer Camper Tour Reports for the April issue (which will be christened “The Travel Issue”, naturally enough).

 

Art by March’s Featured Artist, Keith Harder. Read more about Keith elsewhere in this issue.

 

Through the course of my summer travels, I made several firsthand observations that struck me as critical not only to our communities, but also to our industry. I saw a direct and irrefutable correlation between a failing industry, and a failing skate shop infrastructure. I traveled through communities that had lost their local brick-and-mortar retailer, and I felt the crushing lack of energy and inspiration in those communities. I also experienced some pretty lackluster skate shops that left me un-energized, un-inspired, and depressed. It really wasn’t the best of summers in that regard. That’s when I realized that something… anything… had to be done. And done very, very quickly. We’re losing far too many shops, far too fast. And everybody shares in the blame for that. Including the shops themselves.

 

“Through the course of my summer travels, I made several firsthand observations that struck me as critical not only to our communities, but also to our industry. I saw a direct and irrefutable correlation between a failing industry, and a failing skate shop infrastructure.”

 

I also suspected that The Industry wasn’t going to be in any position to demonstrate any real leadership on this issue. Let alone, to do anything to effectively address it. This industry is pretty fucked right now. I don’t think they could navigate themselves out of a wet paper sack, let alone do anything meaningful to address such a pertinent, persistent, and hopelessly widespread industry issue as the current struggles, and the future standing, of an entire industry infrastructure.

Nope. It was gonna have to be up to us, The Media, to do something about it. I had no idea what we could really do, of course. We don’t exactly have unlimited means over here to work with. On the other hand: doing anything is better than doing nothing at all. It was time to suck it up, go for the gusto, and fucking wing it. If I’m good at anything at all, then I’m pretty good at that.

If we could do nothing else, we could at least instigate some shit. We could discuss the issues, and guide the conversation. And we could demand change. We might not have many tools at our fingertips, but we’ll always have our voices and our keyboards. Sometimes, that’s all you really need to make a difference in this world.

 

 

In this issue, Everything Skateboarding is laying down the gauntlet across the whole industry. We’re demanding that IASC and BRA work together in some meaningful, mutually beneficial manner, and to launch an initiative directly aimed at shoring up our retail infrastructure. We’re challenging them to recognize the brick-and-mortar as critical (and irreplaceable) industry infrastructure, and to say so publicly. We’re also calling on brands to immediately implement sensible MSRP’s (Manufacturers Suggested Retail Prices) into their DTC (Direct To Consumer) ambitions, in order to protect retailer margins. That is far, far overdue already. Patiently waiting forever and a day for meaningful change to happen, is doing nothing at all to hasten it. The time for tangible action is now.

 

“We’re challenging [IASC] to recognize the brick-and-mortar as critical (and irreplaceable) industry infrastructure, and to say so publicly.”

 

We’re also challenging shops to do a far better job than they’re doing at building truly energized, grassroots skate communities. We’re challenging those same shops to organize themselves (by any means necessary), and to work together toward common goals. We’re still calling for a Free-To-Join Skateshop Coalition; we published that piece in January, and we are sticking to it harder than ever. It’s just too good of an idea to pass up. But most of all, we’re calling on shops to do a far better job than they’re doing of caring for the customer (and the potential customer), as evidenced by Claudia’s “Let’s Talk Shop” piece last month, and my “Five Things Every Shop Should Be Doing Right Now (But Aren’t)” piece this month.

This is an issue that is going to require all hands on deck to solve. If we do not show some leadership and some initiative, we will lose the critical industry infrastructure that is the brick-and-mortar, core retailer. I spent a lot of my summer experiencing with my own eyes, ears, and heart what happens when a skate shop fails. A skateboarding dead zone of Armageddon proportions ensues. It’s already happening; the nightmare is already unfolding, and fast. If we don’t stop it soon, our scenes and our industry will suffer a train wreck of consequences that may take years, decades perhaps, to fully undo and put back onto the rails. And nobody with a fraction of a brain in their heads wants that.

 

“We’re also challenging shops to do a far better job than they’re doing at building truly energized, grassroots skate communities.”

 

Lastly: it’s up to the consumer to be the final arbitrator in this debate. If you have a good, solid, customer-friendly, and activist skate shop, please… support the hell out of that shop. Even if it means voicing your concerns or your unhappiness with the status quo… that’s still a sign of support, as harsh as it may feel at first glance.

At the very least, it’s a sign that you care about the future of the core retailer. I’m not sure that we can ask for much more than that.

Best regards, as always-

Bud Stratford,
Executive Director,
Everything Skateboarding.

 

?>

I’m going to start this off the only way I know how: brutally and honestly. I‘m biased as hell. I’m also probably horrendously out of touch. As a middle-aged, graying fatass, I’m definitely not the go-to expert on social media trends. That’s okay, though, because I can always minimize my aged inexperience by relying on some tried-and-true, time-tested habits. Namely, by “doing the research”, and taking careful note of what the real experts of the world are saying.

I’m the ultimate by-product of the mass-media paradigm. That’s probably where the bulk of my personal bias originates. When I started skateboarding (way back in the ‘80s), there was no such thing as “social media”. Believe it or not, there wasn’t even an internet. Our “social media” was hanging out after class with our friends, bullshitting. Passing notes in class. Or, meeting at the skateshop, the skatepark, the local ramp, or the curb up the street. My generation’s “social media” was strictly analog. We didn’t have a choice. That’s just the way it was.

 

Art by this month’s Featured Artist, Keith Harder. 

 

Likewise, the mass media itself was similarly analog, and pretty strictly defined in scope and context. “Media”, as it existed in 1989, was either TransWorld SKATEboarding, or Thrasher. Two paper magazines: that was almost the entirety of the skateboard media at the time. Videos were still pretty new; those had only come out in ’86, and they were still a really exciting novelty. There were only a few videos released every year, so they were still a really big deal. And then, we had the fringe elements of the independent media: ‘zines. The fuck-all, do-it-yourself, cut-and-paste, small-format, black-and-white, photocopied versions of TransWorld and Thrasher.

That was it. That was the entirety of the media landscape in 1989.

 

“Facebook was in the news again recently following reports that it has been seeing a ‘context collapse’ on social media – a trend whereby users are becoming less likely to post or share things related to their personal lives (e.g. photos, status updates etc).” 

                                  – From blog.globalwebindex.net

 

Fast forward to 2018, and we now have a dizzying array of media, quite literally, at our fingertips. There are more “skate videos” released in a single fleeting second these days, than there were in all of calendar year 1989. There are hundreds of dedicated websites, thousands of blogs, and billions of social media tidbits out there, all ready and breathlessly waiting to be consumed by the skateboarding public.

At the same time, the “traditional skateboard mass media”… again, those stoic old magazines… are either already dead and gone, or slowly dying on the vine. Piles of glossy paper in search of readers that care enough to spend the time, energy, and money to track a paper magazine down, buy it, and patiently browse through it are stacking up in warehouses, stubbornly defying (or denying) irrelevance every single step of the way to nowhere at all. The readers are in numerical decline; caring, time, energy, and money are super-valuable assets these days, and the daily demands for those assets have never been bigger. “Buying a magazine” is the probably very last thing on the laundry list of any kid’s power-purchasing program.

 

“If you haven’t posted anything personal on Facebook (FB, +0.57%) in awhile, you’re not alone. A damning report published by The Information on Thursday revealed that Facebook has been struggling to reverse a 21% decline in “original sharing,” or personal updates, from its 1.6 billion monthly active users. 

This indicates a key vulnerability for the social behemoth, and failed attempts to address it reflect a point I made in a recent column: There’s no guarantee that Facebook’s current winning streak can last.” 

                                                – From www.forbes.com

 

As a result of these trends, the skateboard industry of today has become very narrowly social-media minded. Not that the industry is particularly adept at engaging social media particularly effectively… but at the very least, they are keenly aware of it. And they are putting a lot of time and energy resources into engaging it.

So much so, that it is actually expediting the demise of mass media to the point where “mass media”, as we have traditionally defined it, no longer effectively exists.

 

 

Everything Skateboarding, of course, is an experiment in the validity, and the potential, of modern mass media. Launched at [arguably] the very worst time to engage with such an ambitious paradigm, I have been, at the very kindest, keenly questioned about the wisdom of my intentions; at the very meanest, I’ve been called a goddamned idiot. It certainly seems like a pretty risky (read: stupid) strategy to most people who know far more about it than my feeble mind ever will. So, why would I do it? Why here? And, why now?

Here’s why: social media is not the end-all and be-all of “the perfect media paradigm”. Sure, it has its strengths. And just like anything else in the world, it also has its inherent weaknesses. Yes, it allows anyone and everyone to participate in “being the media”. It is hugely democratic in nature, and it does level the playing field effectively, and significantly. It does engage the consumer in a much more interpersonal, interactive manner. And to be fair, it really is pretty exciting and empowering. The strengths and the possibilities are absolutely undeniable. So of course, I can see why the industry would invest so many resources, so heavily, into cultivating their social media presences. It would be severely stupid not to.

 

“ In April last year, a report published by The Information highlighted a rising problem at Facebook – people weren’t sharing as many personal updates as they used to.

Data obtained by The Information suggested the sharing of personal posts – people’s own thoughts and photos – declined by 21% between mid-2014 and mid-2015, which inspired Facebook to put together a team to tackle what they’d labeled “context collapse”, with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg calling on staff to come up with new ways to inspire more personal sharing.”

 

                                  – From www.socialmediatoday.com

 

However, there are certain weaknesses that the industry has been slow to recognize, let alone adapt to. Social media has a very limited footprint, almost by definition. As a user, I really only hear what my small circle of friends happen to be talking about. This assumes, however, that my friends do a lot of posting, liking, and sharing. It also assumes that jerks like me even have friends, but that’s an altogether different matter. And it also assumes that Facebook’s confounding (and ever-changing) algorithms are going to react and pro-act the way we’d like them to.

Regardless, what happens when those lofty assumptions fail to fully materialize? What happens when the harsh realities of human nature defy the delirious daydreams of techies everywhere…? What happens if my circle of friends gets culled down (either by choice, by circumstance, or by Facebook’s own algorithms), or if my friends begin to get a lot less sociable? What happens when “social media” becomes… egads! Antisocial…?!

 

 

The quotes that I’ve culled off the internet have been included here in order to illustrate something very, very important. Liking, sharing, virtual befriending… these things do not happen nearly as much as the founders, the mass-marketing talking heads, or the professional promotional spokespeople at Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter would love for you to believe.

Quite the opposite is actually true: these things are all in decline, and have been in a slow and steady decline for a few years now. Most impartial social-media industry observers know this as an understated truism, and have been adjusting their media strategies accordingly; the quotes that I’ve included come from articles that were written as far back as 2015.

That means that many of today’s brands are investing more heavily than ever in a paradigm that offers, at the very best, diminishing returns. At the worst? They are investing in a set of assumptions that have proven themselves, over time, to be patently false.

 

Art by this month’s Featured Artist, Keith Harder. 

 

If and when you think about it for a few minutes, it does start to make some reasonable and rational sense. It was bound to happen; the handwriting was on the wall the whole time. How interesting are your friends, really? How fascinating are the tiny, insignificant nuances of their fairly mundane, everyday lives? Do you really give that much of a toss whether they had pizza, pasta, or pork chops for dinner? Do you really value their opinions that much, when it comes to your consumption habits?

And, maybe most importantly: have you ever learned anything on social media that has any intrinsic value whatsoever? Or that ahs had any real, lasting meaning in your life?

If you’re anything like me, then you’re probably thinking that the resultant answers are, in order: Not very, not really, not at all, fuck no, and you know what? You’re right. I haven’t, come to think of it.

And even worse: I would fully expect my friends would say much the same sort of stuff, about me. After all, I’m not exactly “The World’s Most Interesting Asshole” over here, and my mundane day-to-day existence isn’t really any more fascinating than anybody else’s. Which leads me to ask the professional marketers of the world this question: why in the hell are you bothering to market to my friends, in some sad hope of influencing my behavior? And why in the Good Grace of God are you marketing to me, in some misguided attempt at influencing theirs…?

 

 

 

The last thing in the world that I want from my media, is to be told over and over again all the lame and boring shit that I already know, and know all too well. Social media is not, has never been, and will never be “media” at all. It’s a highly efficient and expeditious networking platform… and as such, it does a hell of a grand job. But, media? Media, my friends, it is not.

 

“Currently, 88% of millennials get news from Facebook, and because of the way Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm works, users tend to receive more news stories like the ones they’ve engaged with in the past. This has produced an “echo chamber” effect, where users end up surrounding themselves in news and ideas they already agree with. As there are currently no plans for Facebook or any other major platform to take action in reducing the power of those echo chambers, users will venture deeper into those polarized, abstract social bubbles. This will, in turn, polarize millennial participation in social media; some will become more vocal in posting online, while others may bail on social media entirely to escape these echo chambers.”

 

                                         – From www.forbes.com

 

Media… real, effective media… exists to tell you all about the stuff that you don’t know about already. Media exists to tell your friends about stuff that they don’t know about, either. Media is an information, enlightenment, entertainment, and inspiration exchange, not a social network. Media and Social Networks… note that I have stopped using the hopelessly inaccurate term, “Social Media”, in the balance of this piece… work well when they aid and abet each other. They work well when their respective strengths and weaknesses complement and counterbalance each other. They do not work so well, however, when one completely displaces (and functionally replaces) the other.

 

 

Then, we have the “quality of content” question to consider. That’s an important consideration that social-networking talking heads just love to avoid, because as far as “content” goes, social network sites suck ass, and we all know it. There are no nuanced, long-form think pieces or compelling stories on social networking sites. There are very few quality photos. There is no art direction whatsoever; creativity is severely squandered by the formulaic presentation of social networking interfaces. There is no editing, no critique, no noble challenge… and most telling of all, no demand (or expectation) to curate and/or cultivate media excellence… anywhere in the social networking process.

 

Where else on the internet will you see large-format, animated ads aimed directly at your target market…? The best part about mass media, is that you’re not paying hard dollars to market to your market’s (non-skating) friends, family, and acquaintances. Everything Skateboarding goes one step further, and limits advertisers to core, skater-owned brands; Corporate America isn’t invited to pay or play. That magnifies your advertising effectiveness tremendously by limiting the scope and nature of your advertising competition, and putting your ad in with a core group of elite, extremely relevant, advertisers.

 

To an extent, that is natural and predictable: social networking platforms were never intended to produce, let alone showcase, this sort of high-end media product. They are literally engineered to put a face with a name, along with a few “gee whiz” tidbits of that name’s everyday adventures. But, they badly engage. They barely inform, outside of everyday bullshit. And they rarely inspire. Because that’s not what they exist to do. And it’s not what they were designed to do, either.

 

 

The biggest risk I see to the skateboard industry today, is this wholesale blind faith that the industry places in social networking, to the detriment of traditional mass media. And now, we have a whole generation of brands that don’t have the first, foggiest idea of where to even begin engaging with the [very limited] mass media that remains still standing. Most brand managers and owners have never had to create a compelling advertisement, give an interview, or deal with a persistent journalist hell bent on digging up dirt and talking smack. Most brand managers have never even been in a position where the media has challenged them. Yes: they’ve been challenged by their customers. That’s true. But customers are rank amateurs, when it comes to journalism and media production. Reporters and journalists, on the other hand, are fucking experts at instigating shit. That’s the difference. That’s the challenge that today’s crop of skate hardgoods brands just aren’t ready for.

But, they need to be. Because the mass media will see a resurgence. It’s only a matter of time. And that time is coming fast.

 

 

Everything Skateboarding is a small, but significant, template of what’s to come. As fun as social networking may be, there will be a day and a time when kids will want to step it up a few notches, stretch their creativity legs, challenge their writing and photography skills, work collaboratively with other passionate people, and create something of lasting consequence that they can be proud of. They’ll want to cause some trouble, wreck some shit, and have some real fucking fun with The Media. They’ll want to be idealistic industry players, perhaps even industry spokespeople, not just voiceless anonymous consumers… and starting a mass media portal is an excellent way to do expedite those immensely entertaining ends. Short of owning a skateboard “company” of your own, or owning a skate shop, working in the mass media is probably the third-best option to every kid’s dreams of skateboard-industry inclusion. 

Having owned a company, and having managed a skate shop myself, I can tell you this from personal experience: the mass media dream has been horrendously undersold. Of the three, this is by far the most enjoyable, the most creatively challenging, and the most liberating job that I’ve ever had in skateboarding. And it’s only February, for fuck’s sakes. It’ll only get bigger and better from here. The fact that the internet gives you a global footprint in exchange for a ridiculously low capital barrier-of-entry, and remarkably insignificant expenses, tells me that the small, independent mass media site might well be the next small, independent skateboard company. And we all know how many small, independent skateboard companies there are these days.

That’s why we’re going to see a mass-media resurgence. The barriers of entry are so damn low that anybody can do it, and do it far better than even I can do it Watch out, Industry. I give it five years, tops, until the world is inundated by Everything Skateboarding wannabes.

The industry, of course, will be mortified by all of this. The retailers will be suspicious. The distributors will be indifferent, as they usually are. But the little kids with big dreams, as always, will be the final arbitrators of what goes, and what doesn’t, on this battlefront. If you’re pretty handy with a keyboard, a camera, a few lines of slick computer programming, some video editing software, and the telling of a funny story or an ass-kicking opinion- then the dream can be yours, and yours pretty quickly. Best of luck to everyone involved, because you’re all gonna need it.

If you need a helping hand navigating The New Mass Media headspace, drop me a line. I might be a ginormous jerk, but I’m a heck of a lot nicer than the next generation is gonna be. You can mark my words on that, and take the smart money straight to the bank. It’s time to get mass-media minded (again). See ya next month, now go skate…

 

Bud Stratford, Executive Director, Everything Skateboarding

 

 

?>

The Newsletter is here to keep everyone in the Phoenix skate scene up-to-date and in-the-know about upcoming events and happenings. Below, you’ll find the February and March community calendar with detailed information about each event. If you have an event you’d like to add (or corrections for any of the events below), please e-mail the information to budstratford@aol.com. Thanks for supporting your local skate scene, and your local skate shops…!

 

 

 

Every Sunday morning at 9am:
Sunday Morning Mass
At various local skateparks, 9am every Sunday
(Typically Foothills/Union Hills Skatepark, 5752 W Union Hills Drive, Glendale, AZ 85308)
Contact: Prevent This Tragedy or Adam Richards on Facebook

Skaters of all ages congregate at local area skateparks every Sunday morning in and around
Phoenix. Free for anyone to come, skate, and have fun.

 

Every Wednesday, 3 pm – 6pm, and 6 pm – 9pm:
All-Girls Skate Session
91 West Skatepark
8550 N 91st Ave, Unit 54,
Peoria, AZ 85345
Phone: (623) 236-3033

Open to all girl skaters, $5 per participant, this is a chance for girls of all ages to skate together. Air conditioned comfort in the summer is an added bonus.

 

Every Thursday, 7 pm to 9 pm, $11.00:
Old-School Skate Night
Kids That Rip (aka KTR)
1927 N Gilbert Rd, Mesa, AZ 85203
Phone: (480) 844-9600

Open to all skaters, $11 per participant, 7-9 pm every Thursday.

 

Every Friday Night, 7 am to midnight, Free:
Friday Night Sessions at Gobber’s
Contact: Chris Gobber via Facebook

Free weekly skate session at Chris Gobber’s private backyard skatepark. Happens most Fridays. You must do this at least once, or you just haven’t lived. Fun for all ages and abilities. Friend him on Facebook to get updates and an invite.

 

 

 

 

Cowtown Skateboards and Vans Presents:
PHXAM 2018
Saturday, March 24th, 2018 through Sunday, March 25th, 2018
Desert West Skateboard Plaza,
6602 W Encanto Blvd, Phoenix, AZ 85035
10 am Saturday, 11 am Sunday, $10 to attend both days
(or see the live webcast at www.PHXAM.com)

Cowtown Skateboards is as proud as ever to bring you the hottest (maybe literally?) amateur contest in skateboarding, PHXAM 2018 presented by Vans! The best Ams in the world will be rolling out to Phoenix’s original skatepark, Desert West Skateboard Plaza on March 24th-25th to try and bring home the 17th PHXAM title. Two hundred skaters will battle it out on Saturday for the top 40 spots that will take them to the Semi’s and Finals on Sunday where they will be able to win cash and prizes to the tune of $3,000 for 1st place, $2,000 for 2nd, and $1,000 for 3rd. Immediately following the Finals will be the traditional insanity that is the Red Bull best trick contest. Anyone entered in the contest will have a chance to take home $2,500 in cash for the one trick that can melt the most faces. Make sure you don’t miss any of it, starting at 10am on Saturday and 11am on Sunday. If you can’t make it, then you’re in luck, because our friends at Vans are providing a LIVE webcast on Sunday at PHXAM.com.

Pre-sale tickets can be purchased here for $5 per day. Math would lead us to understand that it only costs $10 for an entire weekend of insanity and some of the best skateboarding in the world, so save that allowance. As always, the first 500 people in line each morning will get a free gift bag full of PHXAM products, an event T-shirt, as well as raffle tickets to win boards, shoes, clothes and even a years supply of Vans shoes. Those pre-sale tickets and a strong cup of coffee will ensure that you’re one of the first 500 in line with one of those sweet bags of stoke in your hand. If you need to stretch the old legs in between all the shredding, you will be able to take a stroll through Tent City where all of skateboarding’s biggest brands will be set up with new products, games and prizes. Don’t be surprised if you run into some of your favorite Pros too. It’s not just the Ams who make it out to the desert every year.

On the 17th year of Cowtown’s PHXAM, we’re so thankful for the support of our partners who have helped to make this one of the most exciting and most respected contests in skateboarding. With the support of Vans, Volcom, Red Bull, Real, Pro-Tec, Mob Grip, Thrasher, Bones Bearings, Independent, Bones Wheels, Stance, Happy Hour and The City Of Phoenix, 2018 will be the best PHXAM yet!

 

Cowtown Skateboards and Volcom Presents:
Cowtown’s PHXAM After Party 
Saturday, March 24th, 2018
The Pressroom,
441 W Madison St, Phoenix, AZ 85003
(602) 396-7136
thepressroomaz.com
8 pm, $17

A great Saturday night can make for a slow Sunday morning, but never at PHXAM. With Volcom bringing out Ho99o9 to play the After Party along with Petyr and A Happy Medium 4 Video Premier, you know that Sunday morning will be worth the late night! Doors will open at 8pm at The Pressroom in downtown Phoenix and you can pick up tickets at any Cowtown location or cowtownskateboards.com for just $17. All ages welcomed!

 

Everything Skateboarding Magazine Presents:
Phoenix CitySkate 2018
Saturday, April 14th, 2018
Meet at the Central and Camelback Lightrail Station/Park-and-Ride
9 am to Noon (or so), Free

It’s that time again! Time to announce the first of the CitySkate cruises for 2018. Just like last year, the date is set for mid-April; Saturday, April 14th, 2018, to be exact.

If you were at last year’s CitySkate cruise, the itinerary is almost exactly the same as last years’. If you weren’t, here it is:

We’ll be starting at 9 am at the Lightrail stop at Central and Camelback. We’ll make our way south on 3rd Ave, using the bike lanes of the Sonoran Bikeway, through the historic neighborhoods of Medlock Place, Pierson Place, Yaple Park, Midtown, and Park Central. At McDowell Road, we’ll traverse over to 5th Ave, and continue south through the Willo Historic District. We’ll stop for a rest and water break at Encanto Park, where you can feed the ducks and the pigeons (if you’re a birdfeeding sort of soul), then continue through the Encanto-Palmcroft, Kenilsworth, and Roosevelt toward the central city. For this year’s cruise, we might skate over to the Capitol Building before heading back to the Lightrail station at van Buren and Central. The Lightrail will take us back to our starting point; bring $2 (cash or credit/debit) for the train ride back.

The whole cruise is roughly 7-8 miles one way. The gradient is slightly (but imperceptibly) downhill the entire way, and the route is very skate-safe for all ages and abilities.

Lunch will (again) be at Joyride, 5202 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ. This is an “upscale Mexican” restaurant with excellent (and affordable) taco plates, delicious enchiladas and burritos, and awesome sides. It’s also remarkably vegan friendly.

There will be demo boards on hand, provided by our event sponsors: Carver Skateboards, Seismic Skate Systems, and Loaded Longboards.

All attendees will get “Thanks For Attending” prize packs, filled with goodies provided by our our sponsors: Concrete Wave Magazine, Carver Skateboards, Seismic Skate Systems, Loaded Longboards, Orangatang Wheels, Bamboo Skateboards, Abec 11, Concrete Disciples, along with local skate shops Scottsdale Sidewalk Surfer, Freedom Boardshop, State Rideshop, and Cowtown Skateboards.

 

 

Concrete Wave Magazine Presents:
Phoenix Roll For Peace 2018 (Morning)
Sunday, April 22nd, 2018
Meet at Morning Squeeze, 4233 N. Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, AZ
8 am to 10 am (or so), Free

This years’ “Roll For Peace” event, spearheaded by Concrete Wave Magazine, is happening again on Sunday, April 22nd, 2018, at 8 pm.

If you were at last year’s Roll For Peace cruise, the itinerary is almost exactly the same as last years’. If you weren’t, here it is:

We’ll be starting at 8 am at Morning Squeeze, 4233 N. Scottsdale Rd in Scottsdale, AZ. From there, we’ll make our way around old town and downtown Scottsdale to check out the sights and sounds for a couple hours, finishing back at Morning Squeeze. This is a casual, no-itinerary roll, using city sidewalks; skaters of all ages and abilities are encouraged to participate.

There will be demo boards on hand, provided by our event sponsors: Seismic Skate Systems and Loaded Longboards.

All attendees will get “Thanks For Attending” prize packs, filled with goodies provided by our our sponsors: Concrete Wave Magazine, Carver Skateboards, Seismic Skate Systems, Loaded Longboards, Orangatang Wheels, Bamboo Skateboards, Abec 11, Concrete Disciples, along with local skate shops Scottsdale Sidewalk Surfer, Freedom Boardshop, State Rideshop, and Cowtown Skateboards.

 

 

 

Concrete Wave Magazine Presents:
Phoenix Roll For Peace 2018 (Evening)
Sunday, April 22nd, 2018
Meet at the Van Buren and Central Lightrail Station
8 am to 10 pm (or so), Free

This years’ “Roll For Peace” event, spearheaded by Concrete Wave Magazine, is happening again on Sunday, April 22nd, 2018, at 8 pm.

If you were at last year’s Roll For Peace cruise, the itinerary is almost exactly the same as last years’. If you weren’t, here it is:

We’ll be starting at 8 pm at the Lightrail stop at 1st Ave and Jefferson. From there, we’ll make our way around downtown to check out the sights and sounds for a couple hours, finishing the evening at either Seamus McCaffery’s Irish Pub (at 18 W. Monroe St), or Hanny’s (at 40 N. 1st St). This is a casual, no-itinerary roll, using city sidewalks; skaters of all ages and abilities are encouraged to participate.

There will be demo boards on hand, provided by our event sponsors: Seismic Skate Systems and Loaded Longboards.

All attendees will get “Thanks For Attending” prize packs, filled with goodies provided by our our sponsors: Concrete Wave Magazine, Carver Skateboards, Seismic Skate Systems, Loaded Longboards, Orangatang Wheels, Bamboo Skateboards, Abec 11, Concrete Disciples, along with local skate shops Scottsdale Sidewalk Surfer, Freedom Boardshop, State Rideshop, and Cowtown Skateboards.

 

 

Everything Skateboarding Magazine Presents:
Phoenix CitySkate 2018 Indian Bend Wash (May)
Sunday, May 20th, 2018

Meet at Chase Bank, 8999 E Shea Blvd, Scottsdale, AZ 85260
7 am to 10 am (or so), Free

The Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt is a long, smooth, paved greenway (that doubles as a flood control diversion ditch) that runs from Shea Road and 92nd Street, all the way to Tempe Town Lake, through McCormick Ranch, Chaparral Park, Camelback Park, Indian School Park, Continental Golf Course, and Eldorado Park, before continuing through Vista Del Camino Park and Rio Salado Park to Tempe Town Lake. It rolls steadily (but imperceptibly) downhill the whole way, and winds through some of the most beautiful scenicscapes in all of the Phoenix Metro.

This particular cruise is about nine miles in length, and ends at Eldorado Park, with multiple options for shorter lengths; there are bus stops at Chaparral park and Camelback Park for the less-ambitious and -adventurous of us. We get an early start, of course, to avoid the mid-day Phoenix heat.

For those that make the whole nine, the typically tired and hungry crew heads to Denny’s at 7605 E. McDowell Rd. to tank up on Grand Slams before catching the bus at the Hayden and McDowell bus stop to head back to the cars. 

All attendees should bring $2 in exact change for bus fare, plus money for the after-cruise breakfast. This cruise is open to skaters of all ages and abilities, and all are encouraged to attend. The cruise is extremely relaxing, and far less taxing than you would think, given the ambitious mileage involved.

There will be demo boards on hand, provided by our event sponsors: Carver Skateboards, Seismic Skate Systems, and Loaded Longboards.

All attendees will get “Thanks For Attending” prize packs, filled with goodies provided by our our sponsors: Concrete Wave Magazine, Carver Skateboards, Seismic Skate Systems, Loaded Longboards, Orangatang Wheels, Bamboo Skateboards, Abec 11, Concrete Disciples, along with local skate shops Scottsdale Sidewalk Surfer, Freedom Boardshop, State Rideshop, and Cowtown Skateboards.

 

 

 

Everything Skateboarding Magazine Presents:
Phoenix CitySkate 2018 Indian Bend Wash (June)
Sunday, June 17th, 2018
Meet at Chase Bank, 8999 E Shea Blvd, Scottsdale, AZ 85260
7 am to 10 am (or so), Free

The Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt is a long, smooth, paved greenway (that doubles as a flood control diversion ditch) that runs from Shea Road and 92nd Street, all the way to Tempe Town Lake, through McCormick Ranch, Chaparral Park, Camelback Park, Indian School Park, Continental Golf Course, and Eldorado Park, before continuing through Vista Del Camino Park and Rio Salado Park to Tempe Town Lake. It rolls steadily (but imperceptibly) downhill the whole way, and winds through some of the most beautiful scenicscapes in all of the Phoenix Metro.

This particular cruise is about nine miles in length, and ends at Eldorado Park, with multiple options for shorter lengths; there are bus stops at Chaparral park and Camelback Park for the less-ambitious and -adventurous of us. We get an early start, of course, to avoid the mid-day Phoenix heat.

For those that make the whole nine, the typically tired and hungry crew heads to Denny’s at 7605 E. McDowell Rd. to tank up on Grand Slams before catching the bus at the Hayden and McDowell bus stop to head back to the cars. 

All attendees should bring $2 in exact change for bus fare, plus money for the after-cruise breakfast. This cruise is open to skaters of all ages and abilities, and all are encouraged to attend. The cruise is extremely relaxing, and far less taxing than you would think, given the ambitious mileage involved.

There will be demo boards on hand, provided by our event sponsors: Carver Skateboards, Seismic Skate Systems, and Loaded Longboards.

All attendees will get “Thanks For Attending” prize packs, filled with goodies provided by our our sponsors: Concrete Wave Magazine, Carver Skateboards, Seismic Skate Systems, Loaded Longboards, Orangatang Wheels, Bamboo Skateboards, Abec 11, Concrete Disciples, along with local skate shops Scottsdale Sidewalk Surfer, Freedom Boardshop, State Rideshop, and Cowtown Skateboards.

 

 

 

This is the definitive list of every skatepark in the Phoenix Metro. It’s in geographic order, starting at the far west suburbs and working clockwise around the city.

Buckeye Skatepark
299 N 9th St, Buckeye, AZ 85326
8 am to 9 pm every day

 

El Mirage Skatepark/Gateway Park
10100 N El Mirage Rd, El Mirage, AZ 85335
6 am to 10 pm every day

 

Surprise Skatepark/Surprise Farms Skate Park
15798-15826 N 175th Ave, Surprise, AZ 85388

 

Goodyear Skate Park/Litchfield
3151 N Litchfield Rd, Goodyear, AZ 85395
7 am to 10 pm every day

 

Dust Devil Park
10645 W Camelback Rd, Glendale, AZ 85307
5:30 am to 10 pm every day

 

X-Court BMX Park
6101 N 83rd Ave, Glendale, AZ 85303
9 am to 10 pm every day

 

91 West Skatepark
8550 N 91st Ave, 54, Peoria, AZ 85345
(623) 236-3033
91westskateparkpeoriaaz.com

 

Desert West Skateboard Plaza
6602 W Encanto Blvd, Phoenix, AZ 85035
5 am to 10 pm every day

 

Peoria Skatepark/Rio Vista Park
8866 W Thunderbird Rd, Peoria, AZ 85381
8 am to 10 pm every day

 

Foothills Skatepark/Union Hills
5752 W Union Hills Dr, Glendale, AZ 85308
9 am to 10 pm every day

 

Anthem Community Park
41703 N Gavilan Peak Pkwy, Anthem, AZ 85086
6 am to 10 pm every day

 

The Refuge Youth Center
401 W Deer Valley Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85027
(480) 226-2019
therefugeyouth.com

 

Paradise Valley Skate Park
17642 N 40th St, Phoenix, AZ 85032
8 am to 9 pm every day

 

McDowell Mountain Ranch Skatepark
15525 N Thompson Peak Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85260

 

Fountain Hills Skatepark
10441 N Saguaro Blvd, Fountain Hills, AZ 85268
Open 24 hours

 

Eldorado Park/The Wedge
2311 N Miller Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85257

 

Reed Skate Park
1631 E Broadway Rd, Mesa, AZ 85204
8 am to 10 pm every day

 

Fountain Plaza (New!)
417 E Southern Ave, Mesa, AZ 85204
Open daily 7 am to 10 pm

Kids That Rip – Mesa, AZ
1927 N Gilbert Rd, Mesa, AZ 85203
(480) 844-9600
kidsthatrip.com

Apache Junction Skatepark
1097-, 1135 W Southern Ave, Apache Junction, AZ 85120
8 am to 10 pm every day

 

AZ Grind Skatepark
8743 E Pecos Rd #136, Mesa, AZ 85212
(480) 888-0499
azgrindskatepark.com

Queen Creek Skate Park/Founder’s Park
22360-, 22426 S Ellsworth Rd, Queen Creek, AZ 85142
8 am to 10 pm every day

 

Freestone Skatepark
1045 E Juniper Ave, Gilbert, AZ 85234
5:30 am to 9:05 pm every day

 

Chandler Bike Park at Espee Park
450 E Knox Rd, Chandler, AZ 85225

 

The Bridge
824 W Germann Rd, Chandler, AZ 85286
(480) 326-2247
bridgeccc.com

Snedigar Recreation Center/Chandler Skatepark
4500 S Basha Rd, Chandler, AZ 85248
8 am to 10:30 pm every day

 

Kids That Rip Chandler/KTR Family Action Sports Center – Chandler, AZ
1050 E Pecos Rd, Chandler, AZ 85225
(480) 718-5872
www.ktr-centers.com

 

Copper Sky Skate Plaza
44345 M.L.K. Jr. Blvd, Maricopa, AZ 85138

 

Tempe Sports Complex/Tempe Skatepark
8401 S Hardy Dr, Tempe, AZ 85284
Open 24 hours

 

Esquer Park
2407 E McArthur Dr, Tempe, AZ 85281
6 am to 9 pm every day

 

Hudson Park
1430 S Cedar St, Tempe, AZ 85281
6 am to 10 pm every day

 

Mitchell Park Skatepark (New!)
S Mitchell Dr & 9th St, Tempe, AZ 85281

Pecos Skate Park
17010 S 48th St, Phoenix, AZ 85048
7 am to 10:45 every day

Hermoso Park
2030 E Southern Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85040
Open 24 hours

 

Cesar Chavez Skatepark/Cesar Chavez Park
7858 S 35th Ave, Laveen Village, AZ 85339
5:30 am to 11 pm every day

 

       

?>

I was born and raised in Phoenix/Glendale AZ. I got started in art as a kid. I used to draw all the time at home, school, and when and where ever I was. Then, sadly, I grew out of it when I started getting into skateboarding, music, and my job.

Many years later, I met other artists in Arizona, and was introduced to First Friday’s art scene. I was starting to get back into art, but it wasn’t ‘til I got married and had kids that I really started focusing on it. My wife (Kristin) loved all my work, and gave me all the support and confidence that I needed. My wife is amazing; she found me a spot at First Friday, and I have been making art ever since. I even started to spend hours drawing with my daughter (Charleigh) and my son (Cash)!

I get inspired by old-school cartoons, skateboarding, punk rock music, rat finks, horror movies, tattoos, beer, friends… and most importantly, my wife and my kids!

I do all my art on wood. I draw it, cut it out, sand it, then I get down to coloring. I use water colors, sharpies, prisma pencils, and anything I have lying around.

I want to thank Taylor for helping with all my computer stuff, because I suck with technology; my wife for being the best thing to happen to me, always supporting and understanding me, and for her undying love that grows stronger every day, I love you more then I can ever say or show; my kids for keeping me going, and being the best, most awesome kids ever!!! I love you guys so much!!!

If you are ever in Phoenix, Arizona for a First Friday, check me out on 5th street and Roosevelt in front of Barried Treasure/Black Raven Tattoo. If not, get some art at @artforthebrokenheart.

 

Thanks,
Keith Harder

 

 

 

I first saw Keith’s art at the First Friday festivities that happen in Phoenix on the first Friday of every month. It’s a huge, grassroots are party where I get to walk around, get in a little exercise, and absorb all of the latest and greatest stuff that’s happening in Phoenix’s underground art and music scenes. It keeps me young… well, “younger”, I guess… and reasonably up-to-date with what’s happening. Plus, it’s one of the few a raging good times to be had in an otherwise mellow, low-key, planned-retirement-community hell.

Keith’s art has instant eye-snaring appeal. It immediately snuck up on me out of left field, and slapped me right upside the head. You can’t miss it, even if you wanted to (trust me: you don’t). Dashing, daring, colorful, whimsical, with a flair for the humorous… it’s clearly the product of a skater’s overactive, hyper-driven imagination. And you can see right away that the kid’s got great influences; his stuff has “Big Daddy” Ed Roth’s warped fingerprints all over it, but twisted a bit to suit a younger generation’s higher-octane tastes. He’s also a really swell, humble chap. I’m glad I met him, and I’m super happy that I get to showcase his work to a broader audience in my humble little web-magazine.

No, thank you, Keith,
Bud Stratford, Executive Director, Everything Skateboarding

 

You can see more art from Keith Harder on Instagram at @artforthebrokenheart.

 

?>

Let me begin this editorial with a disclaimer. As those of you who’ve read my usual section on this website will be aware, I’m a freestyle skateboarder. If the industry and skateboarding’s “mainstream media” are to be believed, I’m a member of an extinct species. My culture is dead – murdered in the early 1990s – and my creative output in skateboarding is irrelevant as a result.

And yet, like many freestylers, I work in “the industry”; not just for a selection of somewhat eclectic, renegade publications, but also for a trio of similarly archaic/iconic brands that have weathered the storm since the early ’80s in very different ways. And it’s for this reason, because of this connection, that I found myself at ISPO in Munich at the start of February.

Now, let me make one thing abundantly clear: I’m a very cynical man. I don’t like bullshit, and I don’t like self-promotion. As such, business-speak gets my heckles up and makes me somewhat weary of whatever else is coming out of the mouth in front of me. As such, I tend to stay away from trade shows as much as is humanly possible. I don’t mind going to them as a performer and doing freestyle demos, but actually having to engage with people who are trying to hawk their wares – or, worse, having to hawk wares myself – just tires me out.

Generally speaking, skateboarding trade shows I’ve been to in the past tend to be one big circle jerk of awesomeness. A circle jerk that I, as a freestyler, am not really invited to join in on. That’s okay, to be honest. Sitting on the outside and watching companies pat each other on the back about how damned marketable they are just makes me more jaded about the whole bloody thing.

In the mid-2000s, I actively wanted to be involved. I was convinced in the worth of what I was doing in the basketball courts, parking lots and streets of the world. I saw how excited people became when they saw this thing that had been actively kept away from them. I saw how happy people were when they suddenly realised they weren’t the only one who liked doing “that Rodney Mullen stuff”. I saw how stoked older freestylers were when they learned that not only were people still doing freestyle, but that it was still possible to get sub-8” boards and wheels that covered the axle nut.

And yet the “industry”, by and large, closed its doors to me. Not just me, but to my friends and comrades worldwide. Company owners and magazine editors, some former freestylers themselves, said they couldn’t support freestyle. They liked it, they liked what I and my friends were doing, but they couldn’t publicly support freestyle. It’d alienate the street skaters. Even the freestylers who had some sort of sponsorship deal weren’t mentioned publicly. This still happens today; a number of big-name companies have informal deals with an array of freestylers worldwide, some of whom are former world champions. None of these get any sort of publicity from any company unless they have some sort of “cross-over appeal” for the street skaters (see: Kilian Martin, Andy Anderson).

And this same attitude shows up at every trade show I’ve ever been to. The core industry expresses both its delight in seeing freestyle and its complete unwillingness to publicly associate with it.

To those skaters who ride a deck longer than 36”, all of the above should be a familiar story. Longboarding now has its own industry, and to some degree, its own section in trade shows worldwide. Some elements of the “core” industry have even tried to insert themselves into longboarding in one way or another – whether it’s through producing longboards through their own brand, creating a whole new brand they can keep at arms’ length, or by buying up existing brands. The horse had already bolted, but they were desperate to try to get a ride.

ISPO, however, brings to mind different questions – questions, in part, related to where exactly this whole culture is going to be in five years’ time.

I’ve never done ISPO before. I’ve never been needed out there. Generally, when I’m at work, I’m the tech guy – writing copy, editing websites, fixing the stock control systems, etc. – but I know of ISPO by reputation. As their website states, it’s “the world’s largest multi-segment trade fair for the sports business” – a phrase which, in itself, makes me want to vomit. But certainly, it supposedly plays host to a good amount of business in “our sector”.

And this year it seemed mostly empty.

The “Longboard Village” was an entertaining area, with folks from Madrid, Seismic and Landyachtz mixing with some smaller brands like King Lui, Kebbek and the beautifully hand-carved Legende Longboards, who were actually carving a board out of a block of wood during the show. Also of note were Curfboard, who have possibly the best surf-style truck I’ve ever ridden (even if it is so over-engineered that it reminds me somewhat of the Stroker trucks from the late ’70s). As the show closed every night, the bar opened, the music started playing, and everyone in the longboard embassy started (by which I mean continued) drinking, chatting, and riding around the trade show hall on various wheeled contraptions, including electric boards, dancing boards, go-karts and surf skates. Honestly, it was some of the most pure, unadulterated fun I’ve had in skateboarding for quite some time. For those brief few hours after work had finished, it didn’t matter what you were riding, what clothes you were wearing or how your bloody shoelaces were tied – as long as you were having fun, it was all good. All accepted.

 

Alexandre Martin of Legende Longboards, photo by Michael Brooke of Concrete Wave Magazine

 

The Curfboard video short, from Curfboard’s website. I was thinking that Tony might have been just a little bit full of shit with that “Stroker” comparison, so I had to check it out for myself. Turns out, he was pretty spot-on. Well, I’ll be damned. Ain’t that sumthin’, right there.

 

This one’s for the kids that need the quick history lesson: Stroker Trucks ad from the October 1976 issue of Skateboarder Magazine. Today, Ermico manufactures trucks for Independent, Thunder, and Venture. Vintage ad from CalStreets.com. 

 

But, as far as positive experiences of ISPO goes, that was about it. Footfall through the dedicated “urban sports” area was minimal for all four days of the event. There were lots of people taking the opportunity to ride around on every novelty product available during the day (and yes, that included scooters, including electric and pedal-powered versions. And yes, pedal scooters are apparently a thing, and yes, they’re as ridiculous as they sound). But where were the buyers? Where was the business? Even the more low-end, entry level brands and well-known cruiser brands seemed to be twiddling their thumbs for a good bulk of the show, and scooter brands (which, if you’d believe some folks, should be where the money is) seemed to be facing a similar situation.

Don’t get me wrong – I aware of the fact that judging the state of the industry by one poorly-attended trade show is a fool’s errand. However, it certainly seems symptomatic of what I’m seeing in the street, in the boarded-up skate shop windows and in the trade magazines: I suspect we have a looming problem that some folks are unwilling to acknowledge and others are unable to find solutions for. Our esteemed editor is placing the finger on the assisted death of the local skateshop, and I think there’s definitely something in that: my local “skateshop” closed down a few years back, and the local skate scene died shortly after. However, I suspect the problem is more endemic than that, and that maybe the closure of skateshops is more of a symptom than a disease.

“Skateboarding”, as a business, has always gone in boom-and-bust cycles – due largely to a combination of narrow-minded marketing, cultural conservatism and the outright pillaging of the culture by vampiric businessmen with no concern for the welfare of the activity they are bleeding dry. I feel that if the boom in interest in longboarding and cruisers had been handled more carefully, this cycle could, perhaps, have been broken. Now I fear that maybe we have missed our chance.

Of course, skateboarding as an activity will always survive. It’s the cockroach of the “urban sports” world (and that phrase makes bile rise to my throat every time I have to type it); no matter how much it gets raped and pillaged, it’ll always come back in one form or another – yet the same mistakes always seem to be made. As Lew’s think-piece mentioned, we still have real issues with inclusivity and harassment of women. We still have a culture that happily accepts entire sections of it to be marginalised and ostracised because they don’t fit a marketing scheme. And where is that getting us? The same damn mistakes. The same slumps. The same burn out.

You can’t create a monoculture without it being subject to massive collapse, and it’s increasingly starting to feel that this is what we’re facing again. The skateshops are the canary in the coal mine. It’s up to us – the skaters, the writers, the goddamned media – to do something to stop the whole thing from caving in over our heads.

I leave you with this, dear reader. I hope most of you will already know this scene; it was only as I was halfway through writing this diatribe that I realised I was effectively channeling Howard Beale. Maybe he sums it up better than I ever could:

 

 

Things have got to change. But first, you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”

 

?>

There are a lot of groups that claim “diverse” and “eclectic”, but very few of them really deliver. Most musicians these days are so derivative of something that’s been done a thousand times already, so easily labeled, and so easily pigeonholed, that it is breathtakingly refreshing when a group comes along that really does break down barriers, stomps across genres, and creates music that is truly unique. The Color 8 is one of those rare bands. And lucky for me, they hail from my own backyard, right here in Phoenix, Arizona.

 

LeeWater, Vocals

 

“To someone who has never heard our music, we don’t limit ourselves to any genre of music; instead, we constantly expose our listeners to completely new experiences.”

– Jeremy (Jerm), The Color 8 bassist

 

 

Like so many great things that I’ve discovered lately, I found The Color 8 by getting my ass off of my couch… just kidding, I don’t even own a couch… stepping out into the world, and doing a little bit of adventuring. I was walking around the First Friday block-party festivities when I first heard their music. You know the kind of sounds; the ones that make your ears perk up, stand tall and fuzzy, and beg the question, “What in the hell is that sonic excellence, and where in the world is it coming from…?!” I followed the sounds and the vibes over to a grassy courtyard surrounded by graffiti-bombed concrete-block walls, and there they were. The Color 8, in all their live-performance glory, keeping the crowd bouncing, bopping, and hopping to their infinitely immersive blasts and beats.

 

Emmett Nash, Drummer

 

“Color represents diversity, and 8 represents infinity, because we like to play different genres of different music for different people to bring everybody together.”

– Jeremy (Jerm), The Color 8 bassist

 

Kal The Guitarist (Mikal Benion), Guitar

 

The name stands for creativity, diversity, and inclusion; “Color” is the diversity, and “8” represents infinite inclusion. Their music draws from a whole host of varying styles and influences: everything from rap and hip-hop, to heavy metal, to hard and/or classic rock, to funk, to R&B and soul, to classic jazz and jazz fusion are represented here, with shades of anything and everything in between thrown into the mix. It’s actually hard to describe their sound, because there’s no “wrong” answer in terms of describing it; just watch the videos, that’ll tell you everything you need to know.

 

Ashton Vaughn Charles (The Dapper Rapper), Raps/Saxophone

 

For most bands, this everything-inspiration would be an open invitation for unrestrained sonic chaos, and a sloppy-sauce set list. The Color 8, however, somehow manages to morph all these opposing tastes and notes into a tight, concise, superbly balanced and executed performance. It gets the party jumping, that’s for sure; it also takes the listener on a long and entertaining journey through a beautiful palette of sonic experiences. The Color 8, live, is an event that shalt not be missed under any circumstance. Take it from me, because I know. I’ve been there. And it’s a great, great place to spend an evening.

 

 

That’s CleV Pro on the Vocals

 

“We have a lot of musical influences: Andre 3000, Party Next Door, Led Zeppelin , Jimi Hendrix , Intervals , Polyphia, Eminem, Floetry, Joshua Redman, Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, Erykah Badu, Res Hot Chili Peppers, Snarky Puppy, Victor Wooten, J. Cole, Kirk Franklin, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye et cetera…”

– Jeremy (Jerm), The Color 8 bassist

 

Jerm (Jeremy Smith), Bass

 

The Color 8 has an album dropping soon. That’s great news; finally, the party doesn’t have to come to an abrupt end at 10 pm sharp every First Friday. That album might well end up being the indie-music-disc buy of the year. We’ll keep you in the loop on that, because that’ll definitely be an album worth owning. You’re welcome.

 

If you want to hear more of The Color 8, you can search them out under “The Color 8 band” on a  whole host of social media platforms, music channels, and video- and music-streaming services. I would obviously recommend it.

 

?>

I seriously love ‘zines. In my eyes, they are the embodiment of everything that is great in independent skateboard media. They’re totally raw, completely unfiltered, staunchly uncensored, and absolutely unapologetic. It’s not very often that I actually see one these days. But when I do, it’s definitely something worth writing home about.

 

 

I picked this one up last weekend while I was hanging out with Brian Upton up at The Sk8Haus in Surprise, Arizona. Well, in all honesty, I guess I up and stole the damn thing; Brian, I promise I’ll bring it back next time I pay you a visit, which will probably be pretty soon. I picked it up off of his magazine-stacked coffee table… every shop in the world should have a magazine-stacked coffee table, shouldn’t they? And in the process of bumping my gums and saying my typically long-winded goodbyes, I simply forgot to put the darn thing back down before I left. Sorry, Brian. I’ll buy you burritos while I’m up there offering my sincerest apologies for being a dick-sized pencilhead, okay? Fair enough, buddy?

 

 

Back to the topic at hand. This ‘zine is professionally produced. It features pretty slick paper, and it looks like it’s offset printed; a quality touch, to be sure. The Thomas Goldman, Peter Cirilli, and Deville Nunes photos were super impressive, and I loved the hand-illustrated New Hampshire-to-NYC travel piece that Johnboy did. There’s an enlightening interview with Derrick Blaine Dykas, who heads up a Detroit nonprofit named Community Push that acts as a voice and support system for inner-city skaters; we’ll have to research that one a bit more, because it sounds like a really great program. I’m going to stop bumping my gums right there, because I don’t want to ruin all of the surprises. The issue that I’m holding in my hands right now is Issue 37, the March 2017 issue. Track one down, and read it for yourself.

 

 

Another thing about ‘zines that I really like, are the advertisements. Because ‘zines are (generally) super-underground publications with fairly limited circulation and readership, advertisers can sometimes take risks that they might not take with bigger, more popular magazines… and in any rate, ‘zine editors are generally the types of chaps that are more than happy to run censorship-free ships, and go with the fun flow, while the advertisers themselves tend to be tiny little upstarts that really don’t give a fuck about anything at all besides making an impression and having a good time with it. In this issue, Quasi and The Vacation Skateboard Company had really eye-popping ads. Element had a really great one, too, which sort of caught me off guard; you don’t usually see marketing heavyweights like Element advertising in ‘zines. Yet there they were, right inside the back cover. I spent quite a few minutes apiece, visually picking theose ads apart. The aesthetics were amazing, yet they were curiously devoid of any real, direct, or useful information. That left me curiously intrigued, and actively searching them out. Best ads ever, in my book. They actually worked the way great ads should work.

 

 

How would you go about finding one of these? The best way is to drop them a line, directly; email them at homies@skatejawn.com, they’ll probably be pretty happy to send you one. If they need a few bucks for shipping and stuff, don’t be an idiot; shut up and quietly pay it. Trust me, it’ll be way worth it.

 

 

If you didn’t thoroughly and completely read the last paragraph, the way to winning one of these is to email homies@skatejawn.com. You can also surf into their website at www.skatejawn.com, if that’s what freezes your beanie.

 

?>

For this month’s Inside The Industry spotlight, I picked a fellow that’s pretty local to me, geographically: Steve Williams of Phoenix, Arizona based Dead Canary Skateboards. Now, you might be scratching your head pretty hard right about now, wondering why I would pick such a small, largely unknown skateboard company for such a high-profile segment that is typically reserved for much larger, and far more established brands.

Here’s why I picked Steve for this month’s segment: they’re doing everything right. Like literally, every single thing, without falter and without fail. They have it all: the solid, American-made product; the team; the media savvy; the exposure… and what’s more, they have a perpetual presence. That perpetual presence is what keeps them front and center on my personal radar. You just can’t escape them; they seem to be everywhere, all the time. No matter where I go, and no matter what I’m doing, Steve is always right there, complete with his pop-up tent, his logo-wrapped Honda, his beard, a friendly handshake, a quick and ready smile… and a hell of a lot of bright insight and keen wisdom. I make a point of crossing paths with him at least once a month (usually, at Phoenix’s First Friday festivities), and picking his brain for a few minutes. I can’t say that about too many brand managers in my contacts roster, no matter how big (or small) those brands may be.

Every company in the world could (and should) learn something from Steve; that’s why I picked him for this month’s feature. Read on, brothas and sistas: 

 

  

Photos, clockwise from left: Steve with a boardslide; Roosevelt Row street art; Jan Thavy, 50-50 at the Clash at Claremont

 

Steve, let’s begin with the basics: what’s your name, age, and hometown?

For sure, Bud: I’m Steve Williams, 34 Years old, born and raised in Mesa, AZ.

 

How long have you been skating? What’s your favorite stuff to skate?

Well, I started skating when I was 13 years old, and skated heavily until I was involved in a head- on collision that totaled my car and my right foot/ankle when I turned 20. That kept me away from skateboarding for years, but in the end I was like, “fuck it!” It hurts every day, anyway, whether I’m skating or not… so why not do what I love, and continue to skate? I was born and bred on street skating, and that’s still what I really enjoy to skate… although I keep it pretty mellow and low impact these days (haha!) My favorite things to skate are ledges, curbs and flat-bars.

 

What’s your position at Dead Canary?

I am the Owner, Designer, Creative Director, Team Manager, Janitor, Sales rep… basically the general jack-of-all-trades here at Dead Canary. It is a true one-man show, born and bred right here in Arizona.

 

How long has the company been around? What year was it started?

I launched Dead Canary Skateboards in February of 2016, so we’ve been around for exactly 2 years now.

 

Why “Dead Canary”? What’s the story behind that name?

I was randomly researching about American coal mine workers in the late 1800’s; I know I’m weird, but the whole history of coal mines was filled with some really interesting facts. One of the most intriguing being that every time a group of coal mine workers entered a mine, they carried a little canary in a cage along with them. They did that because when you dig into a mountainside to create a mine, natural gasses that are deadly (and can’t be detected by smell) can fill the mine, and kill anything inside. Since there was no modern technology to monitor the gases, the canary alerted the miners to the presence of these gases by dying! They knew that if the canary died, that the gases were getting way to deadly and they needed to get out of the area as soon as possible, or they would be next.

I thought it was not only a great story, but a great part of American History- and ultimately, that story is what inspired me to name my company Dead Canary.

 

Photos, clockwise from left: The Crew; the famous Dead Canary Honda on Roosevelt Row; Roosevelt Row street art

 

What was the motivation for starting the company? What is Dead Canary doing that is different from all the other small companies in the marketplace?

Truthfully, my main motivation was that I was tired of working my ass off day, night, and weekends at dead-end jobs- and always for someone else. I had no real clue of how to go about it, and very little start-up money… but I did have some things going for me. Guts, common sense, and a solid background in manufacturing and sales. Most of all, I believed in myself.

Dead Canary is truly a grassroots, skater-owned company that prides it self on being 100% Made In The USA, and focuses on quality over quantity- always! What we’re doing is nothing new; it’s more like, we are trying to bring something back. Forget competitions, and definitely fuck the Olympics; the skateboarding industry has, in some cases, lost its way and forgot what its all about, the STOKE!! Not to mention that there has been a recent boom in culture vultures, some of who don’t even skate, out there just looking to get rich and make a quick buck off of skateboarding, the Olympics being the biggest of them all. Then you have some new companies out there charging kids to compete in competitions, to participate in an event they’re throwing, or even just to skate and chill at a public skatepark with said companies… what the fuck?! That’s not what skateboarding is supposed to be about!

So, we focus more on Skate Jams and DIY events that are all 100% free, with no vendors, traditional format, or contests… because let’s face it, contests do have their place, but it’s not the sort of event that I’m interested in running. Rather, we want to keep our local skate scene, as well as other local scenes out there, thriving by never charging a dime for the events we organize. Just show up, skate, grub, and ultimately leave stoked on skateboarding!!

 

In my intro, I alluded to the fact that I originally saw you at a First Friday here in Phoenix. Am I correct on that? My memory doesn’t serve me as well as it used to…

Aye! I’m right there with ya, my dude! Haha! But yeah, that’s where we first ran into each other.

 

Let’s talk about First Friday for a second. If the readers don’t know (or have one in their own towns), First Friday is basically a huge block party that happens on the First Friday of every month, where all the galleries and businesses stay open late; street musicians and performers come out in force; and there are street vendors all over the place… is that pretty accurate, Steve?

Yup, that is absolutely correct on all counts. I’m stoked to say that Dead Canary has been a staple of Roosevelt Row now for two years, since I first started the company.

 

Okay. Now, here’s the big question: Why are you guys there every single month? I mean, most companies would just hang their decks on the walls of the local skate shop, and maybe do an event at the local skatepark, and leave it at that. But you guys are always at the biggest party of the month, every month, in downtown Phoenix. What’s the strategy there, Steve?

Yup, you’re right! But there is no real strategy, other than simple marketing, and thinking outside the box, which go hand in hand. I mean, if your just gonna do what everyone else is already doing, then why even start a company in the first place? Am I right?

Also, like I’ve said before: I love and pride myself on supporting not only the local skate scene, but my local community in general, because I love my hometown! First Friday gives me a great way to do both. Furthermore, its just fun; I really enjoy every aspect of it. It also gives people a chance to really see what Dead Canary is all about.

 

You’re also at every single local skate event and gathering that happens in the Phoenix Metro Area. Have you ever missed an event, Steve…? Again: why the determination to be so out in force, so consistently?

Haha! Well ya… I fucking love skateboarding! So for sure, if there is worthwhile event in town, you can probably bet on me being their supporting my local skate-shops, skaters… and of course, The Dead Canary Squad! Someone much smarter than myself once said, “The key to success is consistency”, or some shit like that. But, yeah- I really took that shit to heart. 

 

You mentioned the last time that we chatted, that you’ve organized and hosted quite a few events of your own. What kind of events were they? Did you ever charge skaters any money to be a part of them?

NEVER, man! No way…! I never have, and never will charge skaters to attend any event organized by Dead Canary! Skateboarding is for fun, and for FREE; always has been, and always should be!

The first event we hosted was a “Back 2 School” Skate Jam at 91 West Skatepark, which was a total success and so much fun! It was 100% FREE to attend and participate! Check out the video in the link below…

 

 

The second event we hosted was a DIY skate jam at the local DIY up in Flagstaff in collaboration with Lowcard Mag and the local skateshop (formerly known as Oncore, but now better known as Rov Ride Rideshop)- and of course that event was free as well! You can also see an edit of this event by clicking the link below…

 

 

All of our events are roughly the same format- again, going back to that whole consistency thing. We do tricks for cash, tricks for product, we have plenty of water and pizza to grub on, and do a huge product toss at the end- all free of charge, it costs nothing to attend. Just show up, skate, and leave with some shit. Or at least, a full belly.

You can also find us setting up booths at all the local events such as Cowtown’s PHXAM, SkaterCon and supporting our rider Janthavy Norton on the “All Girls Progression Sessions” she organizes and puts together, which are totally rad as fuck! This is where girls of all ages and skill sets (some of which have never even stepped on a board, but want to learn) can come out, hang out with other skater girls, and not be intimidated by skateboarding. Rather, they learn from each other, teach each other, empower one another, progress, laugh, grub- and ultimately they just have fun, and leaved stoked on skateboarding! It’s so rad to see and support that kind of thing, and can’t wait to see more of it!

 

So what’s in the works? Do you have any up-coming events?

Oh, chafawkyea! No doubt! March (2018) is going to be a real doozy, with multiple events going down! Were kicking off the month with back-to-back events. First Friday on March 2nd, downtown on Roosevelt Row, is up first! We will be out there from 6pm-11pm. You can find us on the 2nd Street Market, located right on 2nd St. in between Roosevelt and Garfield, right next to Revolver Records.

Then the very next day is Phoenix SkaterCon, on March 3rd up at Paradise Valley Skatepark. We will have our pop-up-shop popping off and skating all day, so pull up. Unfortunately, this is not a free event- but tickets are affordable and can be purchased at Sidewalk Surfer or on the SkaterCon website.

Then it’s onto Cowtown’s PHXAM March 24th & 25th at Desert West Skatepark to finish off the month! We will be out there chillin’ at the Dead Canary booth in “Tent City” for the 3rd year in a row, with tons of free shit to give away and win! Tickets are ONLY $5, and can be purchased at any Cowtown location and online. There is also more in the works for the rest of the year, so just make sure to follow us on Instagram @deadcanarydenim to stay up to date on what we have going on.

 

Let’s talk about Phoenix for a second. There seem to be a zillion skaters here… but not much of a “scene”, per se. Why is that? Doesn’t that seem a bit odd? Or, am I just being stupid right now and making shit up?

Na, your not making shit up, Bud, and I think that could be said for big cities in general. While there are a lot of factors that play into what you’re referring to, I think I do have one theory in particular. If you want me to be honest, I personally think it is because of the abundance of skateparks, as weird as that might seem.

Now, let me explain. When I was growing up, there was ONE skatepark in the entire valley, and that was Desert West Skatepark. It was so far away, I could maybe convince my parents to drive me and the homies out there once a month if I was lucky. So naturally, we generally stayed in the streets, street skating.

Now, if you wanna talk about “a scene”, in general, I believe it always starts in the streets- especially when referring to skateboarding.

In my opinion, skateboarding is all about the lurk. Finding those backyard pools, or getting stoked to skate a spot that you stumbled upon or created yourself. Meeting up with the homies, skating from spot to spot in the streets and killing everything in between- that was where the so called “scene” was born. We had no choice but to skate the streets every single day, and I loved every minute of it; it’s still what really hypes me up to this day! The streets are rough and unforgiving, but its what my team and I live for!

Nowadays kids can basically throw a stone in any direction, and hit a skatepark. This has created a way easier place for kids to just pull up to, meet up with the homies, chill, and skate. Therefore it has created a much lazier, unmotivated skater that is ok with just skating perfectly poured skateparks instead of really getting stoked on skateboarding, you know… the missions, waxing up a fresh curb or ledge, shredding all day long, getting kicked out and all the other things that go along with it. Just like contests, skateparks have their place. It’s a place where you can practice and hone your skills without the fear of being kicked out, make a quick edit for Instagram or some shit… but then you should always take it back to the streets. Nowadays kids are too scared and lazy, so they stay in the parks. And I think it’s because of that, that the “scene” has kinda been forgotten.

But have no fear, because there’s not only Dead Canary out there; there are a ton of other rad, grassroots, skater-owned companies killing it and doing their part right now. And I believe the scene you are referring to, that we all remember, is coming back full force!

 

How many shops are representing Dead Canary these days?

We are stoked to say that Dead Canary is currently in 10 local skate-shops valleywide! Find us at anyone of these local, skater owned shops…

Cowtown: 215 W. University Dr. Tempe, AZ 85281
Cowtown: 5024 N. Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85012

Cowtown: 13000 W. Indian School Rd. Litchfield Park, AZ 85340

Cowtown: 5708 W. Union Hills Dr. Glendale, AZ 85308

Sidewalk Surfer: 2602 N. Scottsdale Rd. Scottsdale, AZ 85257

Rov Ride Shop: 123 W Birch Ave #106, Flagstaff, AZ 86001

The Skate Stop: 600 Miller Valley Rd, Prescott, AZ 86301

The Sk8 Haus: 13839 W Bell Rd, Surprise, AZ 85374

Freedom Boardshop: 1316 S Gilbert Rd, Mesa, AZ 85204

91 West Skatepark: 8550 N 91st Ave, 54, Peoria, AZ 85345

 

Kind of like the Phoenix skate scene… the shops here seem to operate like little islands unto themselves, with very little (to no) collaboration between them. How rad would it be if they worked together to cross-promote each others’ events, and built a truly cooperative, Phoenix-wide skate scene? Wouldn’t that be killer?

For sure, in a perfect world that would be rad! But we both know this world is far from perfect, and most likely that will never happen. It’s kinda just how the retail game is. However unfortunate, it shouldn’t discourage any one shop from collaborating with other local brands, such as myself, and organizing events to fuel the Phoenix skate scene.

 

Have any distributors picked you up yet?

Nope, we are currently a 100% self-distributed company and proud of it.

 

Photos, clockwise from left: Aden Jimenez, 50-50 on a steep chunk of Arizona ‘crete; the product; Roosevelt Row street art

 

Who’s on the team (if you have one), and why did you pick those guys to represent your product/brand?

No doubt! We have a team called, “The Dead Canary Squad”. Current team members are as follows:

– Dave Murphy @skatealldaydave
– Janthavy Norton @janthavy
– Aden Jimenez @aden.jamba
– Ryan Flitton @pv_savage69
– Erickson Donald @_ed00__

As far as why they are all are on the team- simply put, it’s because they represent what Dead Canary is about, on and off the board. We all vibe together, and we always have each others’ backs. Even more so, I 100% believe in them and their goals. We are way more than just a team over here… isa vibe!

 

Photos, clockwise from top left: Dave Murphy, bean plant in downtown Phoenix; Roosevelt Row street art; Ryan Flitton, frontside at one of Phoenix’s many concrete oases

 

What are the goals of The Company? What are your short and long term plans for Dead Canary?

As far as the short term goes, we are working on a promo video featuring full parts from some of the Dead Canary Squad that I would like to finish up by April or May of this year. Also, we want to organize and sponsor as many grassroot, totally FREE skate jams as possible. Long-term, our plan is to go national (and eventually worldwide) with Dead Canary, and get a pro team together as well. But that’s waaaaay in the future; for now, it’s baby steps.

 

Let’s talk “product” for a minute. Your boards are 100% USA made, right?

Yes, that’s a huge “for sure!” Not only our boards, but everything we make is 100% Made in the USA. Our boards are 7 ply 100% American Maple that are pressed, shaped, cut and finished, all by hand, in San Diego California by one of the leaders in the industry since 1974!

 

Why did you decide to go that route, versus going with the Mexico or China sourced wood that so many other brands use these days?

I can answer that question very easily, with one word…QUALITY!

But to elaborate: any company can get boards made at some chop shop outta Mexico, China, or even Canada, for hella cheap, and have a high profit margin… but that is not what Dead Canary is about. Since forever, I have always been about “quality over quantity”, no matter what the cost or the product may be.

When it comes to a product (like a skateboard) that is put through more hell, and endures more abuse than any other wooden toy, there is no substitute. And truthfully, if I am going to put my company name on it, well then it better be the best! Furthermore, I am proud to say we are helping to keep American workers working, and I don’t need a passport to pick up my product, or shake hands with the actual people manufacturing our boards. It’s a rad feeling to say the least.

 

Do you, or would you, sell direct-to-consumer (DTC)? If so, do you have an MSRP pricing structure in place to protect the retailers?

Yes, I sell direct to consumer on my website. But that it is not where I focus my attention, nor is it where the bulk of my sales come from.

That’s also a huge “for sure” on MSRP, and protecting retailers. My main focus is keeping the money in the local skate-shops pockets by offering them a premium quality product, with good margins, that they can sell at an affordable retail price- because let’s face it, they are the driving force not only behind the local skate scene, but skateboarding in general. Without them, skating would not where it is today, and companies like Dead Canary would not exist. I want to do anything I can to ensure they stay open for years to come, so they can continue to stoke out the next generation, and OG skaters everywhere!

 

Steve, you guys seem to have a really tight program going over there. Did you have any previous business experience before you started Dead Canary? Or, formal business education?

Hey! Well, thank you Bud! But no, I didn’t have any prior business experience or business education. I did graduate high school though, and earned an AA Degree in Fashion Design in college.

 

Have you advertised in any magazines lately? If so, how and why did you pick those mags…?

Oh, fa sho! We have been advertising with Lowcard Magazine constantly since day one, really. I selected Lowcard simply because they are into, and down with the same shit we are- such as DIY, and the “meet-up/Skate Jams”. Not to mention they’re 100% grassroots, fucking rad, core skateboarding… the type of skate mag I grew up with. Small format, low retail cost, no corporate BS, black and white printing, dope content, along with rad raw photos of street skating!

 

Where are you focusing the bulk of your promotional efforts these days?

We focus on local events, magazines, social media, DIY events and 100% free skate jams!

 

How crappy are my questions? Is there anything that I forgot to ask, that you’d like to talk about? Famous last words, perhaps…?

Haha na your all good man and yeah I just want to remind everyone to support your local skate-shop and skater owned companies!

 

Thanks, Steve. This was a blast to put together.

 

These fellas can be found on their website at www.deadcanaryskateboards.com; on Instagram @deadcanarydenim; and also on YouTube and Facebook under “Dead Canary Skateboards”.

 

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Let’s Talk Shop:
Seven Things Every Shop Should Be Doing Right Now (But Aren’t)
By Bud Stratford
Monday, February 19th, 2018

 

As I mentioned in my “Through The Eyes Of A Traveling Skater” article (printed in the January issue; you can see it here), I spent the better part of 2017 on tour scoping out skate shops all over the southwest. I spent a lot of my summer being un-pleasantly surprised at how disappointed I was in the core, brick-and-mortar skate shop.

If you ask the brick-and-mortar what the biggest threat is to their business, they’ll be really quick to point out a whole smorgasbord of external threats. I know this, and I know this well; I spent the entirety of last summer doing exactly that.

The answers were predictable enough: Amazon. The Internet. Crap-ass profit margins. Severely broken (and ancient) distribution channels that spread a thick oversupply of product everywhere. Small brands (and big brands) utilizing Direct-To-Consumer strategies. A lack of BRA and IASC initiative or support. The list goes on and on. But the one thing that I almost never hear from shops, is how they might be to blame for their own failures, or how they may be a very real threat to themselves.

 

 

The things that struck me the most this past summer, were the things that I didn’t experience out on the road. The things that were clearly missing; those were the things that I remember the most. Below, every shop in the country will find a quick-hit list of what was lacking on my Summer Tour 2017.

I’m publishing this piece as an open challenge to retailers everywhere: Fix This Shit. Help make my Summer Camper Tour 2018 far better than the 2017 version was.

The most startling part of this list, is how little it’s going to cost the skate shops, in terms of dollars spent, to fix these things. Most of the stuff on this list can be fixed, immediately, for free (or, at the very worst, “almost immediately, for nearly free”). They require nothing more than a caring disposition… caring for the customer is always Job One, after all… a little bit of initiative, some creative thinking, and the uncompromised, concrete resolve to make some long-overdue improvements and adjustments in how they conduct their business.

Here they are, the Top Seven Things on my 2018 Tour wish list:

 

 

Answering The Phone Correctly

 

I’m surprised that I even have to bring this one up. It’s such a common-sense sort of thing, you’d think that every skate shop in the world would get it right, one-hundred percent of the time.

Shops: there is only one commonly accepted, correct way for any business to answer the phone. That commonly accepted, correct way, is this: with a friendly, enthusiastic, and engaging, “Hello! Thanks for calling Bud’s Skate Shop! This is Bud, how may I help you today?!”

Any other imaginable way of answering the telephone is just plain wrong. I’m sorry. It’s the truth. And everyone (except for most skate shops) knows it.

You’ll think I’m full of shit, but I swear to God I’m not. More than ninety percent of the shops I called last year, answered the goddamned telephone with a droll, unenthusiastic, bland, and uninspiring, “Buuuuud’s”. That’s it. One word. No enthusiasm. And no engagement.

That’s so damned pathetic, it hurts. Shops: fix this one first, and fix it today. It’ll cost you nothing. But it makes all the difference in the world when you’re making that critical first impression to a would-be customer.

 

 

Engaging, Empowering, Encouraging, All-Inclusive Customer Service

 

Every single person that walks through your door is a potential customer. Many of them are skaters. Even if they don’t look like one.

There was a time when you could spot a skater a mile away. The way they dressed, the way they talked, their age… skaters were a very distinctive breed twenty years ago. Mostly teenage, white, male suburbanites in oversized clothing: that was a skater. Or, at the very least, the “most likely to be a skater” demographic.

Today, those rules are no more. Skateboarding has gotten so big, and so diverse, that even that clueless, 40-something truck driver standing in the corner of your shop just might be a skater. And for a good many skate shops in the southwest last year, he was. Because that clueless, 40-something truck driver just happened to be me.

I know from experience that as soon as I walk into a skate shop, and introduce myself as “Bud Stratford, Executive Director of This or That Magazine”, that the red carpets will almost immediately begin rolling out, and somebody is going to start kissing my ass. But that’s not the experience that I’m going for here. What I really want to experience, is how skate shops really treat their customers, or their potential customers. So, I don’t go in as “Bud Stratford, Mr. Important Somebody”. Nope. I go in as Joe Nobody, the clueless, truck driving dad.

Again, I spent the summer being consistently disappointed on this front. So did my ex-girlfriend, the 44-year-old single mom. Once she actually found a shop that treated her respectfully, and treated her kindly, she happily dropped $350 on two completes, no questions asked. Turns out, she was a skater at heart the whole time. All she needed was a shop that made her feel like one, and that would help her buy the perfect setup(s) for her skating desires, wants, and needs. But it only took twenty shops’ worth of window shopping to find that one shop that would actually stand up, stand tall, buck the trends, and treat her like a valued human being.

Shops: it’s impossible to tell anymore who is a skater, and who isn’t. So, stop judging people based on their age, gender, color, or socioeconomics. Treat everyone that walks into your door as if they were a skater. Because chances are, if they’re coming into your shop at all, then they’re (at the very least) a skater at heart. And that means a potential customer. And a potential customer is money in the bank.

“Cool Guy” vibing your customers, on the other hand, is a fast-track straight to bankruptcy. Never, ever forget that.

 

 

Cultivating A Real Skateboard Community (Not Just A Virtual One)

I heard a lot this year about social media. Many shops are very impressed with their social media skills. Me? Meh. Not so much. After all, I’m a living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being, standing in the heart of your skate shop. I’m not a computer with a brain the size of a microchip. I’m not particularly impressed by your virtual, digital “community”. The only thing that impresses me when I’m out on the road, is your living, breathing, thinking, and feeling, real-life skate community.

I didn’t see too many of those communities on the road last year. Lots of virtual reality. But startling little reality-reality.

So, how do you build one? By bringing people together. Hopefully, to skate. All of them.

 

 

More All-Inclusive, Grassroots Skate Events, and Fewer Contests (Please!)

 

I hate contests. I refuse to go to them anymore. Even when I go to one, I hardly watch it. I’d rather hang out and talk to people, maybe even do a little skating myself before or after the contest. But as for contests, themselves? I’m kinda over ’em.

Again: this notion of having a “skate event” where maybe a few hundred kids show up… and out of them, maybe a hundred actually enter the contest… and of those, maybe ten or twenty are crowned “winners”, and the rest of the field becomes a bunch of “losers”, by default definition… it’s just fucking stupid. It’s an insane way of “growing the sport”, isn’t it? To make 90% of the event attendees losers throughout the course of the event?

Why can’t we try making 100% of the attendees happy winners for a change…? Might that work out just a little better for us, and our industry, long term? Might that be a slightly smarter avenue toward “growing the sport” in a meaningful way?

Why don’t we try having all the best parts of the contest scene… the hanging out, the chatting, the socializing, and the skateboarding… without the drag of the actual contest? Why don’t we try to have more non-competitive, all-inclusive, all-inviting, all-skateboarding skateboard events?

If you’re shop isn’t doing these sorts of events, and doing one every week… whether it’s a bar-b-que, a shop demo, or just a meet-up-and-skate session at the local skatepark… then you’re just blowing it. Seriously. Blowing. It.

 

 

The Community Corkboard/The Events Newsletter

Every skate shop should have a “community corkboard” somewhere in the shop, where skaters can post up their event flyers, business cards, contact info, wanted/for sale tidbits, et cetera. If your local grocery store can do it… and you’d be hard pressed to find any grocery store in this country that doesn’t… then so can your skate shop.

Your shop simply cannot claim “community” until I see some tangible evidence in your shop of a bona-fide skateboard community. A Community Corkboard would be the best place to start building the community that I seek.

 

 

Network With “The Enemy”, Also Known As “Other Shops”

 

While I’m at it: your shop should be working with your friendly, brick-and-mortar competitors to promote each others’ skate events. Those events should also be up on your community corkboard at all times. I know, I know: that shop across town is “The Competition”. And that means they’re the enemy. I get it.

But guess what, brilliance? We have far bigger enemies to fry these days. The Internet. Amazon. Craigslist. Direct To Consumer. Let’s all realize that the best way to stabilize our retail infrastructure, and promote the whole idea of a brick-and-mortar led skateboard community, is for those brick-and-mortars to form a real retail community amongst themselves. And promote themselves in the process to the end consumer.

As Michael Brooke once relayed to me, “The enemy of my ememy is my friend”. Make that skate shop across town your friend (and partner) today.

There’s also an essay floating around this very website about some silly, Free-To-Join Skateshop Union idea. Maybe you should give that one a quick read, while we’re on the topic.

 

 

The Skatepark List/Skatepark Map

 

Again: you cannot claim “community” if you are lacking either of these things. Yes, I could go online to Concrete Disciples, and do a skatepark search. I could do the same on Google. But hey, guess what? They don’t always know everything. They don’t always have the latest updates, or the most recent data. I know this pretty well, because I work for The Disciples, doing exactly that: traveling around, and sending Jeff skatepark updates.

But here’s the rub: your shop sure as hell should. Your shop is, after all, the local expert and the local authority on your local skate community. That’s why you exist, right? Well. Until you have a skatepark map hanging in your shop, and a skatepark list sitting on your countertop, and a keen awareness of where every single skatepark is within a 30- to -50 mile radius of your skate shop, then I’m just not going to believe that you’re the local expert or the local authority on anything.

 

 

Look, man. Everything Skateboarding is a steadfast supporter of the brick-and-mortar skateshop paradigm. I’m serious about that, and I fucking mean it. However, I also believe that the skate shops themselves have to take their jobs as the anchors of their local communities, and their local skate scenes, as seriously as I do. If they don’t, then why would I bother shopping at one? Why would I bother going through the front door in the first place?

Before all else, I go to a local skate shop to immerse myself in the local skate community; that’s how I judge them. If there is no evidence of an empowered, engaged, inspired, local skate community anywhere in the shop, then I might as well shop online at a virtual skate shop.

That’s the risk. That’s what the rest of your customers are doing when you fail them, too.

Thanks for reading all these words and ideas. Now, please, make them a reality.

 

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The Next Initiative: An Open Letter to IASC
By Bud Stratford
Monday, January 22nd, 2018

Having just come off of an ambitious summer tour, I can tell you this with certainty: we are at a key crossroads as an industry. The one thing that I saw this summer, and saw often, was the a clear delineation and the stark contrast between towns and cities that have a prosperous, thriving, engaged, and activist core, brick-and-mortar skate retailer (B&Ms, from here on out), and towns and cities that do not. The places that had one (or more) of these retailers had lots of skaters that collectively formed a cohesive, prosperous, thriving, engaged, and activist skateboard scene. Conversely, the places that did not have a prosperous, thriving, engaged, and activist B&M, did not have much of a skate scene at all. I would describe these places as “Skateboard Armageddon Zones”; that would not be at all inaccurate. It was a bit horrifying, really. And my experiences this summer point the way to a very, very bleak future, if we decide to let current trends continue unabated.

This does not bode well for the future of our industry, nor for our local skateboarding communities. Not well at all. If we reach a critical mass of failed skate retailers nationwide, the results could be absolutely catastrophic. Our beloved pastime could literally die on the vine, right in front of our eyes; by many accounts, this is already well underway. And it could take years, decades perhaps, to rebuild the critical industry infrastructure that is the network of B&Ms. If it ever fully recovers at all.

 

 

I personally challenge IASC and their member brands to take up this initiative, and to do so posthaste. To be truly effective, this initiative would have to have five parts. They include:

 

 

Acknowledging the B&M Retailer as Irreplaceable, Critical Industry Infrastructure

 

This is the root of a philosophy. The philosophy being that the B&M Retailer, as the glue that holds local skate scenes together, and actively engages with, supports, and advocates for those skate scenes, plays a role that no other part of our industry is capable of effectively addressing.

The B&M is, quite literally, the front line of our industry’s aims and goals. They are the ones that throw local events. They are the ones that put on local contests. They are the foot soldiers that organize skaters, and fight local government to build skateparks. They are the ones that look out for the interests of skaters at the grassroots level. Without the B&M, none of this would happen; only a strong, all-inclusive local skateboard club could do any of these things with real effectiveness. Those don’t really exist yet (although they might well come to prominence in the near future, as more B&Ms falter and fail). For all practical intents and purposes, only the B&M is in the position to do any of the above.

Acknowledging the B&M Retailer as Irreplaceable, Critical Industry Infrastructure… even in a simple, publicly accessible press release… would do wonders toward helping the industry, and our consumer base, to focus effectively on this important issue.

 

 

Endorsing And Implementing Strong MSRP Pricing Structures

 

This one has been a long, long time coming. It is garnering greater acceptance across the industry. But until we have a critical mass embracing this premise, and engaging in a practical paradigm, then we will not have real progress on the B&M battlefront.

Sustainable business is the key here. By definition, any business that is not fiscally sustainable will not be sustained. Endorsing and Implementing Strong MSRP [Manufacturers Suggested Retail Pricing] Pricing Structures will go a long, long way toward sustainability.

 

 

Self-Policing DTC MSRP Standards

 

“Direct-To-Consumer” is the big buzzword in the skateboarding business right now. Many brands… both relative newcomers, along with their big legacy brand brothers… are actively engaging in a DTC paradigm. This is a clear, present, and immediate danger to the B&M Retailer, because they are suddenly finding themselves battling the brands on the pricing front.

Brands, be warned: this is probably the #1 complaint that I heard out of shop owners this summer, and they are beyond fucking pissed about it. If you want to sell direct-to-consumer, then fine. But at least subscribe to your own MSRPs while you’re doing it, so that the B&M can stand a fighting chance of surviving.

 

 

Promoting Livable Retail Margins

 

Let’s face facts: skate shops don’t make money. Hardgoods are loss leaders. Shoes and footwear are spread so thick over the landscape that shoe brands look like the sluts of the skate industry. Distribution is not only overly redundant, it’s damn near duplicitous. We’ve already discussed DTC, and its impact on shops. We probably have a bad case of oversupply and underdemand on our hands, exacerbating the toxic stew of unsustainability. And then, the few sales that are left to be gleaned out of all this chaos in the marketplace make worse-than-shit margins for the retailers.

This is another chink in the armor of the skate shop paradigm. Without money to reinvest in grassroots marketing and promotion efforts, how are we supposed to reinvest in grassroots marketing and promotion efforts? You tell me, because I don’t have the first fucking clue.

 

 

Skateshop Exclusive Product

 

Of all the topics I’ve addressed in this essay, this one might well be the most immediate, and the most effective, thing we could ever do as an industry. The snowboard industry showed us the way forward eons ago; I’m quite amazed that the skate industry didn’t pay closer attention to this one.

It’s really pretty simple, in principle. Some products can be found for sale on the mass market, and some can’t. Some products are earmarked specifically for the core retailer, and simply cannot be found anywhere else. In the snowboard world, these tend to be the premium-priced and/or most sought-after products; the “logo-branded, pricepoint” products are the ones that can be found anywhere and everywhere, including the core retailer.

The premium products are the margin and foot traffic generators. They drive business to the core retailer, and get the consumers spending their money on the coolest, hottest shit. But while the customer is there buying that special-release, high-technology, pro-model deck that is only available at the core, brick-and-mortar retailer, the core retailer has a unique opportunity to upsell them their favorite bindings, boots, jackets, pants, beanies, and gloves along the way.

That architected opportunity… yes, these are opportunities created by intentional design, crafted by the snowboard industry… also allows the core retailer to engage with that snowboarder on a much more human level, and bring them into the broader snowboard community. They get the chance to make positive human connections, increase active participation, spread the stoke, and enrich the experience along the way. In doing so, they also become the front lines of consumer engagement and encouragement. Business is business, it’s true. But you still can’t put a price on genuine enthusiasm.

Snowboard companies recognize the value in that. And that’s why they earmark the upper-left-hand-corner of their product envelopes specifically for the core, brick-and-mortar retailer, and the core, brick-and-mortar retailer only. Because they recognize the immensely valuable contribution that the B&M makes toward the snowboard industry, the snowboard culture, and the snowboard community as a whole.

 

 

Here at Everything Skateboarding, we are not afraid to lead. Somebody has to do it. Somebody has to recognize what’s going on, and where these things are gonna get us. Somebody has to see the handwriting on the wall, and do something to steer the dialogue in a meaningful way. That being said, we encourage IASC (along with BRA) to step up to the plate; engage with manufacturers, brands, marketers, promoters, distributors, retailers, and the buying public; and do something tangible to move the ball forward, and make these things happen. There is not a single moment to lose. Every day we wait, we lose another core retailer to the market mayhem. The future of our pastime is hanging in the balance, just waiting on somebody, somewhere, to take swift and decisive action.

We’re here to ask, and ask in all sincerity: when is this madness going to stop? Where and when will we draw the line in the sand? And when are we going to find the fortitude and the resolve, as an industry, to do something about it…?

IASC, you are in the best position to take up this fight. I sincerely hope that you choose to do it sooner than later. Best regards, as always-

 

 

Bud Stratford
Executive Director,
Everything Skateboarding

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I don’t have all the answers. I know I may sound like I do, and I may even feel like I do from time to time. But really, I don’t. The very best assets that I’ve ever had, have been my off-the-cuff, gut reactions to things. And given my hopelessly atrocious dating record as of late, even those off-the-cuff, gut reactions can be pretty damned questionable at times, bordering on seriously stupid.

Here’s what I do know, though. And I suspect most skaters, as well as most of our industry, will agree with this sentiment. Interpersonal relationships still matter. Face time still counts for something. Consumers still like to meet pro and amateur skaters, and industry players, movers, and shakers. They still like to put their hands on neat new products. Shop owners still like to talk, in person, with other retailers about emerging retail trends and challenges. There’s still a shared experience there to be savored, all across our industry, and across our consumer/customer base. So in that regard, trade shows can (and do) still matter. When they’re done right, and done well. Of course.

But here’s that big ‘ol list of sheep shit that nobody wants. Nobody wants excruciatingly big-buck, budget-breaking blowfests organized by some fucking opportunistic outsider that doesn’t give two flying shits about our pastime. Nobody wants fluffy, fast-cash irrelevance. Nobody wants the overpowering opulence and obvious grandstanding of the Long Beach Convention Center. Nobody wants to see only the big-dollar, corporate brands than can afford such an over-the-top, self-pandering presence. Nobody wants to see your tasteless bling that was borrowed, brokered, swindled, and stolen off the backs of little kids.

That’s why ASR failed. And that’s why Agenda is following so thoroughly in ASR’s footsteps.

 

 

I didn’t go to Agenda. It’s true. Why should I? Why should I spend six hours, and a few hundred bucks, driving to Los Angeles in the middle of the goddamned night to go see a bunch of self-stroking sales blowhards touting brands that have long been hopelessly irrelevant to our industry, and to the skaters themselves? If they’re not dead yet, well, it won’t be all that long until they are. Their days are numbered; the Titanic is already taking on water. I say, let the fuckers sink. We’ll be better off for it. The only thing I really missed out on, ironically enough, was staying on The Queen Mary. That’s the only real draw for me in Long Beach. That, and seeing Danny Creadon over at the Factory 13 workshop. He’s truly inspiring; far more inspiring then the grand total of soulless sales twats in that fucking convention center, that much I can personally assure you of. But I can always go to Long Beach to do that sort of stuff.

The trade show itself, though, is best avoided. Too much of a pain in the ass. That’s my critique of the show. And that’s why I didn’t bother to go.

 

Danny Creadon of Factory 13 Skateboards, photo by the author, circa 2010.

 

Jeff Harbaugh, Michael Brooke, most of the industry… these guys are all pretty confused right now. “What’s going to happen next?!”, they’re all wondering aloud to everyone within earshot. Well, I don’t know for sure. But I do have a pretty good idea. As always, the future is already unfolding right at our feet. All we have to do, is look around our toes a bit. Poke around the grass roots of skateboarding, and see what’s growing amongst the weeds. That’s always been the best harbinger of where things are headed. And it still holds true, to this very day.

There is a movement afoot to, on one hand, take skateboarding back. And yet, at the very same time, to spread it farther and wider than this silly and stupid notion of “core skateboarding” would ever accept, let alone support. The basic premise here is to put skaters (and skater-owned companies) in charge of the ship, and steer it in the right direction for all the right reasons. Everything that is happening in skateboarding today, is happening because of that very basic premise.

Those are the roots, the very beginnings of it all. The grass only grows greener from there.

 

 

Jamie Thomas had it right. “Skateboarding is at a crossroads”; and thus, we had The Crossroads Show. A brilliant move! If only he had kept it up, he might have gone places with that. He might well have become one of the most important people in all of skateboarding; the opportunity was right there, well within reach. Alas, events sometimes pass us right on by. But it was a germination point that gave the start to the movement. And that humble little movement has been spawning a new sort of “trade show” for the last, oh, five years now?

I know the trend intimately well, because I attend these sorts of things all the time.

 

 

Adam Richards got it right. Every spring, here in Phoenix, he hosts his annual SkaterCon event. This year, it will be on March 3rd. I fully expect that Harbaugh and Brooke will make the time to come and check it out in person, if they’re so curious about “what the future holds”. Because the future is happening right here, and right now. It’s been happening every single spring for the last few years. And it’s not the event’s fault if you haven’t noticed the grass growing under your feet. That’s your bad, buddies. Get on that shit, or keep on missing out.

You choose. Choose wisely.

 

This is the overview of last weekend’s Skatercon, held at Paradise Valley Skatepark in the northern suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. Paradise Valley has it all: a full street course; three bowls of varying heights and sizes; a huge parking lot (part of which hosted the “vendor’s section”, seen to the right); ample “green” areas (complete with grills and picnic benches); skate legends (in the form of Steve Steadham, Bill Danforth, Dennis Martinez, Jesse Martinez, Steve Caballero, and Christian Hosoi, among many others); bands (and very loud bands, at that); and most importantly, everyone’s invited, and everybody’s welcome to join in the shenanigans. This year, somebody even wrangled up and restored the old Bare Cover Demo ramp, and brought it along for the kiddies to kill themselves on. Skatercon is serious fun for everybody. Agenda looks like a weak-ass shit-show by comparison. Photo by Jessie Pena.

 

The problem is not a lack of ideas, energy, initiative, or motivation on the part of event organizers. It’s a lack of awareness from the media, the analysts, and the greater industry at large. They’re just fucking clueless. So get off your goddamned couch, fly your asses to Phoenix, and sleep on my couch for a few days. Do it the way any real skater worth their shit would do it: dirtbag style. I’m a pretty good host, and a whole buncha fun times; you know it’s true. I’ll show you the future pretty quickly, pal, if you really wanna see it that bad. It happens right here, in my back yard, every fucking spring.

 

 

Skatercon is not the only one. They’re out there, happening all over the world. And they will continue to happen, grow, and propagate. Already, there are a few more Skatercon-like events being organized around the country.

These events all share a common template. The industry is always invited, of course, in typical trade-show fashion. But booth space is actually affordable (booth space at Skatercon was a whopping $100), and focused not on big-budget one-upmanship… but rather, on the humble, friendly people behind the ideas. They’re mellow, low-key, inviting, all-inclusive, and intimate events, these ‘trade shows”. The way it should be. The way it should have always been, really.

The retailers and the public are all invited. That’s a big key, right there. Everyone gets the same stoke and the same info, at the same sitting, so everyone’s on the same page. The kids go into the shops asking for all these brand-new, upstart brands… and the shops know exactly what the kids are talking about, because they saw them at the show, too.

It’s seamless, and it’s fucking genius.

 

 

There’s something here for anyone and everyone. There we go with that “inclusion” thing again that Mikey (Brooke, over at The Wave) is always talking up. Street skating. Bowlriding; SkaterCon is held at Paradise Valley Skatepark, the perfect venue for such a thing. Longboarding. Cruising. The whole smorgasbord, coexisting without rivalries or silly boundaries… what a concept. Agenda could have learned a thing or two from Adam Richards (or Michael Brooke); too bad they never did. There are also food trucks, BBQs, contests, demos, movie premieres, bands, legendary skaters and industry heads; you name the kind of fun you like, and it’s probably at SkaterCon, just waiting to be had. Adam’s a skater, of course. So naturally enough, he knows how to have, and host, a really grand time.

 

This is the ground-level view of last weekend’s Skatercon, held at Paradise Valley Skatepark in the northern suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. Note that there are kids, parents, older skaters, girls, women, boys, men, retailers, skate legends, industry reps, and brand owners, all mixing it up in the crowd, on a relatively low-key, even footing. This is “community building” at it’s best.  Skateboarding needs that more than ever.

Agenda actually embodies the opposite of community-building; it somehow manages to be community-divisive at it’s core, by excluding wide swaths of our community from their hallowed halls. Not cool, not clean, and definitely not happening.

 

These new brands… they aren’t waiting for SkaterCon though. They are hustling, and they are hitting it hard. First Friday in Phoenix sees a few brands turn out, every single month, without fail. Why wait for people to go to the skate shop? Why not just go where the people actually are, right now, tonight? The same goes for demos and contests; these upstart brands are always there, too, under their tents, interacting with the crowd. I was just at the DC/Cowtown Union Hills Classic a few weekends ago… and again, every upstart brand in the Phoenix Metro was there, and well represented. Talking to kids, checking out the skating, doing a little bit of skating themselves, and generally being the scene. Every event I go to, they’re there. Whether they’re “skateboard events” or not… they’re still there, nonetheless.

 

 

These brands aren’t afraid to chuck the “core credibility” out the window, in order to gain something far more valuable: consumer credibility. They just want to engage and interact with people on a one-on-one level, and share all kinds of skateboarding with everybody. Skaters and non-skaters alike; the silly titles don’t really impress these guys (and gals) all that much. Everyone’s a potential skater, and that’s more than good enough for them. So, that’s how they approach the market: as a giant opportunity to get everyone and anyone on a skateboard. If that makes them somehow less “core”? Well then, fuck the haters. Haters are gonna hate, anyway. But haters are rarely successful. And all these upstart brands want, is a tiny taste of success.

So you can take all your haterade, and shove it straight up your ass. This New Generation of brands just doesn’t give a flying fuck about any of it.

 

 

The best thing about these brands, is that they are everywhere. Growing like weeds, so to speak. AZPX. Arizona Laminates. Dead Canary. Taffy. Nemesis. Flo. Phoenix Skateboards. Dead Pawn. Apache. Good Shit Board Company. Lagoon. Rattlecan Garage. White Wave. Shado. Gator Skins. Lifestyle. The Phoenix Metro alone must boast at least a dozen brands by now. There might well be another dozen I haven’t even heard of yet; that wouldn’t surprise me one bit. And they are out there, in force. They are literally everywhere; you couldn’t escape them if you wanted to. But trust me on this one: they are the coolest folks in the world, so you wouldn’t want to escape them. Best buncha brands you’ll ever meet. No foolin’.

And even weirder: they all get along. They’re friendly competitors that actually support each other to some greater or lesser degree. Mostly, greater. They pitch in to support all these little grassroots events… everything from street-skating contests to mini-ramp jams to longboard cruises… and make them bigger, better, more exciting, and far more successful than had they all gone it alone, and inhabited their own tiny little insignificant islands. Strength in numbers, people. They know it well. Too bad BRA and IASC still haven’t figured it out just yet. So close, fellas. So close.

 

 

These brands aren’t aiming to be multi-zillionaires anytime soon. That’s the best part. That slow, sustainable growth philosophy allows them to still be a little bit selfless, and be a lot more giving then any of the IASC contingent could ever dream of being. Again: for all the right reasons. For the love of freedom, fun, and adventure. Not the endless, slutty quest for mere dollars and cents over self-determination and sense. Michael [Brooke] said it best: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts”. There’s a side of me that sincerely hopes that this new generation of skateboard brands never loses that fresh innocence, or that pure simplicity in their approaches. I know it’s a lot to ask, and it might be hopelessly naïve of me to dream so big… but in the very worst case, at least I can enjoy it for however long it lasts. Life is pretty damned good right now, and the memories are well worth being right here, and right now to watch it all unfold.

 

 

So, no, I didn’t go to Agenda. I had far better things to do. I’m watching new paradigms being architected, right in front of my very eyes, by intelligent, enthusiastic, energetic, innovative, and intrepid groundbreakers of a million upstart little skate brands. Sure, the fluffy folks at Agenda can spout off a whole buncha marketing fuckboy bullshit, and some of it just might end up selling to some senseless sucker somewhere. But they’ll never be able to say that they’re architecting a brand new set of promotional paradigms, and say it with a straight face.

Good riddance, Agenda. You won’t be missed.

 

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No matter how many times I do it, the commute from Northern New Jersey into Brooklyn never gets any more enjoyable, nor does it ever get more timely. The weekend bus crawls through the intersections of suburban towns, and undoubtedly gets held up around the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel. Once I get into the city, I go elbow to elbow with dozens of other people to cram into the only subway cars not beset by some sort of track repair. Then, I stand and long for some semblance of personal space until I finally reach my stop. No, the ride into NYC is never a glamorous one- but it always proves to be a rewarding one. Especially when you meet the colorful personalities that make up the city’s skateboarding contingency once you get to your destination at last.

 

Clockwise from top left: Maximilian Mueller portrait by Brian Lentini; “We’re All Intertwined” by Maximilian; “Pray For Nature” hand painted deck by Maximilian.

 

On this day in particular, I made my way out to Bushwick and found myself in familiar territory of interviews I had done in the past. With the last few hours of sunlight remaining, I made my way through streets of people savoring the above-freezing temperatures and found an unassuming door somewhere between a flower shop and a barber shop. Inside, one of New York skateboarding’s most decorated up-and-coming artists, Maximilian Mueller, welcomed me in to check out his spot. As we stepped in the front door, we were immediately in his work space, complete with decks lining the walls and wheels piled up on the window sill.

Scattered around were finished and in progress works of some of his more iconic subjects. Most notably, his “Peeking Face” graphics seemed to be staring at us from all angles. Mueller told me this graphic, which is considered his trademark, was born in 2007, and was originally created to take the form of an African mask. However, in chopping off the lower half of the figure’s face, he found it far more interesting to view the figure as emotionless, only partially being able to communicate with the direction of the figure’s eyes. At the same time, one of his other well known characters, “Wilty” (a crying flower) looked down upon us as well. This one, Mueller told me, was also developed around 2007, but became more meaningful to him in accordance with his eventual departure from his rural home of Maryland to the concrete metropolis of New York to pay homage to the aspects of nature he felt that he was losing around him.

 

“After scaling a rather precarious ladder to get ourselves up there, we found ourselves among the pigeons and satellite dishes, and had a seat with a Montauk Driftwood Ale in hand.”

 

Before it got completely dark, I jumped at Mueller’s offer to check out the roof of his building. After scaling a rather precarious ladder to get ourselves up there, we found ourselves among the pigeons and satellite dishes, and had a seat with a Montauk Driftwood Ale in hand. The views from above were nothing short of incredible as we overlooked a few skaters sessioning the perfect iron angled stage ledge at Maria Hernandez Park across the street from the building. Although, not even the sight of skaters setting up for their tricks across a perfectly smooth tiled ground could compare to the sight of a golden sun setting over the Manhattan skyline dead ahead.

 

Our subject, Maximilian Mueller backside 50-50, photo by Rob Wallace.

 

After nearly freezing outside, we settled in downstairs, took a step back, and started chatting about his roots growing up just outside of Washington DC. In 2000, he told me, he began skating at age 7 when he snatched his brother’s Element board that a friend had passed along. As he progressed on the board, he would come to realize the lack of parks Maryland had to offer, and he set his sights on the nearby city instead. Commuting into the urban playground using the same Metro red line that Bobby Worrest frequented, Mueller found his way to the mecca of Washington DC skateboarding – Pulaski Park (aka: Freedom Plaza). However, as is notorious with the spot, the heavenly assortment of stone ledges and stairs was habitually surrounded by cops. As such, Mueller remembers countless times where his sessions would be compromised by the presence of police, forcing an every-man-for-himself escape from the park. Though Mueller managed to avoid getting caught and jailed for skating there, it was episodes like these that made it seem to him like all skateboarding was illegal growing up.

As for his beginnings in art, he fought to avoid the cliché of saying he had been doing it for as long as he could remember. Of course though, the truth is that Mueller has been drawing and painting since his childhood, and even documented that he wanted to be an artist in his third grade yearbook. As his schooling career went on, Mueller proclaimed that he wanted to take art seriously (by way of making a career out of it) in the 9th grade. At the time, he recalled the skepticism of his professors and stood by the fact that those who challenged his work the most, ended up becoming the figures that made the biggest impact on his pursuit. Eventually, Mueller explained how he was starting to see what he thought was the end of potential in rural Maryland. In response, he set his sights north and made his move to New York City.

By late 2014, Mueller got linked up with Alex Corporan of NY Skateboarding to start designing flyers for the popular, SkateNight NYC events, formerly at the Leftfield Bar in the Lower East Side. Surrounded by some of the foremost players in the 80’s and 90’s skate scene, Mueller began to see the value of interacting with and learning from the insights of those skating years before he ever stepped foot on a board. In the same way that the attendees showed their commitment to skateboarding, Mueller begun to build a portfolio dedicated to both the skateboarding and art communities alike. Supported by Corporan the whole time, he was reminded that the work he put into the flyers was earning him more respect than he was aware of. As Mueller recollected some of these early works, he stands by the notion that he was doing the right things for the right reasons. In the end he realized the importance of not only being involved in the scene, but contributing to it.

 

Left to right: Maximilian astride a Street Plant “Wilty” graphic deck; “Lowrider” by Maximilian; “Peeking Totem” hand painted deck by Maximilian.

 

Before long, as Mueller told me, his perseverance would pay off by the end of 2015. In the fashion of a true Christmas miracle, Mueller told me the story of getting an email response from the ever-engaging personality of Mike Vallely on Christmas Day. Upon seeing artwork that Mueller had sent him, Mike had him start doing illustrations to accompany some of his poems and writings, and soon after recruited Max to join Street Plant Brand’s Battalion as a member of the art team. Some of his recent work with Vallely’s brand has also included a tour through Texas with the team and even a run of boards with Mueller’s Wilty graphic hitting the streets.

With his work starting to facilitate throughout the world of skate-centric art, Mueller would find that his connections from SkateNight NYC came back into play. Another one of the folks that Mueller cites as a key to his story, Josh Zickert from adidas Skateboarding, who was familiar with the work he devoted to the old flyers, offered him a spot at the second ever adidas Skateboarding ‘Show Case’ at the renowned SoHo Arts Club (former location) in April 2016. Inside the walls that were once Grace Jones’, and frequented by the likes of Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Julian Schnabel, Mueller proudly showed his work in the second event of the ‘Show Case’ series (last in this space) that would end up traveling around the globe soon after!

Later that year, Mueller explained to me, he was again summoned by adidas Skateboarding to paint some ramps for their Skate Copa Court Brooklyn event, the first event before it toured the globe. His marquee piece there was a circular manual pad, which he spent hours hand painting. Once his work was unleashed to the world, the likes of some of adidas Skateboarding’s best including Tyshawn Jones and Nakel Smith put on a clinic of technical manual tricks over his work. In Mueller’s eyes, however, his favorite bit of skating from the event was seeing the people’s champ, Mark Gonzales, playfully bumping nosepicks into the side of the piece he helped bring to life.

 

“Once his work was unleashed to the world, the likes of some of adidas Skateboarding’s best including Tyshawn Jones and Nakel Smith put on a clinic of technical manual tricks over his work. In Mueller’s eyes, however, his favorite bit of skating from the event was seeing the people’s champ, Mark Gonzales, playfully bumping nosepicks into the side of the piece he helped bring to life.”

 

Evidently, as I would learn, his work with adidas Skateboarding was not, and is not finished yet. Those who remember seeing the back cover of the August 2017 issue of Juxtapoz Magazine (Mueller’s all time favorite magazine) would know that the advertisement set the tone for an incredible event that took place this past December in Miami, Florida. Again, Mueller was hand-picked for a showcase, but this time with a celebrated collective of 13 other artists from around the world. In a massive show that was well attended and got significant press, the experience demonstrated to Mueller how sincerely people still respect the arts, and the passion that bring the work to fruition.

As we sank into the couch and our conversation meandered from one show to the next, I found myself amazed at his tales of meeting everyone from Jason Dill to Tony Hawk, being that he has only been living in New York for just under seven years. At the same time, I knew I was in the presence of a true skate nerd, who happened to be just as much an art nerd and who had immersed himself in the culture completely, as every couple of minutes we would get sidetracked with talks of some of his inspirations. Mueller revered Marc McKee’s use of cartoons and vibrant color palette on works like the iconic Mike V Barnyard deck as stylistic inspiration. He also marveled at the way people demanded the work of Ed Templeton and The Gonz when buying Toy Machine or Krooked boards, respectively. Intermittently, names like Neil Blender and Lance Mountain also came up as he flipped through the pages of Sean Cliver’s “Disposable Skateboard Bible.”

 

“Spray Love” by Maximilian.

 

As we wrapped things up, Mueller left me with a few parting words on his presence in the skateboarding and artistic worlds alike. He made clear how he was not in either community to serve as a judge for how people perceive his art (or his skating for that matter). Instead, he told me that his place in these subcultures was to surround and align himself with like-minded people within and outside the art and skateboarding communities.

When I asked him what we should look for next, I figured that his commitment to his craft would leave me with a multifaceted answer. I was not disappointed. His future plan included a commissioned mural back in his home state of Maryland that will highlight his affinity for the culture surrounding coffee. After this, Mueller will be hitting the streets of Texas again with the Street Plant team, and then immediately making his way out to San Jose for his high profile exhibition at Jai Tanju’s Gallery, “Seeing Things.”

Unlike Mueller, my immediate future had no plans for fancy art shows and faraway skate trips. Instead, I left the apartment bound for another two hours of dingy subway cars and confined bus seats on the way back to North Jersey. However, I left reminiscing over the sights of rooftop views and the stories from one of the most passionate young skateboarders I have come across lately. And no matter how many times I do the commute, leaving with memories like that are always every bit worth it.

 

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Welcome to the second-ever issue of Everything Skateboarding. Thanks for taking the time to check it out and give it a look. I think I can speak for the entire staff when I say that we genuinely appreciate the sincere love and enthusiastic feedback that we all received with Issue One. Seriously: thank you so, so much. We love you all.

The February and March issues of Everything Skateboarding have evolved over the past month to materialize as the “Spotlight On The Skateshops” double-issue. Of course, there’s a short story that goes with that, and explains how it all came to pass.

In the world of internet publishing, there is no such thing as “stopping the presses”- neither literally, nor figuratively. Instead, random events have a weird way of organically, yet substantially, steering the content and the coverage. This month, I started our “skateshop outreach” in earnest. I had no idea going into it, just how significant it would ultimately be.

At first, this was simply designed as a way of promoting the website to the reader base, and to make sure that the shops that I was calling were still in business. Then, if they were, I asked them if they wanted to be added to The Skateshop List. It’s totally free, and there are no strings attached; it’s simply another small way that we can give back to the community that gives us so much. It’s really the least we could do. 

In speaking to shops, however, I found that bigger, far more substantive conversations came straight to the surface. I immediately got the impression that shops have a lot to say these days, but very few eager listeners. Being in the media, though, active listening is a finely honed skill; as a result, it tends to come pretty easily to me. The shops that I called had a lot of struggles on their plates, and heaps of stories to tell. I enthusiastically absorbed them all like a dry sponge. And I really, really enjoyed the experience.

Around the same time, one of my local skate shops approached me for some help. I’ve long thought that our industry would go really far toward stability and sustainability, if our brands and our media could do something to tangibly support our retailers. Brian Upton at The Sk8 Haus in Surprise, Arizona, gave me the opportunity to do just that. Again, the request was simple enough: he just needed some help with some fairly tedious tasks, and a few promotional pointers here and there. It really wasn’t all that much to ask, so I jumped on in to help whenever and wherever I could. In the past few months, we’ve both learned a lot about the day-to-day struggles that the modern retailer faces… and we’ve enacted a whole host of quick, easy, inexpensive ideas that almost any shop could use to improve their engagement, their effectiveness, their customer service, their community initiative, and their profitability. We’ll be talking about that, in detail, next month.

I was asked a few weeks back, what “the point” of Everything Skateboarding is. Well, of course, I’m a pretty ambitious bloke, so there are quite a few “points” that I could touch on. But this month, my immediate, off-the-cuff answer was that I wanted to do my small part to architect a parallel industry template. One that inclusively invites manufacturers, brands, brick and mortar retailers, and the skater-consumers to work together, hand in hand, with a mutually supportive ethos, to build a truly skater-owned and operated industry that serves the customer, and serves them remarkably well. Put another way: our industry should be one-hundred-percent skater run and operated at all times. The ethos should be that skater-owned manufacturers support skater-owned brands that, in turn, support skater-owned shops; ultimately, they all exist to support the everyday skater in the street. And vice versa: it’s very important that skaters genuinely support all of these skater-owned cogs in the wheel, because if they don’t, the wheel falls apart, and we’re left with The Big Uncaring Corporate Machine being the only alternative. And I don’t think anybody in their right mind really wants that.

That skaters-supporting-skaters ethos would be industry perfection, right there. That’s a goal well worth working hard, and working tirelessly toward.

The media, I believe, has a huge role to play in that architecture, as we (generally) work in an even-handed manner for all the participating parties, with a minimum of profiteering self-interest. Put more simply: we’re looking out for everyone’s interests, all along the way. That’s our job. That’s what we’re here to do.

Here at Everything Skateboarding, we take our jobs pretty seriously. We’re ready, willing, and able to do our small part to make the dream of an all-supportive, by-skaters-for-skaters industry a tangible, concrete reality.

The question is: are you?

Enjoy the issue.

Bud Stratford, Executive Director, Everything Skateboarding

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Editor’s note: This essay was written on Sunday, January 8th, 2017, shortly after I got my big promotion to the position of Executive Director at Concrete Wave Magazine (although I couldn’t remember the title for the life of me; thus, I refer to myself as “Fancy-Pants Title Guy” throughout the piece).

It never got published; it probably got lost to events and circumstance somewhere. I recently found it buried in a pile of digital files, and thought it was far too good of a piece to pass up again. It still holds water, a whole year later. Consider it really good advice that you just might wanna take. -B. 

 

It’s a beautifully mild and sunny day here in Phoenix, Arizona today. I just got back from the Agenda show about thirty-six hours ago, and I’m working hard at my laptop, getting settled in to my new job. At the show, I learned… much to my immediate amazement and surprise… that I now have a pretty fancy-pants title here at The Magazine. I’m still in a little bit of shock mode, if the truth must be told. How in the good grace of God did I ever get promoted to such a lofty position, you ask…? Damned if I know. But, let me tell you a little story anyway. We’ll call it, “My Theory of The Story of My Success”. “Success”, of course, being highly subjective and decidedly debatable. But I’m pretty content at the moment, so I must be doing something right.

When I was a kid, I was the fat, nerdy dork that you and your snot-nosed little buddies probably picked on in school. For the most part, that still stands to this day. I’m definitely not the picture-perfect definition of “The Cool Dude”, regardless of what others (Mike included) might mistakenly lead you to believe. The only real difference between me then, and me now, is I’m a much older, and much fatter, balding dork (with bad knees) that has somehow made a “name” for himself by pecking out biting… yet, “incredibly insightful”… cuss-filled think-pieces. So, the balding and the cussing are really the only differences here. But remarkably, nobody slings me any crap at all for the “balding” bit. How odd, now that I think of it.

I catch a lot of crap for speaking my mind in the way that I do. Or rather, I used to catch a lot of crap for it. Not so much anymore. You’d be amazed at what having a billowing bank account, an impressive job description, and a fancy-pants title will do for your overall reputation. Which I find hysterical, because it’s so hypocritical. Apparently, you can only speak your mind in this f’n country, and be respected for it, if you just so happen to have an impressive enough resume, and some cash in hand. ‘Murica. Go figure.

When I was a kid, I couldn’t talk at all. I totally forgot to mention that part. Not only was I fat and nerdy… I had a super-serious stuttering problem. Not like, “oh, the fat kid that stutters on occasion”. Nuh-uh. I’m talking like, I seriously couldn’t talk at all. It really, really sucked.

One of my earliest childhood memories, was sitting on a bus on my way home from kidnergarten. We’re going way, way back in the day now. The bus driver was asking me a simple enough question: where did I live? So he could get my fat ass home, naturally enough. After all, that was his job, right? But, I couldn’t answer him. I seriously couldn’t do it. I could not manage to get even a single word out of my face. And he’s looking at me like, “Oh, God, this kid’s a special kinda stupid, ain’t he…? I really hate this job sometimes. Dammit…!” So, he took me right back to school. What else could he do…? And the poor school had to call my frantic mom, and explain to her what a damned idiot I was and all, and how I was gonna be such a  hopeless loser in life. Your earliest memory is probably something really cool, like riding a bike or playing baseball or swimming or something. But my earliest memory is of me, being a f’n moron. And that was pretty much the story of my life for a long, long time.

Fast forward to my freshman year of high school. All that same stuff, unfortunately, still totally applied. The fat, the nerdy, the stuttering, the whole bag. Until one day. I actually remember it remarkably well.

I can’t tell you the kid’s name. Truth is, he’s still a beloved and loyal friend to me, all these years later. But on that day, he was being a real prick. He was picking on me, of course, for stuttering. Most of my life, I had just quietly kept my mouth shut, and taken it straight up the butt. I couldn’t f’n talk, so what else was I supposed to do…? It’s not like I really had any options or anything. So basically, I was screwed. Until that day. That day, everything changed. It was pretty awsome.

My pops is a truck driver. Always has been. Runs in the family, in fact; his pops was a truck driver, too. Truckers, y’know… they can cuss it up. Sailors and bikers might be in the game, but truckers man… they’re winning at that shit. And of course, I was always surrounded by these bad, bad influences, just by palling around with my pops so much. They were some of the very best influences that I would ever have, as it turns out. But generally speaking, they’re still widely seen by the holier-than-though, bible-thumping, politically-correct, thought-policing general public as being pretty damned lowbrow. And that’s at the very, very best.

That day, my whole life changed for the better. That kid picked the worst day ever to pick on my fat, nerdy ass. I stood right up, and pounded him right in the ojo. Poor bastard never saw it coming; probably didn’t think I even had it in me. Now, just to be clear here: I’m not condoning violence. Not one bit. This magazine is pacifist in nature, and all conflicts in an idealized, picture-perfect world would be far better handled by reasonable and empathetic discourse amongst respectably inclined, mature people. All I’m saying is that, sometimes, it’s in the eventual best interests of your victims… and it’s almost always in your immediate best interests, as the perpetrator… for you to stand up, kick some ass, and beat some “enlightenment” into the brains of a bully. That’s all I’m sayin’. Nothing more, and nothing less.

So while I’m beating the utter craptasticness out of this poor bloke, I finally pulled my secret weapon out of my back pocket. No, it wasn’t a gun, or a knife, or brass knuckles. We handled stuff like real men back then, not like the pansy-pants wannabies of today. Hands sufficed back in the day, we didn’t need to resort to silly accessories to get our point across. The secret weapon that I’m referring to here are all those years of listening to my dad’s buddies bullshit. Every cuss word that I’ve ever learned… and believe me, there were some pretty impressive ones, thanks to the spontaneous and boundless cussing creativity of your average truck driver… came straight out of my mouth, and fast-tracked into this dude’s ears. And dude really had no choice about it. Wasn’t much left of his head when I was done with him, besides his ears.

In that moment, something magical happened. I stopped stuttering. Like, completely and permanently stopped stuttering. Suddenly… much to my immediate amazement… the words smoothly and effortlessly flowed right out of my mouth. Never missed a beat. No pun intended, of course. But considering that this poor chap was getting the life beaten right out of him as I was having my little moment of illustrative enlightenment over here, well, I’ll go right on ahead and rip with the punnyness.

The eventual solution to my stuttering problem wasn’t a decade’s worth of speech therapy. School administators, of course, are really quick to employ such meaningless bureaucratic psychobabble to “solve these sorts of problems” with kids. That wasn’t the best medicine for me, obviously. But kicking some substantial ass sure was. And right then and there, I accomplished what years of “therapy” could never even dream of doing: I finally found the value of my own voice. Not, the value in talking. Talk is cheap, as the old cliche goes. But the value of speaking your own mind, in your own way, and on your own terms. And screw the whole damn world if they didn’t like it, or if they don’t approve of it. And believe me on this one: they most definitely did not approve of my suddenly liberating, trash-mouthing revelations. Damn near got suspended over them, actually. And my poor, poor mom. She’s never lived a day without disappointment ever since.

My job here at the magazine is so multi-faceted and multi-dimensional, that I could never give you a full synopsis in a quickie little intro. But, I can whittle it down to the pertinent core pretty quickly: my job at This Magazine, first and foremost, is to empower and embolden everybody else around me to speak their minds, in their own way, and on their own terms. It’s really that simple. Everything else that we do here at The Mag follows suit from the source of that basic premise.

This weekend, my first order of business…my very first executive decision… was to build a Brain Trust of like-minded individuals and advisors to come in and help me guide “the movement” forward. I wanted the very best, and the very brightest that this industry has to offer on my team… and by jolly, did we ever get ’em. I want to take a moment to thank every single one of them for coming on board, and lending their minds, their hearts, and their hands to the struggle. You are all so, so appreciated. Get ready, ‘cuz we’ve got some serious work to do. I kid you not.

But in the very same way that this magazine has made a continuing contribution to me, exercising my voice… and I, in turn, immediately gave The Brain Trust a platform from which to freely exercise theirs… ultimately, this magazine exists to help you discover and exercise yours. We’re just the mentor symbols in the equation; you, the readers, are the ultimate endgame.

Just by being a skateboarder, of course, you’re off to a great start. Skateboarding is, without doubt, one of the best vehicles for self-exploration, self-discovery, and artistic expression ever conceived. It’s also an efficient and fun form of personal transportation for us to explore the finer nuances of the world that surrounds us. Of course, you know all this already. I just wanted to remind you of it, in case y’all have forgotten or something. Given skateboarding’s declining popularity right now, it seems that a whole lotta heads have forgotten this stuff. But, no worries. We’ll get on them, and set them straight eventually.

But at the end of the day, we want to encourage, empower, and facilitate you, the reader, to step up, open your mouth, and speak your mind, on your own terms, and in your own way, both inside and outside of skateboarding. If we can do something to advance those aims and ends, then we’ve done one of our most important jobs. Without even having to kick a single ass along the way. Not in the literal sense, at least.

In this month’s issue, we’ve cataloged, spotlighted, and celebrated a handful of skaters… everyday people, really, just like you and me… that have stepped up, spoken their minds, and made something unique and special happen. And in doing so, they have made some significantly huge contribution to skateboarding’s ethos, culture, community, and history. They’re the leaders of the moment. You’ll see. Just keep on turnin’ the pages, buddy.

So read the rest magazine, get what you can out of it (hopefully, it’ll be something inspiring)… and take the whole thing as tacit permission to go out, find your voice, follow their (or our) lead, and get ready to set the whole f’n world on fire. Because you’ve got it in ya.

I know you do. Because I’ve been there, kid.

Bud Stratford, (Former) Fancy-Pants Title Guy, Concrete Wave Magazine

 

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The Newsletter is here to keep everyone in the Phoenix skate scene up-to-date and in-the-know about upcoming events and happenings. Below, you’ll find the February and March community calendar with detailed information about each event. If you have an event you’d like to add (or corrections for any of the events below), please e-mail the information to budstratford@aol.com. Thanks for supporting your local skate scene, and your local skate shops.

 

 

Active Rideshop in Tempe is closing in two weeks, ie, at the end of February. We’re wishing Steve and the crew all the best; they were doing some really good stuff over there, and had a solid program going. Stop in, say thanks for the memories, and grab some great deals before they close the doors forever.

On Deck in Tempe also seems to have closed recently as well. RIP.

Kids: please support the local skate shops that support your skate scene. Because if these shops die, so will our scene.

 

       

Freedom Boardshop, 1316 S Gilbert Rd, Mesa, AZ 85204,(480) 892-1707
Scottsdale Sidewalk Surfer, 2602 N Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85257, (480) 994-1017

 

Every Sunday morning at 9am:
Sunday Morning Mass
At various local skateparks, 9am every Sunday
(Typically Foothills/Union Hills Skatepark, 5752 W Union Hills Drive, Glendale, AZ 85308)
Contact: Prevent This Tragedy or Adam Richards on Facebook

Skaters of all ages congregate at local area skateparks every Sunday morning in and around
Phoenix. Free for anyone to come, skate, and have fun.

 

Every Wednesday, 3 pm – 6pm, and 6 pm – 9pm:
All-Girls Skate Session
91 West Skatepark
8550 N 91st Ave, Unit 54,
Peoria, AZ 85345
Phone: (623) 236-3033

Open to all girl skaters, $5 per participant, this is a chance for girls of all ages to skate together. Air conditioned comfort in the summer is an added bonus.

 

Every Thursday, 7 pm to 9 pm, $11.00:
Old-School Skate Night
Kids That Rip (aka KTR)
1927 N Gilbert Rd, Mesa, AZ 85203
Phone: (480) 844-9600

Open to all skaters, $11 per participant, 7-9 pm every Thursday.

 

Every Friday Night, 7 am to midnight, Free:
Friday Night Sessions at Gobber’s
Contact: Chris Gobber via Facebook

Free weekly skate session at Chris Gobber’s private backyard skatepark. Happens most Fridays. You must do this at least once, or you just haven’t lived. Fun for all ages and abilities. Friend him on Facebook to get updates and an invite.

 

 

 

 

Nemesis Skateboards and 91 West Skatepark Present:
The Stress Test Series
The next four (or so) Saturdays, mid-February to mid-March
At 91 West Skatepark, 8550 N 91st Ave, 54, Peoria, AZ 85345
(623) 236-3033
91westskatepark.com
Saturdays, 6pm to close
$5 entry fee (each week), $20 entry fee (for the whole series)

91 West Skatepark and Nemesis Skateboarding have partnered up to bring you the “91 West Stress Test”. This will be a “Game of SKATE” competition that will run over a few weeks. Entry fee is $5 per contest, or $20 for the whole four-week series; price also includes admission to the park (for spectators, non-competing skaters, and competitors that want to stay late and skate). Contact 91 West or Nemesis Skateboards for more info, www.91westskatepark.com, or www.nemesisskateboarding.com.      

 

The Sk8 Haus Presents:
Learn To Skate Day
Sunday, February 25th, 2018, at The Sk8 Haus
13839 W Bell Rd, Surprise, AZ 85374
(623) 444-6329
thesk8haus.wixsite.com
All day, starting at 10 am, Free

Ever wanted to try skateboarding in an easy, mellow, safe, and supportive environment? Ever wanted to try skateboards from every era and generation of skateboarding? Ever wanted to try an old-school bowlriding pig, a mid-80’s street deck, a GS slalom board/LDP cruiser, a downhill race board, a steel- or clay-wheeled dinosaur, or a plastic banana board? Then you need to be at The Sk8 Haus’ “Learn To Skate Day”, where friendly instructors will be on hand to hold your hand through your first pushes, rolls, and turns. Bud Stratford of Everything Skateboarding Magazine will also be on hand with his immense collection of skateboards from every era of skateboarding for the attendees to try out. Experience skate history under your own feet.

 

Lifestyle Clothing Presents:
Chill and Grill
Saturday, February 24th, 2018, at Hudson Skatepark
1430 S Cedar St, Tempe, AZ 85281
2 pm to sundown, Free

A mellow skate get-together and bbq, everyone’s invited to come out, relax, and have a good time. Presented by Lifestyle Clothing Company.

For more info, contact Terrell “Blackfeet” Ward at Lifestyle Clothing Co., blackf33t@yahoo.com

 

 

Phoenix Skatercon 2018
Saturday, March 3rd, 2018, at Paradise Valley Skatepark
17642 N 40th St, Phoenix, AZ 85032
9 am to 5 pm, $20

One of the biggest and best skate events of the year, Phoenix Skatercon is scheduled this year on Saturday, March 3rd, all day (more than likely from 9 am to 5pm). Featuring too many old-school legends to list; music from D.I, Chuck Treece (of McRad), Steve Steadham, and Since We Were Kids, Skatercon also has a trade show with tons of vendors and exhibits from local, regional, and national brands; a bowl contest; a skate swap meet; a kids skate clinic; and tons of freebies for everyone. This is the don’t-miss event of the year, right here.

 

Sidewalk Surfer Swap Meet
Sunday, March 4th, 2018, at Sidewalk Surfer
2602 N Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85257
(480) 994-1017
sidewalksurfer.com
9 am to 3 pm, Free

Scheduled for the day after Skatercon, this is your chance to see some skate history up close and personal, and maybe even purchase a piece of it for yourself.

 

 

Everything Skateboarding Magazine Presents:
Weekend At The Wedge
Sunday, March 4th, 2018, at The Wedge (just south of The Wedge Skatepark in Eldorado Park)
2311 N Miller Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85257
4 pm to 7 pm, Free

Timed this year to coincide with Phoenix SkaterCon (on Saturday, March 3rd, 2018) and the annual Sidewalk Surfer Swap Meet (Sunday, March 4th, between 9am and 3 pm), “Weekend At The Wedge” is an all-ages, all-abilities, surf-skate session at one of the oldest continuously skated spots in the Phoenix Metro. “The Wedge” is a concrete embankment directly under McDowell Road in Eldorado Park in Scottsdale, Arizona, just a few dozen yards from The Wedge Skatepark. Now in it’s third year, Weekend At The Wedge brings generations of Phoenix skaters together to re-live the early days of skateboarding, with a modern twist! Bring your old-school skate setup, a broom, and a boom box, and join us for a great afternoon in the park!

 

Cowtown Skateboards and Vans Presents:
PHXAM 2018
Saturday, March 24th, 2018 through Sunday, March 25th, 2018
Desert West Skateboard Plaza,
6602 W Encanto Blvd, Phoenix, AZ 85035
10 am Saturday, 11 am Sunday, $10 to attend both days
(or see the live webcast at www.PHXAM.com)

Cowtown Skateboards is as proud as ever to bring you the hottest (maybe literally?) amateur contest in skateboarding, PHXAM 2018 presented by Vans! The best Ams in the world will be rolling out to Phoenix’s original skatepark, Desert West Skateboard Plaza on March 24th-25th to try and bring home the 17th PHXAM title. Two hundred skaters will battle it out on Saturday for the top 40 spots that will take them to the Semi’s and Finals on Sunday where they will be able to win cash and prizes to the tune of $3,000 for 1st place, $2,000 for 2nd, and $1,000 for 3rd. Immediately following the Finals will be the traditional insanity that is the Red Bull best trick contest. Anyone entered in the contest will have a chance to take home $2,500 in cash for the one trick that can melt the most faces. Make sure you don’t miss any of it, starting at 10am on Saturday and 11am on Sunday. If you can’t make it, then you’re in luck, because our friends at Vans are providing a LIVE webcast on Sunday at PHXAM.com.

Pre-sale tickets can be purchased here for $5 per day. Math would lead us to understand that it only costs $10 for an entire weekend of insanity and some of the best skateboarding in the world, so save that allowance. As always, the first 500 people in line each morning will get a free gift bag full of PHXAM products, an event T-shirt, as well as raffle tickets to win boards, shoes, clothes and even a years supply of Vans shoes. Those pre-sale tickets and a strong cup of coffee will ensure that you’re one of the first 500 in line with one of those sweet bags of stoke in your hand. If you need to stretch the old legs in between all the shredding, you will be able to take a stroll through Tent City where all of skateboarding’s biggest brands will be set up with new products, games and prizes. Don’t be surprised if you run into some of your favorite Pros too. It’s not just the Ams who make it out to the desert every year.

On the 17th year of Cowtown’s PHXAM, we’re so thankful for the support of our partners who have helped to make this one of the most exciting and most respected contests in skateboarding. With the support of Vans, Volcom, Red Bull, Real, Pro-Tec, Mob Grip, Thrasher, Bones Bearings, Independent, Bones Wheels, Stance, Happy Hour and The City Of Phoenix, 2018 will be the best PHXAM yet!

 

Cowtown Skateboards and Volcom Presents:
Cowtown’s PHXAM After Party 
Saturday, March 24th, 2018
The Pressroom,
441 W Madison St, Phoenix, AZ 85003
(602) 396-7136
thepressroomaz.com
8 pm, $17

A great Saturday night can make for a slow Sunday morning, but never at PHXAM. With Volcom bringing out Ho99o9 to play the After Party along with Petyr and A Happy Medium 4 Video Premier, you know that Sunday morning will be worth the late night! Doors will open at 8pm at The Pressroom in downtown Phoenix and you can pick up tickets at any Cowtown location or cowtownskateboards.com for just $17. All ages welcomed!

 

Everything Skateboarding Magazine Presents:
Phoenix CitySkate 2018
Saturday, April 14th, 2018
Meet at the Central and Camelback Lightrail Station/Park-and-Ride
9 am to Noon (or so), Free

It’s that time again! Time to announce the first of the CitySkate cruises for 2018. Just like last year, the date is set for mid-April; Saturday, April 14th, 2018, to be exact.

If you were at last year’s CitySkate cruise, the itinerary is almost exactly the same as last years’. If you weren’t, here it is:

We’ll be starting at 9 am at the Lightrail stop at Central and Camelback. We’ll make our way south on 3rd Ave, using the bike lanes of the Sonoran Bikeway, through the historic neighborhoods of Medlock Place, Pierson Place, Yaple Park, Midtown, and Park Central. At McDowell Road, we’ll traverse over to 5th Ave, and continue south through the Willo Historic District. We’ll stop for a rest and water break at Encanto Park, where you can feed the ducks and the pigeons (if you’re a birdfeeding sort of soul), then continue through the Encanto-Palmcroft, Kenilsworth, and Roosevelt toward the central city. For this year’s cruise, we might skate over to the Capitol Building before heading back to the Lightrail station at van Buren and Central. The Lightrail will take us back to our starting point; bring $2 (cash or credit/debit) for the train ride back.

The whole cruise is roughly 7-8 miles one way. The gradient is slightly (but imperceptibly) downhill the entire way, and the route is very skate-safe for all ages and abilities.

Lunch will (again) be at Joyride, 5202 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ. This is an “upscale Mexican” restaurant with excellent (and affordable) taco plates, delicious enchiladas and burritos, and awesome sides. It’s also remarkably vegan friendly.

 

This is the definitive list of every skatepark in the Phoenix Metro. It’s in geographic order, starting at the far west suburbs and working clockwise around the city.

Buckeye Skatepark
299 N 9th St, Buckeye, AZ 85326
8 am to 9 pm every day

 

El Mirage Skatepark/Gateway Park
10100 N El Mirage Rd, El Mirage, AZ 85335
6 am to 10 pm every day

 

Surprise Skatepark/Surprise Farms Skate Park
15798-15826 N 175th Ave, Surprise, AZ 85388

 

Goodyear Skate Park/Litchfield
3151 N Litchfield Rd, Goodyear, AZ 85395
7 am to 10 pm every day

 

Dust Devil Park
10645 W Camelback Rd, Glendale, AZ 85307
5:30 am to 10 pm every day

 

X-Court BMX Park
6101 N 83rd Ave, Glendale, AZ 85303
9 am to 10 pm every day

 

91 West Skatepark
8550 N 91st Ave, 54, Peoria, AZ 85345
(623) 236-3033
91westskateparkpeoriaaz.com

 

Desert West Skateboard Plaza
6602 W Encanto Blvd, Phoenix, AZ 85035
5 am to 10 pm every day

 

Peoria Skatepark/Rio Vista Park
8866 W Thunderbird Rd, Peoria, AZ 85381
8 am to 10 pm every day

 

Foothills Skatepark/Union Hills
5752 W Union Hills Dr, Glendale, AZ 85308
9 am to 10 pm every day

 

Anthem Community Park
41703 N Gavilan Peak Pkwy, Anthem, AZ 85086
6 am to 10 pm every day

 

The Refuge Youth Center
401 W Deer Valley Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85027
(480) 226-2019
therefugeyouth.com

 

Paradise Valley Skate Park
17642 N 40th St, Phoenix, AZ 85032
8 am to 9 pm every day

 

McDowell Mountain Ranch Skatepark
15525 N Thompson Peak Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85260

 

Fountain Hills Skatepark
10441 N Saguaro Blvd, Fountain Hills, AZ 85268
Open 24 hours

 

Eldorado Park/The Wedge
2311 N Miller Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85257

 

Reed Skate Park
1631 E Broadway Rd, Mesa, AZ 85204
8 am to 10 pm every day

 

Fountain Plaza (New!)
417 E Southern Ave, Mesa, AZ 85204
Open daily 7 am to 10 pm

Kids That Rip – Mesa, AZ
1927 N Gilbert Rd, Mesa, AZ 85203
(480) 844-9600
kidsthatrip.com

Apache Junction Skatepark
1097-, 1135 W Southern Ave, Apache Junction, AZ 85120
8 am to 10 pm every day

 

AZ Grind Skatepark
8743 E Pecos Rd #136, Mesa, AZ 85212
(480) 888-0499
azgrindskatepark.com

Queen Creek Skate Park/Founder’s Park
22360-, 22426 S Ellsworth Rd, Queen Creek, AZ 85142
8 am to 10 pm every day

 

Freestone Skatepark
1045 E Juniper Ave, Gilbert, AZ 85234
5:30 am to 9:05 pm every day

 

Chandler Bike Park at Espee Park
450 E Knox Rd, Chandler, AZ 85225

 

The Bridge
824 W Germann Rd, Chandler, AZ 85286
(480) 326-2247
bridgeccc.com

Snedigar Recreation Center/Chandler Skatepark
4500 S Basha Rd, Chandler, AZ 85248
8 am to 10:30 pm every day

 

Kids That Rip Chandler/KTR Family Action Sports Center – Chandler, AZ
1050 E Pecos Rd, Chandler, AZ 85225
(480) 718-5872
www.ktr-centers.com

 

Copper Sky Skate Plaza
44345 M.L.K. Jr. Blvd, Maricopa, AZ 85138

 

Tempe Sports Complex/Tempe Skatepark
8401 S Hardy Dr, Tempe, AZ 85284
Open 24 hours

 

Esquer Park
2407 E McArthur Dr, Tempe, AZ 85281
6 am to 9 pm every day

 

Hudson Park
1430 S Cedar St, Tempe, AZ 85281
6 am to 10 pm every day

 

Mitchell Park Skatepark (New!)
S Mitchell Dr & 9th St, Tempe, AZ 85281

Pecos Skate Park
17010 S 48th St, Phoenix, AZ 85048
7 am to 10:45 every day

Hermoso Park
2030 E Southern Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85040
Open 24 hours

 

Cesar Chavez Skatepark/Cesar Chavez Park
7858 S 35th Ave, Laveen Village, AZ 85339
5:30 am to 11 pm every day

 

       

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Skateboarding has a magical ability to ignite a spark in people. New recruits are intrigued by the prospects of freedom and speed. Before they actually ride, many people are both fascinated and filled with a little bit of trepidation. That’s a powerful mix and I’ve seen it countless time in my 43 years of rolling. It doesn’t take much to get kids interested. They experiment and play and begin to experience the immediate joy that skateboarding gives. Truly a magical moment.

Skateboarding is something that you can enjoy alone, but also works great with fellow participants. Much has been written about the pleasures that skateboarding offers, and I don’t need to repeat what most of us know.

Skaters can be defined as being tribal-like and within our tribe we have full spectrum of participants.

The way I see it, you have about 5 key types of skaters:

1. Occasionally – less than 10 times per year
2. A few times a month
3. A few times a week
4. Pretty much daily
5. Totally freaking obsessed

I confess to being part of the 4 and 5 group. There are times when I literally cannot stop thinking about skateboarding. When it’s cold and snowy for months at a time, you get cabin fever. During the summer, if I am not out there daily, I get pretty anxious too. All that asphalt and sunshine beckons me something fierce.

 

Photos, left to right: A skater from the Netherlands; fingerboarding in Leipzig; and the friendly fellow behind Legende Longboards. I believe these were all taken by Michael on his recent trip to ISPO.

 

But no matter where you wind up on the spectrum, the fact is that you will encounter those who might rub you the wrong way. Oddly enough, skateboarding has a history of this that can be traced right back to the film SkaterDater. In that extra-ordinary movie, the group of skaters have issues with one of their tribal members running off with a girl. Even back in 1965, skaters were attempting to regulate other skaters.

Fellow skaters can be dismissive of “other” types of skateboarding. They seem to relish putting others down. It’s a power trip. It’s about vibing out others. And it’s total bullshit.

You see, the way I look at things, we’re all on the same damn side. To the outside public, a longboarder, a slalom skateboard, and a street skateboard is all the same thing: skateboarding. When you see fellow skaters thumb their noses at other types of skateboarding, it just feels wrong. I sense sometimes these folks take great pleasure in making others feel like crap. There is no excuse for this type of behaviour. Ironically enough, I’ve seen that some of the most prejudicial skaters wind up leaving skateboarding. I call that karma.

It’s simple formula. If you derive joy from skateboarding, then it’s your opportunity to bring this joy to others. Please pay attention to my words. I didn’t say responsibility, I said opportunity. It’s a choice we make. Do you want to increase joy in people’s lives, or do you want to de-stoke them? That choice is up to you to make.

That’s my take on inclusion. We are a tribe. We have many different members within this tribe. Respect and tolerance for others will enhance your journey within skateboarding. Now you know this, get out there and ride!

Cheers,

Michael Brooke
Publisher, Concrete Wave Magazine
www.concretewavemagazine.com
www.longboardingforpeace.org

 

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