Skip to content
Primary Menu
About
Meet The Staff
Archives
Media Kit
Shops
Friends
Supporters
Submission Policy
Contact Us
![This has been a weird summer for freestyle. I don't know if I'm just imagining it, but it feels both like very little has happened compared to the usual flurry of freestyle antics at this time of year - and that there's a million and one things about to happen. It's almost like we're in the eye of the storm, and a slew of tiny skateboards and shinpads are about to rain down upon our heads any second. At any rate, let's deal with the stuff that's already happened and the bits and pieces I'm actually allowed to talk about.
Okay, we start this report with some BIG NEWS. The will they/won't they saga of the World Championship in Japan is now settled: it's going to be held at the shopping mall in Saitama where the JFSA usually hold the All Japan Pro on the 3rd and 4th of November, making this a brilliant way of capping off a huge year for freestyle.
Toshiaki Fujii hasn't given me solid details on the format yet, but if it's a true WFSA sanctioned World Championship, it has to be the classic two runs, each being two minutes long - so find some run music, get practicing and I'll see you in Japan!
I think Never Enough might be in an intentional battle with Decomposed to feature in this section more than anyone else. This month they're bringing out a new deck as a tribute to the "retired" Albert Kuncz, who rode for them in the late 2000s (or early 2010s? My grasp on time is slipping as I get older). I gather he basically put the board away due to a back problem - that seems to be a recurring issue in the freestyle community. All these fingerflips, pogos and handstands just ruin you. It's a crying shame, because he was bloody good; hopefully one day he'll heal up and find his way back to us. Until then, there's always the Never Enough tribute boards. Hopefully they'll be available from the Never Enough website by the time you read this.
Speaking of Never Enough, they continue to be the biggest single source of freestyle related goodness in Europe. They're now stocking the new Moonshine/Speedlab collab wheels, even more new Cirus boards and graphics, and a solid range of freestyle completes ready to go out of the box, including three different Marius Constantin pro models. Impressive stuff.
(If Marius is getting royalties from all these different boards, I can't say I'm surprised he just bought himself an apartment with cold, hard, cash. The guy is seriously minted. And Primo says you can't get rich doing freestyle...)
Not to be outdone, Witter tells me that the next Decomposed deck will be a limited edition Don Brown model based on his last Vision pro model… which never made it past the prototype stage. Coming in at 7.875" by 29.5", this is a big brute of a board, and will be cut from the Vision Psycho Stix mould which was going to be used for the original release. Is it one to skate? Probably not. Is it a curiosity worth grabbing while you can? Almost certainly.
In other Decomposed news, Witter has been teasing me about some fabled 80s reissue that he's been working on for almost a year. He keeps bringing it up, but refuses to give me any hard details. Will it appear this month? Will it be delayed for another year? At this point, all bets are off.
As their big new products still aren't ready, we've just got something minor from the folks over at Mode Skateboards for now. Connor Burke and Terry Synnott both wanted a thinner skid plate for different reasons; Terry to put on the nose for better fingerflips, Connor (presumably) for his tail for better pop on his ollies. And as Terry is prone to do, he got the material and made them in his garage himself. Mode might not have the punkest image but it's definitely got the DIY credentials.
Anyway, if you're in the market for skids (as you damn well should be), you can now get both Mode skid plate sizes in the original 3/8" thickness and the new 1/4" thinness from their website. Tell Terry I said hi.
Tradition dictates that British freestylers have to gather on a hilltop around this time of year and be very silly for a sunny afternoon, and who are we to argue against tradition?
That's right, I'm talking about the annual UK Round Up, the most serious joke in the freestyle world. Held as part of the UKSSA and London Longboards' Hog Hill events, the UK Round Up is now in its fourth year of nonsense and chicanery, and keeps going from strength to strength. This year Lillis came back over to attempt to take my crown (spoiler alert: he failed again), and a group of fresh-faced British freestylers lost their event virginity while being forced to skate to terrible music from a tiny speaker.
(Actually, the amount of people forced to skate to music they don't know was considerably down this year. Obviously word got around that Alex Foster and myself purposely choose terribad music for people who come unprepared.)
The results, for what it's worth, are as follows:
Tony Gale (273,500 points)
Stefan "Lillis" Akesson (271,000 points)
Denham Hill (219,000 points)
Matthew Smithies (194,000 points)
Alex Foster (179,000 points)
Toby Lodge (165,500 points)
Anthony Simm (155,000 points)
Barney Lynch (151,000 points)
Aaron Watts (128,000 points)
[caption id="attachment_2546" align="alignnone" width="600"] "Trophies" presented by ASDA's garden section. Denham looks suitably unimpressed with his.[/caption]
Yep, that's an all-Moonshine podium right there. And considering Denham Hill took the win in the very special and prestigious Offline Instagram Grand Slam Classic, I'd say there's some very happy folks over at Moonshine HQ right now.
Also of note is the winner of the special Spirit of the UK Round Up award, Reece Archibald. Keep on being awesome, Reece.
Over in Japan, Mirei Tschida continues to bring glamour to freestyle (or should that be bringing freestyle skateboarding to glamour? I'm not sure which way round this is working) in her fledgling career as a runway model. Maybe she's been getting tips from her Moonshine team mate Felix Jonsson; Felix's sashay game is STRONG.
A post shared by mireisk8 (@mireisk8) on Jul 14, 2018 at 1:30am PDT
If you're still looking to scratch that contest itch and can't wait for the will-they-won't-they situation in Japan to be resolved, remember that the US Championships will be taking place in Philadelphia on the 15th of September. Not a lot in the way of fresh info on this one, but I guess if you've been to the Rizzo Rink before, you know what to expect. However, this year there is a $1,000 prize purse, so maybe folks like Connor Burke and Matt Gokey will resurface and head back over there for the first time in a few years.
Head over to the competition website for the full details - and maybe jump on a Greyhound now if you're planning on getting there on the cheap.
My ongoing project to enable newcomers to learn the ins and outs of freestyle skateboarding continues. Head over to FreestyleTricktips.com and pick up a trick or two; this month I've covered the spacewalk, rolling fingerflips, casper disasters and even managed to enlist my Moonshine teammate Nick Beaulieu for a tip on the Butterflip, so there's something there for everybody.
So who watched the episode of Vice's Post Radical featuring the World Round Up? If you haven't seen it yet it's available over at their website or through various methods of watching and downloading video online with varying levels of legality.
Honestly, I wasn't all that impressed with how well freestyle came out of it (and it looks like I'm not the only one), but as you might expect, there are a lot of folks out there who just seem happy that someone's paying attention. Personally, I'd rather they left us well alone rather than spend the best part of 45 minutes making us look like a bunch of kooks, but that's just me.
If you've just gone off and watched Vice make a joke out of the World Round Up, I've got something which will (hopefully) help get that foul taste out of your mouth. It's the return of the legendary DCMH!
For those who don't know (which is probably the majority reading this), DCMH (otherwise known as Double Chin and Meat Head) are Jari and Vesa Paakkari, two brothers from Finland who were producing high-quality freestyle videos way before anyone else had the inclination or the means to do so. Jari seemingly had the ability to learn basically any trick he saw, and made a real noise in the freestyle contest circuit in the early 2000s. Now he's back on the freestyle board, he and his brother have started producing videos again, and… well. Watch it below.
TRIGGER WARNING: CONTAINS MEMES. ALL THE MEMES.
Words cannot express how much sheer joy the return of DCMH has bought to my life.
Tony Gale is a British professional freestyle skateboarder and rides for Moonshine Skateboards, Jimmy’z, Seismic and Synopsis Bearings. July has been far too hot for his northern blood, so he's spent most of this month in a permanent state of drowsiness and wondering whether or not he's actually a lizard. Maybe David Icke was onto something.](http://everythingskateboarding.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/TheFreestyleReport_August2018_Final_Png_1050.png)
![Skateboarders over a certain age often seem surprised to see me freestyle. There’s a common belief, consciously propagated by the “industry” and the associated media, that freestyle is totally dead - a belief not helped, admittedly, by the tendency of freestylers to hide in abandoned parking lots and empty basketball courts. Generally, I tend to inform these folks that yes, freestyle is alive and well, with strong regional scenes in various parts of the world, most notably Brazil, Japan, Sweden, the UK, Germany and, oddly, Romania.
The presence of skateboarding - never mind freestyle - in this former Soviet satellite state is a relatively new development. Behind the Iron Curtain, skateboards were a rare sight; any available skateboards were all locally-produced, with designs almost a decade behind the western skate industry (this article from East Germany shows what Communists were dealing with in 1987, for god’s sake). There were a few trips across the Curtain by European skaters, most notably for a competition in Prague in 1988 which was covered by Thrasher, but skateboarding didn’t really get an opportunity to thrive until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As such, the community and culture - in Romania at least - is still very young. There’s not a lot of home-brew skateboard companies or manufacturing, and both skateshops and skateparks are few and far between.
This is where Marius Constantin comes in. Marius is 31 years old now, and I first met him at the Paderborn BBQ contest in Germany back in 2015. I’d known about him for a few years prior to that, though; Marius is one of the most pro-active and enthusiastic supporters of freestyle in Europe - if not the world - and made a name for himself in Romania as being one of the most visible Romanian skateboarders on YouTube, first by documenting his local scene in a series of videos, and later, doing trick tips in his native language.
Generally speaking, the idea of the skateboarding “YouTuber” brings bile to the back of my throat, and from what I see, many other skateboarders have similar responses. There’s a lot of nonsense, ego, and self-promotion in that sphere, but Marius came to the platform with a different approach: he wanted to promote everyone else, not himself. Marius isn’t the star, he’s the scene-builder - something which was evident every single time I saw him on the “contest circuit”. He never wanted to talk to me about the latest tricks he landed, only the tricks his many young freestyle proteges had learned. He always seemed more stoked about showing me a video of a young Romanian child from an impoverished village doing a pogo on a cheap, battered board than his latest rail combo, and that was refreshing. I quickly realised Marius was quietly building up this little freestyle scene; pretty soon, he started bringing some of the teenagers he was teaching and supporting to events - and they were good. Really good.
In all honesty, I'd been thinking of going to Romania for a long time to see what was happening over there. Marius kept inviting me, and I kept making excuses to myself; it's hard balancing a day job, family life and travelling, and I just didn't have it in me to jump on a plane. However, when I realised I'd made up my mind to not go to the World Round Up in Vancouver again, I realised this gave me the time and funds I needed, and the decision was made. I spoke to Marius, checked he was free, and booked a flight.
There's an old joke, dating back to the Cold War: during the Space Race, NASA realised a regular ballpoint pen wouldn't work without gravity, and spent millions of dollars developing a replacement that would work in orbit. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, simply used a pencil.
While this turned out to be false, there's some truth in it: the people of the Soviet Union had a habit of finding simple solutions to problems, some of which were elegant, some of which… not so much. As soon as I arrived in Bucharest, I realised this obviously still existed in Romania. Rather than taxi the plane up to the terminal and have an expensive tunnel to connect to the door, the biggest international airport in Romania just leaves the plane on the tarmac and brings buses out for the passengers. As I'm riding back to the terminal, I then see a distinctly Soviet-looking tractor - a proper agricultural piece of farming equipment - being used to tow the baggage back to the airport. I'd see various examples of this "keep it simple, stupid" mentality during my trip, and while it was sometimes amusing to see, it was a refreshing change to the overly bureaucratic nonsense I see back home.
In conversations I had with Marius over the years, one thing came up time and again: freestylers in Romania just couldn’t get product. In England, we always had to import our gear from the US, so I understood his plight. He’d got kids cutting down street boards, but they couldn’t get freestyle wheels or skidplates; he was trying to get local shops to bring in suitable product, but as is often the case, shops are too conservative to support what they perceive as a small niche, and would rather sell shoes and clothing. So Marius did what Marius does, and did it himself. He started a shop, and started importing and stocking the product himself. Based in his home town of Slatina, about two hours away from Bucharest, Nose and Tail supplies freestylers across Romania, but due to the amount of respect Marius has earned from the skate scene in general, often gets customers from larger towns who'd rather support a real skater instead of the businessmen who run their local shops, who they see as only interested in profit.
[caption id="attachment_2438" align="aligncenter" width="1800"] Nose and Tail is a PROPER skate shop. Sights like this are getting rare in the UK.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_2435" align="alignnone" width="581"] Nose and Tail stocks a good range of boards - US pro decks sit alongside smaller EU brands.The banner roughly translates as "from the skaters, for the skaters".[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_2434" align="alignnone" width="600"] I always judge a skateshop by what they actually provide at the lower end of the scale. I've been in too many places that don't stock things like kingpins and pivot cups, so this was a refreshing sight.[/caption]
On my first day in Romania, we went on a small tour of Slatina's old district (in summary: absolutely beautiful but almost completely abandoned), and then swung by the skate shop to check in on Alexandru Lilea, a young freestyler to whom Marius gave a full-time job. In a country where the monthly minimum wage is around 1800 Lei (about $450 USD or €385 EUR) but a pro deck still costs about 265 Lei ($66 / €57) - and a freestyle complete can run to an eye-watering 800 Lei, meaning you'd have to work for over two weeks to afford one - Marius is keen on supporting his proteges where he can, often buying them food during sessions and giving them product when they need it. Like most days in most skateshops, it was pretty quiet when we turned up (a lot of Nose and Tail's trade is online), so we found Lilea doing literally nothing to earn his keep. I'm pretty sure he was just idling away the hours on Youtube, to be honest. But someone has to keep the doors open, and if it means he can afford dinner at the end of the day, Lilea'll do it.
[caption id="attachment_2436" align="alignnone" width="400"] This rack is full of the "budget" boards - between $75 and $100 for a complete. Marius chooses the cheap end carefully to make sure he isn't selling anything unrideable.[/caption]
I took the opportunity to look around Nose and Tail, and found it surprisingly well-stocked, considering the cost of everything; there was a good mix of board brands and shapes, with both European independents and American big names represented on the walls. Marius also carries the best budget brands he can find to try to make sure the poorer kids can have a decent ride, too. One big surprise was that unlike British shops, which tend to carry themselves along from month to month by selling shoes, Nose and Tail stocks a lot of seemingly unrelated product like spray paint and kendamas, but barely any footwear at all. Apparently there was a big kendama trend last year, which ended up bringing in a huge amount of money to the shop. (Who would have thought ball-in-a-cup could prove so lucrative?)
The one thing Nose and Tail has in common with its English counterparts is Thrasher tees, however. Marius had to arrange for them to be imported specially, as no one else was carrying them in Romania, and it apparently ended up being a smart move. Got to stay ahead of the trends to stay alive.
Finally, as the afternoon cooled down (it gets unreasonably hot in Romania during the summer), we went for our first skate session of the trip; Marius loaded up his car with myself, the two Alexandrus (Lilea and Stirbu), and we headed out to nearby Craiova, picking up Daniel Popescu, a 12-year old beginner from the countryside who was stoked to be joining us. Craiova is a beautiful, vibrant place, where they've pumped money into the old town and turned it into a fantastic space, full of life. When we turned up at the spot - a beautiful plaza in the centre of the city - it was already bustling with all sorts of activity. There were kids playing football (that's "soccer" to any Americans reading this), riding around on bikes, playing guitar, and, of course, skateboarding. The guys who were already skating there were street skaters, doing tricks up and down the small drops from one section to the next, and many of them had spent time in other European countries for work. They were pretty surprised to see an Englishman in Romania - I guess not many folks from West Europe make the trip. All in all it was a pretty cool trip, but it was interesting seeing how so many of the Craiova crew fitted the exact same street skating stereotypes I see in other countries; the same clothing, the same attitudes, the same aloofness. One of Marius' friends back in Slatina expressed his distaste at that, saying they "weren't real Romanian skaters". I guess the industry's marketing schemes are even starting to take root in Eastern Europe now.
Like an idiot I forgot to take any photos while I was in Craiova, but thankfully Marius made good use of his GoPro sponsorship and filmed some footage so you can at least get a sense of the vibe.
We finished off the day with food and drink outside a little restaurant in one of Craiova's older districts, just a short walk down some cobbled streets from the plaza. Some high-quality whisky sours worked out at about $3 each, so I kept the waitress busy while Stirbu expressed amazement at how many I was buying. Oddly enough, everything's a bit hazy after that.
Day 2 was entirely Slatina-based. The idea was to arrange for a session at Marius' local spot, an amazing open plaza outside the "Casa de Cultura a Sindicatelor", a cultural centre built during the Communist era and surrounded by matching Communist-era tower blocks. However, due to the overbearing heat, we spent most of the afternoon lounging around in the shade as the crew gradually turned up. At one point a worker came by in a street sweeper, cleaning down the surface; within minutes the water had evaporated. Way too hot for this Brit.
[caption id="attachment_2430" align="alignnone" width="600"] Kendamas are apparently the game of choice when it's too hot to skate.[/caption]
As far as freestyle goes, it ended up being the same group as the previous days' trip to Craiova by the time it was cool enough to skate, but Slatina's street skaters were a very different breed to their Craiovan counterparts; younger and more innocent, there was no hint of a "too cool" attitude amongst the group, and while there was still a noticeable amount of physical distance between the freestylers and the street riders due to the sheer size of the space, all in all, it was a very chill session. Families walked through, heading to the cultural centre or one of the bars, and no one seemed to mind about the noise and movement created by the many skaters in the plaza.
I would later ask Marius what the older folks thought of the growing skate community; unsurprisingly, the reaction is much the same as we get in other areas where skateboarding is more established. The big concern, as always, is the damage that street skateboarding does to the environment and the speed at which street skaters move through a space. Unlike other countries, however, there isn't a big push for corralling everyone into skateparks; Slatina itself only has a small arrangement of a prefab quarterpipe and funbox at the other end of town, although Marius has been trying to get a modern concrete plaza built for quite a while. The local government are certainly keen (they've even paid for Marius to travel to international competitions to represent his country a couple of times), but there's a lot of other projects which are higher up on the priority list for funding. It's worth noting at this point that I was pleasantly surprised by Slatina; there were some absolutely stunning public spaces and parks, and there's been a real move since the economic slump of the early 90s to "beautify" some of the old Communist buildings - to the point where they look considerably more aesthetically pleasing than their equivalents in London.
With regards to the actual skateboarding - freestyle is definitely developing quite well in Romania. This was the first opportunity I've had to have a casual session with the two Alexandrus, and it's interesting to see them both progressing down such different paths, even if there is a common tendency towards 80s nostalgia for both of them. Lilea spent most of the session working on rolling double fingerflips, 540 variants and handstand shuvits; Stirbu preferring more complex and esoteric 50-50 tricks as a general rule. Both are learning fast; Lilea went on to win the amateur division in Paderborn a month later.
[caption id="attachment_2443" align="alignnone" width="400"] Alexandru Stirbu's groupies don't seem to be impressed by his MF Casper.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_2431" align="alignnone" width="400"] Marius catches a butterflip outside the House of Culture. If you look closely enough, you should be able to see Alexandru Lilea being lazy in the shade behind him.[/caption]
Marius, meanwhile, has finally found chance to take a step back from the arduous task of getting his business up and running and is putting in the time on the board again, and it shows. He ended up picking up fourth place - his best pro result - in Paderborn. If he keeps this up he could be a contender for podium places next year. Surrounded with this group, the young Daniel Popescu should have all the inspiration and guidance he needs. His enthusiasm really showed through - every time I was finished shooting a trick of one of the older guys, Daniel would come and pester me to shoot some photos of him. It was really great to see. Since I returned home, a few of the street skaters I met have been making the transition and getting involved in the local freestyle scene, too. There's a real future here.
[caption id="attachment_2432" align="alignnone" width="1800"] Marius always documents the beginners and tries to make them feel included. It's not only very cool to see, but it works - there's a lot of young talent coming up as a result.[/caption]
We ended the day at Marius' place with Romanian wine and some traditional food, cooked by his friend (and now freestyler) Catalin. Another major surprise on this trip was how good Romanian food and drink is. The country is still very agrarian, with incredible vineyards and amazing fresh fruit and vegetables. If you get the chance to try some Romanian wine, give it a go!
I couldn't come to Romania and not go to Bucharest; I think Bianca, Marius' other half, may have murdered him if he didn't take me to see the capital. Marius lived in the city for a while; all he ever told me about it is how much he hates it. Far too busy, too much traffic, expensive, etc. - all the standard complaints made about every major city worldwide.
[caption id="attachment_2472" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Two very different buildings, created by two very different ideologies, spanning a gap of over 300 years.[/caption]
One of the constant themes running through my time in Romania was contrast. You have three definite time periods all sitting uncomfortably side-by-side; the traditional, the Communist, and the Capitalist. Bucharest exemplified that experience. One of the first things I saw as we walked from our parking space was a monument to the anti-communist revolutionaries, entitled "The Revival's Memorial". One minute later, there's a beautiful old Orthodox church, apparently dating to the 1720s, with two crosses of Salem perched on the top of the twin bell towers - overshadowed by Ceaușescu-era apartment buildings. It's such an unusual mishmash of architecture and history that, at points, it can seem quite overwhelming; there's simply so much to take in, no matter where you look.
While we were strolling through the city, visiting bookstores, checking out old churches and feeding pigeons, someone randomly jumped off a bench, saying "Marius! Marius!" Marius went over and greeted the guy like they were old friends, and as I couldn't understand a single word of the short conversation, I asked Marius for an explanation as we walked away. Turns out Marius didn't know the guy at all - the guy knew him from Youtube. You wouldn't have known it from how Marius interacted with him. Later he admitted to me that he finds it tiring sometimes, but it doesn't show; it almost sickens me how goddamned nice he is sometimes.
Eventually we made it to our destination: a surprisingly large outdoor skatepark tucked away in a public park, with characteristic late 90s/early 2000s prefab jump ramps everywhere. I found the local skate crew effectively tucked away to one side with a couple of flatbars; the main park was swarming with scooter kids and the occasional BMXer. Every so often, one of the skaters would head off to try to skate some of the main park, and when they did, it became apparent that the skill level is quite high. Romania might not be a well-known skate Mecca, but the local scene certainly seems strong.
I took a couple of runs across the park, trying to relearn some of my old bank tricks on a very dodgy oversized wooden flatbank at one end (I swore it was flexing every time I landed on it). Eventually I gave up on trying to skate the haggard behemoth and spotted a section of the park which wasn't part of any scooter lines, so co-opted it as a makeshift freestyle area. Before I knew it, there was three or four scooter kids who's stopped riding and sat down on a ledge to watch. When they tried talking to me, I had to play the part of the ignorant Brit - "Sorry mate, I only speak English" - only to be met with absolutely perfect English from an eleven or twelve year old child in response. They came out with the usual response to freestyle ("what is this? I've never seen anyone do this sort of thing before! It's amazing!") before asking the inevitable question: "Why are you here? In Romania?" I was tempted to respond "because I had some time to kill and fuck me, Romania is a cheap place to visit", but tried my best to explain that I was staying with a friend of mine who is also a professional freestyler. Thankfully, Marius appeared at that point (I think he'd wondered where I'd disappeared off to), and so I introduced him to the kids while the two Alexandrus attempted to wow the fledgling crowd. Once one of us mentioned Nose and Tail, they worked out who he was… but only from the kendamas he'd been selling for the last year or so.
You can't win 'em all.
[caption id="attachment_2470" align="alignnone" width="1800"] "Yep, kendamas. I'm your guy."[/caption]
Although I had one more day in Romania, it seems fitting to end this piece with the end of my day in Bucharest. Stirbu left the group when we jumped onto the subway after the skate session, and Marius dropped Bianca off at her tram, leaving just Marius, Alexandru Lilea and myself for the two hour ride back to Slatina. As we headed back to the car, we stumbled upon a group of street skaters hanging out at a local spot - a very, very battered war memorial which has seen more than its fair share of street skating in the last two decades. One of the guys had his arm strapped up, and I got talking to him - his name was Razvan Popescu, and Marius would tell me later that he's pretty damn good, with a whole bunch of sponsorships to his name. This post on his Instagram is actually him skating the memorial we met at.
A post shared by Razvan Popescu (@razvanrawmania) on May 25, 2018 at 12:32pm PDT
One of the things we started talking about was the difficulty of being one of the first skaters in a region, how tough it is not having people there with you to learn from. I could empathise; starting out as a freestyler in England in 2001 was nigh-impossible, with learning new tricks like fumbling in the dark. Everything feels like reinventing the wheel. Razvan and other guys his age in Romania went through the same experience with skateboarding in general; they could see what was possible through print media and video, but pre-Youtube, they had no one to tell them how to flick their foot for a heelflip, how to keep your head up during a backside flip. It's pretty amazing to me to see how far skaters like Razvan have come, and how such a young scene has flourished in the last twenty years, despite the economic difficulties they've faced. It says a lot about the tenacity of the Romanian people. Part of me hopes that, to a certain degree, they can stay under the radar; the last thing Romania needs is Barcelona-style skate tourism ruining the local skaters' relationship with the government and non-skaters. However, while the skateboarding industry isn't paying much attention to Romania right now, the Romanians - especially the freestylers - are getting a whole lot better and are starting to look out at the world around them.
It's only a matter of time before the world starts looking back.](http://everythingskateboarding.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Excursions_SkateboardingInTheEasternBloc_byTonyGale_Png_1050.png)
![Skate Shop Spotlight:
The Sk8Haus
Surprise, AZ
by Bud Stratford
This is the way a truly independent skate shop is supposed to be. Family- and skater-owned and operated; well-stocked with a diversity of hardgoods from regional, national, and global brands; and being super-supportive of their local skateboarding community, The Sk8Haus is among the very best of the best, a beacon of skateboarding out on the high desert suburban wastelands of Surprise, Arizona.
Started about a year and a half ago by Brian Upton (a longtime skater in his own right, and a damn fine one to boot) and his lovely missus (that also skates), Crystal, The Sk8Haus is what I would call a "traditionally innovative" skate shop. On one hand, they have all of the familiar qualities that you would expect out of a classic brick-and-mortar: a home-away-from-home feel, bulletproof customer service and product knowledge, a great amateur team, and all kinds of neat new stuff hanging on the walls.
Brian and Crystal Upton, the owners of The Sk8Haus, hamming it up (and having a blast with skateboarding and life).
On the other hand: they are always down to try something brand new, in the name of making their customer service, their scene, or their community, even better than it already is.
Left: Cover kid Jake Laxson (Everything Skateboarding, March 2018), kickflip front board down the rail at El Mirage. Right: The Am Team, holding it down.
Tristan Carter spends a lot of time flying around the El Mirage Skatepark...
This is probably one of the most community-committed skate shops that I've come across in the past five, maybe even ten years. They support virtually every skate event on the calendar, regardless of where it may be in the Phoenix Metro. Considering that Surprise is a solid 30 miles, and/or a painfully slow one-hour drive from my midtown swank pad, that's saying quite a bit. They have regular art shows, showcasing local up-and-coming artists, so that those burgeoning artists can have that all-important "first solo show" on their resume. They host weekly skateboarding get-togethers, as well as the impromptu, daily skate sessions that pop up behind the shop during "working" hours. They also organize and host "learn to skate days" at the shop, proving a mellow, relaxed, comfortable atmosphere for the newbies to come out, and give skateboarding a try in an encouraging and empowering environment.
Crystal's involvement is an aberration among skate shops. The woman's touch insures that the shop represents (and includes) everybody, at all times. It's super family-, woman-, and kid-friendly. It's not just "a skate shop"; it's a legit home away from home, regardless of who (or what) you are, or how long you've been skating.
Lastly, they also do a lot of outreach among the non-skating community in and around Surprise, to keep skateboarding present and accounted for at larger events where they can represent skateboarding (and represent it right, and well) to the greater community at large. That's part of the innovation that drives this small business forward. They [wisely] recognize that supplying skateboarding gear to the extant skateboard market... while all well and good... is not necessarily a pro-growth strategy. By marketing and promoting skateboarding to everybody and anybody, regardless of age, gender, or ability, they can grow their customer base organically simply by creating new skaters whenever and however they possibly can. Their product selection naturally reflects this ingrained diversity; I don't think there's a shape, size, type, or style of skateboard that The Sk8Haus doesn't carry.
The shop, outside and inside. The shop's always changing, but the reasons why they do it remain the same.
The best part are the smiles. The smiles on Brian and Crystal's faces whenever I (or anyone else) walks through the front door. The smiles on the faces of their team riders when they get together for a photo/filming session, or when one of them stomps a killer trick. The smiles on the faces of little kids (or the slightly more aged little kids at heart) when they balance by themselves on a skateboard for the first time. Those smiles are the things that I'll always remember about the time I've spent up at The Haus.
This is what it's all about: putting smiles on faces, and sharing the joy of skateboarding.
If you like to smile, laugh, and have a good time skateboarding, then this just might be the kind of shop that you'll wanna check out for yourself. I'd definitely recommend it.](http://everythingskateboarding.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Headline_SkateShopSpotlight_TheSk8Haus_Surprise_AZ_Png_1050.png)
![From March 10-13th, 2017, T Mag, Matt Hensley and the original H-Street skate crew was in the same place, at the same time, for the first time in nearly thirty years...
The crew.
Finalizing this piece, Tony and I had one last chat before I head into this looming deadline. He had this to say:
“We really can’t talk about my life now without talking about H-Street. That’s where I’m at.”
The Trip of a Lifetime
So here we go...
In January last year, Dave Hackett wanted to introduce me to Mag. A couple of weeks later, I’m sitting in the loading bay of Osiris interviewing one of the most influential skaters/business owners of my childhood, Tony Magnusson.
Mag, tailgrab over the hip. Photo by Dave Hackett
In late February, Tony asked me to come up and meet Matt Hensley. I accepted, of course. He had me at, "Hey, it’s Tony"...
Nassau, Bahamas
They offered me a job: follow and film The Magnificent 7, cross-country and through the Bahamas. I had maybe fifteen days to prepare for the trip of a lifetime. By the time I walked out of that meeting, I was booking flights for my wife and I, ordering extra memory cards, portable hard drives, and additional microphones. I basically spent every cent (and then some) of the contract before I ever hit the airport. It was worth every penny!
Left to right: Ortega on the plane; Mag & Monica; Schultes & Mag arriving at the airport.
With the help of Skatepark Tampa, the first-of-its-kind half-pipe was built aboard a cruise ship... while at sea! This created a unique scenario for this legendary crew to rip: ride & slash while catching up and listening to live music from bands like Flogging Molly, NOFX, English Beat, and The Fucking Godoy’s, to name a few.
Left: The Crew; Right: Hensley overseeing the construction of the ramp on board the cruise ship
I spoke with each member several times over the trip and asked a few questions regarding the passage of time; inspiration and lifelong friends, here are a few words from Ron, Eddie, Ortega and Art Godoy:
What did it mean to spend 3 days with your H-Street brothers in the Bahamas after all these years?
Ron - "It was awesome to see all those guys.!. Especially Schultes, I don't remember him being so funny! He had me busting up, great guy! Plus, really got to hang & drink with Ortega, that was epic! [I] Spent late-night talking with Sal and Hostetter, they blew my mind... plus all that music! Also, the homies of Skatepark Tampa coming and building the ramp aboard the ship, hanging out with those guys was epic as well. It was great to see all of them!"
Eddie - “It was the best, skating on a mini-ramp on a cruise ship was epic, bucket list material.”
Steve O. - "Indescribable; 3 days with friends that had a huge influence in shaping ones character."
Art – “It was unreal. So much time had passed so quickly that until that night it was hard to stop and realize what we had all accomplished as a whole. The changes that really made skateboarding what it is today. Some of us became obsolete, but in the end sometimes there are sacrifices for the greater good. It was a great night. Seeing everyone there was really cool… fuckin’ champions! We didn't all hang out all the time back in the day; we did our own things. Yet somehow there was a real sense of pride and unity then, but at the reunion it felt magnified. I think everyone felt the same. The Magnificent 7 release party, the Salty Dog Cruise... all of us there, it was fuckin’ great! It felt new again.”
Clockwise from left: Way, Schultes, and Mag; Art and Steve Godoy; Art with Steve Ortega
A couple of weeks after the unforgettable trip, I sat down with Mag at H-Street Skateboards interim HQ to catch-up and get his (now digested) thoughts on the experience. Here’s a section of the interview and what the ringleader had to say:
What did it mean to you to have the whole crew together again after so many years had passed?
It was rad! I don’t know if all of us have been at the same place, ever. Maybe at the video premier of ‘Hokus Pokus’ in 1989... it was impossible to ignore the magic!
When I asked Matt, he echoed Mag’s impression stating, “I just couldn’t believe it. I was standing ramp-side watching all of my friends and then, from across the pool NOFX starts playing! I felt like I was about to be arrested or something –it was perfect!”
Left to right: Matt Hensley, John Schultes, and Sal Barbier.
So, did the reunion bring about reissues or...?
Actually, it was the other way around. About a year or so ago [2015/2016], Danny, Matt, and I wanted to do reissues of all of the Magnificent 7 decks –original artwork, every detail. I’ve logged 1,000’s of hours re-mastering our original artwork; this led to talking about trying to get everyone together, which we somehow pulled it off.
Left: Mag, backside 5-0 on the floating ramp, Right: "That's all, folks!"
Random H-Street Fact:
According to Tony, "the H-Street name came about because we wanted a company [therefore a name] that would be inclusive. We noticed just about every town we went to had an H-Street, so we went with that."
When I spoke with Art Godoy about those early days, his response was that “Everyone was inspired and fueled by what was happening with the company. We all felt like our contributions were valued, and you could really feel it in the way things evolved. We were all like gears in a car. It wouldn't function the same with any missing gears. That was the inspiration.”
Giving Back
Mag is well known for his positive attitude, generosity, and mentoring young Southern California skaters (and snowboarders) for over three decades now. Hell, his snowboard company was called Evol –love backwards.
Along with Mike Ternasky, Tony has been credited with discovering and developing countless top pro skateboarders. Among these, the incredibly talented San Diego native Danny Way who was only twelve years old when he was recruited to the H-Street Team and began filming "Shackle Me Not" with the crew.
When I asked Tony about Mr. Way, he said "Ternasky and I kept hearing about this little kid slaying Del Mar Skate Ranch and thought 'how good could he really be?' [Again, he was only 12 yrs. old at the time]. Then we saw him ride -it was obvious, we immediately knew this kid was special."
Today, Danny is widely considered one the most skilled skateboarders on the planet. This is but one example of the generosity and positive energy Tony has put into our community over the past three decades.
Another example would be on August 26th of last year (2017), Tony brought the bulk of the H-Street OG’s to Clash at Clairemont, an annual fund raiser benefitting kids with cancer and their families.
Mag and H Street showed support for Grind For Life by shredding the massive bay-side half-pipe in San Diego during the Pro Demo. Hensley was there shaking hands and both the Godoy brothers and Ron Allen (M.C. Intelligence) did full sets –all for free and in support of those battling cancer.
Left: Mag, stalefish, photo by Piero Photo. Center: Art and Steve on stage. Right: Ron Allen takes the stage.
Between his H-Street and Osiris brands, Mag has supported hundreds of amateur (in addition to pro) skaters in Southern California and around the globe. Additionally, his brands provide commissioned- based sales rep jobs all over the planet and he has created long-term, permanent positions at home in San Diego. We’re not talking about minimum-wage jobs; we're talking actual adult jobs where these people can feed their families, pay their bills, and enjoy life.
Ten jobs may not sound like a lot, but consider this: if just a fraction of those reading this (say 150 people) could create ten full-time jobs in their town, while pursuing their passion, it would lift up the quality of life for 1500 people and their families. That’s a positive change.
Left: Mag, invert, photo by Piero Photo. Top Right: Art and Christian Hosoi. Bottom Right: Matt Hensley and Christian Hosoi share a laugh.
What the Future Holds
The Matt Hensley/ Steve Ortega Art Show in Oceanside, Ca. doubled as the H-Street board release for the lost model… the Steve Ortega Pro Model was officially released, along with the reissue Matt Hensley King Size (Steve’s deck of choice back in the day) January 17th, 2018.
Left: The "lost" Steve Ortega model (right) and the Hensley King Size (left). Center: Steve Ortega and El Hefe.
So back to my looming deadline on this piece…
Tony and I had one more powwow (for lack of a better term) on January 24th, 2018. We talked about learning from the past, evolution, and what’s next. Here’s what Mr. Magnusson had to say:
So I understand you’re leaving Osiris, can you talk about it?
Yeah! Well, I’m 54, and I still like to skate 3-4 times a week. I recognize that it can’t last forever; the window keeps getting smaller and smaller… so yeah, I’m focusing on H-Street and enjoying ‘that time’.
So who is H-Street now?
It’s myself, Matt [Hensley], Danny [Way] is kind of silent but very supportive, Monica [Tony’s wife] -honestly none of this would function without her, she handles a lot. Additionally, I’d have to say the H-Street supporters, skaters all over the place who just continue to show love and support.
In closing... damn! What a great time with good people. Thanks to everyone at H-Street, Flogging Molly, Krause Family Skate Park in San Diego, Black Plague Brewery, and you for reading.](http://everythingskateboarding.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Headline_TonyMagnussonPartTwo_Color_Png_1050.png)
![Update, Saturday, June 9th, 2018, 12:00 pm: This article has had a few key additions/corrections since it was originally written on Friday morning. Those have been noted in the article by asterisks, as such*:
It's been a hell of a couple of weeks. In case you've been living in a cave since late May, here's the shitshow summary: one of The Slap Messageboard members (Gentle Jones) accused Jason Jessee of harboring long-standing racist tendencies; Vice picked up the story, and stumbled all over themselves running with it; Jason's sponsors put him on "indefinite hiatus" for his past transgressions; and then all hell broke loose all over the internet. Some people defended him, while others wanted nothing more than to see his racist ass strung up by the neck. I think that pretty much brings us all up to speed, doesn't it...?
The problem with a story like this, is that it brings up a whole hornet's nest of pertinent issues. As Edward Pidgeon so wisely said, "The thing is not always The Thing". And he's right: this shitshow goes well beyond the simple debate over whether Jason Jessee is a racist or not.
That being said, let me lay those "things" out, front and center, in the rapid-fire succession of bullet points below:
Speaking For Myself
First of all: as always, my opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my staff, our advertisers, my family, my friends, my enemies, or their damn pets or houseplants. Given the super-sensitive nature of this ongoing (and ugly) debate, I really feel like that needs to be said unequivocally.
I never thought I'd see the day when an editor would have to make such a disclaimer, but oh well. We live in perilous times, I guess.
The Noble Service That Media Can Do (If They Ever Decide To Actually Do It)
Let's just stick it right out there: The Media in this country... skateboard, or otherwise... isn't doing us any f'n favors by doing shitty reporting that only inflames emotions, increases tensions, and deepens divides. Yeah, it might be great "for ratings" and for getting more eyeballs on the story (which, by the way, is also really great for generating ad revenue). But as far as "serving the public's interests" are concerned, The Media is pretty damned useless these days.
The Media just loves to talk long and loud about "fair an balanced", while actually demonstrating "unfair and imbalanced" at damn near every turn.
Of course, I understand that nobody likes or supports racism. I get that, and I back that. I don't fucking support it, either.
However: this question of whether Jason Jessee is actually a sincere racist... or, merely a shit-talking punk provocateur that gets off on pushing people's buttons and pissing them off "for shock value"... is, in this context, an entirely appropriate question to ask. Especially considering his extremely long (and well-documented) record of doing all of the above.
If the only thing that I ever achieve is in getting people to ask more thoughtful questions, make fewer jugheaded assumptions, promote reasonable and rational thinking, and demand honest answers... then maybe I've accomplished some small something along the way.
It might not be the most popular, or the most profitable thing to do. But it is the right thing to do. And that's perfectly a-ok with me.
The Billion Dollar Question
So, is Jason Jessee really a racist? Unfortunately, I can't answer that one. Not fairly, at least. And neither can anybody else*.
Only Jason Jessee can really answer that question. And he's not exactly talking right now, now is he?
Outside of a single handwritten note, and a quick, ten-second Insta-apology, his relative silence has been pretty damn deafening.
And that deafening silence does make me a mite bit suspicious.
* Later on Friday, June 8th... within hours of posting this piece... I got a heads-up (via my personal Facebook feed) that this video had also been posted (by "Eraserhead Fuckers") online (on June 6th), via YouTube. While not containing any "new information", per se... it entirely consists of photos, video, and words that have all been published online in the past... it does provide, first, the best (and most compelling) context of the "Jason is a racist" argument that I have yet seen; and, secondly, a whole host of images and words that have since been deleted from the public record. Here is the direct link to the YouTube video.
Do I Want To Believe That He's A Racist...?
No. Of course I don't. And frankly speaking, neither should you.
Why, you ask? Well, for the simplest of reasons. I'd really like to believe that skateboarding, all of his sponsors (since 1987 or so), and the rest of our industry, have not been harboring a known racist... a "living skateboarding legend", at that... for the last thirty f'n years.
I'd like to believe that we're all better than that. That our industry is better than that. That skateboarding itself is better than that.
But that deafening silence still makes me awfully suspicious...
What Skateboarding Needs Right Now
I'd say that what Jason Jessee should seriously be considering right now, is a 60 Minutes-style, back and forth, Q&A with a prominent, unbiased, and impartial reporter that isn't afraid to ask some really hard questions, and demand some really honest answers.
I'm pretty sure that I speak for a hell of a lot of skaters on this one. And I really don't think this issue will be completely shut, sealed, and delivered, until that happens.
Skateboarding deserves nothing less. Especially from a guy that claims to love skateboarding as much as he says he does.
Motivations and Agendas of The Original Poster (at Slap)
Speaking of dodging hard questions: the "Original Poster", Gentle Jones, aka Bill Ferrell, has been just as complicit as Jason Jessee has been in opening himself up to being asked really hard questions, and giving really honest answers.
First of all, why did he single Jason (and Santa Cruz) out? A symptom of a petty personal vendetta overtaking a purely philosophical one, perhaps?
And, what did he stand to gain in all of this (if anything)...?
I'd add that the question of whether this guy just might have had an agenda to pursue, a vendetta to execute, and an axe to grind with Mr. Jessee is, at the very least, a "more than fair question to ask".
A couple weeks back, I actually got to ask Bill Ferrell these questions. Directly.
To this day, he has never directly answered any of them. Yet he claims (at Slap) to have nothing to hide, and to be more than happy to defend himself.
Do we hypocrite much, Bill...?
The Media Complicity Number One: Not Running The Piece
In Gentle Jones' defense: I did note somewhere in the Slap conversation that he had tried to shop this story around to The Media, to no avail*.
So, why didn't they run it? Did they have their own interests in burying it? Maybe they had advertisers to keep happy, and fat paychecks to look after?
I have to wonder if this story had been responsibly covered, instead of being left in the hands of an internet vigilante... if the tone (and the outcome) might have been very different.
If I had been Bill's editor, the first question I would have asked him is this: "Okay, fine. What about all the other skaters in the world that have rocked a swastika at some time or another? Are they (and their respective sponsors) all racists, too?" I mean, if you're gonna talk shit... you might as well go for the gusto, and really dig it all out. I'm an equal-opportunity ass-kicker, and I fully expect my staff and contributors to follow suit. What that means, in layman's terms, is that I expect them to be fair.
The fact that he did not bring any of the other swastika-rockers into this (at least initially) only adds to my suspicions that he is not fair.
And maybe the suspicions that he is not fair, compelled The Media to respectfully decline on running his "story".
* This assertion is factually incorrect. "Eraserhead Fuckers" (the skater that made the Jason Jessee video noted above) is the kid that wrote the draft article for Jenkem (who rejected it), and was subsequently submitted to Vice (who never responded to the submission, both as noted in the video). Gentle Jones/Bill Ferrell was neither the author of the piece, nor the guy presenting it to media. The draft article has since been functionally superseded by the video, which renders the draft article itself quite redundant.
Strange Happenings
Way back in 1987, Jason Jessee had "an altercation" with Ned "Peanut" Brown after Jason called Peanut "The N Word". Now, when I say that they had "an altercation", that means that Jason got his ass handed to him by Peanut. A well-deserved ass-handing, I would add. If I were Peanut, I might've done the same exact thing, myself.
Bill Ferrell is affiliated with Dead End Skateboards. Dead End put out a Ned Brown reissue as recently as 2015. Bill Ferrell personally wrote the press release for that reissue announcement. Bill Ferrell and Ned Brown seem to be awfully close for comfort these days.
These accusations came right on the heels of a high-profile video release by Cons, just as Jason Jessee is at the apex of a comeback.
"The Apex Of A Comeback", of course, is always the perfect time to take a man to task, and tarnish his reputation a bit, if you truly intend to do him real personal and/or professional harm.
All of these things seem strangely coincidental to me.
The Media Complicity Number Two: The Vice Article
How, or why, the guys at Vice never looked into that Jason Jessee/Bill Ferrell/Dead End/Ned "Peanut" Brown connection will forever be a perpetual mystery to me. That was some seriously suck-ass reporting taken to a whole 'nother level, right there.
What kind of "professional media outlet" simply overlooks the motivations of (or the coincidences surrounding) the fellow that fires the very first shot in an internet war? Or, was that "overlook" intentional...?
The Industry Reacts Badly (As Usual)
The statement from Bob Denike (of NHS) is probably the best example of this. My read on it was basically, "Look, we knew all about Jason's spotty past. We knew he had turned his back on it, and turned his life around. We were really proud of his progress as a human being, and super supportive of it. But we're putting him on 'indefinite hiatus', anyway."
That seemed like a pretty duplicitous move to me. Sorry, Mr. Denike. That still stands.
The Industry's silence on this has been almost as deafening as Jason's silence has been. I mean, corporate press releases are cool and stuff. But a meaningful conversation with an actual human being would have been so much better.
The Truly Horrifying Question
That statement from Bob Denike (of NHS) also points to a truly horrifying question. One that I don't think that Brain Surgeon Bill considered very hard, before launching his one-man internet attack. That question is, "What if we're taking down the wrong target here...?"
There is a very fair chance here that everybody is right about Jason Jessee. That previous to 2010, he was a piece of shit, a legitimate racist, and a train wreck of a human being a multitude of levels. But, post-2010? That he is a very changed man. Perfect? Probably not. But, changed? Most definitely. By most accounts, at least.
If we really want to hasten better race relations in this country, and truly eradicate racism from our society... then we absolutely must allow for racist people to change their hearts, their minds, and their ways, and encourage that sort of personal evolution every step of the way. You are simply not going to eradicate racism by any other means.
Eradicating racism through hate, intolerance, and brute force isn't gonna work out very well, Bill. The track record regarding that strategy's effectiveness is truly awful. At the end of the day, that strategy only entices, empowers, and emboldens the racists of the world to double down on their own hate, intolerance and brute force. Bet ya didn't think about that one, didya buddy?
Sure, I suppose that Bill Ferrell could demand that people are born geniuses, and never take up the flag of racism in the first place. My question is: if people were really capable of being absolutely perfect, straight out of the womb... wouldn't we be doing it already?
If we really are becoming a lynch mob that is dead, set, and determined to take a truly changed man to task for his past errors, and take away his livelihood in the process... then that would be the ultimate of tragedies. Because we'd be ripping away one of the best incentives for instigating positive personal change: the promise of redemption.
There are plenty of real racists out there to turn around. If we're targeting and taking down a truly changed man here, then we are woefully, and regrettably, off target.
And we just might be doing ourselves far more harm than good in the process.
The Media Complicity Number Three: Squashing Thoughtful Discourse and Dissent
King Skateboard Magazine published a really great, well-written article (titled "Primitive Progressivism", by Kyle Beachy) that Jason Jessee, himself, asked to be removed. And with that move, my worst suspicions continue to grow...
King Skateboard Magazine obviously capitulated, and pulled the piece, in exchange for a promised interview "later"*.
This, I consider to be high treason, and credibility-fatal. The Media should never, ever back down from taking on an emerging story, and standing by well-thought-out assertions. Ever. And while I might not have agreed with everything Kyle said in his piece, I cannot say that his op-ed was not filled with well-thought-out assertions.
By stifling this sort of thoughtful discourse and dissent, we immediately compromise this whole notion of "the independent media". And the one thing that skateboarding needs right now, more than almost anything else in the whole wide world, is a truly independent mass media.
* Thankfully, Free Skateboard Magazine stepped up to run the Kyle Beachy piece, which you can read for yourself here :
http://www.freeskatemag.com/2018/06/05/primitive-progressivism-by-kyle-beachy/
We commend Free Skate Magazine for their dedication to free, fair, and uncensored journalism. Thank you.
The Source Reacts Even Worse (There's Some Shady Shit Going On Here)
Again: Bill Ferrell is a total f'n hypocrite on this point, too. He has also gone well out of his way to squash and silence discourse and dissent. I can personally vouch for that one, too. But I'm certainly not the only guy he's tried to shut down recently. Seems to be a bit of a pattern there.
Hey, Bill, make a mental note here: Thou Shalt Not Fuck With The Independent Media. If you do, you might just find yourself in the same hot water as Jason Jessee.
If you were half the "professional journalist" that you claim to be, then you would know that already.
Everybody's Off The Record (Because Nobody Wants Their Bubble Challenged)
Here's another thing that really ground my gears last week. It's one thing to spit our half-baked, brittle bullshit "on the record", all over our insular little social media cocoons, where we have total control over who says what, and how butthurt we get over it.
It is quite another matter altogether to have to actually defend those opinions in some substantive way, to the independent and adversarial press.
While everybody was more than happy to spew sewage all over the internet, I never did find one single soul that was ready and willing to have a two-way, on-the-record, no-bullshit conversation around any of these issues. Lots of off-the-records! But not one on.
Funny how that works, isn't it...?
Here's my advice: if you can't f'n defend it, then don't bother saying it.
When's It Gonna End?
As I pointed out above, it's not like Jason Jessee is the only pro skater to ever rock White Power or Nazi symbolism. Gentle Jones should know that, as should everybody else.
Is every other pro skater that has ever displayed a swastika going to come under scrutiny in the public eye, and be forced to defend themselves too...? Are they going to talk? Or are they going to dodge, duck, and weave...? Lord only knows.
Fact is, there's a whole lotta skaters that have a whole lotta 'splainin to do. They might want to get on it before Gentle Jones and his Internet Lynch Mob come gunning for them, too. And they might want to get it done, and done quick, before we go to the Olympics, and the headlines become "The Rolling Racists Finally Make It To The World Stage!", and the excuse for not building that spiffy new skatepark in your town becomes "The Rolling Racists Don't Deserve It! (But The Scooter Kids Seem Awfully Sweet)". Yeah. You didn't think of those unintended consequences, did you? Guess what? I did.
Need help with that "Coming To Jesus" strategy? Then read the last bullet point.
So, who got it right?
Christian Hosoi. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: he has nothing at all to do with any of this.
Or, does he...?
Christian appeared on The Nine Club some time back. And somewhere in that interview, he started to talk at length... completely unprovoked, mind you... of the offensive nature of the "Rising Sun" imagery. How he never knew it's significance, how he never understood the offensive nature of it. And how, when he did find out about that backstory and that history, many years later... he completely stopped using it, and instead went on a personal mission to talk about his experiences with it, both negative and positive. Negative in having used it at all. But positive in having the platform to speak out on it now, and to put past wrongs right.
That's a great man, right there. We could all learn a lot from that guy. Because that, right there, is true leadership at work.
Bud Stratford
Executive Director,
Everything Skateboarding.
*So, you got something to say about all this? Don't wuss out, and hide in your dark little corner of the internet somewhere with your [still waiting on JD to recommend an insult that he will not find at all insulting]*** buddies. My e-mail is still budstratford@aol.com, and I'm still on Facebook, just like I've always been. Man up, or f'n shut it.
(***This insult has been edited no less than three four five times now, in a vain effort to make JD happy. Some people really do thrive on being angry, I guess.)](http://everythingskateboarding.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Headline_JasonJesseeShitstorm_Color_Pic_1050.jpg)
