SAVANNAH!

Here we are again! down south!

there's not going to be a lot of internet stuff... we are just too busy doing it.

Humanizing Lil Wayne

Get More:
Music News

I thought hearing LW talk about retiring helped me out a bit. You know? It humanized him to me a bit. That helps...

because the EFFECT of LW's career moves, and whatnot... is being felt in the skateboarding community, as his lifestyle message, values about women, money and what success is all about, filters into our collective personality through the youth...

you know? The effect of Skateboarding's Leadership embracing the big-money stars in a... relatively... UNCRITICAL fashion... will be felt among us for a long time...

so it was kind of nice this morning to hear him kind of explaining how he's been soaking in this stuff since he was so young... marinated in this culture... I mean, how could any of us do any different? Only by leaving it all behind, taking a stand on respecting women, not doing drugs, not exalting criminality and violent domination of others...

and that may be a bit much for me to ask of anyone. good thing it isn't ME asking it.

Anyway, it was good to get in touch with the 11-year old who did what he was told and became the 30 year old who just might bring skateboarding to the country music awards.

Your Penance: Push Mongo today.

Here's the thing:

I'm reading this Christian Svitak Interview... and he says the darndest things! About how all these "skateboarders" hate on each other so fervently, and how there's a total mass of jock/elitists running things (like skateshops), making the skateboarding community a sucky jock meritocracy...

and then he's like, "no wonder kids are riding scooters..." and I'm reading it... and I'm like! shoot! I just wrote an article about that!

I met and skated with Christian at Woody's Skate Park in Savannah GA last year. It was a joint demo kind of thing. we all just skated... he had rippers with him and a filmer and Jason Adams was hanging out with kids and being so cool... and Christian and I had a short conversation on the deck of some prefab kicker ramp...

it was basically about how proud he was to have the incredibly great folks at Beer City crafting boards he was proud of... but all the shops wanted to buy were the foreign-made "Budget Cuts" because they make a few more dollars on them.
Budget Cuts are made in Mexico at the same factory as a million other board brands and don't ultimately do much for us all... Because they are a notably lesser quality and more homogenous shape and on and on...

You see, the Passion that runs Christian is about doing something REAL, not the same old thing... yet so for five bucks or so a deck, shops "opted out" of the REAL 1031 wood... Shops just don't "get" that passion. It isn't something they will "Push" or work to make happen "out there".

Here in Ohio, where Christian comes from, people claim to be fiercely proud of their local/hometown skateboarding stuff... But why don't Ohio "core" shops back Christian Svitak and 1031? I'm serious. He's not on the wall AT ALL at the Galaxie, Anonymous, or Demented. Not at Local Skate Park. Not at Ollies, to any significant degree (although there's not a lot of "core" pride at Ollies). (If I am wrong, and some shop owner wants to point out that, in a year, they carried 3 boards from 1031--you're an idiot who is incapable of thinking clearly--that is not "backing it", and you still don't have landshark wheels!)

Why, in all green goodness, aren't the Ohio Shops BACKING and PUSHING 1031, Regulator Distribution, Land Shark Wheels, and the whole Christian Svitak thing?

I've asked around, and everybody has a positive opinion of the guy. Everybody "respects what he's doing".

No they don't. They are all talk. All. Talk. yep. "core skateboard retailers are all talk." I said it.
They are Incurious
and not industrious in their work
they don't seek out anything new or interesting or real
they don't nurture or help anything to become.
they just stick to the sales racks of their california online distributor, and push whatever mexican-made shop deck brands they want to make the most money off of.

all in the name of "skateboarding commmunity" or "the core" or something like that.
It is outrageous. Yet you are not outraged.
Because nobody is really saying it! But I am.

Here's some more:
Any industry flunkie, or shop owner or shop worker who hasn't valued this True-
American-true-skateboarding-diamond-in-the-rough that is Regulator/1031/Land Shark/Christian Svitak...

...is BLOWING IT!

Yeah. that's right! If you go into your local shop and don't see 1031 Beer City Pressings on the wall, those guys don't really support what is good. It is the most obvious choice they could make!

Among the "local brands" and Ohio brands they DO back, you'll find that their own shop boards are the favorite. And some mexican-pressed, chinese-pressed, or quick-press, tall-stack factory look-alike board company with "follow-the-money" "hip-hop gangsta wannabe" culture is the close second. Actual Creation/Creativity is, at best, a visitor in the inventories of Ohio skate shops... There is NO outreach to anything like Five Points, or MWxBC's Fickle or WhatLuck.. and sheesh, even the proper California/Ohio Big Brand: 1031 gets a cold shoulder...

Its like Ohio is so "proud of Ohio" that it hates anything from Ohio.
and if you think it isn't "hate", then I'll soften it to:
won't support the family-businesses of those who really back real Neil Blender/Bill Danforth Ohio roots...
won't order their products
won't push their brands
won't won't won't
don't don't don't

Come on! Skate shops, you deserve what you're getting! Until you recognize the value of kits like Christian's Regulator/Beer City offerings, you haven't taken seriously the concept of "Pride in Ohio". and you haven't even considered "durable economics" in hard times... Can't you see that the butt-kissing you're doing with big brands from California... that's going to cheapen everything! You're going to lose to the mall shops, inevitably! We'll all be stuck with Zumiez unless you guys can do something DIFFERENT! Not just a weak version of the same corporate-hack mentality that dug this hole in the first place.

Why am I calling out the skate shops? Well, aren't they the ones that claim to be the community center? Aren't they the ones who demand your "support" while they tragically neglect the businesses that would build them a better economy in the future? Aren't they the ones who push you chinese-made california hype and party-lifestyle bullshit, just trying to pad their bank accounts against the next onslaught of mall-sellout mountain-dew culture (the very culture they serve)?

Odds are, your skateshop is a "community center" for "follow the money" wannabe group-think, not the freedom and joy of skateboarding. Odds are, they are more invested in getting everyone to look the same than stoking people on discovering the feeling of skateboarding... Odds are, you have been stewed in these juices for so many years that you hear this as "hate" when all it is is inconvenient truth.

Well that's okay! There's a comment field below for you to spill all that "love" you all have for Ohio.

so this is what I thought about that. this was the thing:

Go read the INTERVIEW and get your mind blown by how harshly Christian rips into your favorite skate culture. then go out and learn to push mongo as penance!

rolling out...

there are so many things I'd like to write to you all about... but I keep holding back, because from where I stand, the things that are begging to be said are not always that fun to hear...

and that can make them even less fun to say, when the skateboarding community seems so committed to "the old way" of doing things...

seriously, its like some old church lady thing, how the skateboarding community refuses to question the industry and the media that push it.

Now and then I pipe up on my instagram feed, sniping at some stuff... maybe I'll start a TMZ-style skateboarding mag... but for today, just dealing with 5 boys in the house and all their stuff... and the daily operation of a pressing workshop, making killer decks for all my friends and not-yet-friends...

i just have to pass it up so often.

but how about you? what are the skateboarding articles that aren't getting written that you'd like to read?

I'd like to know exactly what happened to John Cardiel, and what lessons might be embedded in that experience...

I'd like to hear more about what is going on with The Boss sounding all anti-drug, while pushing all the Baker stuff...

I'd like to know more about production: which companies are made where and how... and who is truly "D.I.Y." in this authenticity-starved generation.

I'd like to have a lot more "how to" on making boards, shirts and stuff and see a lot more folks doing it out there...

I'd like to put up a live cam of the workshop for you guys to see what I'm up to down there from time to time.

just some thoughts from the journey.

This here is my newest... they say the ribs hurt... they are right.

Bones Brigade MidWest Showing: Indianapolis, Noon. This coming SATURDAY!

Okay, I was stunned over here at the WorkShop when Bart at WhatLuck Skateboards calls me up and says, "Hey, we got the Bones Brigade Movie in Indianapolis, and YOU'RE hosting it with us!"

Well, first off, I figured that the whole thing was probably already "MidWest Handled" Turns out, it wasn't. As far as we know, the nearest showing is in North Carolina.

Now I've been known to be wrong, and I've ended up on the wrong end of my own mouth before, as well... but this here is really silly... and SWEET! and there's no wrong end of a day of skating with the brotherhood (and sisterhood).

This means that all of us are coming together for a GREAT BIG SKATE DAY in Indianapolis.
Meetup for Cinci Departure at 9AM from the Northside Parking Lot at Hamilton and Chase!

and hey, any shops that want to get in on this, just load yourselves in your vehicles and come kill it at the parks and make it a great time! there's much love in the house!

and everybody, this here's why we call Bart at whatluck, "Bart the Heart."

Cancer Dan causin thoughts.

I had a lunch in Portland ME last January with Tom Noble of WhoSkates?.  It was evident that we were gonna be friends... we didn't get to do that... Tom Passed shortly after, and he is missed today... WhoSkates is still doing it! they are a great crew and I'll back them as some of the very best in the business on so many levels... heart for miles...

But this Drehobl guy... TN was one of Dan's first sponsor-types, and shared a couple of tidbits about Danny here... From the time he got ripped open and couldn't really get out of a chair to go to the hospital, to the way he got the nickname "Cancer Dan", Drehobl is a living invitation... Human Permission Slip... to go skating even when I feel like shit.

I'll pretty much never wear anything but hand craft, military surplus, or thrift, so all the Elwood textile closeups are a wash, but this guy... he's a real deal dude... and there is much love for him among the Aging Lifers.
These are the kind of things I wanna have said before the next guys die, myself included... 

And if that seems morbid, here's a clip to finish you off...



as far as the whole thing goes:
if we would remember this one thing the whole time we interact with each other:
"this is all going to be over far too quickly"
...
the industry
the community
the daily grind...
would all get rearranged... maybe not completely, because that's not the GOOD news, but affected for the positive, because our feet get rooted in truer stuff...

Luchaskate: Dog Tacos: Stoked again

Luchaskate: Dog Tacos: Stoked again: Hitting the local park for a daytime session is usually two things:  1.  Hotter than hell.  2.  Inspirational One is self explanatory.  Th...

the Backwards Truck on the Trophy

This here... man, I had heard about the Street League "Backward Truck" thing, but I thought it was just a rumor... then, after blowing my top yesterday, I ran across this GEM of journalistic satire!
Please just skip to 2:39 and open your mind.



This clip here was funny, though profane. And made some good points. But I think the best point of all was about the backwards truck. Not just that it is more proof than clue that these people running this stuff are tragically underqualified to represent the skateboarding community to this generation, but that...

This kind of skateboarding industry has the steering mechanism backwards.
Its Not MONEY FIRST.
It is: 

PEOPLE FIRST! 

then we won't have all our friends and neighbors getting fired all the time like this... granted, nobody'll get filthy rich off us, but I think that by now we've seen how that game always ends up...

DNA/Alien/Reflex/Habitat is not dead. It is UNDEAD, and nothing can kill it or stop it because it is a money vampire and a cheap culture zombie now, along with Shaun White's brand and all the JC Penny stuff... It will live for decades on the shelf where well-trained American consumers will buy it for ten times it's worth.

 ...for this, the La Jolla Group will be rewarded with Money, which they will dole out to the Players. None of those guys will fail to make a lot of money! No joke.
But the culture of putting people last has its own price to pay. Many of these people end up rich, lonely, isolated, broken shells with a lot of regrets. That's what "Follow the Money" will get you.  

and yes, i googled it.

Something the Mags will never pick up on!

this posting on facebook was up and then down in less than an hour.

obviously, this kind of thing was something the original poster didn't want to continue airing out.

So I doped it out to sanitize everyone's identity, and put it up. I'm so glad I did a screen grab on it before it was down!
This thing is so full of intellectual nutrition for us skateboarders that I thought, "THIS will never get aired out anywhere if I don't put it up and keep it going."

I'm going to say the following:
the original poster is a skate shop owner
...and the owner of a board company.

Also,
a cool dude who cares about his friends
and obviously sees the immense damage to their lives caused by Alien's gradual, then precipitous, slide into irrelevance...



 it all happened because the MODEL of BUSINESS that Element and Alien have followed is driven by none other than "Bottom-Line Analysis". That is, Money money money, follow the money.

First, some years back with a real cool dude who worked at DNA, he drops with a little bit of shame, that a PORTION of Alien decks were being made in China. Soon, it was All of them... Or Mexico, depending on who and when and whatever...
If ANY of their production remained in America within a year of that conversation, my sources were unaware... haha. my sources...

I'm just a BigKid, who came to the Midwest over a decade ago and found a wasteland of sellout elitists WRECKING EVERYTHING they touched, with their obvious greed and "follow the money" reasoning.

GREED wrecks EVERYTHING.
So if your skateboard brand is obviously on that tip (DGK/Kayo/dyrdek/and on and on...) you might want to think about if that's where you're at... I mean: look at what the local sticker brand near me just cooked up for its next graphic:


So here are some of the "Big Deal" things involved with what I wrote today:
1. People are bummed at this "California BS/Greed-driven" stuff...
2. People are not really cool with it being talked about. They pull the post when it gets too hot for comfort... there...
3. The idiotically doomed slide into irrelevance started with greed
4. People aren't getting that picture.

Awesomely, it doesn't matter too much for those of us who are doing the "D.I.Y." thing if all these things continue, because pretty much nothing ever mattered to us except the freedom of thought, expression, speech and motion that skateboarding represented to us in the beginning...

and it is in this same spirit of independence and freedom of though, expression, speech and motion that I offer to you that GREED is about the Dumbest move for you, Kids and BigKids. It will end up with you, rich, isolated, bored and lonely--making decisions that impoverish and deplete the souls of the community, and the families of your workers...

Keeping it workshop, not factory, is a start, but the MidWestXBlueCollar ethic has to be guarded and protected... for my generation, I'm down to watch the walls.
Lew

you know how it is when
a young man makes the call
and decides to start their own skateboard brand
and the first thing they do is come out with THEIR OWN PRO MODEL?

kids, don't do this. seriously. think about it.
the madness needs to stop...

Luchaskate

This new Magazine is definitely slamming. This is an article about it: about how the dude started it... and why...

http://www.memphisconnect.com/2012/08/15/luchaskate-racing-with-my-son/

and this is a link to the mag:

http://issuu.com/luchaskate/docs/v1.1\

and if you take the time, you won't regret having taken the time!

Lew

(R.)I.C.E.

this is what you'll find me doing when i slam it good... My shoulder got jacked when I was on the beans and rice tour, at 4th ward... and so now I have sprained my wrist and swellbowed my arm... and this is the LIFE! 

So when I get like this, I wrap it as soon as I freshly impact it, with ice, and it makes a huge difference in the long run. Ice, Compression, Elevation... I.C.E.

notice that its not R.I.C.E., because I pretty much don't rest... unless you count sleeping on the floor with Rocko the dog. 

recharging...

i took a break from the workshop to skate and recharge this week... just yesterday and today... i'll be shaping and spraying boards tonight, for sure...

but looking at some of the blogs I've been following, like concrete turd and curb crushers has been great...

and as much as I don't like the brand stuff involved with it, I wanted to share this clip of one of my all time favorite pros: jason adams...



this is fun skateboarding and really stoked me to go skate today. maybe tricks ARE for kids, of all ages.

Curb Crushers...

this is some proper stuff. food for the fire.

curb crushers

these guys are doing it. Slappy Sundays. Solid. Skateboarding. Stoked.

i kind of wonder...

i kind of wonder if there's a day coming when a skateboard will be made in china or mexico, only. 
if there'll be a day when the ONLY product available on the wall is this kind of cheap junk, break on a straight ollie, nose stomps off on the first trick, stuff that's going on...

because boards have been $60 "good enoughs" for a long time...

look back in my blogs and you'll see me dropping $65 on a deck that punked out first rip, and doing the whole journey of returning it... I actually brought that board back to california and dropped it off and sat down and told the guys, "The midwest skaters want to know where the good wood went."

I was told, and I quote, "I am absolutely convinced that the product we offer is of the highest quality available on the market today..."
True.
Absolutely true.
The "Market" today is a bunch of junk. Look at Zoo York! Great example. no joke. Chapman gets all the Zoo line from china, and the boards are a joke.
What?
Aren't they?
And if the pros ride a domestic batch, it isn't what the skaters get when they plop down fifty at a shop... or $60... and those are gonna... be zoo yorks... toy boards...

and oh, what pros? zoo just dropped the lineup and put out a one-pro video... where's the joy? where are the roots?
this "follow-the-money" stuff that I hear shop owners saying to me (take a warning shop owners) is going to dump the skateboarder into a future with crappy choices...

unless... we work up a kind of wood production within our communities that far exceeds the quality that we're seeing from the foreign wood houses...
which we are...
and have done...
and are continuing to refine...
and export to other cities and communities who have the same needs...
in order to SERVE the skateboarding community, longterm...

because there is more than one kind of "money" to "follow". I prefer the kind of money that flows back into the community and feeds quality and service. Period. There is less of it, but it comes with JOY. and JOY was the reason we did this pushing on wooden toys in the first place.

So before you admire someone for selling out and making a million, consider that the "REAL" things in life usually come in humbler packaging. Don't let the hip-hop pride troops fool you.
The Poor are blessed.
the rich are woeful.
this is a truth we can see without need to search.

i wonder what the future will look like for folks looking for an inspiring skateboard.
or maybe there'll just be scooters...

out there today...

out there today, I was with the likes of Flying Tiger Andy, Mark Noland, Ben Osborne, Sunshine... David Faul and Branny... Great Folks...

And this scooter thing was fresh on my mind... because everyone sees it. All the grownups are seeing the parks choke up with them... There is change in the wind...

guys are trying flip tricks and ledge tech, lined up, failing attempt after attempt after attempt... and man, I know happy, and that wasn't happy.
you can try to sell it to me, but 20 years of watching free motion chained to comparison/competition marketing tactics... I know what I'm looking at.

And the little kids... well there was one there: Branson.
Branson is doing flow lines with his DAD, Deefs. now, deefs has roots in surfing and knows a LOT about what skateboarding can mean to a soul.
Sit with the guy and he'll really bless ya.
And Branny is ripping, with surfing at the heart of his style... flowing lines, high-speed, and when he does a "trick", it has this natural quality... uncontrived. is that at word?

uncontrived.
not trying to impress, but a product of joy. period.

fact is, this year has seen a 20% reduction in the number of skateboarders (the bean counters in the industry say) and a 20% reduction in the dollars in shwagg they're selling.

funny side note: one guy says to me, "you know when zoo york was cool?"
and we both say together, spontaneously, "When it was called SHUT!"google it.

Anyway, skateboarding is shrinking down and blowing up at the same time... Mountain Dew and Nitro Circus are still finding ways to squeeze cash out of the tricks, so that'll last as long as the money is good enough... and no longer...

who knows, maybe the parks'll be called "scooter parks" soon, and a few folks will come out the surf around and play, joyfully, again...

There I'll be, with Deefs and Branny, Noland, Sunshine, Benjo, and Flying Tiger Andy... just like always...

surfing
with joy...

the scooterkid thing...

how many of us older guys in skateboarding have i heard talking about scooter kids this week?
Duane Peters on Instagram
guys at the parks.
its a phenom...

and yesterday, Miles up in Terre Haute is talking about the scooters to me while I'm coming off a session at Delhi Cincinnati that was choked up with scooters... a week or so after a session at Louisville, choked up with scooter kids...

scooters
scooters
scooters

what's with all the scooters?
Why are the kids all choosing the scooters, and not a skateboard?

So I asked a kid at the park, "Why aren't you riding a skateboard?"
and he says to me, "Because I can't DO it."
and I says to him, "What? You can't ride it?"
and he says, "NO, I can't do anything ON it."

and I got it.

IT IS OUR DAMNED TRICKSDOWNTHEHANDRAILORYOU'REABARNEY jock-achievement, right-shoes, right pants conformity, with crews of dudes all dressed the same,
bailing flip in flip outs all day
sourpuss
mad at themselves
board focusing
cartilage-wrecking

and all for what?
to get "sponsored"? that train has left the station.
To get the girl? One in 3 contacts transmits and std kids. one in 3.
for what?

I can count the number of smiling pros (like Jaws) on one hand in the mags... and this whole bundle of performance-oriented jock crap has soured the skateboarding experience so much that none of the kids want to even touch it.

They are choosing scooters for the same reason that I chose the skateboard!

I'm this close to starting a camp for beginners and getting andy roy on it... teaching them to skate like they want to, asking them what they want to do on their boards, not telling them to stop pushing mongo, or learn to flip the boards.

Get out
Go forty.
Carve.
lean into it.
and experience the rush...

Get off the popsicle conformity train, and get your heads free from these 25-stair handrail marketing campaigns.

and no thanks to the pros and industry maestros who painted us all into this corner, pushing a form of skateboarding that is just getting people hurt... and there's so little smooth style out there! don't even get me started...

so little soul...

why would a kid want to start skateboarding nowadays, with all this conformity and industry pressure bumming everyone out?

on Going Skateboarding

fact: there is this word, "skateboarding" that circulates. people throw it around and use it all the time.
most of the time it means and Activity
sometimes it refers to a Community.
to some it is a Religion or Creed...

I have plenty to say about all those things and already have HERE.

But today I don't want to talk about "skateboarding".

I want to talk about GOING skateboarding.

Going.
moving.
on your skateboard.

no matter what, you are the winner when you get the wind in your face and feel the power of motion on your board!
no matter what kind of board you are on
no matter what style or kind of tricks you do in between this...

Going
on a
skateboard.

So let's get out there and go forty today.

from the journey no. 48

in this 48th installment of "from the journey" notes...

i'm sitting here at the big table, working through the swamp in my head to get freed up enough to swing some elbows in the workshop today.

making our own boards (and to date that is ME making all MY boards) for Fickle has been an exciting journey...
we have black in the ledger in more ways than one...

we are plus one nice home workshop.
we are plus one good reputation for boards that are better than most.
we are plus one mental sanity, unplugged from the mainstream of skateboarding hype.

and we are mostly Me, still.
yes, the fact is that most of the folks who put their hand to the work pull it back pretty fast once the sawdust gets down their shirt. not that we are complaining...

but it is noteworthy that most of the folks we know in skateboarding are geared to being consumers, and not creators. if that shoe fits you, maybe you should work out till your feet are in a different shape...

because above all, skateboarding was about coming unplugged from the hype of mainstream sports and tame art and digging a fresh furrough in the world, wasn't it?

Oh. there's the thing. I'm going to say MOST of todays younger skateboarders are groomed into a highly stylized form of skateboarding that is put out there by none other than impersonal, unaccountable corporations.

and where I used to see the "jocks"(football/wrestling) picking on those who are different, I now see them praising skateboarding for its highly stylized performances.
and I see a new "jock" on the scene.
it is the "core" skater.

who would have thought that the thing that would kill skateboarding is the jock mentality of core street skaters from the nineties?
they built an industry and sold the community to the shoe companies.

and all the while we could have been in chucks and vans and basketball shoes with nothing more than a tube of shoe goo...

just a spit of thought from the big table.

from the journey.