The Solitary Life

We've Moved To New Digs...!

2011-10-16T01:32:00.007-04:00

In case you haven't gotten the memo, The Solitary Life is now Everything Skateboarding Magazine, and can be found here:

www.everythingskateboardingmagazine.blogspot.com

We'd all like to thank everybody that took the time to read The Solitary Life. Especially me, considering that it was originally designed to be my personal blog. But as time went on, The Solitary Life quickly became much, much more like an online skateboard (and snowboard) 'zine... complete with a small staff, and a whole lotta contributors. Considering the metamorphosis, we all ultimately decided that it was probably time to find a title- and, an address- that better suited this new and entirely unplanned mission.

As a quick epilogue: This week, as I was going through my many skateboard-related archives, I found the first (and only) print 'zine that I ever made. It was called "Alley-Oop!" (complete with the exclamation point and everything), about 16 pages long, and finely printed on only the choicest low-budget copy paper that Kinko's offered at the time. I think I made something like fifty copies, and basically gave them to all my friends and family. So, I probably had a whopping forty-nine readers, most of whom I knew already, anyway.

In contrast, The Solitary Life ran for well over a year, cost me nothing at all to print (because it's not printed at all, goofball), and routinely got well over 250 readers a week... sometimes, over a thousand... from literally every corner of the world. No joke, it was quite a trip to find out that we routinely got readers from places like Tokyo, Prague, Moscow, Brussels, Melbourne, Madrid, Tel Aviv, Paris, or London. We even got somebody from San Diego once, which I thought would be the highlight of my entire existence. Little did I know how crazy this would ultimately get.

The best part, though, was having a readily available outlet for my wellspring of whimsy and creativity. I'm not sure how I'd get through life, without some sort of interesting project to work on all the time. Yeah, it's a major pain in the ass to edit HTML code at two in the morning... which is exactly what I was doing tonight... or should I say, this morning? Whatever. The point being, I probably ended up getting way, way more out of the experience than I put into it. Namely, having a ton of fun with my friends, causing trouble, and being able to share my- our- perspectives with a worldwide audience. Maybe, we even did something cool for skateboarding. That would be the bossest thing ever.

So... would I encourage you, your buddies, or anybody else to start up a blog (or two) of your own...? Well, of course. You'd be a damned idiot if you didn't. And if you ever need help, look me up. I'll be more than happy to lend a helping hand.

So thanks again, everybody. It was truly a wonderful time, and a really, really rewarding experience. I hope it was for you, too. I'll certainly never forget it.

See you after the jump-

Bud Stratford
Former Head Nemesis,
The Solitary Life

(*I'm really gonna miss this pig...)

It's all about "selling stuff"...

2011-04-27T20:23:00.006-04:00

What I learned about IASC today (from Boardistan)

Everything that IASC talks about at these "skateboarding summits" seems to end up degenerating into a shallow dialogue about how to "sell more stuff". Charitable and/or community initiatives? They're all about "selling more stuff". Magazines? All about "selling more product" ("product" is synonymous with "stuff", of course). The internet? Great at "building brand appeal" (which is marketing-hypester-speak for "selling more stuff"). What... you don't believe me? Well then, hear it straight from the horses' mouth over at Boardistan, where they're doing a damn snappy job of live blogging the whole senseless shindig of shenanigans:

"If you have skateboarding in high school, maybe that introduces more people to skateboarding and helps everyone sell more stuff..."

"I don't think print will ever die. 25,000 journalists lost their jobs last year. Those numbers don't die. i don't think Thrasher will ever die. That is neither here nor there. The purpose of print media and what we do are virtually the same. Both of us are here to help you get your brand message out so you can sell more product..."

"Unless you're a fan of a brand we've got new kids coming in every day and they've never heard of brands and they somehow come to [some website] and they are turned on to brands..."

Now, guys. I understand that this is an IASC Business Bullshit Bubbub and all. I get that. And of course, Boardistan's editors paraphrased and typoed their asses off in order to bring us their otherwise excellent up-to-the-nanosecond reporting. But even given all of that, I still have to ask myself from time to time, "Seriously? Does everything from high school skateboarding clubs, to the hallowed pages of Thrasher, to [Some Website] have to be strictly about selling more crap (aka,"stuff")?!"

Maybe IASC should try changing their name to "It's A Sacred Concept" for a week or so (instead of the current "It's A Scandalous Conundrum"), and find the motivation [somewhere] to start doing things that promote the grander good of skateboarding, not just for the greater good of lining their pockets and filling their coffers.

The Sentence That Speaks A Thousand Words...

2011-04-26T19:16:00.007-04:00

The Sentence That Speaks A Thousand Words...

I took a few minutes out of my all-too-busy evening tonight to poke around at Boardistan (http://www.boardistan.com/), where they just-so-happen to be blogging live from the IASC Bullshit Brouhaha (otherwise known as the "IASC Skateboard Branding Bullshit Brouhaha Summit 2011"... or something ego-stroking and over-indulgent like that). Anyway, as I read through the TweetBlog whatevers, I noticed one sentence in particular that was far more telling then it's mere dozen-or-so words would imply. That sentence was:

"The Editors: No one on the panel can say "Homogenization"* but they're all trying..."

Maybe IASC would know what the fuck they're talking about if they whittled it down to just "Homo", and left it at that.

*Disclaimer For The Uninitiated: "Homogenization" is what happens when every street deck on the market is a pile of shit that was outsourced to some 4th world nation for pennies on the dollar, looks like every other pile-of-shit street deck on the market (except for the graphics which, according to The Industry, makes these anonymous piles of shit "pro models"), and lasts almost as long as a piss-soaked lump of toilet paper... that's basically "homogenization" in a nutshell. It's actually one of the few things that IASC's member brands excel at. Even if they might not know how to pronounce it.

"Keeping It Realer, Bitches". That's our new motto.

The Business Bullshit: Deciphering Harbaugh

2011-04-24T07:03:00.002-04:00

This week, I got a quickie e-mail from my buddy Michael over at Concrete Wave Magazine, pointing me to Jeff Harbaugh's latest and greatest bit of "Market Watch" writing (which can always be found at www.jeffharbaugh.com, for those that thuly love these sorts of business babbles). Before I begin having my way of skewering Harbaugh, let me start by saying that Jeff is a super-smart bloke (nay, "brilliant" might be far more accurate), and has been authoritatively writing about the skateboard business for, oh, maybe fifteen years now? His work was a massive influence on me: I used to practically memorize his TransWorld SKATEboarding Business pieces whenever they'd arrive at my office. So even though I may appear to be making a bit of fun of Jeff, my admiration for the guy is absolutely astronomical.

That said: Given his brilliance, I was a bit perplexed by the timing of this piece. It's been very common knowledge for the past five years or so that our distribution model... while not exactly "broken"... is at the very least, obsolescent. If not direly obsolete. So to get my new Market Watch just this week was a bit of a shock to me.

What's even worse: Jeff isn't always the plainest of speakers. He seems to forget that skaters [like me] are typically befuddled by big words and complex concepts. Problem is, this industry is largely owned and managed by "skaters [like me]". So whoever Jeff is writing for sort of eludes me from time to time.

That said, I figured that a new column that serves to translate Jeff's work into skater-speak might be a damned fun time. While allowing me to toss in a quick barb and little bit of extra perspective here and there. So, let's get started:

(Jeff's quotes will be the ones in big, bold italics. My babbling bullshit will be the plain-text crap. Just sayin'.)

"The Skateboard Distribution Model- It Never Was Broken"

Let's begin with the title. For the business newbies out there: The "Distribution Model" of our industry is the way that we get a skateboard from the manufacturer of the product (a woodshop, in most cases), delivered to a marketing brand's warehouse ("Foundation" would be an example of a marketing brand), then sold through what I like to call a "Primary Distributor" ("Tum Yeto" would be Foundation's Primary Distributor)... then, oftentimes to a "Secondary", independent, regional distributor (Eastern Skateboard Supply, AWH, South Shore, Rax, Atlantic, and a few others would all be examples of Secondary Distributors)... to a local retailer... and finally, in your hands. "You" being Average Skateboard Customer. This, my friends and enemies, is our "Skateboard Distribution Model" of 2011. Which is the same model, more or less, that we've been using since 1974 or so.

The question is: Is it "broken"? Well, no. I guess it isn't "broken", per se. But it doesn't exactly work very efficiently either, and might not be the right fit for a 2011 world anymore. I used this anology just last night, in discussing this topic with one of my good friends:

Let's say that Chrysler Corporation unveiled, as a 2011 model, their 1973 Dodge Dart. The '73 Dart got maybe 13 miles per gallon, weighed about 5,000 lbs (dry), burned regular "leaded" gasoline, ran on narrow bias-ply tires, was powered by a cast-iron, carburated lump of an engine, and had a cutting-edge entertainment system featuring an analog AM radio and an 8-track player. It was a nice little car... by 1973 standards. I'd have to guess that it ran pretty well. And thus, it "worked" just fine and dandy, as defined by Jeff Harbaugh. Which means, it's not "broken". In a strictly literal sense.

But, here's the question: Would a modern-day car buyer buy a 1973 Dodge Dart, brand-new, off the lot, as a practical daily driver, in a 2011 world? Heavens no. Not unless they're some sort of retard or something. And thank God they wouldn't. Because a '73 Dart is pretty much a rolling environmental disaster made for geeks that can't afford Hemi Chargers.

Moral: Although not "broken" by definition, the fact remains that this system just might be an antiquated dinosaur being utilized by retards. That's all I'm sayin' here.

"Distribution has always been a bit of a contentious issue in the skateboard industry. I’d regularly go to the IASC sponsored breakfasts at ASR and listen to the participants agree that the industry should “do something” about distribution. Then came the implied blame and pointing of fingers as the brands, retailers and distributors all looked at each other. Needless to say, nothing much was accomplished."

Yeah... this isn't really the way to make "progress" happen. When I go out to learn a new trick, I don't point at Danny Way after I slam, and go "Geez Danny, why didn't you make this happen for me, huh?! I mean, you're the pro skater and all that's supposed to be leading me down the path of perpetual progression and shit". Hey, IASC Members: Instead of pointing the finger (in vain) at somebody else, why don't we try finding the strength within ourselves to find creative and intelligent solutions to a long-standing problem...? Try doing what skaters do every day: Have a go at it, slam a couple times, figure it out, and get that bitch done.

Fuckin' A, you'd think this industry was run by money-hungry business douchebags or something. Not skaters, for cripe's sakes.

"'The industry,' of course, is never going to 'fix' distribution. Every company, if I can recite for the umpteenth time what seems to be becoming my mantra, is going to do what it perceives to be in its own best interest- as it should. And, by the way, distribution isn’t and was never “broken” and doesn’t need fixing. As it does in every industry, it just evolved based on consumer requirements and competitive actions by companies. Distribution may be inconvenient and not the way we’d like it to be, but it’s not broken..."

This is where Jeff is dead wrong. The Industry has to "fix distribution", if it's ever going to survive and prosper in this brave new world of ours. Jeff: Having worked in the snow sports industry, you should know better than this. What skate needs to do, is streamline distribution, to get to the results that it percieves to be in its own best interest. What are those results? Better margins across the board (for brands, as well as retailers). More control over where their products are represented, and how they're represented. Better, more direct relationships between the brands and the representing retailers. MAPs and MSRPs that actually work for everybody up and down the supply chain. These are all things that snow has [largely] accomplished, and that skate has [largely] failed to accomplish. The reason? Skate's overly redundant, 1970's-designed distribution model.

So Jeff, the problem is that skate distribution has not evolved based on consumer requirements (although consumers definitely are forcing a long-overdue change with their buying habits these days... but we'll get to that in a minute).

When something is inconvenient, and not working the way that it needs to work in a 2011 world... I'm sorry, but I'm calling that one "broken", buddy.

"A Little History, The Distributors, A Different Point of View..."

... blah, blah, blah. Jeff keeps on truckin' right along, filling in a bunch of human/business nature ("It's all about me and my money!"), historical context (A detailed description of how and why a '73 Dart works), and a brief glimpse into how other industries ("snow", in this case) actually do manage to work (which is easy- they make less, and rake in more cash. Brilliant!).

The problem is, Jeff only gives us vague, veiled hints at how we, in skate, might go about "solving" this nonexistent problem. Apparently, those snow dudes have a much more efficient distribution model that cuts out a whole lotta middlemen, which makes the few remaining hands in the pot a whole bunch more money. They make a technologically advanced, well-engineered, high-dollar product that's pretty hard to duplicate by the average copycat. And, they're a little less greedy and stupid over there in snow world. They actually have the foresight to make a little less product (read: supply), which drives a little more demand, which cuts down on the after-season markdowns, and gets everybody along the way a few more duckets. Except for the customer. Because he ends up paying more for a snowboard than he did last year. Which is not necessarily bad for the customer (so long as I'm fully stoked on snowboarding, I'm totally fine with paying whatever it takes to get my ass on, and down, a fucking mountain), but is always great for the industry.

There's a little quote that I learned from my time in management school. It goes a little bit like this: "Don't Bring Me Problems, Bring Me Solutions". Jeff effectively denies that a problem exists, and then fails to deliver solutions. Yay for us. Well, I'm not Jeff. I'm not afraid to tell you point-blank that this shit is fucked up. And I'm also gonna tell you how it's going to end up getting fixed. Right from the top, to the bottom.

First problem: There are way too many distribution options. Half of those need to go. I've been saying this for years, by the way... so if it sounds familiar, that's because it is. Eastern, AWH, South Shore... they are all dead businesses. Because they perpetuate a dead paradigm: The Regional, Independent Distributor.

So, what is going to replace the regional independents? Primary Powerhouses. Which are going to form via industry consolidation. Which, ironically, has historically been one of Jeff's favorite talking points. In the future, I see a series of consolidations happening that will bring us down to a Big Three-to- Big Five of Primary Distributors. Examples? I could very easily see Deluxe (Real, Antihero, Krooked, Thunder, and Spitfire) strategically merging with Street Corner (Venture, Hubba, Think, City, Lucky), forming a San Francisco-based Mega Distributor. Which would save them immediate infrastructure costs (warehousing, sales staff, support staff, management, etc). Likewise, I could see a strategic merger happening between Tum Yeto (Foundation, Toy Machine, Ruckus, Pig, etc) and Black Box (Zero, Slave, Mystery, Fallen, yadda yadda yadda). Obviously, I'm totally making these up, based largely on geography and history. At the same time, they do illustrate an overriding goal: To bring families of brands together under one roof, saving money, and offering something that approaches one-stop shopping for the [few remaining] retailers out there. By building stronger Primaries, the need for Secondary distributors rapidly diminishes.

Thus: If I was a responsible brand manager today, my first job might be to start exploring sensible partnerships with other strong brands. Likewise: If I ran a Primary Distributorship, my job would probably become:

- Looking around for established brands to bring into my fold, via a merger,
- Looking for a promising upstart to bring into my fold, via a buyout, or
- Cultivating a next generation of leading brands, in-house.

The "biggest" problem of them all... and the perpetual problem that plagues our industry... is that all of these things require imagination, creativity, vision, and strategy. None of which are routinely employed by our industry leaders. Job One in our industry can easily be defined as "Maintain The Status Quo At All Costs". Everybody wants to be the king of their own island, and nobody seems to think very far beyond today. So, whenever any sort of "problem" arises, we all head back to our little islands, stick our heads in the sand (or up our asses), and put off for tomorrow what we really should have done today. It's this mentality, this "culture", that has gotten us to this point: Driving a 1973 Business Model in a 2011 World. We have literally been putting this off since 1974. Which doesn't say anything good about our leadership, now does it...?

Ultimately, Jeff is entirely correct in this regard: The Customer Ultimately Gets What The Customer Wants. Even if it means wholesale abandonment of a legacy paradigm... oh well! The customer has spoken, and made his or her intentions clear. The customer wants more skateboards. The customer wants more variety and options. Not just new graphics or pros, but entirely new ways of skateboarding (the explosive growth in longboarding is a testament to this one). The customer wants quality product (as always), but also wants prices to come down (as always). The customer wants a whole world of selection at their fingertips... and why shouldn't they? It is, after all, a 2011 world. It's all about more choices, and more immediate gratification. Our industry- as represented by IASC's members- does not easily deliver. This distribution model- as defined by "Everything from the manufacturer, to the retailer"- no longer works for the customer. So, they do the most sensible thing of them all: They abandon it altogether.

What am I saying here? Here's what I'm saying: Even if we step it up, and make the changes that we've needed to make for decades in streamlining our business models... we still might fail. Because the current customer demands even more streamlining than we're functionally capable of surrendering. The current customer lives in a world where "retail" is a couple of ginormous online supercenters... and if those fail for some oddball reason, you can always order direct from the mega-manufacturer as a last-ditch resort. In skate, you also have the luxury of tiny, boutique, microbrew brands that are entirely relateable, fun, and innovative. These guys don't have any use for our archaic "Business Model" at all! They don't need distributors, or even retailers. All they need is a small band of loyal customers to support their fairly limited (by IASC's standards) business goals, and to support them directly and consistently. And that too, is largely done via the web these days.

At the end of the day, we are all responsible for our own individual successes and failures. Finger-pointing and blaming some other chap for our own fuck-ups accomplishes nothing. Maybe we- us, in the industry- would serve ourselves far better by standing back, manning up, taking responsibility, and realizing the full extent of our failures. Only then will we finally find the inner fortitude to finally go about re-engineering this mess to serve everybody's needs and better interests.

We're Moving...!

2011-04-23T22:09:00.004-04:00

Coming this summer, we're moving over to a brand-new home.

The address?

www.everythingskateboardingmagazine.com

The reason? The Solitary Life has far outgrown it's original scope and purpose. We realized that what began as a fun little personal personal blog had effectively evolved into a weekly periodical that covered everything happening in skateboarding, big and small, from contributors far and near, and with readers coming in from all over the globe.

So, we finally figured that a name change that reflected this sudden new reality was probably quite a bit overdue.

We'd like to say "thanks" to everybody that took the time to read and contribute to The Solitary Life over the years. To show our appreciation, we're working on making it even better for the future at it's new web address.

Stay tuned.

New Product Preview February 2011

2011-02-02T15:28:00.008-05:00

(*But Houston, we have a problem here...*)

If you're a total doofus, and you've been living in a cave for the last couple of months, then you probably haven't heard the Big-Big News yet: Jeff Grosso (an office favorite here at The Solitary Life) has secured a spot on the Antihero team after spending no less than a few decades under John Lucero's wing (Schmitt Stix, Santa Cruz, Lucero Ltd., Black Label, Emergency). And let me tell ya, Jeff's new deck looks like a killer f'n plank. For those cave-dwellers out there, here's the proof (swooped from the Spring 2011 Antihero catalog, via http://www.dlxsf.com/):

She's a beauty, ain't she?! 9+ by 32+ inches huge, it's classic Jeff with a new twist on Jeff's classic graphics. Don't be a moron: Buy one yesterday.

Here's where the problem poses itself though, and it clearly illustrates a pressing point that I've been making now for at least a few years. Yesterday, I got the new issue of Concrete Wave Magazine. A fine mag that I thoroughly enjoy reading, and that I've always supported (and, will forever continue to support). This issue that I recieved, I believe, is the newest of the "All Longboarding, All The Time" issues (aka, the Winter 2011 issue).

Besides being a CW supporter, I also frequent (read: support) several web-based media outlets. Among them being Skull and Bones, Skate Daily, Boardistan, and a few others that I forget. All of these medias- print, and online- are aimed squarely at my big, fat ass. Defined as: The aging, lifer skateboarder.

But while CW seems to have completely missed the significance of the Jeff Grosso Defection, the everyday dudes at SnB have been on the case for months. Beginning with Jeff's leaving The Label, right through to the "bidding war" between Creature and Antihero, through photo documentation of the shape prototypes that Jeff test-skated, and finally cumulating with the release of the two Antihero shapes, as well as full coverage of the 30-unit, limited-release Jokers Skateshop Edition that's sure to be a smash with Grosso fans and collectors everywhere (like me!).

So, what does all of this say about Jeff's new deck? Nothing at all, actually. It's Jeff's new deck, so you knew all about it anyway. And what's more, you've probably already devised nefarious plans to procure one [or two] for yourself (just like I have!).

What this says about The Print Media, though, is a whole 'nother matter. What it says is that The Print Media is continuing to lose the Bounce Battle to The Internet. Every time a significant story breaks, The Internet bounces right on that shit, and covers it exhaustively from A to Z... while The Print Media either lags, or ignores the story altogether. Lets be real: The Winter 2011 issue should have featured a full-feature Jeff Grosso retrospective. Just based on the internet buzz alone that this story generated.

In lieu of that, the future is going to belong to the brands that build their own media arms. You know what I'd like to see right about now? A full-on Jeff Grosso Spotlight at the dlxsf.com website, where The Grossman is interviewed by Jim T. That would be the tittiest thing ever, wouldn't it...?! Yeah, man. You heard that right. The tittiest.

Seeing the forest through the trees is a rough job, but somebody's gotta do it. Big congrats to Grosso for being Grosso, Deluxe for tossing out such a choice plank, and everyone at Skull and Bones for keeping my stupid ass informed. Everybody rules. G'day, mates. I'm off to boil some cocoa.

The Retirement Life

2011-02-02T08:32:00.006-05:00

So some time back, I decided that a good, solid twenty years or so of working in the skateboard industry was a pretty good run. In that time, I got to work at a skateshop/snowboard shop, run a skateboard shop, start my own company, tour extensively (both in the U.S. and abroad), manage a team, build custom decks, draw and screenprint board graphics (and tees, and stickers, and other stuff), sponsor up-and-coming skaters, document skateparks, write for a magazine, and do industry consulting and advising. In short: Somewhere in my long and fun-filled career, I literally got the lucky chance to do it all. And I even managed to pull off being a somewhat competent skater along the way, too. Although that last one might be hella debateable...

Realizing these things, I decided that I was well overdue for a good, long, relaxing break. In the form of a rather abrupt, semi-permanent retirement from all things "skateboarding". Except, of course, the actual act of skateboarding itself, which I'll probably take straight to my grave. I mean, seriously? What kind of wank quits skating, anyway? Whatever the case may be, I am not that sort of wank. So "the biz" can definitely go on its merry way, but the skate always remains. Got it?! Good.

At Michael Brooke's behest, I did promise to post the occasional blurb on The Solitary Life. Why Michael would behest such a thing is far beyond me. If you really feel like you have to know such things, I guess all I can tell ya is, ask Brooke.

Around the same time, I had a series of unrelated life-changes as well. It's funny: Rarely do I take the time to look back and reflect on my misdeeds and misadventures. But retirement is largely defined by having a lot of time on your hands, and not a whole lot of stuff to do with it. So "reflection" becomes one of the few handy ways to pass the time, and generally drive yourself bonkers. Which I tend to excel at, anyway. Still, the practice has been fruitful. I'm now half as sane as I was only weeks ago. That's me, Mr. Overachiever over here...

One of the funnier life-changes that I endured, was the life-changing experience of getting your house robbed while you're out grocery shopping. That one was pretty funny. Indianapolis robbers aren't like the ones we had back East, nosiree. Back East, our robbers actually took useful shit. Like maybe your car, or your credit cards, or your cash... or if you're as unlucky as I am, maybe even your life. My robber, however, only managed to swoop a shitty laptop (that never really worked all that great in the first place), some junk jewelry (total loss there: $17.93), and a corn muffin. Our robber also heated up a stack of flapjacks in the radar range... but he must've forgotten to steal 'em, because they were still piping hot in the 'wave when I got home.

Even weirder, my robber did manage to leave a couple somethings behind, too: A shit-ton of fingerprints (on the 'wave, which the cops had a good 'ol time dusting up), and a fancy new snow shovel (which is what he used to break out my window with). The shovel works the tits on all sorts of snow and ice, which is totally awesome considering the shit-ton of snow and ice we just got this week. So oddly enough, I might have actually gotten the better end of this whole "robbery" shenanigan.

A few weeks before the robbery, another total blow-it went down in the form of my 500th breakup from The Pandster. Never have I endured a relationship that was defined by a never-ending series of break-ups... but, alas, that just was the way The Pandster rolled: Break Up Now, and Think About It Later. Fellow Skull and Bones member AUOK tried to warn me about her... apparently, the Order of the Skull swaps more than just decks... but did I listen? Uhhhh, no. And was that a fail of epic proportions? Uhhhh, yeah. But thankfully, sometime in early December, The Pandster decided that she'd had just about enough of my ass, and gave me the final, no-jokes-this-time heave-ho. After which I secretly threw a breakup party that would put the average ASR blow-and-ho session to a crying shame. That was sort of a first for me, celebrating a breakup. But then again, if you're doing everything right, life is full of firsts. It's just a matter of rolling with the punches, and laughing about it later.

Object Of My Affection Number One: Kenda, my new squeeze. Isn't she gorgeous?! She certainly is to me...! I'm no dummy: You know damn good and well that you'd retire for this, too...

Sometimes, a little bit of re-evaluation and re-examination can be super good things. After The Pandster Debacle, I decided that it was high time to get down to getting real, and figure out exactly what I wanted out of a relationship, and what kind of woman... not "girl", guys... "woman"... I needed to make it work. I ultimately decided that high-maintenence drama and over-the-top craziness were passe, while some gut-busting laughter, shared interests, easy communication and understanding, and thoughtful patience just might be the way to go. Being a snowboarder, of course, would easily earn Double Bonus Points... but no man can ever expect perfection, right? Enter Kenda (above). Kenda's basically everything that I've always wanted (but never could find), plus a few super-boss bonus points that kinda make Kenda the ultimate in girlfriendology. That pretty much makes Kenda "perfection", personified. And that makes me, once again, an incredibly lucky guy. Stay tuned for "The Kenda Chronicals", because this chick racks up funny stories faster than I rack up Jeff Grosso decks. And that's really sayin' something big right there, buddy.

The other "object of my affection" these days: Snowboarding! The Burton Deuce, and the fat man holding it, represent the objects of Kenda's affections. Especially the Deuce. She really likes that one...

In other Channel Budro current news... this has been a whoppingly stellar snowboarding season, and all the down weather means that shit just keeps on looking up! The average Hoosier may hate the snow (probably because they suck ass at driving in it), but The Good Vibe Tribe says "Bring It, Bitch!" If you're totally clueless, The Good Vibe Tribe is a group of the most hardcore and dedicated of the Perfect North locals, of which I am-once again- lucky enough to be a member. Their specialties include raising hell all over the mountain, fast lines, gnarly tree runs, triple blacks, and some hefty tailgating action in between exploratory endeavors to "real" mountains out west and/or back east. Just last week, Heidi and Dan took an epic joust out to Mt. Baker, while I had a pretty good wrestling match with Bohemia this year. I'm gonna even up that score on the next round, so don't even doubt my ass on that one. The gym has been good to me lately, and there's an arsenal of well-waxed Strokes just waiting for the takedown.

So yeah: Snowboarding? Check...

Some of the best things about being a blogger, are the weird opportunities that just sorta creep up out of nowheresville. Take the Hertel account, as an example. We went from testing the waxes (as a product review), to bringing them on as an advertiser, to doing the ads (because they didn't have any at the time... the picture above is one of my personal favorites of the campaign), and finally to me getting offered a marketing position at the company.

To All Kids: Taking the initiative does pay off. "Ain't nuthin'to it but to do it!" Never forget it, alright...?!

Lastly: Last month, I was offered a marketing position by Terry Hertel at Hertel Wax. If you don't know your ass from your elbow, Hertel makes no-holds-barred, no-bullshit, no-joke, and no-play wax for serious, serious skiers and snowboarders. The Solitary Life got some of this stuff last fall for our Head-To-Head Wax Competition... but the problem was that there just isn't any "competition" for this shit. This stuff is simply a block full of sheer lunacy... The Tribe will totally back me upon this one. Dan's jaw fell to the ground for five whole runs "testing" this wax, while Heidi's been giggling it up and playing speed demon all over the damn mountain ever since she got her hands on this "amazing, amazing" stuff (her words, not mine). It's so damn good... "game-changing", really... that when Terry asked me to bring my skate-marketing experience to Hertel... I didn't even think twice about saying "yes". Plus, the snowboard industry is a very different world from skateboarding, anyway. The skateboarding industry is basically a high-maintenence drama-fest, while the snowboard industry is just straight-ahead good times and easygoing play. Maybe the skateboard industry should think about seriously studying their snow-bound counterparts, because they would probably learn a lot. Like how to effectively market to women, keep gross margins respectable, and how to keep the overall vibe positive, and focused on the task at hand. Skateboarding, after all, has always been all about all sorts of senseless bullshit (drugs, hookers, helmets, alcohol, more drugs, constant controversy, hipsters, hype, this-vs.-that arguments, you name it), while snowboarding really remains perpetually focused on having fun, riding around on a mountain (or a hill, or an incline, or in a jib park, or whatever...) on a snowboard. Go figure that one out, 'cuz it's so simple, it's stupid.

In short: Everything's pretty much good to grand over here. No hurries, no worries. I've got cuddle-time, road-tripping, time with friends, and snowboarding planned for this weekend. That's pretty much all I'll ever need, right there. So I've basically got it made.

Thanks to everyone that took the time to read The Solitary Life. Strangely, the readership numbers remain pretty high, even though there hasn't been a new post in forever. Weirdness. At the end of the day, I'm just glad that somebody's getting something out of it. It was a fun trip. So thanks to you, The Reader. Because without The Readers, The Solitary Life would've just been a whole buncha senseless babbling.

Here's my final bit of advice: Follow my lead, and start your own blog today. You'll be glad you did.

Product Review: The 2010 5150 Stroke

2011-01-02T13:41:00.007-05:00

This year, 5150 was kind enough to send over a pair of their new Strokes for product review. We asked for these in order to not only test the Strokes against several other boards that we bought for the quiver this year (including a LibTech Skunk Ape, a Burton Deuce, and a Ride Highlife), but also to test these new rockered Strokes against the previous years' cambered models. For the results of the Camber vs. Rocker test, scroll down to the next entry. Until then, here's the Stroke review:

Let's begin with the first thing that anybody with a pair of functioning eyeballs will notice with the new Strokes: The graphics. The image above shows the last three years' worth of Stroke decoration, which we compiled for last year's Stroke product review. In my opinion, the 2007/8 Strokes are still the most badass Strokes ever made, while everything else from there on out was relatively ho-hum...

... but at least the 2010/11 Strokes are a vast step up from the fairly boring and mundane 2008/09 and 2009/10 themes. Yeah, they're still fairly low-key, and hugely logo-driven. But at least there is a logo (unlike the 2008/09 season), and there's not a giant snowflake all over the base and topsheet, as there were on the 2009/10 Strokes. Fully set up, the colors on these board actually "pop" pretty nicely. In short? They really look pretty spiffy. Especially up close and personal.

Now if only 5150 could bring themselves to reissue some of their mid-'90s classics! Then, I'd throw down to buy a half-dozen of those puppies next season, fersure. Hey, 5150! Is anybody taking the hint over there...? Hmmm...?

Considering that Strokes are by nature "pricepoint" decks, I decided to set mine up with a corresponding "pricepoint" binding... in this case, some previous-season Forum Recons ($79.99 at The House, www.the-house.com). Last year, we tested Strokes with Burton Freestyles, and they rode very well together... although we did have a technical bulletin in hand that said that these two products shalt never be married. That's us, alrighty: Always breaking the goddamned rules...!

At the end of the day, though, the Stroke/Freestyle combo ended up working just great... as did the Stroke/Recon pairing we tried this year. Although the Freestyles had a few useful and durable features that we missed in the Recons (metal ratchets, adjustable gas pedals, etc.), the Recons eventually proved themselves to be a very tough, comfortable, and inexpensive binding that lent themselves really well to the Stroke. They're also extremely lightweight (probably due to substituting so much plastic for so much metal, and cutting out all of those weight-adding useful features), while the "Elephant" colorway [as Forum calls it] actually brings out the best in the Stroke's graphic. Which is a real achievement.

So, what changed this year for the 5150 Stroke? Actually, this year is pretty significant. Because it marks the first year ever that the entire 5150 lineup switched from the old, cambered profile to a brand-new, "Rad Rock" rocker profile. The "Rad Rock" is a pretty straightforward rocker, with a smooth bend that starts right from the nosekick, and smoothly transitions all the way through to the tailkick. As you can see, the rocker's not particularly pronounced... indeed, it's almost hard to pick out at first glance... but it is extremely functional, and the change from last years' Strokes to this years' models are very noticeable once you set 'em up, and head for the lifts. Especially when you have a previous years' Stroke close at hand. Then, the difference is night-and-day obvious.

With the change from the camber to the rocker, you gain a few things here, while you also lose a few things there. What you lose is a lot of edge bite and hold, and a little of the hard-charging drive that made the old Strokes such great freeriding platforms. Especially on hard snowpack and ice. The rocker actually seems to diminish what has always been the Stroke's trump card: The tight, progressive sidecut. Without the vice-like edge hold of the previous seasons' cambered Strokes, the magic of the sidecut does seem to get a little bit lost in translation.

But, you do gain a lot with the rocker as well. Mostly: A super-fun, extremely forgiving, and entirely catch-free deck for all sorts of freestyle trickery. This will probably be a major plus for the intended Stroke-demographic snowboard buyer: The relatively inexperienced, extremely price-conscious, first-time board buyer that's probably coming out of the rental fleet, and stepping up to owning his own equipment. So what we lose on the groomers, we more than make up for in the jib park, and with the "newbie" contingent.

Another place where the Stroke shines, is in the [Bohemia] backcountry. For this application, I set the Recons as far "back" in the hole pattern as I could possibly get 'em, which turned this freestyle twin into a solidly directional, big-nosed board. It also shifts the weight center back closer to the tail for a little more float in the powder, and moves the bindings into the "back seat" of the rear sidecut, for fast-reaction turnability (and less tail drag).

For the backcountry, I also chose the slightly longer 164 (for a little more nose and float, again), while I left the 161 with The Minions for further demolition.

Even in the backcountry, the rockered profile works really, really well. Again, having a virtually catch-and-snag-free deck is a very real asset in the trees and steeps, while the on-a-dime turn-ability came in quite handy for those [rare] times that I could actually spot one of the the many hazards hidden in the snowpack. On this board, I found that I could sneak in and out of incredibly tight places with a minimal amount of pre-planning and effort. Which again, is a major backcountry plus.

Unfortunately, the one attribute that really got put to the test this year at Bohemia, was the overall durability of this deck. This one was totally unintentional, I might add. Obviously, I would have much rather had feet of snow base at Bohemia... not, inches... and totally avoided the rocks-and-stumps program altogether. Alas, this was not to be the case, and the 'ol Stroke got it's ass beaten down on virtually every turn of every run that I got in up there. But it not only survived, it actually out-survived a lot of "premium-priced" decks that got their lives ground out of 'em on Bohemia's opening day.

5150 claims in their literature that their "sintruded" bases (which are obviously bases that combine both the best qualities of both sintered and extruded bases) are incredibly easy-to-fix, while being nearly as fast as true-sintered bases. Unfortunately, we never really got the chance to test this theory until my ill-fated Bohemia trip. When I got back, the first thing that I did was call Ron over at Rusted Moon Outfitters [in Indianapolis, Indiana] to see if I could get some same-day service on a quick base patch and grind. Sure enough, within a half an hour, Ron had that base completely patched in with clear Ptex, ground out, re-structured, and ready for wax. I'd call that "pretty impressive", by any measure... especially considering the amount of damage involved. As far as "holding wax" goes, I guess it's a little bit better than "good enough". Not "the best ever", by any means. But definitely good enough to work, and work well, for somewhere around 95% of the entire snowboarding world.

One thing that I should say that is true of all snowboards... regardless of the "pricepoint" involved... is that well-cared-for equipment always works a hell of a lot better... and survives much, much longer... than stuff that is "less-than-well-cared-for". The Stroke is a great example of this. Right from the get-go, the first thing that we did was to completely strip off the factory-applied wax, and base prep and hot wax with Hertel Racing FC739... an excellent all-temperature wax that is simply put, some of the fastest shit that you could ever put onto a snowboard base. I'm also a "habitual waxer"... I wax daily, whether the board actually needs it or not... and every few sessions my board gets a full base clean, edge sharpening, and hot wax.

That said: If you do decide to buy a Stroke? Use a few of those dollars that you saved, and invest a measly twelve bucks [or so] into a blob of wax. And then, use it. Believe me: You'll thank me later for this advice.

At the end of the day, the final result is this: As far as "pricepoint" product goes, this simply cannot be beat. It consistently out-rides a lot of "midrange" snowboards, while it actually out-lasts a lot of "premium" product (as we found the hard way at Bohemia). It's damn near bulletproof, and totally easy to repair and maintain.

But most of all: It's a blast to ride. And that's what really counts, isn't it...?

Camber, or Rocker...? The Mystery Revealed

2011-01-02T13:39:00.003-05:00

As you can see from the Stroke review [above], we finally had the chance this year to test absolutely identical cambered and rockered snowboards against each other to solve The Last Great Mystery of Snowboarding: "Which One Should I Get...?!"

First, let's take a quick look at the attributes that define cambered and rockered boards. When you look at a cambered snowboard from the side, you'll see that the tips of the board bow down toward the ground, resulting in a "sad face" profile. This is technology that snowboards long ago borrowed from skiing, and the general purpose here is to keep the edges firmly pushed into the snowpack, even when the board is bouncing around over uneven surfaces, trudging through bumps and dips in the trails, or chattering through high-speed runs (and their resulting high-speed vibrations). "Maintaining edge contact at all costs" is the main job here, and it's a job that a cambered snowboard still does extremely well. Other advantages of cambered snowboards are snappy "ollie pops" off of kickers, and generally stiff boards for heavier riders, or highly experienced riders that love the thrills of high speeds and precise edge control.

Then, we have rocker. "Rocker" is essentially everything that a camber is not, and vice versa.

So: When you look at a rockered snowboard from the side, you'll see that the tips of the board bow up toward the sky, resulting in a "happy face" profile. This is technology that snowboards are today borrowing from surfing (and to a lesser extent, skateboarding), and the general purpose here is to keep the edges smartly pulled up the snowpack, even when the board is bouncing around over handrails, trudging through boxes and kickers in the trails, or lazily playing around during low-speed cruises (and their resulting flatground spins, presses, and butters). "Eliminating edge contact at all costs" is the main job here, and it's a job that a rockered snowboard still does extremely well. Other advantages of rockered snowboards are easy landings of various airs and spins, and generally forgiving boards for lighter riders, or newbie riders that love the thrills of playing around and goofing off with modern trickery.

Of course, these truisms are not one-hundred-percent black-and-white, one-hundred-percent of the time. Exceptions do exist to these rules. Adding Magne-Traction to a rockered deck (as Lib Tech, Gnu, and Rossignol do), for example, brings back some edge bite and hold that rockered decks usually lose in the equation, while fully de-tuning a cambered deck (ie, rounding over the steel edges with a file to make them smooth and blunt, instead of crisp and sharp) will eliminate a lot of the "catchyness" that usually plagues cambered snowboards. And of course, we also have a horde of new camber/rocker hybrids coming to market that claim to provide snowboarders with something approaching "the best of both worlds", while they confuse the marketplace and provide "the worst of both worlds" at the same time (although naturally enough, they don't advertise this quite as much as they tout the benefits).

So at the end of the day, which one is better? Who can I trust to give me the answers? And what should I buy? Everybody's a salesman these days, and all "truths" are half-truths at best.

Well, here's what I think is gonna happen at the end of the day: Everybody is eventually going to make (if it's a manufacturer), or buy (if it's the customer), both. Because they both have obvious benefits (and weaknesses), and they both are well-suited to some portion of the overall snowboarding spectrum. But nothing can do everything, because that would be impossible to achieve in this imperfect world of ours. Asking for perfection in this case would be kinda like asking for a McDonald's Quarter Pounder that only costs 99 cents all the time, still tastes great (like Quarter Pounders always do), but has no fat or sodium whatsoever to muck up your health and add to your obesity. Yeah, it's a great dream (especially for me), and it might even be an admirable goal for somebody to go after, someday. But, is it gonna happen anytime soon? No, probably not. And that's just the way it goes. Bummer.

In the future, we'll be testing a lot of these new "camber-rocker hybrids" as they make themselves available. But in the meantime, we're keeping a few cambered boards on hand at all times to supplement the increasingly rockered collection that's still growing a little from year to year.

That is the only way to truly get the very best of both worlds. And we don't care what anybody's slick advertising campaign has to say about it.

Recent Works Aperture Special: Aaron Ross

2011-01-02T13:12:00.006-05:00

A couple months back, we asked Cincinnati skater and photographer Aaron Ross to send over some of his most recent photos, with accompanying captions. Just as he found the time to get 'er done, we all decided to bolt out of the office to pursue a couple weeks worth of snowboarding slackerism. So now that the new year is here, we finally decided to get Aaron's stuff posted on up. Hopefully, it'll keep you stoked on skating while the typical midwest winter wonderland weather patterns slug it out for the next few months...

Seven Minutes in Heaven: Mt. Bohemia 2010

2010-12-31T17:44:00.013-05:00

This article was intended to be a comprehensive and adventure-filled snowboarding article about another week-long pilgrimage to Michigan's Mt. Bohemia, and their "sister" mountain, The Porcupines (aka, "The Porkies"). However, due to a collusion of hopelessly unfortunate circumstances, what you guys actually get here is basically a driving-tour of the area, with some funny and sad stories about misadventures with rocks and such that were mischievously hidden in an entirely inadequate snowpack during my one-day stay at Bohemia. If it sounds like a total blow-it, well, you're not alone. After all, you're just getting a small taste of what I already got. But at least you don't end up with a bum leg at the end of the story like I did, so consider yourself lucky.

We do have another trip to Bohemia planned for late February if all goes well and right. Hopefully, they'll actually have something resembling an "adequate snow base" built up by then, so that we can do some snowboarding on some actual snow this time. And even better: We might have a buddy coming along for that ride, too. Finally...! So keep your fingers crossed (ours certainly are), go ahead, get reading, and stay tuned for more (and hopefully, better) Bohemia coverage later in the season.

(The following are excerpts from my personal journal, which I tirelessly compiled before and during my ill-fated trip:)

Two months before departure...

I've started hitting the gym in preparation for my Bohemia trip this year. It's not too depressing this time around: I only have to lose about 14 lbs to get down to "fighting weight" for my trip. "Fighting weight" is around 320 for me, as I've learned through experience. It's lean enough to not be a total fatass, but bulked up about 10 to 20 lbs over my "ideal" weight... knowing damn good and well that I'll easily lose that during my week-long trip up there. Bohemia is no joke, man. And it's a ton of work to just get down the hill. Let alone, get your ass around the mountain to do tedious little things like eat, pee, shower, fetch Cokes, get hammered, and smoke cigarettes. So preparations- especially physical ones- are really, really important.

One month before departure...

The weight loss went better than I thought. I dropped the Coke habit (the drink, people... not the blow), and immediately lost 6 lbs. That's actually not altogether good: I might well end up quite a bit under my 320 "target" weight, and that could be a very real problem. I also finished fitting out my "survival pack" with a brand-new hand axe, some more fire starters, and a spiffy new knife. These things aren't so much for "survival", per se... at least, not as far as Bohemia is concerned... but rather, they're more for "luxury". The fire starters, hand axes, and knives are very handy for cutting up snowy firewood for the common-room fireplace. The last time I went up, I brought about 50 lbs of dry kindling along with me for this purpose (that some jackass fucking kid burned in one day while I was out riding). Well, that's 50 lbs of weight (and about 5 cubic feet of precious space) that I don't have to drag to Bohemia this year. In a small economy car, no less. And so, there ya go: Consistently dry wood that is also blissfully knucklehead-proof. That's the "luxury" of a small handaxe, a knife, and a few firestarters.

At the end of the day, the real survival test at Bohemia is all about you, your board, and your skills. And not a damn thing that you could ever buy is gonna help you there, bucko.

The survival pack, and its various contents. Don't laugh: The hand axe [in center] came out within ten minutes of my arrival at Bohemia, and those bottles of painkillers [middle top] ended up being well worth their weight in gold. Even though I only spent one full day there, about half of this stuff ended up getting used. So that was definitely money well spent.

The handaxe came in super handy right off the bat, as there wasn't a lick of kindling anywhere in sight to start a fire with in the common room fireplace. As usual. But what there were, were a couple of these very large (and extremely dry) hardwood hunks of 6x6"that, chopped up, made some very volatile kindling. Within ten minutes of my arrival at Bohemia, I already had dinner cooked and a blazing fire going to dry out my gear.

One week before departure...

I was at Perfect North today, waxing up a ski patrollers' set of skis outside on a convenient handrail when I heard a familiar-sounding "Hey, Bud!" being yelled at me from the lower level. I peeked over, and it was fellow Good Vibe Triber Heidi (and her brother, Dan) getting ready to skate over to the lifts. She was all, "I recognized you by the block of wax in your hand!" Apparently, I'm such a habitual waxer that I have a PermaBlock of the stuff in my palm at all times. Her next question cracked my ass up even more: "Do you remember me from last year...?!" That's Heidi, man. All humility, all the time. Blissfully unaware that she rules so damn hard, that she's totally and completely unforgettable.

Anyway, I gave her and Dan's boards the quick wax rub-down, and off we went. It was a great idea for Dan, because he absolutely loved his newfound speed and control. But not so for Heidi, because that relegated me to chasing her ass all over Perfect's slopes for the rest of the day. I swear, that girl must've had a rocket pack crammed up her butt sometime over the summer, because she's just blazingly fast everywhere she goes, with no fear-gear whatsoever. She's getting really, really good. And it's only her second weekend of the season. On one hand, it's great to see a woman ride a snowboard with that much skill, grace, recklessness, and control. On the other hand, trying to even keep up with her kinda sucks.

Mental note number one: I've gotta give her the slow wax next time, and keep the racing shit for Dan and I.

Mental note number two: I've got some real catching up to do before I take off for Bohemia. And it's not just behind Heidi's ass, either. Maybe I should get a little more board-time in before I leave for my trip, just to keep my reflexes on the up and up.

Later in the day, we're all tailgating at Dan's pickup... with the Good Vibe Tribe, the tailgating program is pretty serious business, almost as big of a deal as the riding itself... when Heidi asks me where I'm going this year besides Perfect. I say that I'm headed to Bohemia next week, and she longingly states that she'd love to be able to go sometime. Which again, was totally funny. Here, I've been trying to drag dudes up there for what, the last four years now...? And the only person that has ever expressed half a serious interest in the place ends up being a girl. Once again, I make a third mental note of that, and carefully file it away under "Unforgettable Heidi-isms".

And lastly, mental note number four: A little bit of motivational mojo from unexpected quarters never hurt anybody. Armed with my Heidi-provided reality-check and instant-inspiration, I'm feeling almost ready to go.

Less than a week before departure...

... and I miss a surprise call from Bohemia's land line while I'm at work. "How strange" I think to myself, because I can't for the life of me figure out what they could possibly be calling me about. As soon as I can, I call right back. Lonnie (the owner of the place) picks up, and tells me that they're calling because they're delaying their opening until the 26th, but I'm booked to be there on the 23rd. So clearly, this is a cause for concern on Lonnie's end. Thus, the impromptu phone call.

This does two things: One, it cuts my trip short right off the bat. On the other hand: It gives me a couple extra days at Perfect to get my setup, and my skills, dialed in a little bit tighter before I head off to tackle the real thing.

Lonnie also tells me that they've cleaned out some new glades on the west face of the mountain, so I'll have some new challenges to chew on when I get there. I almost didn't have the heart to tell him that I've barely gotten the old challenges put to bed yet... Goldilocks is after all a perpetual handful, and I've only taken a few runs total through the Extreme Backcountry over the years... but I do have to appreciate Lonnie's enthusiasm and drive. He's always poking around to see how he can add a brand-new twist to what is already a great experience. Which is really, pretty admirable.

This is an old trail map of Mt. Bohemia, but it shows most of the current runs to good effect. The green area just under the "Mount Bohemia" logo are the new glades that Lonnie had cleared out last year. As if 80+ gladed runs weren't enough...!

4:26 am, December 25th, 2010

Departure from Indianapolis, for Bohemia. It's usually a 12-hour drive, but I'm anticipating a 16-hour bender this year due to the fact that I'm taking a circular route around the east side of the peninsula, and along Lakes Michigan and Superior. I've been making this trip for eons now, and I'm long overdue for a change of scenery.

Here's the general layout of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, showing the major highways and byways, along with my circular route up to Bohemia and back (in purple). Bohemia is at the very end of the point, just a few miles away from Copper Harbor.

5:42 am, December 25th

I'm coming out of a dense fog bank somewhere just north of Lafayette on I-65 when all of a sudden, something weirdly foreign and alien occurs: What seems like hundreds of bright red lights suddenly turn on all around me for miles in every direction. And just as I start to get my bearings, and begin to determine their relative positions in the night sky... they all turn off. Then a few seconds later, they're all on again. Then off. They seem to be positioned a couple hundred feet in the air, and maybe about 200 yards apart, and blinking in some sort of strangely synchronized sequence.

A few minutes later, I drive by one that's so close to the interstate that I actually thought I was gonna drive straight into it, when I realize that these unusually synched lights are actually coming from the tops of new-technology windmills. I've driven straight into the middle of a huge new "wind farm"... and those newfangled windmills have warning lights on them to alert low-flying aircraft of their presence. I drive through at least ten miles of these fields of blinking red lights, fascinated the whole time by their precision and mankind's ability to finally invent (and install) a sustainable form of power generation on such a vast scale, and so quickly. So maybe there's still hope for our planet yet.

6:59 am, December 25th

Chicagoland! And, the first snowfall of the trip. Just in time to make a totally crazy driving situation, that much crazier. Chicago drivers are certifiable nutjobs that love nothing more than to play bumper-cars at breakneck speeds through The Loop. I lay off the gas and play "old geezer" through downtown as the locals whiz by all around me, and crash into everything in sight.

10:45-11:15 am, December 25th

Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I'm at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum downtown, right on the lakefront, and standing next to a World War 2 submarine. Apparently, Manitowoc shipbuilders made a pretty big contribution to the submarine effort in The War, and the preserved sub that's anchored just a few feet away in the frigid water is a testament to this contribution. It's only 20 degrees, and there's a blustery wind coming in off the lake. Taking pictures is hard to pull off with frozen fingers, and as I'm looking through the digital viewfinder, I stumble in a suddenly deep snowdrift, and almost fall right into the lake. Given that there's a slippery, ice-covered, ten-foot steel retaining wall holding the lake at bay, I realize that my survival chances in the water would be less than zero, and that getting out of it would be pretty much impossible... so I hurriedly hike my ass back to a small bluff that overlooks the harbor entrance and shoot my tourist testament from there, instead.

The submarine anchored aweigh in front of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Note that I'm standing in uncomfortably close proximity to that retaining wall, and the freezing cold of Lake Michigan to get this shot for my readers. Come to think of it, we do a lot of crazy shit around here "for the readers". It must've really sucked back in the day, when we did crazy shit just because we're total dumbasses. But thankfully, those days are behind us now.

High noon, December 25th

I decided to go all-in, and take my "long way around" up US 41 through Marinette, WI, and on to Michigan 35 to Escanaba, even though it probably means that the Econobubble's gonna be huffing fumes by the time I get back to Indianapolis. The gas budget is pretty tight, but I figured what the hey, I've certainly gotten out of bigger pickles just fine in the past. I put my last twenty in "reserve cash" in the tank, and roll out of Green Bay, heading straight into the unknown...

Abandoned Americana. Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

2:20 pm, December 25th

... and boy, am I ever glad I did. A scenic drive along the lake is a far cry from the miles of depressing and desolate woods that you have to endure going straight up 141. Being the adventurer that I am, I drove right out to the end of Portage Point... as far into the lake as I could get the Econobubble... and took a super-quick stroll out the rest of the way to the very end of the earth. I say "super quick" because I didn't stay long... the frigid cold and the whipping winds were a little too much for The Intrepid Budster to handle. Plus, it was hard to discern where "land" ended and "lake" began with all the ice, and the last thing that I wanted to be was one of those stupid goofs that ends up a bloated corpse on somebody's beach come springtime.

As I hustled off of Portage Point and resumed my drive into Escanaba, I suddenly spotted what looked like a camouflaged F-84F Thunderstreak sticking out of the ground to my immediate left. So here I am, freezing cold and probably already dying from exposure, and now I'm suddenly cranking the Yaris around in a highly illegal u-turn to go hike to yet another plane-on-a-pedestal. It's like I'm addicted to these things, although I'm constantly coming across them through my numerous midwest skate/snow tours. But no matter how many I see, the next one always catches my attention all the same...

F-84F Thunderstreak. Delta County Airport, just outside Escanaba, Michigan.

Escanaba was a real trip. A quaint little harbor town, Escanaba seems like a major off-loading point for coal barges and ghost ships, because the port was lined with coal piles and a collection of creepy ships out-of-water. I strolled over to the ship boneyard, and immediately spotted what looked to be an old City of Chicago fire boat propped up on its keel. Why in the hell a Chicago fire boat would end up taking up rusting space all the way up here on Escanaba's waterfront is entirely beyond me, but I'm fascinated by this ghost-fleet that's seemingly sailing through this grassy field to some slow, sad, and staggering ultimate demise somewhere. But where that could be, and when it might happen, remains an unforgone conclusion. Until then, they're just hulks out there on the horizon, delicately divided from the living and waking world by a barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence.

The dark clouds start to roll in. Delta County Historical Society lighthouse museum, Escanaba, Michigan.

Just one of Escanaba's eerie "Ghost Fleet", Escanaba, Michigan.

3:30 pm, December 25th

The "cute and quaint little port towns" up here are approximately a dime a dozen, and I'm thoroughly enjoying my trip when I'm suddenly slammed by a string of very intense lake-effect snow bands that bring visibility down to nothing, and my progress to a crawl. During a break in the beating, I slowly descend into Marquette, Michigan when I spot this... "thing", I guess... dominating the scenery in the middle of the harbor. This "thing" is fucking gigantic... like at least five stories tall, and maybe a quarter of a mile long. It looks sort of like a tunnel to the lake just standing out there in the middle of the harbor, but it's completely beyond me why you would ever need a tunnel out to the lake in the first place. Intrigued, I drive practically on top of it... it's very close to shore, whatever this "thing" is... and take in its uber-mysterious grandeur. If there was anyone around to query, I'd probably be doing a ton of querying right about now. But it's Chrismas day, and Marquette is a ghost town, totally devoid of even a single soul to be found. And the ghosts of maritime's past aren't saying a thing, so I decide to high-tail it out of there.

After some research, I finally realized that the "thing" that I stumbled upon in Marquette is an old ore-loading dock complex (circa 1931). Trains loaded with iron ore would back onto the top of the docks, and the ore would free-fall down chutes (still visible on the sides of the docks) into waiting freighters moored alongside. The tracks, of course, are long gone... all that remains is the sandstone support structure. Photo swooped off the internet somewhere.

Lake Superior, from the bluffs above the dry docks at Marquette, Michigan.

4:45 pm, December 25th

L'Anse, Michigan. I stop for gas at the first sign of an open storefront, because I haven't seen a single soul since Escanaba. I don't stay long though, because it's already getting quite dark, and it's a solid two hours to Bohemia still. The last thing I wanted to do was to get there in the pitch black of the night... but alas, that looks like it's going to end up being the game plan for the day today. L'Anse is usually a great place to stop and take in the panoramic beauty of Lake Superior, but it's just not in the cards for this go-round. Sorry, readers.

The long and lonely road between Marquette and L'Anse, Michigan.

5:15 pm, December 25th

I speed-line it up to Houghton/Hancock, Michigan, where I'm suddenly confronted by a slightly horrifying realization: Minus a few squall bands in Marquette, this has been by far the easiest drive north that I've ever taken in my life. What's even worse: The roads are actually clear enough to see that Houghton's main street is actually paved in bricks, not concrete or asphalt as I'd formerly assumed. The town is lit up bright with Christmas lights, and I can see Hancock across the channel in all its mining-town beauty and character. Getting around is actually terrifyingly simple and straightforward... so why all this worry, you ask?! Here's the answer: There's practically no snow here, on the ground. Which is totally awesome for driving to Bohemia! But, maybe not so awesome for actually boarding down it.

Now, you can see why I'm worried. Sixteen hours of driving to a snow-less mountain just might end up being a whole lotta gas burned and time spent for naught. I floor it out of Hancock, and get my ass to Bohemia as fast as I can.

6:30 pm, December 25th

I finally arrive at Bohemia's hostel to find the good, the bad, and the ugly staring me down, front and center. "The Good" is a small bag of Christmas cookies that Lindsey thoughtfully left for me in the hostel... which was really, a touching touch. Lonnie and Lindsey are seriously the awesomest people around. "The Bad" is the fact that I have a ton of shit to unpack from the car, and it's freezing hell and blindingly dark up there, which makes finding door knobs... heck, even finding "doors"... pretty damned challenging. While I'm struggling around in the dark... this part is pointed out to me a an hour or so later by my fellow hostel dweller, which was way after the fact... I'm all the while being tracked and followed about by a coyote, and there's even tracks in the snow following mine all over the place to prove it. So, I've apparently been on some wild animal's dinner menu all this time, and yet I managed to stay entirely unaware of its presence the whole time. Great Going there, Sherlock Shithead. Maybe I should make a mental note to keep that hatchet and knife a little closer at hand next time, and try keeping my eyes open for a change.

As for "The Ugly"... well, walking the grounds isn't the usual "hell" that it's always been in the past. Instead of being the usual knee-deep in dense and impassible snow, I'm about ankle deep in light powder and tennis shoes. Friends and enemies, this is not a good sign of things to come. Not at all.

7:00 am, December 26th; Opening Day at Mount Bohemia

Considering that I was lucky enough to plan my trip around Bohemia's un-plannable opening day, I decided to get my tired ass out of bed all kinds of early to get ready to snatch some fresh powder runs! Woo-hoo...! And boy, was I giddy to get going! For us snowboarding Jews, first tracks at Bohemia are just like Christmas, only faster.

But as I got up, shook off the night's slumber, and began to document my surroundings, I began to notice things that indicated that my worries from the night before might have actually been a little bit understated. Everywhere I looked, I saw grasses and small saplings sticking up from the snow. These are things that, ordinarily, would be covered up by several feet of snow by now. What's worse: I was having a hell of a time walking around, because I kept tripping on shit hidden just under the snowpack. It seemed to my eyes that there was just enough snow on the ground to cover and camouflage the hazards, but not nearly enough of it to ensure safe passage through them. And that's when I started to get pretty nervous about all of this.

10:15 am, December 26th: First Chair Up

I was second in line to catch the first chair, which meant that I got my pick of perfectly virgin terrain to go plow my fat ass through. Unfortunately, the pickings were slim: Vast tracts of Bohemia were completely verboten for this first day of their season, which put the choicest of Bohemia's terrain "off limits" for the moment. Only the west-facing open runs are there for the taking, so I chose Claim Jumper (the gnarliest drop on that side of the mountain), and dropped in.

First turn: Epic!

Second turn: Hit some rocks. Uh-oh...

Third turn: More rocks...

Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth turns (you get the picture): Even more rocks.

And still, more rocks...

And by the time I'm back at the lift, I'm feeling a little beaten down and dejected. And I'm thinking that even looking at my base is probably, a pretty bad idea. I head up for another go, this time at Copper Plunge. Same story there. Finally, the liftie on duty tells me that Prospector's probably the safest bet, because it's a grass-covered run on the balance of a rocky mountain, so the chances of hitting rocks over there- even on a negligible base cover- are pretty slim to none. Which is truly, a vast improvement.

But still, I didn't come to Bohemia to ride intermediate open runs the whole time, either. I could have just as easily camped out at Perfect North all week if I wanted to do that.

The trail map again, showing the available terrain on opening day. As you can see, everything east (toward the right on the map) was off limits, while the Haunted Valley (which is to the left on the map, around the back side of the mountain) opened around midday after a little bit of poaching by those in the know, and the local hardcores.

Noon, December 26th

I retire to the common room to burn a couple cancer sticks, and to re-group and re-plan my attack. Looking at the trail map, I start thinking that the trees might be the best place to be. First of all, stumps are a hell of a lot softer and safer than rocks are (although, not by much). Secondly, Lonnie gave me the heads-up on some recently cleared lines just right of Widowmaker that sounded pretty choice. And lastly: When all else fails, the west-facing trees usually have the deepest base, and hold out the longest. I decide that poaching the Haunted Valley is the go-to runner-up plan, because I'm hearing through the rumor mill that they might be opening it later anyway. So if its opening is imminent, is it really "poaching"? And will anyone be able to find me out there to give me hell for it if it is...? Deciding that the answers are "not really" and "probably not", I decide to head for the lifts.

On the way out the door, someone tells me that the weather update is calling for rain later in the week, and that already "they" are thinking of shutting Bohemia down midweek due to the lack of adequate base. This is not looking good at all.

Here's a facsimile of the board I brought with me to Bohemia. This happens to be a 5150 Stroke 161 that we got for product review this year, mounted up with Forum Recons (to stay true to the Strokes' pricepoint nature). For Bohemia, I brought the nearly-identical-in-every-way 164. The new rocker (I hoped) would compliment the Strokes' inherent turn-ability (thanks to its progressive sidecut) and no-bullshit durability, while being a lot less demanding (and a lot more catch-free) than the old Strokes were. The rocker worked just great, even better than advertised, while its durability was tested pretty harshly during my short stay.

There's not really much to do during off-hours at Bohemia, besides getting totally sloshed and stumbling to bed. So, I tend to opt for the healthy-livin' time-killer: Waxing the crap out of your (and everybody else's) shred sled. As you can see, I've got the whole tool kit and wax quiver right at hand at all times, and the hostel chairs make great on-the-fly tuning vises.

You see that slick, smooth, shiny, wax-impregnated base right there?! Yeah... less than seventeen hours later, that thing was a pockmarked and gouged hodgepodge of all sorts of nasty dings and dents. I didn't even want to look at it to assess all the damage it collected: I just tossed it in the Econobubble, and drove the corpse home. It took some super-serious and smart repair work by our resident snowboard tech (Ron at Rusted Moon Outfitters) to ultimately save this board from the scrap pile... but somehow, he managed to pull it off and bring it back from the brink.

The completely reworked 164 is now fully ready to get out there for Round Two At Bohemia... which is pretty impressive for what is supposedly a "pricepoint" product. There's a lot of "premium" boards that simply didn't make it off the mountain that day, and their owners were pretty damned pissed off about it.

2:00 pm, December 26th

Widowmaker ended up being a good call. This is exactly the kind of situation where previous experience playing around Mt. Bohemia pays off: You get to know the weak points in the defense, so you can plan a way better offense. I take a breath of fresh air courtesy of The Marlboro Man, and re-group again. Widowmaker kinda tired me out, and what was once a brand-new Stroke is looking a whole lotta worse for the wear. But the rumor mill is saying that the Haunted Valley is holding up great, and that the snow over there is pretty damn deep. Which I know to be fact, because I snuck in a few runs just right of Prospector before taking my cancer break.

The problem is, the snow over there was far from consistent. And those hazards in the snowpack have a way of sneaking up on ya at the worst of times, even in the best of times. And this is far from the best of times, I can tell you that for damned sure.

So, the question is: How much of a man am I, and how much of a moron does that make me? Do I wanna call it a day, cut my few losses, chill with my dozen-or-so pretty good runs, and get on getting sloshed on Strawberry Daiquiris? Or do I wanna double down, go for the gusto, and fly tackle this bitch this late in the day, and a little less on top of my game? Well, the rumor mill is still telling me that that rain is definitely coming, and that a "temporary closing" is becoming a very real consideration. I boot up, grab the board, and get to the lift as fast as I can.

3:45 or so, December 26th

I'm lying on my back in the middle of The Haunted Valley somewhere. It's majestically gorgeous up here. The trees are rising up all around me as far as the eye can see, and there's a few beautiful blue breaks in the clouds. It's relatively comforting and calming, which is perfectly juxtaposed over the fact that my chronically fortuitous good luck seems to have finally run entirely off the rails. Somehow, I've managed to thigh-check a boulder at breakleg speeds just a few moments ago, and now my leg is fucking killing me. And I'm still quite a ways from the base. Which means, I'm pretty much screwed. But at least the scenery's a perfect picture of peaceful tranquility. Even if my leg is staging a quiet riot inside my snow pants.

My day is over. My trip is over. My life might even be over, if I can't get off this goddamned rock by nightfall. My hatchet's safe and sound in the hostel, and I'm thinking that the coyotes might be even hungrier tonight than they were last night. I finally find the strength... it's called "fear", people... to stand up, push off of a tree, and slowly grapple my way down the face of the mountain, pushing off from one tree to the next to keep my speed up, yet safely in check at the same time. At least nothing's broken. Not that I know of, at least.

7:00 pm, December 26th

I wake up from a lengthy nap in the Common Room to find my leg throbbing, but not particularly swollen. Which means that it's probably not broken. But what it is, is probably the World's Gnarliest Charlie Horse ever. Which doesn't feel great at all. I limp around the base collecting some dinner and smokes, and start planning my trip home. I send Heidi a text, asking her if The Tribe's planning at being at Perfect North next weekend, as I'm all gimped up and definitely coming home early.

10:00 am, December 27th

I'm up bright, early, and strung out on fistfuls of painkillers culled from my Bohemia mountainmates... and it's some pretty good shit, too, because I'm actually feeling pretty chipper, and can even walk about without dying on every step. I manage to get to the Bear Belly for tee shirts... money does burn a hole in my pocket at all times... and pack the Yaris up all by myself. My plan is to make a run over to The Porkies for a scenic drive and a few more tees before making my way home. Heidi texts me to drive safely, and to try not killing myself on the way back. It's damn good advice that I probably should have taken yesterday, but at least I survived my misadventures to finally take it today.

Quincy Mine, which overlooks Hancock, Michigan.

Downtown Houghton, Michigan. Notice the brick pavers that cover the streets.

The beautiful Houghton County Bridge, which connects Hancock and Houghton, Michigan.

11:30 am, December 27th

The drive to The Porkies is one of the most beautiful legs of my entire trip, as it involves a string of cute little harbor towns set against a backdrop of an uncharacteristically bluebird Lake Superior day. I stop a few times to text-and-torture Heidi with beautiful cellphone-scenery pictures, hoping to butter her up a little bit, and maybe work on convincing her to come up with me next time. Deep down, I'm realizing that riding Bohemia all by lonesome year in and year out might not be the smartest of things to do. And besides, it'd be a hell of a lot more fun to share the expereince with somebody else for a change.

Twin Lakes State Park, Toivola, Michigan.

The texts back tell me that it might actually be working; I can sense a little bit of excitement mounting, even in this entirely impersonal interchange. See that?! Even in the face of blatant idiocy, I can still eke out a sliver of genius here and there. And it only adds to the marvelous day that I'm having, lazily driving around the peninsula. Because if nothing else, text-torturing Heidi at least gives me something kinda fun and creative to do along the way, and a minor mission to accomplish.

Roadway view of Lake Superior, just a few miles east of The Porkies.

And finally, my destination: The Porcupine Mountains. You see that little puddle of water off to the right there...? Yeah, dude. That's Lake Superior.

12:50 pm, December 27th

I'm amazed at the sights to be seen, once you get off the major thoroughfares in the Upper Peninsula. I've only stopped about fifty times now to watch deer grazing along the roadsides, to check out ancient Upper Peninsula architecture, or to stop in turnouts to take in this or that scenic overlook. I see a sign for Agate Falls, and I meander over to find a pristine sitting spot high atop a wrought-iron bridge, looking over the falls at a railroad trestle perched precariously above the five-to-ten-story pines. I click one last pic for Heidi, and head on into Crystal Falls for my long and lonely drive home

The last of the text-torture cellphone pics: Route 28 bridge overlook, Agate Falls State Park, Michigan.

Paynesville relics near Agate Falls, Michigan.

This could be any one of a million lakeside villages that I drove by in my travels... but I think this might be Mud Lake, just outside of Crystal Falls, Michigan.

Crystal Falls, Michigan.

As I mentioned, this isn't going to be the last that Bohemia sees of me this year, nosiree. First of all, I've earned an epic snowboarding trip this year, and dammit, I'm dead set and determined to get it! But when it comes to backcountry freeriding, you've got to take in stride what Mother Nature hands you and make the very best that you can of it. Injuries are temporary speed bumps in my permanent journey to ride interesting and challenging terrain... and as far as the midwest goes, Mt. Bohemia is by far the best game in town. Even if the experience is less-than-perfect, it's still quite an experience nevertheless. Many thanks to Lonnie and Lindsey for their hospitality, and thanks to Heidi for even showing a half an interest in coming up next time.

If everything pans out just right, I think the next article's going to be even better. We'll see ya then.

A Public Service Announcement:

2010-12-19T20:24:00.001-05:00

Just Taking A Break Everyone...!

2010-12-17T19:05:00.001-05:00

Newsworthy: December 11th, 2010

2010-12-11T16:09:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the lapse in coverage this week! But snowboarding season is here, and with that we're hitting the mountains for a few weeks. Until we get back, here's a quick-hit update on some of the stuff in our inbox:

We may be the "small company headquarters" around here at The Solitary Life, but there's one "big" company that we'll always respect, and fully support. And that company is Deluxe (www.dlxsf.com). There's many reasons for this, but here's the most recent: The Duane Peters Actions Realized deck. If I were Ed Templeton, I'd be ordering my loyal pawns to go consume this deck immediately. But I'm not Ed, so I don't think I can pull it off. Shit.

News flash from Seismic:

"For 2011 Seismic has updated the hub colors and graphics in many of its high-performance wheels. Most of the Hot Spots (in 4 sizes), Speed Vents (in 3 sizes) and Blast Waves now sport red hubs inside orange urethane, yellow hubs inside blue urethane, blue hubs inside purple urethane, and silver hubs inside “smoke” black urethane. New graphics highlight an updated “Black Ops” logo. A new hub material enhances bearing seat support in the Ripplers, Hot Spots and Avilas. www.seismicskate.com..."

Of course, we don't buy these for hub colors. We buy these because they're the fastest wheels on the market right now [literally... ask Mischo, he'll tell ya]. But, they are pretty. So we'll be looking pretty good while we're hauling ass everywhere. Bonus.

The Legion Skateboards just dropped a quickie promo video on YouTube that we thought we'd toss your way. There's four words' worth of reasons to peep this: Ron Allen and Frankie Hill. If you don't know who those dudes are? You're excused from class, 'cuz you're an idiot. These two guys were groundbreakers in the street skating world back in the late '80s and early '90s. And by the looks of this vid, neither of them have aged a day since.

I wish I could say the same about my fat old sorry ass.

That's all for now, we're heading to the mountain...!

Stay tuned next week for Perfect North opening-weekend coverage, a few snowboard gear reviews, and our usual skate-related stuff. Lates.

Skateboarding Vs. Skateboarding: Duh

2010-12-05T11:01:00.003-05:00

Here at The Solitary Life, we are seeing a disturbing trend playing out that I feel especially compelled to speak out, and speak out clearly about. The trend that I am seeing unfold is best described (in my eyes) as "Skateboarding vs. Skateboarding". And, to be perfectly blunt: It's Not Cool. Not cool at all.

In our world, skateboarding is skateboarding. We are admittedly very simple-minded guys around here. And thus, our philosophy is very simple-minded as well. I suppose that I would add to that that all skateboarding is cool... even though we probably wouldn't know "cool" if it beat us all up around the head.

"Skateboarding" is defined, in our simpleton minds, as rolling around on a skateboard. And a "skateboard" is defined as a plank with two (or more) trucks, and four (or more) wheels. Plus, a whole buncha bearings and screws and shit. I added the "or more", because believe it or not, there are actually skateboards that use more than two trucks, and more than four wheels. As such: Some land luges would fall into this category, as would six-wheeled slalom boards. Some people might argue that land luges aren't "skateboards" because lugers generally lie down to ride (instead of standing up), while some other heads might say that six-wheeled slalom boards are for wussy cheaters that can't race (and win) on only four wheels.

Whatever, man. As far as "skateboarding" goes, we try to be as inclusive as possible with these things. So personal biases aside, we still count these things as "skateboards". Even if they are highly "unconventional" skateboards, at best.

So, here we have a whole bunch of funny photos of people skateboarding. Obviously, I went all-out to find the silliest shit imaginable, right...? But, look at all those faces (except the downhill dudes, because you can't see crap through those full-face helmets). What's the common thread, folks...? They're all smiling, and clearly having fun.

Bottom line? They may seem like morons to you, or rejects from your little cool-club that you've got going on over there... but to me? Those look like a bunch of people that know exactly what skateboarding is all about. And in my book, that makes them the smartest skaters around. (Photos from all over the internet).

A lot of my personal, "All-Inclusive Bias" revolves around the fact that I'm typically, a pretty open-minded guy. Some time ago, I wrote a piece about "What Skateboarding Taught Me". And, that's one of the things that I learned, through skateboarding: To be open-minded. So, if you've got a problem with my "All-Inclusive Bias"? Then I say, "You can blame skateboarding for that, fucko".

But, here's another reason for my "All-Inclusive Bias". In my thirty-or-so-years of skateboarding, I've personally tried- and, for the most part, loved- all types of skateboarding. Take the land luge, for example. I remember way back in 1989 (or so), reading two articles in the skateboard media about land luge. One was in TransWorld, and the other was in Thrasher. And they appeared just a couple of months apart, if memory serves me correctly. So, I sorta got a double-dose of "land luge". And, it looked fun. So, I built one and tried it out. And lo and behold: It was fun. Is it "technically skateboarding"...? Well, I don't know about all that. But, I can tell you with some authority that it was a pretty fuckin' sweet ride. And at the end of the day, I think that's all that really matters, isn't it...?

In skateboarding today, we have a lot of narrow-minded haters out there that will be more than happy to tell you that this-or-that is "gay", "stupid", or "un-cool". Which is fine, as far as it goes. If these knuckleheads want to promote themselves as the experts on what is "gay", "stupid", or "un-cool", then they're not gonna get any arguments from me. I sure as hell don't wanna be the expert on what's gay, stupid, or uncool. So if somebody actually wants to step up and claim that title... then I figure, okay. That's rad. I'll just claim "un-gay, brainy, and cool as hell", instead.

Street skaters like to claim that longboarding is gay, stupid, and uncool. Longboarders are more than happy to tell you that street skaters are gay, stupid, and uncool. Pool skaters are actually smarter than everyone, because they're too busy cleaning and wrecking pools to really give a fuck either way. And freestylers and slalomers are apparently so gay that they don't even claim the right to judge anyone else, or anything else.

Most heads don't know this, but I grew up street skating. Mini-ramps are still my favorite thing to skate. I've skated vert a little bit here and there (it's super hard, but that's what makes it so gnarly and badass). These days, I love concrete bowls. I've never freestyled, per se... but with all that street skating does come a few flatland skills, so you can make the call on that one, I guess. I ran the slalom course at The Buckeye a few times (on a 10" wide pool board with a 17" wheelbase), and I made a few clean runs on it, which made me pretty happy. And, I have a current collection of about nine or so longboards, and a half-dozen cruisers that I like to tool around on for things like walking the dog ("walking" might be great fun for less-evolved species, but not for humans like me), or rolling to the store for Cokes and cigarettes.

So, here's the deal. When somebody, somewhere, says something blatantly stupid about some form of skateboarding...? We're gonna call "bullshit" on it real quick. As "The Media", I believe that it is our solemn duty to the skateboarding public to do just that. To call bullshit on bullshit, and to [try to] enlighten our readership about these issues. Because if you don't want to get an authoritative insight on the true nature of skateboarding, then why in the hell would you be reading "The Media" in the first damned place...? You wouldn't. You'd stay in your own little ignorant shell, and go along being blissfully clueless for the rest of your stupid-ass life. But nobody wants to be "that dude". So [hopefully], they read The Media to get their asses informed.

And informing is what The Media is there to do (when they're doing their jobs well). So deal with it.

Bud Stratford
Professional Asshole
The Solitary Life

Feedback: December 5th, 2010

2010-12-05T08:27:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, I wrote an article titled "Why Have All The Skateshops Gone...?". In it, I pointed out some of the errors that today's skateshops are making that are [quite possibly] hastening their demises. One example that I used, was the recent article on The Temple News (written by Stephen Rose) that quoted Steve Miller at Exit Skateshop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We also used a few publicly-accessible quotes (things that Steve had written himself, on Temple's website). This morning, we got a swift e-mail reply from Steve Miller, himself. And, this is what it says (we added the boldface yellow type to the stuff that seemed the most important to us... but otherwise, it's totally unedited):

Hello Bud,

I wanted to reach out to you to make something clear. Not only was I misquoted in the recent article posted in the temple news, but was straight up quoted saying something I would never say in a million years. I have made several phone calls to the temple newspaper to clear this up, and hope they will soon. The reason I even talked to the student in the first place was because he was a 19-20 year old skateboarder, not a member of the press, and although I was upset when I saw what he wrote I know he was just a kid doing an school assignment, but after I had read some of the comments from fellow skateboarders I felt the best thing to do was give them my phone number and give them an opportunity to get the facts for themselves.

I am not the kind of guy to slave away on some message board or argue with someone online. This was clearly a mistake on someone else part and I stepped up and gave anyone the ability to go straight to the source and get the facts and just ask me what happened (tons of people did). So you can imagine how upset I was when I checked your blog (I am a fan and read it often) and read your uninformed rant and judgement of myself and my business. The problems you claim to continue to have are wrong, and could have been cleared up in minutes if you had the common courtesy of asking a question before wrongfully throwing another skateboarder under the bus. I NEVER made a comparison of longboards to hummers! I told the kid stocking longboards can be risky in my shop because "i have heard my customers say longboards are a waste of wood and material, big, bulky, and useless like a hummer" (this of course was while staring at the long boards I STOCKED IN MY SHOP!) There is clearly a big difference in what I said and what he wrote!

I know its easy to read things about people on the internet and have a total disconnect and forget they are real people, and I hoped to remove that by immediately posting my contact info for fellow skateboarders or anyone concerned to contact me. I have been running a core shop in a city I love for 10 plus years, and if anyone in this area or anyone in the industry were to read that article they would known something was wrong immediately, and at the end of the day those are the only people who count, they are the ones my shop is here to serve, but after retraction is printed one fact will remain. You are an asshole who ran your mouth about another skateboarder before you even got your facts right. Next time pick up the phone and talk to someone like a man and at least try to act like a skateboarder not some online drama queen.
--
Steve Miller
Exit Philadelphia
T: 215.425.2450

I highlighted the yellow stuff for very important reasons. One: Steve's contention is that he never said these things in the first place (because he was quoted as saying things that he would "never say in a million years").

Secondly: Apparently, he didn't even know that he was talking to a member of the press, when he was being interviewed (with the "The reason I even talked to the student in the first place was because he was a 19-20 year old skateboarder, not a member of the press" quote).

And thirdly: Apparently, I'm an asshole! Which is actually perfectly cool with me.

Here's my problem with all of this: I did, indeed, have "my facts right". I referenced a verbatim quote, that was directly attributed to Steve Miller, that was written by Stephen Rose, and published by The Temple News [online]. By the standards of the media, when someone is directly quoted as having said something... then you can be assured that they actually said those things. Because they are a direct quote, and attributed directly to a source (in this case, Steve Miller).

I further pointed out to Steve Miller that we here at The Solitary Life go through great pains to insure that we quote our sources accurately at all times. Example: At The Solitary Life, before we quote people or run an interview... we actually send the final draft to the subject for final approval. To be absolutely sure that we have quoted our subject accurately, and that they approve of what we wrote. It's a pain in the ass, but it saves us a lot of "drama".

We did not do that with Steve, because we used a publicly accessible, previously published, verbatim quote reported by another member of the media... along with things that Steve had said online, himself.

By the way Steve tells it, he [apparently] didn't say those things in the first place. As such, we decided to immediately print Steve's [very well-written] response. And, I'm still totally cool with being an asshole. So no worries on that one, Steve.

In light of all of these pretty serious allegations that Steve Miller makes regarding media misquoting, we did send a quick letter to Stephen Rose (the writer of the Temple piece) to outline Steve's arguments, and to get his side of the story.

I guess all we can do from here on out is sit and wait.

As Brooke likes to say, "Welcome to the World Of Media...!"

Thanks to our overseas readers...!

2010-12-04T17:52:00.001-05:00

Newsworthy: December 4th, 2010

2010-12-04T12:45:00.006-05:00

In this week's Big News Section, we have a few tidbits to pass along... so here we go:

First of all, Perfect North Slopes is anticipating opening on Thursday, December 9th, 2010 at Noon Sharp... depending on the weather, the snowmaking potential that comes with the incoming cold front, et cetera. Which is spectacular news to us snowboarders here in Indiana...

Our favorite roaming freestyle editor AJ Kohn has his new online skateshop is up and running at www.one4mation.com. The home of One Skateboards and Formation Skateboards (Lorenzo's company) will soon be "Your more core skate store", with a focus on an ever-expanding selection of small, homegrown, and truly "core" skate brands. Not the passe fluff-filled, ex-skater-owned "core" bullshit that you can buy at Zumiez... but, the real-deal in skater-owned and operated companies.

While we will always support the expansive old-school selection at Socal, and Socal's awesome owner Mike Hirsch... we also like this emerging project for it's grass-roots feel, inclusive nature, boots-on-the-ground activism, and overall positive vibe. And, they have some damn good deals running right now, too. Check it out.

The brand-new Formation "Be Brave" deck, with art by Alessandro Novelli (from Turin, Italy). One of the most beautiful decks that I've seen in quite some time, it comes in 7.8", 8.0", and 8.25" widths, and is only 50 bucks at one4mation.com.

In "bummer" news this week comes the word that Mike Vallely has re-joined the Powell-Peralta camp "full time"... which unfortunately means that the virtually brand-new (and hugely inspiring) By The Sword project has been dissolved. From Jason Filipow:

"Mike and I have dissolved By The Sword Skateboards, as he has recently signed with Powell Peralta. Unfortunately, there was no way for us to continue our brand as it was originally envisioned..."

And, in a statement from Kristian Svitak at Regulator Distribution (via http://www.regulatordist.com/):

"SWWWWOOOOOSSSSHHHH!! Thats the sound of a toilet flushing. Well after 6 months of working on "By the Sword" with Mike Vallely, it seems that it has come to an end. We recently recieved an email from Mikes partner with BTS telling us that he got an offer to go back to Powell Peralta and that he is taking it. We at Regulator never had a say in any of it. We just got an email and that was that. Of course we are bummed to not be working with Mike anymore but I think I am more bummed for the shops, distributors and skaters that got behind the message of BTS and supported it. In the end I am stoked for Mike. He is my friend and I only want what is best for my friends. In the meantime maybe Ill steal the "DIY Or Die" slogan?! I really liked that!

So there you go. If you still want to find some stupid skater owned bull shit, Regulatordist.com is still your place to go!

Now take that to your message boards ya queers!

Kristian Svitak
www.Regulatordist.com
1-800-Get Bent..."

While we wish both Mike and Jason the very best of luck in the future, we're bummed that such a promising project ended up having such a short life span. But while the "DIY or Die" motto might be dead [for the moment], you can be rest assured that the DIY or Die ethic will live on in a hundred truly skater-owned companies, skate shops (both virtual, and brick-and-mortar), and media outlets. And you can take that shit straight to the bank.

"Looks like the big guys can't hang with the little guys..."

- AJ Kohn's reaction to the By The Sword news.

In the world of longboard news, we spoke today at length with Wayne Gallipoli over at Surf-Rodz about a whole bunch of new projects that he's taken under his wing over there, including the new INDeeSZ truck (which is essentially a high-precision, billet-milled fusion of an Indy, a Tracker, and a Bennett), several deck brands (including Uncommon, THN, and Speed Mechanics), and a few additions to their snowboard lineup. The whole deal- from the products, to the presentation, to the photography, to the website- looks really great. Check it all out for yourself at www.surf-rodz.com.

Wayne Gallipoli doesn't let much moss grow under his ass over there at Surf-Rodz, as evidenced by this collection of projects (above). Apparently, he moves so fast that even the "mainstream longboard media" has a really tough time keeping up with how fast this guy churns out genius. Mental note to self: Call Wayne weekly from here on out, because if you blink, you're totally gonna miss something great...

Lastly (for now), on a happier note, we here at The Solitary Life would like to introduce the world to my good friend Everett, who has a little company called Ebbie that can be found here:

www.ebbieindustries.com

We especially like the style on Ebbie's plain-'ol "logo decks", which are still super-colorful and well-executed. And they're made in the USA, to boot. So you're not only supporting needy skaters, you're also supporting American Manufacturing. You tell me: How fucking awesome is that...!?

We've known Ebbie for a long, long time, and we're stoked on his new website and art direction. But most of all, Ebbie has an awesome charitable-giving project going on that we wanted to tell our readers about. It's called the "Let Every 1 Skate Project", and according to Ebbie's website, it "was put in place to help those kids who can't afford to skate, get that chance. For every two boards sold, one is donated to a kid that couldn't afford one..."

To honor Ebbie's contributions to the skateboard scene, I'd like to dedicate this Be The Scene PSA to Everett, who is a truly inspiring example of one guy taking the initiative, going out there, and busting his ass to make a difference in the lives of skaters everywhere. Everett, our hats are off to you...!

This, people, is an awesome way to run a business. It's also a huge gift to the world of skateboarding. This Holiday Season, we'd encourage everyone, everywhere, to support this program by buying a deck from Everett, and helping to make some needy skaters' dream somewhere come true. Look for an Everett interview coming as soon as Everett has the time to do one, because he's always super busy working his ass off, and helping some kid somewhere.

Happy Holidays from all of us at The Solitary Life.

The Reality Sequel: Why Are The Shops Dying...?!

2010-12-04T09:17:00.011-05:00

Before you start reading this one, you might wanna catch up to speed and read the previous article titled "Where have all the skate shops gone...?" You can find that one here:

http://thesolitarylifeof.blogspot.com/2010/11/editor-wonders-whered-they-go.html

So, I spent the better part of last week calling various skateboard companies all over the midwest, and around the country, asking them a very simple question. And that question was, "Okay, guys... why are all of these skate shops failing...?!"

Besides the obvious answers that I usually get ("the economy", "the evolution of retail", etc...), the answer that I got most of all was this one (which is actually a verbatim quote from one of the brand managers that I surveyed):

"Skateshops are failing because they're not doing their jobs. Pure and simple."

The Job Of A Skateboard Shop

So, the question becomes: "What is the job of a skateboard shop, anyway...?" Well, I asked my sample of brand managers and company owners this question, and got the following answers:

- To buy skateboards at a low Price A, and sell them at a higher Price B.
- To provide superior customer service, know-how, and selection at a fair price.
- To provide a visually engaging storefront that is kept clean, organized, and full.
- To act as the hub and driver of their local skateboard scene.
- To keep the kids stoked/energized/engaged/mesmerized/whatever with skateboarding.
- To serve as positive role models, and to promote skateboarding in a positive and sustainable manner.
- To serve as a knowledge and inspiration base for the next generation(s) of newbies.
- To contribute to, and invest in, their local skateboard community, and the greater community at large.

Here's the problem: Skate shops used to do all of these things. And, the best (and, most successful) shops out there still do. However: Most of them don't. And that's why they're failing.

"Our job, as a brand, is to promote on a global level... make skateboarding engaging to kids... to give skateboarding 'that magic'. The role of the skate shop is to give the skateboarding 'magic' to kids on the local level. And that's where skateshops seem to get it wrong. They rely on us- the brands- to do it all. But, we can't do it all. They have to pull their weight, too..."

- A brand manager that I interviewed, on the role of skateshops.

The question becomes: Why aren't they doing these things?! Is it just because they're lazy? Or, because they're inexperienced? Or, because they just don't know any better? Well, here's one possible reason why: If you look at that list up there? You'll realize that only one of those things... and that is buying skateboards at a low price, and selling them for a higher price... actually generates any revenue for the shop.

Everything else on that list costs either a serious time and energy commitment ("providing superior service and know-how", for example)... or, it costs serious money ("keeping the skate shop stocked with inventory" would be an obvious example of this).

And to be frank, most skateshops these days don't want to take part in anything that doesn't make them money. Regardless of the future returns that they may see from their investments, the simple trend that is emerging from most skateshops today remains pretty clear: The overriding goal is profits today, and whatever comes tomorrow is just whatever comes tomorrow.

Making The Grade

As I was talking to my "roundtable" of skateboard company owners and brand managers, I asked them if they could tell me how many shops they could think of, off the top of their heads, that are doing a truly admirable job of running their shops. The short-list that I got out of it? Five shops. In the entire midwest. That are making the grade.

One brand manager told me point blank: "Hey Bud, ask me how many shops I've reached out to in the last month...?"

"Okay... uhhh, how many shops have you reached out to in the last month...?"

"None!"

The rationale for this is becoming increasingly clear: The brands want to be in skate shops that represent... and, represent well... what those brands are all about. And, that's not very many skate shops out there right now.

Let's take a look at that for a second. Let's say you own a skateboard company. And, you're deciding which skate shop you want to be in, based on what that shop stands for, and what that shop says to the marketplace. Which shop might you pick...? And, what would that shop say about your brand...?

Well: If you pick "Peter's Budget Sporting Goods Emporium", that would probably say something like, "My brand is a pricepoint, mass-market brand for first-time skaters". Which is great! If that's what you are, and what you want to be. But, what if you're some "hardcore, badass skate brand"? In that case: Is this sort of store really the best fit for you...?!

On another hand: If you pick Zumiez, you would probably be saying something like, "My brand is an incredibly successful, formerly "core" brand that has now gone Mainstream Mall Store USA in the hopes of garnering mass market share". I would make the argument that these brands that are in Zumiez, are no longer "core" at all. Because I don't consider Zumiez a "core retailer". I consider them a "fluff retailer". And thus, I consider the brands that are in Zumiez, "fluff brands". But, that's just my two cents. Your one-and-a-half cents might be a little bit different from mine.

In any rate: Now, let's say that you're in a good, solid, friendly, knowledgeable, community-minded, truly successful independent skate shop. What does that say about your brand...? Well, it probably says something like: "I am working to be a good, solid, friendly, knowledgeable, community-minded, truly successful independent skateboard company". Which is really, pretty cool.

But, let's say [lastly] that you're in a crappy, greedy, money-hungry skateboard shop that offers shitty customer service, sketchy product knowledge, does nothing at all to promote the local skateboard scene, and treats newbie skaters like flaming assholes...? What does that say about the brands on those skateshop walls...? Well, it probably says "Hey, we're a skateboard company that totally supports crappy, greedy, money-hungry skateboard shops that offer shitty customer service, sketchy product knowledge, that do nothing at all to promote the local skateboard scene, and treats newbie skaters like flaming assholes..."

And as far as I could tell, no skateboard company in the world wants to be caught dead saying that.

I actually asked a brand manager that question, specifically. I asked him, "Hey, what if you had to pick which shops you were going to sell to, strictly based on the merits of the shops? Like, based on their friendliness, how they treat skaters [new, and old], and how well they represent everything that skateboarding should be about...? How many shops would you be selling to, then...?"

The answer?! "Well, when you put it like that... my answer would probably be, 'Very few of them'..."

So: Many of these brands have simply stopped calling skate shops altogether. Except for the good ones. And, there aren't very many of those left at all.

And the "Retard Of The Week Award" goes to...

... Steve Miller at Exit Skateshop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Why...?! Because of this funny little quote that he was dumb enough to utter to The Temple News, which said this:

"Steve Miller, owner of Exit Skateshop of Philadelphia, said longboarding is a current fad and fair-weather sport.

'A longboard is basically the equivalent of a hummer in terms of an unnecessary piece of wood and product,” Miller said. “We can’t fully stock them because the kind of person who buys a longboard is the kind of person who throws it in the closet after a couple of months and never steps on it again.'"

Now, to be fair and equitable here, Steve did respond to the article with this statement (in The Temple News comments section, which you can see here: http://temple-news.com/2010/11/29/gaining-speed/):

"I was approached by the author and asked to give my thoughts and experiences concerning “Long boarding on PHILADELPHIA COLLEGE CAMPUSES” not to give a commentary on the sport at large.

As the owner of a inner city skateshop for a decade I have seen my fair share of fads fade in and out of skateboarding, big pants, tiny wheels, big wheels, tiny pants, vert skating, street skating etc etc etc, BUT Philadelphia is not your traditional skateboarding market. Our skateboarding scene remains a strong but small tight group of individuals with very few changing variables in terms of what we can and cannot sell.

I have carried longboards in the past and will continue to special order them for customers who want them, but it still remains to risky to stock longboards full time (weather is a huge issue). This is not a question of “Is it not cool enough?” or not wanting to cater to the longboarding customer… Trust me I am the sole owner and employee of an independent retail business during the worst economic downturn in 70+ years, if it can keep me afloat and alive I WILL sell it, but bringing in a product that doesn’t provide a reliable sell through can destroy a shop as small as mine.

This article got several important details wrong, and I apologize if any one was offended by my statement concern longboarders on temples campus. Like one of the posters above had mentioned “skateboarding is skateboarding” no matter what form your doing it. As long as your enjoying yourself your doing it right.

If anyone would like to contact me directly at my shop feel free to. 215.425.2450.."

But still, here's my problem with this whole mess:

As a skate shop owner, it is probably ill advised to ever equate a longboard with a Hummer... to call one an "unnecessary piece of wood and product"... and to essentially equate longboarders with posers (which is precisely what Mr. Genius did with his "The kind of person who buys a longboard is the kind of person who throws it in the closet after a couple of months and never steps on it again...” ignorance).

Even worse: It's even dumber to say something this stupid to a "reporter", who is writing an "article" for the "free press".

Let's put this another way, just so Miller can understand what I'm saying here:

Saying something this dumb in private amongst your dumbass little blow-buddies is plenty bad enough. But, saying it publicly...?! Holy Fuck, is that ever Gawd-Awfully Stupid.

Even as a guy that normally steadfastly supports the "core retailer" to the very bitter end... even I have to concede one thing from time to time: That there are skateshops out there that truly and honestly deserve to fail. And, for the record: Skateshops that blatantly discriminate against, and talk shit about other skateboarders... and make no mistake about it, Longboarders Are Skateboarders (just like anybody else), in the world of The Solitary Life... those skateshops probably should be kicked in the nuts, and left to die on the vine.

Because being totally ignorant about skateboarding, really doesn't do skateboarding any favors at all.

You listening to me here, Steve Miller...?! This is all code for "Smarten The Fuck Up, or Shut The Fuck Up".

Last funny: Note how, according to Steve Miller's response, vert skating and street skating are also considered "fads" (in his mind). I guess that means we all better hit those mega-transitions, curbs, handrails, and ledges before they go out of style too, huh...?

The Solution...?

Here at The Solitary Life, we've made a point in the past of approaching skateboard shops with uber-positivity at [almost] every turn. Like, with our "Skateshop Spotlight" series that points out everything that skateshops are doing right.

The problem is... well, we're running out of good skateshops to spotlight, for one.

Which leads right to the second problem: There are a hell of a lot more skate shops blowing it than there are good shops doing it right, right now.

So, what's the answer? Stop writing about skateshops altogether? Or go negative, and start pointing out where the rest of the shops are screwing up...? Should we resort to calling 'em out, and naming names...? Pointing out the obvious flaws...?

Because if we did, here's what a typical midwestern "Skateshop Spotlight" might look like (based entirely on my recent experience with an actual skateshop that I visited):

"A while back, I stopped into a "skate shop" while I was on tour. It was in a small Indiana cornfield town (I'll leave it unnamed for the moment). The shop was called _______, and I found out about it through a Yellow Pages search.

I rolled into town about a week or so later, on a Saturday afternoon. The first thing that I did was got lost, because the Yellow Pages had the incorrect address on file (which is already, a bad start). So I called the shop, and asked for their address. Not "directions", but the address. I can do a lot with an address. But directions sometimes get me even more lost. Especially if the guy on the other end of the line was a total idiot. Which I could immediately see, was the case with this bloke...

About ten minutes later, after getting lots of "directions", I realized that the place was only one block away from where I was standing. So I got in the car, and drove to the door.

Inside were several high-end bicycles, and a wall stocked with skateboards. The shop looked awesome, visually, and the product selection was diverse and engaging. There were a couple of smaller companies represented that I didn't recognize, so I asked The Genius Employee who they were, and what their stories are. Genius had no idea, because he was "new here" at the shop. And, there was nobody else at the shop that day. So basically, nobody knew.

The prices were ridiculous. I saw an Emergency Jeff Grosso "Arc Angel" model (which is at least two years old, and currently on blowout at Socal for $39.99) on the wall... warped, no less... on sale for $74.99.

I asked Genius if I could take a few pics of the shop (because really, the shop did look outstanding... by far, the best part of the experience)... so Genius called The Boss, and informed me that if I wanted to stick around until 7:00 PM, then I could talk to The Boss. This was at 2:00 in the afternoon, and I had to be home at 5:00. Clearly, this wasn't gonna work out, either. If for no other reason that I was not gonna sit in a fucking cornfield for five hours with my thumb up my ass waiting on The Boss to show up.

The last thing that I did, was ask The Genius where the local skatepark is. The local skatepark by the way, is a mere ten blocks or so away from the shop (I already had the address and directions to the park, so I was really just testing this dude). The Genius seemed totally unaware that a skatepark even existed, let alone any idea where it was, or how to get there. Because once again, he was "new to the shop", and there wasn't anybody else around that could answer the question..."

Honestly...? This is pretty typical of most skateshops that I walk into, in the midwest. It's a sad, sad state of affairs out there.

And, to make it all worse: The Solitary Life will be embarking on an extensive midwest tour next spring, summer, and fall.

God help you all.

Aperture: Miles Keller by Sline

2010-11-30T06:56:00.003-05:00

On The Road: Crawfordsville and Williamsport

2010-11-29T06:46:00.002-05:00

This weekend, I took a quick little road trip over to Crawfordsville and Williamsport, Indiana to do some skatepark-documenting for the guys at Concrete Disciples. Armed with the recent know-how regarding the "video" feature on my camera and a brand-new YouTube account, I'm finding that these skatepark-documenting runs are becoming easier and easier all the time. And "more enjoyable", as well.

Truth be told, I probably get more out of this gig than the heads at The Disciples do. It's a great motivator for me to keep on getting out there, keep on checking things out, and keep on skating. I'm guessing that I'm probably one of a very tiny handful of people that can claim- and, to a large extent, prove- that I've skated literally every single skatepark in Indiana (and Kentucky), as well as most of the skateparks around the midwest.

One thing that is very important to me in my travels, is not only checking out the "major" skate scenes around the heartland... but also, the "minor" scenes as well. Which pretty well describes both Crawfordsville, and Williamsport... although, for very different reasons.

Rotten Robbies Cycle in Crawfordsville... my first stop of the day. It's a nice little skateshop/bike shop... although it would've been really nice if I could have gotten a few photos of the inside for you guys. The kid that was working the shop seemed a little "discombobulated" [at best], and told me that I could hang out until 7:00 PM, and talk to the owners if I wanted to. Well, this was at 2:00 in the afternoon, and I had places to go and shit to do. So, there was no way in hell that I was gonna chill in Crawfordsville for five hours waiting on permission to take one silly photo. With that, I asked the kid if he knew where the skatepark was [he didn't], so I packed up and shipped on out.

Crawfordsville's skatepark, an overview. It was fairly crowded, considering that it only takes a few kids in this little park to make "a crowd".

Crawfordsville's skatepark video overview. It's still very "brand-new", and you can see the mud being tracked around everywhere. Also note the razor scooter kid, and me waving "hello" to you guys in my shadow. We love our readers...!

"Crawfordsville's brand-new, concrete skatepark came as quite a surprise to us here in Indianapolis; Crawfordsville is less than a half-hour away from the city. Medium-sized, well-built, but overrun with BMXers, this park is tight, but flows well. The shallow horseshoe quarterpipe at the end of the park is a nice design element (that rarely gets used), and the half-bowl looks great. This park also features some novel "street" elements and unusual quarterpipe features. It's well worth the drive from Indy, and it looks like it might be a great road-trip stop for roving skateboard nomads as well. -Bud Stratford, The Solitary Life..."

- My report to Jeff at Concrete Disciples

Sometimes, I get a little bit "random arty" while I'm traveling from town to town. This rusted-out Chevy flatbed made for a good let's-get-creative photo-op as I was leaving Crawfordsville.

After Crawfordsville, I made my way to Williamsport via Attica. Williamsport is way out in the boonies, a pretty typical midwestern farm-town. I was actually kinda surprised that there was a skatepark out there at all... but, lo and behold, there was even some [sketchy] photo-evidence of it at The Disciples. So, I was mostly heading out there for a nice afternoon drive, and to wrangle up some more thorough photo-documentation.

US 41, en route to Attica, Indiana. Just a vast, endless cornfield for as far as the eye can see.

Gassing up in Attica... at $2.87 a gallon. I shoulda gotten gas in Crawfordsville, like I was going to. Ah, well.

On the other hand: The cashier was kinda cute though. You win some, you lose some.

A video overview of Williamsport's small Sunramp skatepark.

Williamsport's skatepark is actually located on the Warren County Fairgrounds, which I found to be kinda humorous (4-H is huge around here), but also kind of endearing at the same time. As far as parks go, this one wasn't among the best by any stretch of the imagination... but still, it's something in a place where, by right, there probably shouldn't be anything. Also: The park was actually pretty clean and tidy, which is always a treat. But I'm not so sure if that can be credited to "responsible skaters", as easily as it could be credited to "nonexistent skaters". So, I decided to go into town to see if I could find some skaters to ask about all of this.

"This little skatepark has been in Williamsport since approx. 2007, when a small group of 7 skaters banded together and petitioned the town for something to skate. It consists of two railslide bars (one square, one round, both about 1' tall and 6' long), and a very narrow prefab halfpipe that's around 6' tall, and 8' wide, with about 6' of flat. Williamsport is way out in farm country (off I-74 west, heading toward Danville), and it's a tiny crossroads town, so I'm really quite amazed that there's anything here to skate at all. -Bud Stratford, The Solitary Life"

- My report to Jeff at Concrete Disciples, on Williamsport

More "artyness". Cannon outside the Williamsport couthouse, with historical placard in the background.

And, the town clock. Every midwestern farm town has one of these... but this one might be one of the coolest ones that I've encountered thus far.

Williamsport's "claim to fame": The highest free-falling waterfall in the state, at 90 feet tall. This photo came from Wikipedia, by the way.

Problem was, there were no skaters anywhere to be found. Actually, there wasn't much of anything to be found. Most of the storefronts on the main drag were either temporarily, or permanently, closed. The only "open" store that I found was what looked like some sort of junk dealer on the corner across from the courthouse.

"The Blue Elephant" in Williamsport. Their tagline?! "We Sell Junk!" No, seriously! It's even on their business card and everything...!

In the shop was this really nice, older lady named Denise that was the proprietor of the place. As I looked around at all the stuff lining the floors, ceilings, and walls while she gave me the history of the skatepark, I ran headlong into one of the most out-of-place things that I could ever imagine: An old Black Snow "Halfpipe 125"! I was stunned: I just could not frickin' believe it. Y'know what's even more shocking?! The asking price was a measly $2.00. Yup, you read that right: Two Measly Bucks, dude...!

The Black Snow Halfpipe 125, sitting on the floor of The Blue Elephant in Williamsport, Indiana. As I'm typing this, it's standing right beside my computer desk, waiting for some snow to fall so I can take the neighbor kids out, and let them have a go (or two) on a piece of true 1980's snowboarding history.

I was so excited to find this little chunk of plastic snowboarding history, that I actually forgot for a second that I wasn't carrying a lick of cash on me. You see, kids... for a lot of today's pro snowboarders, this was their first-ever, crappy-ass snowboard. So, it truly is "historical", even if it is a less-than-functional, totally plasticized knock-off of a "real" snowboard. Denise was so touched/impressed by my enthusiasm, that she actually decided to "play Santa", and just give me the snowboard. I couldn't believe it! Free...?! I totally offered to send her a few bucks when I got home (I felt bad), but she wouldn't hear of it. "That'll take all the fun out of giving the present!", she squealed. So, I decided to simply do my best to give this little Black Snow a happy home where it'll be forever appreciated, and leave it at that.

On the way home, I decided to do one last bit of "touristy sightseeing" for the day. On my way to Williamsport on I-74, I'd seen a few signs for some sort of "armor museum". So, when it popped up again on my way eastbound, I bounced off the exit... and immediately got lost. For like, a half an hour. This place was proving to be kinda difficult to find. And by the time I found it, it had long been closed for the weekend. Dammit...!

Well, me being me, I decided to go right on ahead and barge in anyway. That's sort of how I roll, reading public. I think I get away with it because I'm generally friendly, respectful, and sort of innocent looking. Okay: I'm a gigantic dork. You caught me.

The Ropkey Armor Museum, somewhere off the beaten path between Crawfordsville and Williamsport, Indiana.

A Russian Antonov An-2 cargo biplane. The Ropkey Museum grounds had a ton of Russian military stuff sitting around, just hanging out in this amber field. It kinda weirded me out, actually.

That's a serious-sized naval gun that I'm checking out right there, while my trusty Toyota Econobubble patiently waits way off in the background to take me home.

Still true...:

2010-11-28T20:37:00.001-05:00

Spot Check: Hutch's Wall, Bank, and Curb

2010-11-28T20:08:00.002-05:00

Today (Sunday, November 28th, 2010), we had what is fast becoming a "fairly typical" Old Indy Skaters get-together. Which is starting to involve a real smorgasbord of fun stuff to do every weekend, bundled together to make a very, very filling skateboarding day.

In this case, the schedule was to hit up Greg's Ramp (more on that next week), followed by some sort of "DIY Adventure" in Broad Ripple. How Bart continually finds these new ramps, bowls, and street spots is just completely beyond me. All I know is, I'm happy that I'm in the club. Because that also makes me "in the know", just by lucky association.

The spot that Bart took us to was a pair of concrete playthings that we called (respectively) Hutch's Wall, and Hutch's Bank. Named for the builder of these DIYs, of course.

The wall looked hella fun, but we didn't skate it. Why...?! Because we were too focused on the bank...

... which was hella tight, hella challenging, hella harsh... and hella fun. Note the quick trannies, and the real-deal pool coping. It took a bit of sweeping by Da Crew to get it skateable, but once they did...

... it was on. Here's Big Mike with the rock-to-fakie... which is a lot f'n harder than it looks, kids...

... followed by this solidly decked backside rock by "My Alzheimer's Is Kicking In Again"...

... which is when Lorrin came in, turned up the juice, and launched this hella stylish early-grab backside air. This is how the new school rocks the old-school, kids.

Big Mike again, frontside grind from the "kink" side of the transition. If you think this looks easy, then let Big Mike take you to this spot so you can try it. You'll see just how gnar this really is, kid.

The ender was put down by Lorrin again, with this quick-footed frontside lip.

After that, I noticed that everyone was migrating across the street. So I went to check it out, where I happened upon Brian and Lorrin enjoying a quick double-sided curb session at what we might as well call "Hutch's Curb", while we're at it.

Apparently, Brian likes 'em backside...

... while Lorrin likes 'em frontside. Either way, it's all good.

So if you ever want to skate these DIYs for yourself, you should probably try getting a hold of the Old Indy Skaters dudes on Facebook. But, be careful! Those guys are sharp as tacks, and they can sniff out bullshit from miles away. If you wanna play, then you'd better play nicey kid.

That's it, guys. Get searching, and get shredding.

We're getting excited! Because...

2010-11-28T20:07:00.000-05:00

Finally! We're getting our act together...

2010-11-28T19:56:00.001-05:00

*(All of the proceeds from the sale of all of our merchandise will be going to various skate-related charities. So, there ya go: A damn good reason to buy some. When it's available. Sometime later...)

The Editor Wonders: Where'd They Go?!

2010-11-28T19:04:00.003-05:00

This weekend, I had a rare chance to catch up on some paper-pushing here at The Solitary Life offices. One of the biggest things that I have to do around here (that definitely doesn't get done often enough) is to keep my "Big Skateshop and Skatepark Database" up-to-date.

This Skate-Stuff Database is actually a very large, 3" thick, three-ring binder. I know it's odd, being a tech-savvy blogger and all, that I would keep a giganto-sized hard-copy collection that would probably just as easily fit into an Excel spreadsheet (if not, easier).

However: When I go on the road, it's not always easy (or convenient) to tote around a bunch of electronic gizmos. But, a few pieces of paper always work just fine for my purposes.

Here it is, my "Big Skate Stuff Database", in all of its three-ring-binder glory. Behind it is my trusty Rand McNally atlas... yes, I still rely on analogue direction finders, too. I'm sorry, but I find the whole "GPS" thing to be kinda dorky. I guess it's the truck-drivers' son in me.

Anyway: All of those blue-highlighted towns? Those are where skateshops either are, or (more often than not these days) where they used to be. And in case you're wondering, the black stars are skateparks.

As I spent the day calling around to skate shops all over Indiana, I quickly noticed a very disturbing trend emerging. And that was the never-ending recordings that I was getting as I called these shops. You know the ones: "We're sorry, but the number you have dialed is either temporarily out of service, or has been permanently disconnected". Followed by a suggestion that I check the number, and/or dial 411 for further information.

That's usually code for, "We're sorry, but this skateshop that you're trying to call has totally kicked the bucket."

According to my database (which I began compiling in 2008, before my summer tour), about 50% of the skateshops in the state of Indiana have vanished. In approximately two years. Now, I knew damn good and well that we had lost some skate shops out there. I can see that plain as day, as I travel back and forth across this vast cornfield of ours.

However: I had no idea of the scale and severity of the problem, until I was confronted with the mass of finally-compiled data yesterday evening.

The skate shops that have dropped out of the scene range from extremely "core" shops that sold skateboards and nothing else, to private skateparks, to small businesses that sold a variety of stuff. That means: It affects the entire spectrum of skateshops, big and small, specialized to diverse.

In memory of all of these used-to-be-there shops, I thought I'd pull a few out of the 'ol Database, and give them a quick spotlight, just for old times' sakes. Many of these I had visited in my travels, while others came and went before I even had a chance to fill the gas tank in the car. Either way, I have a hunch that we could learn some valuable lessons from these used-to-be businesses:

Life Skateboards in Anderson/Muncie. I went to Anderson to find this shop- it was supposed to be right next door to the Anderson Skatepark- but when I got there, it looked as if it'd been recently packed up, and shipped out. It's weird, because it looked to be the best possible location (right next to the local skatepark, after all, is always a good place to be), and the storefront it was in was really nice. I've always wondered what the story was with this one, but so far it's been quite a mystery.

Movietime Video. I always loved this one: A small video-rental chain spread far and wide over northern Indiana's corn belt, that also sold "pricepoint" skateboards. Lots of Speed Demons completes and blanks. Some "more core" dudes that I know thought this whole concept blew, but what else are you gonna do?! These small cornfield towns aren't big enough to support a fully legit "core skateshop"! So, it was either Movietime, or nothing at all.

If I had to make a wager, I'd guess that the reason for demise here wasn't anything skate-related at all... skateboards, after all, were a miniscule part of their overall business... but rather, their downfall is probably easily attributed to a paradigm shift in the movie-rental business: As more of these far-away little towns finally get high-speed cable access (with on-demand, pay-per-view movie services), the need to drive all the way into town (which might be miles away) to rent a movie overnight simply ceased to exist.

These were the saddest for me to see gone, because I knew straightaway that all of those burgeoning little skate scenes... Cicero, Tipton, Elwood, Sheridan, Flora, and Frankfort... probably took a pretty big kick in the nuts, too. What are those kids gonna do now...?

Ahhh, the infamous Board Room in Columbus, Indiana. Probably the "most core" on my list, and the polar opposite end of the spectrum from Movietime Video, The Board Room was as "core" as "core" gets. The problem here was probably two things: The Great Midwest Floods of 2008, which severely affected Columbus (and the rest of low-lying Indiana), as well as the fact that Rob could come off as a serious dick, if you caught him on the wrong day (which was most days, is rumors are to be believed). That's why we stress the fuck out of "customer service" here at The Solitary Life. Because it can easily make- or, break- a business, all by itself.

This is illustrated by The Board Room's "archrival", B2 Bikes and Boards (in nearby Seymour), which is way less "core", but a hell of a lot more "friendly". So as The Board Room died a slow and painful death, B2 actually grew into a new, beautiful location with more floor space. Customer service, people. Never forget it.

Gneiss, on Indianapolis' far west side. I remember this one well: Great guys (but kinda quiet and reserved, which made them seem stand-offish and immediately rude), and a sparse-as-hell storefront with barely anything on the walls. First of all, "standoffish and rude" are bad enough. Secondly: You don't have to have everything under the sun, but your shop should still look full, diverse, and visually engaging. I knew right away that these guys wouldn't last, if for no other reason than for the third thing I picked out: That being on Crawfordsville Road's farthest outreaches put Gneiss too far away from the city to generate significant skater traffic.

Whatever the cause, they were gone a few months later.

Skateshops aren't the only thing disappearing here in Indiana: Even public skateparks are disappearing, and have been for some time now. Cicero's outdoor mini ramp was probably the first that I remember being torn down... the reason being, vandalism. Whiting's concrete skatepark is also rumored to have met the jackhammer-and-blade treatment, but "why" is still unknown. New Castle's skatepark simply fell apart (outdoor wooden skateparks in Indiana are just a bad idea, anyway), while Danville's relatively new prefab-concrete park was supposed to have been "sold and moved to Brazil, Indiana" (again, because of the vandalism/trouble issues)... but then, it disappeared entirely. Brazil doesn't seem to have it, and it definitely isn't in Danville... so, where in the hell is it...?!

180 Skateshop and Coffee Shop in Ellettsville, just outside of Bloomington. Bloomington already has two successful shops (Rise, and Amused... three, if you wanna count the ass-hats at Zumiez), so why they needed a third/fourth is way beyond me. I thought the coffee-shop sideline was smart and fun... but apparently it wasn't smart or fun enough, because they're now toast.

This one gets the "hot potato" award of the decade: The Beech Grove Skate Shop, Indy Skates Beech Grove, The Beech Grove 180 Skateshop, Solace, Felonz... great storefront, great little shop, great history... but not a big enough of a skate scene to keep it going. Beech Grove is an aberration, anyway: It is its own little island town, sitting right in the middle of the Indianapolis Ocean. As such: It's surrounded by skaters everywhere, but easily accessible to none of them. This little shop probably never made a dime in profits, and really only stayed open "for the kids". But when the kids left town, so did the need for this shop to exist.

Even "Indiana Powerhouse" Rise closes a location once in a while. I remember the old Pendleton Pike location from when I first moved here (got robbed, as far as I remember... at gunpoint... twice, if rumors are to be believed...). Likewise: This New Jersey St. location came and went in a flash. The word on the street? Impossible to find. Not that any of the Rises are all that "easy" to find in the first place (to this day, I still know dudes that can't find the Carmel store to save their lives), but still... location, location, and location are still the "Big Three" of successful retailing.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot: I never go into Rise, unless it's the Bloomington store. Why? They treat me like I'm some sort of dildo-headed asshole every time I go in there. But, Socal Mike treats me awesome! That's why I give him my hard-earned cash, instead.

Bad Boyz Toyz is right up there in Zumiezville (aka Chicagoland, which probably got like 500 new Zumiez in the last few years). As a result, what used to be a six-store chain is now down to two stores, plus Krush (their indoor skatepark). BBT was pretty active in their local scene... they were always, always doing a contest, or a jam, or a fundraiser, or something or another... but now that they're slowly fading away, who's gonna pick up that ball and run with it...?

Here's another midwest sad story: Just Ride/Solution/Muncie Skatepark in Muncie. Just Ride was a lavish, gorgeous, jewel of an indoor skatepark built by renowned park-builder Brian Knopp (who also built Muncie's now-defunct outdoor, wooden skatepark at Tuhey Park downtown). Apparently, Brian was tried and convicted for something or another, and thus Just Ride closed briefly before being "restructured" and passed on to Solution Skateshop, who also closed it briefly for "restructuring" as Muncie Skatepark LLC, who has since closed it [again] for who-knows-what-reason(s). Talk about "confusion in the marketplace".

So, what can we infer from all of these skateshop deaths...? Well, the first thing that becomes clear is that, regardless of how sensible [or senseless] it may be, everybody still harbors that dream of owning a skateshop, someday. Which is good, because that means that we'll always have a skateshop, somewhere. Even if it is only temporary at best.

Here's another thing that it tells me: Many people that ultimately start skateshops, are woefully unprepared for the realities of skateshop ownership. Of course, there's still no "Skateshop Ownership 101" available anywhere (although we're trying our damned best to compile one here at The Solitary Life, through these regular reports).

At the end of the day, all of these skateshop "fails" were probably preventable. Some of them could have been easily prevented by taking careful stock of the skate scene, and realizing that a skate shop just wasn't feasible in the first place... while still others might have been saved by more experienced and savvy management.

But, here's the most important thing that I'm learning about skateshops: They don't network. Ever.

Which still sort of confounds me. I mean, where is a better place to learn how to run a successful skate shop, than from a successful skate shop owner? I certainly can't think of any.

Here in Indiana, the two best shops that I've experienced are TOC in Terre Haute, and B2 down in Seymour. Both of these shops are growing. Both of these shops are heavily engaged in their local skate scenes. Both of these shops are run by super-nice people (Matt at B2, and Liz and Jer at TOC). Both of these shops are bucking the trends, and writing their success stories.

More shops should be doing the stuff that B2 and TOC are doing. At the very least, they should be asking Matt, Jer, and Liz how they're doing it. But, they won't. Is it out of shyness? Stubbornness? Ignorance? Elitism? Pride? I don't know.

All I know is, this probably isn't the end of the hemorrhaging.

I'd better keep that binder close at hand for a while, because I have a hunch that I'll be thinning it out for the next few years.

And good luck to those shops that are still standing. You need it.

Bud Stratford
Senior Editor, The Solitary Life.

A public service announcement...

2010-11-28T18:53:00.000-05:00

A Special Thanks to Our Advertisers...

2010-11-21T11:59:00.005-05:00

Here's the original "And Now, A Word From Our Advertisers...!" headline that we used when we first began offering ad space here at The Solitary Life. With that, I'd like to give a quick "thank you" to all of our advertiser-supporters.

These guys [generally] support The Solitary Life in everything that we do. Whether it's contributing time and energy to make The Life an even better read, supporting our various initiatives, or flowing the occasional product, they do a lot more for you guys- the readers- than what might readily meet the eye.

One of the main goals here at The Life, was to write an advertising paradigm that revolves around "Everything But Money". Instead of simply charging a fee for the advertisers to advertise here, we took the money off the table entirely, and asked that they instead make other tangible contributions to The Life... such as writing articles, contributing photos, helping us find our various contacts and sources... recruiting writers, photographers, and filmers... and generally promoting what The Life is all about: Simply Skateboarding.

With that in mind, I'd like to acknowledge the following advertisers for all they've done for The Life over the year, and thank them for their hard work and numerous contributions:

Mike Hirsch at Socal Skateshop. Socal is our one-stop shop for product review stuff (when we buy it), and the stuff that we need to set those products up right (when it's flowed). Mike always gives us great service across the board, so we're happy to support him as much as we can in return.

Jay Kelly and Bill Danforth at American Nomad, just for being a great all-around guys, being a great sounding board (Jay), being a huge inspiration (The Nomad), and being dudes that really represent the best of what no-bullshit skating is all about.

The illustrious Mr. Bennett, for making the wheels and trucks that 90% of our staffers ride, 90% of the time.

Dave Scherer at Miramar is one of the best feedback-givers and idea-bouncers we've got, as far as everything longboarding goes.

Jason Filipow and Mike V. at By The Sword... again with the huge inspiration factor, and doing things right.

Mike Niemann at Cockfight, representing Texas Pride. Had we gotten our hands on one soon enough, that Dan Wilkes deck might have been a real contender for "deck of the year".

We'll support JJ Rudisill at Funhouse 'til the end of days, just because he's the coolest motherfucker on the planet. Artist, genius, skater, humourist, what's there not to love?

Tyler Creason at Unity, who's essentially the rebel conscience of our advertiser base. Think Che Guevara, but applied to the skateboard industry.

Chris Brundstetter at Goldcoast, for bringing a whole new aesthetic flavor to longboarding.

Don Tashman and Kyle Chin at Loaded and Orangatang, for building long-lasting killer flex decks and happy-ass wheels. Still very much enjoying my orange "In Heats", thank you very much!

All of the girls out there who don't give a shit what the guys have to say about it...

Ryan Draper at Rooftop, one of our locally homegrown companies right out of Bedford, Indiana. Cool-ass kid.

Bart Kelley and the crew at the Old Indy Skaters skateboard club, now Indiana bred and Ohio strong. Watch out world, because the old guys are taking over and showing how it's done.

Sk8Kings, because Maria and Richy are the sweetest people ever, and Kilian Martin spends so much time getting [well-deserved] coverage in The Freestyle Report.

Dan Gesmer at 3dm and Seismic, who's [hopefully] going to fit in quite well here at TSL as our "The Longboarding Report" correspondent.

Michael Brooke at Concrete Wave, who not only writes for us on occasion, but who's magazine was the clear and present inspiration for our web-based spinoff/ripoff.

Al at Character, who's our go-to guy in Chicagoland.

Everybody that has a mind of their own out there in the skateboard scene (however many there are, there still aren't enough)...

Richard Kirby at Big Mess, who proofreads a lot of my stuff to warn me for potential kookiness.

Terry "The Waxman" Hertel at Hertel Wax, who allowed us to do our first-ever, web-based ad campaign, and acts as our stand-in snowboard tech.

Lew at Fickle, who's been instrumental in getting the Homegrown Project off the ground.

Bart Kelley at The Legion, who's probably our most direct-access advertiser and constant motivator (and being the head bossman at Old Indy Skaters, he's actually on this list twice).

And lastly (but certainly not least), our good friend, freestyle correspondent, and mindful genius AJ Kohn, who is the other half of The Solitary Life equation...

... and of course, everyone else that has ever sent in an ad, given us a heads-up, or tossed a couple of words of wisdom our way. Thank you all very much.

Many thanks go out to these guys, for everything that they bring to the table. The Solitary Life just wouldn't be the same without them.

One Year Down: Our first-year anniversary!

2010-11-21T08:35:00.002-05:00

Little could I have known. Let alone, guessed...

November 22nd, 2009 was the day that I posted the first Solitary Life article. The subject? A travel article about an Old Indy Skaters session in Greencastle and Terre Haute, Indiana. That post represented the first step in an unforeseeable journey that would take me to places that I never could have imagined.

Here's the second photo that we ever ran here at The Solitary Life. The caption was, "The sun rises over Greencastle, IN. 9:00 AM, November 21st, 2009". I kinda wanted to run the first photo we ever ran, but there was one problem with it: It Sucked. Ah, well... you live, you learn. Besides, I liked this one more anyway. It was quite literally, the dawning of a new chapter in my life. And, this was a great way to start...!

The fact is, nobody can accurately predict what the future holds. The very best that any one person can do is to take that first step, and see where you end up. Taking that first step, though, is the critical part of the equation. No step? No movement. No movement? No good. Because skateboarding is all about movement, exploration, discovery, and the journey. If you ain't movin', son, then you ain't doin' shit.

That single post was the net result of years of frustration. Frustration with print magazines (for which I had previously worked). Frustration with editors (that loved to carve the juicy guts out of any article that I presented). Frustration with the whole advertising paradigm (that causes massive ethical issues when it comes to journalistic integrity in the press). Frustration with big-business interests governing the media (I think that one pretty well stands on its own). Frustration with the whole notion of cutting down trees to move information around. Frustration with the lack of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in skateboard media. When I think about it, I guess I was pretty much pissed off at everybody and everything. Thus, The Solitary Life.

Right off the bat, we had some real shit to say. And by Gawd, we were gonna say it! Now, you tell me: What magazine out there says such hard-hitting truths, in such hard-hitting ways?! None. Why? They're pussies, and they have advertisers to suck off at every turn. We're simply not burdened by these sorts of things, you see.

To this day, we're still hardcore supporters of the independent skate shop. And Zumiez can still go to hell.

There are times in your life... in mine, at least... when you have to take the bull by the horns, and go it alone for a while. Show 'em how it's done, so to speak. Throw off the shackles and the chains that are holding you back, tell the world to fuck the hell off, and make something happen. From Day One, The Solitary Life was neither "blog", "periodical", or "magazine"... but rather, a fun little combination of all three. Advertisers were encouraged to come on board, but they weren't allowed to pay one red cent to be here. "Merit" was the judge of inclusion on that one, and only companies with merit showed interest in being here. IASC was told to go screw (because they have no merit), while small companies of every sort lined up to support what we're all about. The Gigantic Leveling Of The Playing Field kicked into high gear. And hopefully, that will continue unfettered for a good many years.

This right here might have been the smartest thing we ever did: Give Away Advertising. For free! It allows us to do and say whatever we want, with virtually nobody to answer to. If the advertisers don't like what we have to say? Then, they can simply go advertise somewhere else (for free). Chris Chaput got kicked in the nuts with this one real quick, and to this day we've never again supported Abec 11, Retro, or any of the Sk8 Trip family of brands. Nobody... and I mean Nobody... fucks with a truly independent, free, and blatantly honest media. Some dudes were a little slow to get that memo. Bummer for them.

The first rule of running an effective media paradigm is: You've Got To Have Integrity. Some media dudes don't have it. We do.

But really, it isn't about the politics. Politics come and go, but the pursuit of adventure, fun, and a little bit of idealistic troublemaking always remains a skateboarding constant. I would advise anyone and everyone to do as I have done, and become a writer/photographer/blogger/editor/publisher/whatever, today. Simply because, you have no idea what you're missing out on, kid.

Greencastle. Terre Haute. Lawrence. Zionsville. Richmond. Carmel. Mt. Bohemia. Perfect North. Danville. Plainfield. Evansville. Muncie. Greenwood. Franklin. Lawrenceburg. Rising Sun. Carrollton. Madison. North Vernon. Florence. Louisville. Jeffersonville. New Albany. Philadelphia. Colerain. Mason. Newport. Cincinnati... the places that we went, and the parks that we skated were epic, and endless. Our first year had us traveling all across Indiana on a regular basis, along with the occasional long-distance road trip. These are all travels that I might not have taken, if I didn't have a journalistic responsibility to get the hell out of the office and go report on what's really going on out there.

The best reason to become a blogger, kids: Opportunities Like This. Colerain, Ohio's big-ass kidney. Don't miss out on the time of your life by staying at home, and wasting away on the couch watching endless reruns of Rob and Big. Get out there, and get some of this shit.

The really funny part of all of this, is that it didn't take long at all for The Solitary Life to become a less-than-solitary pursuit. Through our advertisers, our contributors, and our staffers, The Solitary Life grew from one dude talking smack, to a whole family of dudes talking smack. AJ Kohn, Richard Kirby, Michael Brooke, Lew Ross, and Daniel Gesmer have all made key contributions throughout the year, and we're glad to have them on board. At the same time, upstarts like Miles Keller and Aaron Ross are giving us an infusion of new blood and fresh perspectives that, hopefully, will keep The Solitary Life relevant for years to come.

The one thing we don't do around here, is discriminate. We live by the mantra that "Everybody Should Skateboard, and there should be a Skateboard For Everybody". You got a problem with that? Then you can go suck it. We support all types of skating, and all types of skaters. As this PSA illustrates, that even includes (but, is certainly not limited to) women.

Daniel Gesmer gave us a lot of feedback on this PSA series, saying that Laura Thornhill and Warren Bolster would have been proud of our dedication to this cause. Well, I say that there's no better icons to answer to than Warren Bolster and Laura Thornhill. If you don't know who these people are, then Google 'em and learn something, lazy ass.

Fausto Vitello probably said it best: "Skateboarding is skateboarding. It is about nothing else, but itself". Skaters intrinsically like to hang a bunch of useless bullshit on skateboarding's ass, in the name of self-serving self-interests. Skateboarding is [supposedly] about progression, drugs, outcasts, rebels, beer, bitches, parties, bros, blow, art, science, yin, yang... whatever you want to project onto skateboarding's hind quarters in order to make your own stupid, sorry ass look "cool" this week. Ironically, Fausto's brainchild (Thrasher) solely exists these days to perpetuate this sort of blatant, closed-minded, mass brainwashing. This is what generally happens when visionaries progressively lose clout, and then pass on. The fact is that skateboarding is all-encompassing, and all-accepting. Street, vert, mini ramps, freestyle, cruising, slalom, longboarding, speedboarding, bowlriding... depending on which moron you ask this week, only "some" of these things are skateboarding. Ask a longboarder, and they'll tell you that all street skaters are fags. Ask a street skater, and they'll tell you the same exact thing about longboarders. Well, the truth is that you all suck: Rollerbladers are the true fags, so get the fuck over yourselves, smarten up, and get with the program. Forget what everybody else is doing. The only thing that matters is that you're doing something, and that you're enjoying it.

I could say the same exact thing to a nation of skateboard company owners out there, while I'm at it. But, you know what...? I don't have to. Because, I already did.

We support a whole nation of small companies out there. Why?!

A. I used to own a small company, myself.
B. I know that the small companies of today will be the big companies of tomorrow.
C. Small companies are actually run by skaters (that skate), and not by corporate bigwigs with dreams of fat wallets.
D. Small companies are far more responsive to the needs of skaters (and independent shops) than big companies are.
E. I'm sick and tired of the same-'ol, same-'ol.
F. While the Big Guys are outsourcing our country left and right, the small guys still use American wood, made by American woodworkers.

At the end of the day, nobody represents these ideals better than Chuck Hults at Deckcrafters, Danny at Factory 13, Tim at Five Points, and Lew at Fickle. Long-live skater-made skateboards...

To be honest, I haven't had this much fun since the days of The Cleveland Superboard Factory (my old skateboard company). In those days, I'd spend hours up at Cleveland HQ, pulling all-nighters, screening boards, designing shapes, building ramps, and generally making a mess of everything around me. As a strictly spiritual and creative outlet, I never would have thought that those days could ever be recaptured. Ten years on, and I find myself doing much the same thing, all over again. Very different mediums, of course. But fundamentally, very similar inputs and outcomes. Love goes in, and memories come out.

One year, and this is the stuff that we've screwed with, and re-written the rules on. I seriously wonder what Year Two is gonna bring...

Bud Stratford
Senior Editor,
The Solitary Life.

Best Of Week: Celebrating Our First Year!

2010-11-21T08:33:00.005-05:00

To celebrate our "One Year Down", we thought we'd take a little breather, and re-post a few of our favorite articles from the last years' worth of archives. Enjoy...!:

Best Of Week: "Let's Talk Shop" Customer Service

2010-11-21T08:32:00.021-05:00

Out of everything that we did this year at The Solitary Life, I personally think that the "Let's Talk Shop" series was probably the most important, and far-reaching series that we did. Even if skate shops didn't really read 'em.

The truth is, the idea of a world without independent skate shops simply petrifies me.

On the other hand, I'm also the guy that'll tell you that the indepenedent skate shops of the world are by far and away, the very best agents of their own demise.

So, what to do? Well, I figured that somebody, somewhere, needed to point this out to the indy shops. If only for their own damned good.

"Customer Service" is the one thing that any shop can start doing, and doing well... today, if they wanted to do so... for pretty much, "free". Yet, when I asked one of my cohorts when the last time was that he actually got good customer service at a local skate shop, he actually had to think about it before answering "You know what?! I've never gotten good customer service at a skate shop...!"

That is a travesty that needs to change today, if the indy skate shop is gonna have an icicle's chance in hell of seeing another tomorrow. That's why this article should be mandatory reading for any skate-shop owner, manager, or employee.

Get it right today, or get shoved right out of business tomorrow. It's your call.

This is the latest installment of The Solitary Life's of "Let's Talk Shop" articles aimed at helping skateboard shops build better businesses. In this article, I'm going to talk about something that, really, every skate shop owner and employee should already understand: Customer Service. Specifically, giving your customers Good Customer Service.

Here's the problem: In the last two years, I've walked into approximately 200 skateboard shops. At least. It might even be more than that. Out of those 200 shops, I can easily count on two hands, the number of shops that gave me "good customer service". The bigger problem is, I'm not alone. I regularly hear horror stories from everyday skaters, about shops that made... how can I say this nicely? "Persistent Customer Service Goofs"?

I think that's putting it pretty nicely...

Even today, I asked one of my skater-buddies at work how often he's gotten good customer service out of a skateboard shop? The answer was something like, "Oh, jeez man. I dunno. Maybe, once in a blue moon or something...?" Believe it or not, that's actually a pretty atypical answer. A far more "typical" answer, is "never".

I'm gonna tell you something, straight away: You're not going to find anyone in all of skateboarding, that is a bigger proponent of the independent, locally-owned skateboard shop than Yours Truly over here. But the simple fact is that, at least some of the problems that are facing skateboard shops today are caused by the skateboard shops, themselves. And, "customer service" would clearly fall into that category.

Customer Service is the one thing in your shop that is almost always free of cost... and likewise, free to give. Money just can't buy a positive outlook, or the ability to treat people with kindness, friendliness, or respect. But when it comes to running a successful business, positivity, kindness, friendliness, and respect sure can make you and your shop a whole hell of a lot of money...!

Assuming that's true, then I would probably... if I were a shop owner, today... make this piece mandatory reading for not only shop owners and managers, but for all shop employees as well. Everyone in your business... from the top, to the bottom... needs to fully understand the importance of serving your customers, and serving them well. In my world, skateboarders deserve the very best that any shop could offer, in terms of taking good care of their customers.

I mean, really... what sort of customer would freely admit to being more than happy with second, or even third-best...? What kind of customer is going to be happy with mediocre-to-shitty customer care...?!

When I talk about "customer service", I can easily break that down into three sub-topics:

- Friendliness,
- Knowing (And, Having) The Product, and
- Salesmanship

Friendliness

Out of the three, "friendliness" is the least expensive. And more often than not, the most important.

When I walk into a skateboard shop, I expect more than anything else... to make a new friend. I guess that's just how skateboarding brought me up, y'know? To make easy friends with other skaters? To have some respect for your fellow skater? Now, clearly, this doesn't happen as often as I should. Not to me, at least. And, as far as I can tell, not to too many other skaters, either.

The question becomes, why...?

Is it because, as pampered primadonna Americans, we're just raised to expect "good service" at every turn... but, not to have to give it to anyone else? Are we really that self-centered of a society? Or: Is it because shop owners, managers, and employees seem to think that they're just "cooler" than everyone else...? For my part, I don't know. Nor, do I really care. All I know is that, if the shop that I walk into isn't friendly and welcoming? Then I'm probably gonna turn tail, and walk my ass right out of there. No questions asked, and no answers needed. Just like any self-respecting customer would do, if they were in the same situation.

You're seriously not gonna find this sort of candid, no-bullshit honesty in TransWorld BUSINESS. But, you'll find it here on The Solitary Life. And, the honest truth is: If you're not making friends? Then, you're probably not making sales. Or, at the very least: You're not making as many as you could be...!

On the "friendliness" front, very few people in the entire midwest can beat Jeremy and Liz from TOC Skateshop in Terre Haute, Indiana. These are two of the most skater-friendly people, ever. Hands down.

Let me give you guys an example here. Let's start with something as simple as... answering the telephone. When I call a skate shop... I expect someone to answer the phone, first of all. If it's not a person, than I expect at least a machine to pick up, and give me:

- The shop's name, - The shop's address, and - The shop's hours.

You wouldn't believe how many shops don't do this...

But, let's assume that I get an actual person on the horn. In that case, I expect:

"Hello! You've reached Bud's Skate Shop! How can I help you today?!"

And, I expect that voice to sound pretty perky, and upbeat. Friendly...! Maybe even, happy that somebody called.

You'd be amazed at how many shops that I call, answer with the singleword, "Buhd's...". Just like that! "Buhd's". Drab. Unenthusiastic. As if I just woke the dude up from a nap, and he's pissed off by the inconvenience of actually having to answer the phone.

Believe it or not, you can easily lose a sale by giving off bad vibes when somebody walks in the door, or answering the phone like you're some sort of asshole. As a "core" skate shop, you just can't afford to lose sales to this sort of thing. Sales are hard enough to come by, as it is.

Knowing (and, Having) The Product

Knowing (and, Having) the product is a little bit tougher. The truth is, skateboarding changes really, really fast. Fashions and trends come and go at light speeds. There's only about 10,000 companies out there, trying to sell you 50,00000,000,000 new products. Add to that, that the internet has made every little kid an "expert" on everything skateboarding, and you can see the challenge of the task at hand. And, forget about actually stocking every item in the universe: That alone could easily bankrupt the average skate shop.

For my part, it's not so important that a shop carries the exact wheel that I might want. So long as the "type" of product that I'm looking for is well-represented, I'm usually happy enough with that. Even here, a lot of shops epicly fail. I've seen shops that strictly carry only hard wheels between 50 and 52 millimeters (ie, "street wheels"). But, what if I don't street skate? What if I ride bowls, ramps, ditches, or masonite skateparks? What if I have a longboard, or a cruiser? What am I gonna do with hard, 52mm wheels then...?

I hear a lot of shops say, "Well, no one comes in asking for those types of wheels!" The reason why that's the case, is simple: It's not up to the customer to "ask" you for a product. It's your job, to "have" it on hand. After all, why would a customer bother to "ask" for something that you obviously don't have in the building...? Why wouldn't they just go home, and order it online instead...?

For my part, I never go into a skate shop, and "ask" for anything. Most shops are laid out pretty logically. Boards are here, trucks are there, and wheels are in the case. If they have something that I want, it's usually pretty obvious. Likewise, it's just as obvious if they don't have anything that suits me, or my style.

Salesmanship

"Salesmanship", like "friendliness", is totally free. If I go in looking for a good, solid board that fits my style of skating, and my physical size... I expect that your "sales team" would be able to steer me in the right direction. I expect that your sales guys would point me to the hottest wheels, the newest decks, or the most durable and comfortable shoes. I expect that a salesperson would be there to tell me about new kinds of skating, and the products that are ideally suited to those sorts of things. People generally go to a specialty skateboard shop, to get personalized care, expert service, and unparalleled know-how that they just wouldn't expect to find at say, a big-box athletic supplier (Zumiez? Dick's Sporting Goods?). If you don't give them what they expect... then really, what's stopping them from going to a Zumiez, a Dick's, or to the handiest online retailer...?

That, is the stone-cold reality that I believe all "core" skate shops are facing these days. The problem is that, once you lose a customer... it's almost impossible to get them to come back. I should know, because it's happened to me.

As much as I support the "local core retailer", the cold fact is that I rarely shop at one these days. Why? Well, as far as my "local" skate shop goes... I went in one day, looking for Abec 11 wheels. I was told... like, I'm some sort of retard or something... that the "Abec" rating only goes up to 9, and that it has to do with bearings... not wheels. The problem was, the guy behind the counter must have assumed that I was just some kook that didn't know what in the hell I was talking about. The truth of the matter was that, at the time, I was working in Concrete Wave Magazine's marketing department. Given my position, I just so happened to have Chris Chaput's office, home, and cell numbers in my cellphone. Chris Chaput, if you don't know, is the guy that owns Abec 11 wheels. So clearly, the company does exist. But I couldn't convince the guy behind the counter of that one, nosiree. It almost makes me wanna ask them "Who's the 'kook' now, assholes...?!" But at the end of the day, it's really not worth it. It's just not that big of a deal to me, man.

The other shop just doesn't have anything that I wanna buy. Sure, they're more than happy to "special order" me something (if I prepay for it, if I'm not mistaken). But at that point, why don't I just go online, "prepay" the bill, and have it delivered straight to my house...?

Of course, Zumiez just sucks. Their "customer service" is an absolute joke. And I just can't bring myself to shop there, in any rate.

So, once I realized where I stood with all of my local shops, I began shopping around online. And, lo and behold, I found good 'ol Mike Hirsch at Socal Skateshop (www.socalskateshop.com). Socal does have a brick-and-mortar shop... somewhere in Southern California, I'd guess. It doesn't matter to me where it is, exactly. So long as they do have a brick-and-mortar shop, I'm cool enough with that. All I know is that, Mike always has the coolest shit in stock. He always, always knows what he's talking about (he truly excels, in that regard). And, he's the friendliest guy you could ever hope to deal with. I buy a lot of shit from him, and he always treats me right. That's why we give him free advertising at The Solitary Life, month after month. Because, he's truly a servant to skaters everywhere. And, he's clearly happy as a clam to do it.

He's not the only one, either. Dave at Sk8Supply is always good people, too. There's a few more, but I forget. I mostly shop with either Mike, or Dave.

This is Socal Skateshop's storefront from the outside (on the left), and from the inside (on the right). Mike Hirsch and crew obviously take a lot of pride in the way their store looks, and the wide variety of products to choose from. This is the way that every skate shop should look, in my book. The fact that you get expert know-how, and impeccable service are just the icing on the cake...!

Now, as a shop owner, you tell me: Why would I ever go back to shopping at your shop, ever again...?! Once I've built up a good working relationship with Mike and Dave... why would I ever defect, and take the "risk" of shopping at your place...?

I have to say that, if your shop consistently fails at customer sevice? Then your business probably deserves to fail. Period. I don't care how many demos you host, how many contests you throw, how many BBQ's you have, how good your prices are, how many boards you have on the wall, or how close you are to my house. If you treat me like I'm some sort of jerk? Then, you're dead to me.

This, is what your customers are thinking. They're probably not saying it! Because, they're probably not as rude as I am. But, I can guarantee you this much: They're definitely thinking it.
If you work at improving your customer service? Then, you've just gone a long way to making yourself a success. Nobody can do it for you... you'll have to tackle this one on your own. I sincerely hope that you read this, understand it, and use it to make your business stronger, healthier, and more profitable.

Best Of Week: Product Of The Year 2010

2010-11-21T08:32:00.018-05:00

For the "Best Of Week", I thought that it'd only be entirely appropriate to spotlight one of the Product Review products for the title "Product Of The Year". This year, we're giving that title to Santa Cruz's "Dead Pool" model.

Of course, this will be an immediately controversial pick. As The Solitary Life generally supports small companies (which Santa Cruz isn't) that generally use domestic wood sources (which Santa Cruz doesn't... at least, not in this case). But, that's exactly why I picked this review as the year-end spotlight: Because it clearly represents the departure between where the industry has been going (until now), and where it's actually going now.

Truth is, the product itself is remarkably impressive. Most of this is due to the Cruz Missile Concave, which is still a world-beater twenty-five years [or so] since it's debut. Honestly, a lot of companies could do themselves a lot of good by carefully studying the subtleties of this concave, and milking 'em for all they're worth.

This deck represented a few more milestones for Cruz, as well. Marrying time-tested technology with brand-new shape and graphic treatments (finally getting at least one leg off of the "reissue" bandwagon). Listening to what the skaters actually wanted, and then delivering on those wants (thanks to Goon and Skull and Bones for that one). Affordably priced, durable, beautiful, surprisingly good board-feel underfoot, and infinitely functional all added up to a deck that was well worth the money, and then some. Even if it was heat-transferred, and made in China. Simply put: This was a skaters' skateboard, made to be skated. Not something to be quietly hung on a wall for the rest of eternity.

All in all, the board was a real hoot to ride, and held up well. Yeah, it suffered a few unsightly pressure cracks and a fairly substantial warp (caused by my unwisely leaving it in my greenhouse-like-car for three weeks mid-summer... never a good idea, that one...)... but all in all, everybody that rode this board (which was pretty much, everyone we know), liked this ride. Get one today, and feel for yourself why this is the case.

Oh yeah. American woodshops? 2011 is gonna be "The Year of The Concave". Get busy quick, or get busy falling behind. Because in terms of "concave", this deck sets the bar for everybody else to measure up to.

Good luck with that.

Editor's Note: This review will be slightly longer, and more informative, than most reviews that we do here at The Solitary Life. Why? Because, the product at hand is so outstanding, and so unique in so many ways… that it deserves, and demands, a little bit of discussion. That's all. On with the review:

Just The Facts, Ma'am:

Width: 9.25"
Length: 32.50"
Wheelbase: 15"
Nose: 6.25"
Tail: 6.875"

Concave, construction, whatever: We'll get to all that in a hot minute.

The Set Up:

Independent 169's (with the Krux-bushing upgrade), 1/2" risers, some sort of bearings (I forget…), and NOS 60mm 92a Bullets. Also known as "The Usual" around here…

No matter which way you're lookin' at 'er, she's still a beauty...

The Only Way To Review This…

…is to deviate a bit from the standard "Good, Bad, and Verdict" formula, and start with:

How We Got It

We have a policy here at The Solitary Life, of buying "review" products, whenever we can. Instead of asking the manus for a constant supply of freebies. So: We got this one from Mike Hirsch at SoCal Skateshop… a great guy that probably gives the best customer service in the whole damned industry. So, how much was it?! About $63.

But: After skating it, I started thinking to myself that… it's seriously worth a lot more than what I paid for it. I started to actually feel bad, like I should send Mike or NHS a bonus-check or something. Now that I've spent some time on it, $63 seems pretty fuckin' cheap.

I don't say that sort of shit every day. Let alone, about Santa Cruz...

Surprise, surprise…!

When it arrived in the mail, the first impression was: "This wasn't what I ordered…!" Be warned, people: The illustrations of the deck that you're seeing all over the 'Net, aren't what it really looks like. The illustrations look sort of like a slimmed-down, and bigger-nosed Bevel. What this actually resembles, though, is a cross between Tom Knox's and Mike Youssefpour's first pro models on Santa Cruz. True: It was a pleasant enough of a surprise. As a rider, it's actually way better than I thought it'd be.

However: Surprises are almost always, bad. That's why we took so many photos of this thing: To cut out "the surprises".

The top photo shows the "true" shape, while the bottom photo shows the "advertised" shape (as seen at SoCal). The "advertised" shape much more closely resembles a slimmed-down Bevel, while the "actual" shape is a lot more like an OG Tom Knox...

The nose is bigger than what you'd ever expect, just by looking at the "ad" photos. Nosegrinds, nosestalls, even a little bit of "switch" action... no worries there. The "spoon-ish" profile of the nose is a nice compromise between kick, and control. It's hard to describe... best bet, is to try it for yourself.

Made In China

Likewise: I was sort of surprised to find that this board comes with a very large barcode (on the shrink-wrap) that clearly states: Made In China. Now, I'm not one of those guys that screams bloody murder over the whole China-issue. Yes: I'd rather support American jobs, and the American economy. But, the broader issue for me is "Honesty and Integrity in Consumer Awareness". In layman's terms: The Manufacturers Should Be Labeling Their Shit. Which Santa Cruz does, and does prominently.

As a skater, I totally appreciate the honesty, and the forthrightness. So: Thanks NHS.

As for the board itself, it's a fairly typical 7-ply construction. If I hadn't have known beforehand, I probably would have assumed that it was made in America. It feels better-than-great, so I don't have any complaints about the wood at all.

Skull and Bones

This board seems to be a straight-ahead response to what the Skull and Bones guys have been asking for, for years now. Let's recap the demands real quick:

- An older-style concave. Preferably, one of the "legends" from the Santa Cruz stable. I.e., the Cruz Missile, or the Cruz Control…

- A "shaped", directional board that has some old-school style, but some modern-day functionality, as well…

- Likewise: A "new" graphic that sort of respects Santa Cruz's legacy… but, at the same time, something that is clearly not, a "reissue"…

- And, lastly: A "big" board, with an expansive wheelbase. "Expansive" being, about 15". Maybe even, a smidge more.

Well: The Boners demanded, and NHS delivered. All of the above: Done well, done better than expected, done very well, and right on target.

The Cruz Missile II Concave

The trump-card here, is the concave. Most of the "good stuff" about this deck, comes right out of those bends and kinks. And, it is a bendy and kinky bastard that we're dealing with here, make no bones about it. But: Each and every one of those, serves a purpose. Combined, they create one of the most comfortable, most resilient, most responsive, and most capable decks that I've seen in……….. fuck. Years? Decades, maybe…?

This is definitely the hands-down winner for "Deck Of The Year", right here. Because of the concave. Hell: It could have been made in Pakistan out of camel shit, and it still would have been a winner…

The competition suddenly has a whole lotta catching up to do.

This angle shows the "bend lines" fairly well. The Cruz Missile is not your standard "popsickle stick concave, on an old-school shape". Far from it, actually. The only concave in the same area code, is the Real Aces 3... which is currently (or, temporarily) out of production. It looks wild, but works wonders.

The Ride:

The best that I can give you here, are quick impressions. First: It took less than one run to "get used to".

I do think that maybe, this deck actually made me a better skater, just by stepping onto it.

It feels good, comfortable… "like home". It feels like how a good skateboard should feel.

It's stiff and responsive: You can pump speed out of the smallest nooks and crannies.

It's not too big, and it's not too small… it really is, "just right".

You'd be a damned idiot, if you didn't buy three of these, right off the bat. And once you buy one, it'll never, ever be enough…

Like the front, the rear end of this bitch is a kinky ride, too: The double-kicked tail (with concave running all the way through, for strength and superior control) also has "dog ears" on the outer corners... or, what we used to call "Tri-Tail". These "ears" work with your heel and toes to facilitate stuff like, positively locking into Smith grinds, popping in and out of feebles... or, latching into a long-ass, stand-up, backside 5-0. Like I said above: Just stepping into it makes you feel like you've instantly become a better skater.

The Re-Drill:

I didn't feel the need, but for those that do: You could probably re-drill another 1" of wheelbase out of this one. I thought the 15 inches that it comes with… coupled with the massive rocker, and the outstanding concave… was more than adequate.

The "Bad":

The only "bad" here would be, if Santa Cruz didn't keep it in production for a few years… at the very least. A lot of the manus need to realize… that the "product cycle" for this sort of stuff, isn't the same three-to-four-month cycle that the "mainstream" market utilizes. Realistically, this board could easily stay in production for three to five years. There might even be a good reason to keep it in production, forever. I mean, once you ride this… where are you gonna go?! Besides, onto another Cruz-Missile-Equipped deck…?

Yeah, it's that good. I hope Cruz keeps it around, because I'm gonna be buying an awful lot of these. You'd be wise to follow suit, my friends.

Best Of Week: The Manifesto

2010-11-21T08:32:00.016-05:00

While I was scouring through the archives, I found this little gem that might be called, in hindsight, "The Solitary Life Manifesto".

The Manifesto is really, a pretty ballsy statement. In it, I declare that I can singlehandedly re-write "the rules" of all skateboard media, and re-form it all into a paradigm that serves skaters far better than anybody else's paradigm can. Namely: Advertiser-driven, print media.

My arguments are really pretty simplistic: Advertisers are allowed to buy too much influence in the media. Money corrupts absolutely, and the profit motive absolutely corrupts. Skaters aren't well-served by any of this bullshit. Thus: The Profit Motive needs to have it's ass kicked right out of The Media. And, I'm the guy that just loves to dole out ass-kickings.

We installed SiteMeter (a reader-tracking program) in July (or so) of 2010. The first week we had it up and running, we logged a whopping 58 readers. Which I thought was huge! Far more than any 'zine would have gotten... and by the way, The Solitary Life was originally supposed to be a 'zine, until I realized that would be prohibitively expensive. But blogs, of course, are totally free.

Today, The Solitary Life regularly clocks in at 500 readers, with "peak" weeks hitting somewhere between 1,000 to 1,500 readers. We have a one-day readership record of 212 readers. And, those readers surf in to The Solitary Life from all over the globe. Japan, Indonesia, South Africa, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, Israel, India... the reach of this thing perpetually astounds me.

What does all this stuff tell me...? We're winning. Slowly but surely, we're winning. And I say, it's about fucking time...

Even if the "art direction" on this one did totally suck ass. You can't win 'em all, I guess.

Media. What are the reasons for having a media? What are the goals of media? To inspire? To educate? To inform? To entertain? All of the above? In any of these examples, the mission of the media seems like a fairly noble ideal: To Advance A Greater Good Via The Mass Dissemination Of Information. But, like so many noble ideals that have been turned into businesses, the role and function of the media are not above being corrupted by the profit motive. In today's world, a corporate-owned and controlled media exists to make money, and virtually nothing else. This is fundamentally compromising the role and the relevance of media in our lives.

This is illustrated quite clearly in several articles that I've read recently, regarding the role that the profit motive is playing in the journalism "business". Laurie Garrett (formerly of Newsday)(1) and Victor Pickard (of The Guardian UK)(2), among others, have dared to question the role that profits are playing in how well the media serves the general public. The overall assessment seems to be that, the more pressing the profit motive, the more of a disservice the media does for the greater public good.

I would have to strongly agree with that sentiment. I've seen this happen with astonishing regularity, even in our own skateboard media. Which is sad. What's more: It's scary.

In the good 'ol world of Modern Media, there are the two main sources of revenues: The Readers, and The Advertisers. You- the reader- pay damn good money to buy information (that really, should be free), while the advertisers are paying just-as-good money to buy influence over the readership (that really, should be earned based on merit, not the size of said advertisers' pocketbook).

The Advertisers are probably the biggest influence that we have wielding power in the media today... skateboard-related, or otherwise. Obviously, any time that you rely on someone else's pocketbook to survive in this cold, cruel world of ours... you're ultimately going to do whatever it takes to keep that cash cow a'milkin'. That is just basic, plain 'ol human nature. The survival of the strongest, the smartest, or the most clever is always ensured. You can be weak as fuck, but if you're smart or clever enough to live off of someone else's bank indefinitely, you'll surely survive.

So, that's how the media perpetuates itself. The advertisers have the money. The media wants the money. The advertisers fork over the duckets, and that ultimately buys advertisers a huge amount of power and influence in the media. We, the consumers, don't pay nearly as much on media... if anything at all… as the advertisers do. As such, our power and influence is severely limited. At least relative to the power and influence of the advertisers.

This undue power and influence that advertisers have over writers, editors, and publishers is something that I have had the displeasure of witnessing firsthand for quite some time now. It bothers me, because it ultimately comes at a cost. That cost is honesty, dignity, and truth in reporting. That cost, is a diminishing regard to what's in the better interests of the readers. This is where that "disservice to the readership" stuff comes from. In our pastime, that means a disservice to skateboarders everywhere.

Take in point: Product Reviews. I've written many a product review in my time. Each time, I actually went out, and skated whatever it was that I was reviewing. Many magazines don't even bother with this, right out of the gate... but seriously, how can you really have an authoritative and educated opinion on a product that you've never actually put your feet on...!? And, each time I reviewed something or another, I noted the good, the bad, and the ugly of these products. Which, I might add, were always heavily edited by someone, somewhere, so as to not piss off whichever advertiser whose products were in question.

When I was having a "friendly argument" with one of my cohorts one day about this pesky "editing" that kept cropping up in my reviews, I was told point-blank that "product reviews" were not designed to serve the better interests of the readers. This, apparently, wasn't fucking Consumer Reports that I was working for over here. Instead, "product reviews" (note all these quotes, kids) were to be clean and well-kept examples of "marketing entertainment", designed to be friendly vehicles to help our advertisers sell more stuff. Which keeps the advertisers happy, our magazine in business, and us paid.

Well, as we all know... being the dickhead that I truly am... I don't do "friendly arguments" particularly well. Nor, do I sell my gawddamned soul at every possible turn for a dime or two. Thus, my "product reviewing" days came to a slow, but steady end. Because, I absolutely refused to be a patsy in someone else's corporate sales plans. If I'm going to review a product, well then, I'm gonna skate that shit, and review it as I damn well see fit. If you don't like it? Well then, go screw yourself. That's my opinion, and I'm stickin' to it.

The bottom line? The only "Product Review" that you can ever trust, is one from some kid that went to his local shop, and actually bought a product at full retail, set it up, and skated the hell out of it. His opinion counts. Because, his opinion truly originates with, and reflects the real-life experiences of, the buying public. And thus, his opinion also serves the buying public. The opinion of some fatass editor who's pride and principles are bought and paid for by Corporate Skateboarding, doesn't.

The future of media... that is, the future of a relevant, objective, admired, and respected skateboard media that truly serves the needs of both the readers, as well as the needs of the skateboard industry... will have to find a workable way to be a servant to both... but at the same time, be a patsy to neither. For this to happen, the media will have to stand wholly and completely independent of the readers and the industry, financially. In short: We have to find a way to take The Profit Motive out of the skateboard media entirely.

As far as product reviews go, the media will ultimately have to follow our example. We here at The Solitary Life actually go out, research, and compare competing products... and ultimately we pick, we choose, and we buy the products that we review. In the rare case that someone sends us a "freebie" to review? We put that disclaimer right in the review, for full disclosure. But, we still treat it as if we bought it. Because, our advertisers still don't pay one single cent to advertise here at The Solitary Life.

You, you read that right: The Advertisers Pay Nothing. "Why do you even have advertisers then, if you're not getting anything out of it?!" Easy: We give free ad space to those skateboard companies that we feel are truly doing something good and positive for skateboarding [and snowboarding]. Whether it's making an excellent product, running an extremely ethical business, or making a very real effort to contribute to the greater good... those are the companies that we want to support. And thus, we charge them nada for our support. All we ask is that they keep on doing whatever it was that they were doing, to get our support in the first place.

And, of course: The readers don't pay squat to read The Solitary Life, either. It's free. As it should be.

Someday, all of this might very well change. Someday, this might actually become a really expensive proposition... creating and publishing this project. In that case, I would much rather be a "reader-driven" publication... that is, a publication that is fully and exclusively supported and financed by readers' donations, instead of via advertising dollars. This would keep our work entirely focused on the needs of you, our readers. Sort of like the National Public Radio of the skateboarding world. But, with cuss words all over the place.

You, is who we work for. You, is who we serve. Thanks for reading us. It means a lot. And frankly, we're flattered.

In the meantime, enjoy the "free" while it lasts. And, I'll keep enjoying my freedom from advertiser hogwash and editorial wrangling for the time being.

It's a good life we have these days, and our time is now. Live it up!

References:
(1)
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2602
(2)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/23/newspapers-internet-adverstising

Best Of Week: The JJ Rudisill Interview

2010-11-21T08:32:00.012-05:00

The JJ Rudisill Interview. The interview that launched The Solitary Life...

This interview was actually done in early 2009, for Concrete Wave Magazine. For one reason or another, The Wave passed on running it... which kinda sucked, because I thought it came out really great. JJ is a pretty hard-hitting guy that is also blessed with a great sense of humour. Basically, he's the perfect sort of guy to be a great skateboard-company owner. I guess not everybody sees shit the way that I do.

So, that was the deal: I had a great interview, but nowhere to run it. The only realistic choice that I had left, was to self-publish the damn thing. And with that, The Solitary Life was created. Specifically, to run this interview somewhere. Anywhere, for pete's sakes...!

It's also significant in that it sort of set the foundation for what The Solitary Life was going to be, visually. In terms of layout, color choices, et cetera. As you can see, we've absolutely evolved the art direction over the past year (thank God!)... while all the while, staying pretty true to the original vision.

To this day, I think it's one of the best interviews that I've ever read. And, considering that it's One Week Down here at The Life, I thought that it was important enough of a milestone to merit re-running the piece. Here's to you, JJ! Hope you're healing up quick over there...!

Here he is! The man of the moment...!

In today's day and age of self-centered skate-consumers and multi-million dollar skate corporations, it's refreshing to find that truly skater-run companies, true skater-artists, and true skaters still do exist out there, somewhere. JJ Rudisill is unique, in that he happens to be a serindipidous combination of all of the above, which pretty much makes him a modern-day renaissance man. Born and raised on southern hospitality, Pushead, concrete, DIY attitude, and punk rock, JJ is clearly a throwback to skateboarding's golden age, where there were no rules, no reasons, and no worries. At the same time, he's also serving as a beacon of hope for those that might be looking for something... or, more accurately, "someone"... truly genuine to support/befriend in this modern age of the bullshit fake and the homogeniously bland.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: Get ready to have yourself a laugh or two, 'cuz JJ's also one hell of a funny guy, to boot. Hey, man: You've been warned. My ribs seriously hurt after doing this interview- that's how much he had me in stitches. These are the kinds of interviews that journalists (like, me) live for. Which makes me wonder why noone else has bothered to interview the guy before now. Sometimes, the best things in life are right under your nose. Never forget that.

(*Phone rings*)

Hey, Bud!

Hey, JJ!! How's it goin'?!

Good, good.

Hey, do you have time to do that interview real quick...?

Yeah, I think I have a little bit of time to spare...

Okay, hold on a sec... (turns on recorder). Okay... are ya still there?

Still here!

That beep that you hear, by the way, is the 'record' indicator on my phone.

That's cool, I'm used to gettin' that from the FBI.

So JJ, how've ya been lately?

Been swell. A little bit hot, but swell.

You've also been really, really busy. It's been hard gettin' a hold of ya, Mr. Rock Star.

Yeah, well, y'know... it's a full time job, bein' all rock-n'-roll.

Seriously though, what've you been up to these days...?!

I've been up to quite a bit! The company's goin' along and we're tryin' to keep the inventory rollin' and I'm figuring out which stretch Hummer I want. And how much of it's gonna be gold plated.

JJ's illustration for the Thrasher "Beer Slave" DVD; 2007

You just had that Canvas article in the new Thrasher, right...?

Yeah, I had a two-page article in the August 2008 issue.

You also had one in Concrete Wave a few months back, didn't ya?

Actually, that was last year, and that was my first public appearance. I'd like to thank Michael Brooke at CW and Kevin Convertito at Thrasher. They were terrific opportunities...pretty much top of the line for a skateboard artist.

JJ's skate-event flyers recall the earliest days of punk rock, when pen-and-ink flyers were far more common than they are today. An art's only "lost" when nobody practices it. Thankfully, JJ's keepin' it alive and well. These are from 2007 (Old Man Jam) and 2006 (Owl's Head Bowl Jam), respectively.

So, you've never actually been interviewed before by anybody, have you?

A time or two.

Oh, really?! I didn't know that!

Yeah, yeah. But, y'know... it's usually the police doing the interviewing. (laughing) I'm less chatty when I don't have the handcuffs on (laughing).

So, let me ask you this: Which came first?The skulls, or the skateboarding?

Uhhhhhhhh, ummmmm, let me see here... I'm gonna say, the skateboards came first. Just 'cause, you couldn't really get a skull on that California Freeformer plastic...

This is pretty representative of the "JJ style"; I have a postcard version of this one in my collection. "Suicide (Kills Everyone)", digital illustration, 2004

Right! (laughing) So, when did you actually start skating?

Well, I did the California Freeformer thing... so, I probably started in '76, or something like that. Smashing-into-grandma's-car-at-the-end-of-the-driveway style. I guess I just did what everybody did for the first few years, and I picked it up seriously, maybe... 1983 or so? On a Santa Cruz Street Skate, and Indys...

Lucky you...

Just doin' it. And, Powell Street Cubics. Not, the Mini Cubics. The Street Cubics.

Wait... so, you've been skating longer than I thought you have, actually.

I'm an old man.

How old are you...?!

Thirty-seven years old.

I thought it'd be pretty funny to throw this in, right in the middle of our "age" discussion; JJ's definitely a man that can appreciate a good pun. "Caveman", mixed media, 2004.

Ohhhhh...! You just started way young, then.

Twelve years old, or sumthin' like that.

Well, shit man... you and I are almost the same age, but I started skating in, like, '88.

Oh, no, no. I'm pretty sure that I had the Boneless One on lock by '83.

Oh, man...! The Boneless One. That's a trick you don't hear about every day...

I still got it, too.

You still got The Boneless?!!!

Still got The Boneless.

That's great. I wish I had the boneless, but, y'know... I never learned it.

I've gotta be in a foot and a half of transition, or less, but I got it.

Sweet...! (Laughter)

Learn it in the grass; that's my advice. Y'gotta start in the grass.

So, you've been drawing almost as long as you've been skating, right...?

I've been drawing longer than I've been skating, actually. My first art-award was a first-place ribbon in a North Carolina art contest, for a flower I made. I still have it, right here in the apartment. I won a string of small-time victories when I was a young man, and I've been tapering off ever since.

That explains why you have a southern accent, when we all know that you live in New York.

Yeah, y'know... we had to bail. My wife and I came up to New York to pursue work. Both our job possibilities down south petered out, so we came up here to see what New York had to offer.

So, how long have you lived up there in Brooklyn...?

About four and a half years here in sunny Brooklyn, New York.

Ahhh, more photo-caption puns. Above: "Times Square", digital illustration, 2003. Below: "New York City Astronout", mixed media, 2003. I promise, that'll be the end of the punnyness.

And, how long have you had Funhouse?

I've had Funhouse...uhh, technically speaking? Almost two years. But, our first inventory came in around May of 2007. So, it's been about a year, year-and-a-half or so with product.

You have all of your stuff made here in the states, right...?

Yes, sir! American made! They're currently made in North Carolina, back where I'm from. So, yeah... American Made, American Quality, and I don't see any reason to go elsewhere.

But, it's getting much, much more expensive to get stuff made here in the states, right? I mean, I haven't priced wood out lately, but I've heard that it's getting pretty pricey.

I'm sure it is. But, the way we do our business is that if quality costs a little more, then we'll pay a little more. We're not trying to be the cheapest guy on the block. We're gonna stand by our product, and try to make the best stuff out there. And, if that costs a little more to do... well then, what's three, four, or five extra bucks...

It's a couple of cheeseburgers to me.

... but, when it's under your feet? When it comes down to it, you've gotta trust that it's gonna be there for ya. That's the long and short of why we have them made where they're made, and we don't really care about the price as much.

So, what kind of people might buy a Funhouse deck...?

Well, we started obviously with an emphasis on the pool shapes, for what we figured might be the older riders... skaters like myself that were either hangin' in there, or that might be coming back to it with their children, or whatever. I couldn't find boards that I liked to ride. The reissues were fine, but... for one, they didn't have the concave, or the dimensions, or the nose. And, for two: They were just old, anyway. There wasn't really anything "new" about 'em. For the newer kids, we do the popsickles, and we'll keep doing those as long as they keep doing well for the youngsters and all.

It's hard to say who we are. We're trying to have a Funhouse skateboard in every available size and shape, so that no matter what you're into, hopefully you can find a Funhouse skateboard to go on. Cruiser, popsickles of various widths, all the way up to The Dripper 36" longboard.

JJ's Funhouse graphics clearly show his VCJ and Pushead infuences, but with an added bit of whimsy tossed in for good measure. This one's newest model, the Cherry Bomber. Look elsewhere on this very website to see how it skates.

Which of the boards do you personally ride?

I've ridden ride them all, at one point or another. That being said, I don't regularly skate anything smaller than a nine-inch. I use my Mini Puncher for the streets around here, when I'm shootin' down to the store. In the pools right now, I've gone through the Ticket Puncher, and the Big Fish, and settled in on the Cherry Bomber 2, which is a modified version of the original Cherry Bomber. And also, my Dripper longboard. So, I'm kind of all over the place.

So, you're a definite advocate of the Dave Hackett Quiver Theory...?

I was not a "quiver man" per se, and I don't really advocate necessarily... well, how do I put it? It's fun to skate different boards, but you can't dial in your style as good when you're mixing up wheelbases and lengths to that degree. Some skaters can do it, but it's a struggle... especially if you're trying to get all tricked-out. But, I looove different aspects of every board that I make, so I end up skatin' 'em all. Because, they're all fun.

Now, let me ask you this question: The graphics that you do on your boards are obviously ridiculously detailed. Y'know, you've got the main graphic going on... but then, inside of the graphic, you've got like, a hundred other little things going on...

Yeah, there's always a support crew for the main character. That's just an evolution of my style. I was inspired by guys like Pushead, and V. Courtland Johnson, and I guess I just internalized that to the point where I could kinda do the main-focus sort of graphic, but then I've always got a little imagination left over. I kinda consider them rewards for people that look at 'em close enough. Y'know, people spend a lot of money on these things, and they should get their money's worth. For me, those little details are some of what sets us apart.

Y'know, when I was a kid, I would scour Mad Magazine...and, if you look in the margins of Mad Magazine, you'll see some of the funniest jokes in the whole thing. So, that's just a reflection of how I grew up. If you put it in there, somebody's gonna notice. And, whoever is looking for that kind of detail, hopefully, will get rewarded for it. Give it back a little bit, from the people that inspired me to make something worthwhile, and stay dedicated to the craft.

"Cowpoke (Manifest Destiny)", digital illustration, 2003.

How many hours are there, in any given Funhouse graphic...?

Ahhhhh... whew! It's hard to say. Ummm... it really depends on how many times I re-draw the pencil stage. That's all a part of my mania, but I'd say an average graphic could take a week. Some of them even go to two weeks for a single graphic. And, those are 10-12 hour days. Not eight-hour days.

So, that would be between 40 hours and 80 hours. Per graphic.

Easy.

Oh, wow.

I'd say that some of the simpler graphics... like, take the Mini Puncher for example. That was probably one of the quicker ones. Behind the scenes, what you see there are 15 versions of that little dude that sucked... (laughing)... before I got to that one. And then, obviously a lot of refinement on the illustration, before the actual line work. Then, you have the shape of the board, and a lot of other considerations before you begin breaking down the colors, and deciding whether you're gonna use spot colors, or a 4-color process. And then you have the borders, multiple-resolution files, and then the nitty-gritty of actual pre-press and pre-production... it's a lot of work.

So, all of your graphics begin as a hand drawing that gets scanned into the computer, and that's where the color separations are done...?

Typically, the process begins with sketchwork. I decide what the general shape of the board is gonna be, and that will influence the graphic a lot of times. So, I'll begin with a new board, and a new shape, and I'll just start drawing. It all starts with a 1"or a 2" sketch, really tiny, just with the bare minimum of detail. Usually, if I'm comfortable with it at two inches, then I feel like it'll work [enlarged]. I don't like to work "big", because I work big, the images don't get as distorted. Working small, their heads will get really big, and their eyeballs will get even crazier. If I begin by drawing big, then the art gets too detailed, right off the bat and loses focus. Small, then big, then add detail in small again.

Let's talk about this whole Do-It-Yourself thing. It seems like, at the end of the day, you're a really Do-It-Yourself kind of company. You know, you and I grew up with that. But, do you see that happening with this newer generation of skaters? It seems like they're not as... I don't know, what's the word I'm looking for, here...?

(Sigh) Skaters today... I call it the "MTV Effect". Look at the modern visual progression of skating through the prism of MTV, and you can see where I'm coming from. You started with Jackass on MTV, and peripherally you had Bam Margera, and all these jackasses runnin' around... it was pretty wild stuff. And it worked, especially for TV; they're stuffing Matchbox cars up their asses, and that was great. Then, Bam was the next thing... and, Bam's actually the cleanest guy out of the Jackass kids. Y'know, he does a few wild things here and there, but not to the extent that Jackass did. And then, from Bam Margera, we go to Ryan Sheckler. The cleanest-cut, ProActiv, white kid with the nice smile. And basically, he bitches about how he can't get laid...

(laughing)

... and, that's the kids that are comin' up! They're looking at Ryan Sheckler, and going "That's a skateboarder!" We didn't have that. Y'know, we didn't really have heroes. And, if you did have a hero, he was probably a still photograph in a magazine. I still don't know if my favorite skaters were assholes, or not. Because, I didn't meet 'em.

And, they weren't on TV 23 hours a day.

Right. Maybe I saw a little bit of video, or whatever. So no: I don't think the kids have the DIY ethic at all. I don't think they understand it. Some of them do. Obviously, some kids do, and you can tell who they are when you see 'em at the park or whatever. But mostly, they wanna be given something, or they think they're gonna be given something. They're not particularly interested in working for anything... including, keeping parks nice, or whatever. And, they're also really competitive in these really strange ways. Like, how they all wanna play games of SKATE...

I hate that game...

...and, they wanna have however many tricks, or whatever. They don't understand "doing it yourself", as meaning "I could make up a trick, myself". You know, Ryan Sheckler is never going to invent a trick. He's gonna do tricks, and he's gonna do them incredibly well, but he's not really in on the 'creative' aspect of skateboarding.

"Anne Frank (forPawPaw)", acrylic, 2005.

He's not like a Rodney Mullen, or somebody like that...

Right. And, that's what I thought of when you asked about DIY, that's the type of thing that I think about. When you ask that, you're asking "Well, what are you creating, yourself...?" And the kids today, they aren't creating very much. I'm not raggin' on them, but I mean, look around. Look at skating, look at anything. There's just not a lot goin' on.

So, who were your immediate influences, when you were growing up?

Well, I was fortunate enough to have Pushead in his prime. And, he skated. And, he was also an artist. I pretty much followed that line of thinking: That you could, and should, be both. Be creative in my skating, be creative in my artwork. But, I also quickly realized that I was gonna be a much better artist, than skater. As hard as I tried at skating, I never got particularly great at it.

Right. That's the thing that I never got, either. But today, there's all this pressure to get really good at it. Like, everyone forgets that the whole deal is to really love what you're doing first, and maybe, get good at it second.

And, a lot of that is caused by sponsorship. I don't know how many sponsorship videos I get from kids, where all it is, is two kickflips off a curb, and a note saying "I wanna be sponsored!" And, they haven't even given thought to the fact that I would probably sponsor pool skaters or whatnot. They're missing the point of skating, the worst part is that, they don't even do their skate history homework. I'm not particularly impressed by it all. But maybe when I was their age, I was a big fat dumbass too.

Well, our influences were those guys like Pushead, so we just sorta figured it out. Maybe we just had smarter role models...

Think about how Pushead had his own mail-order and stuff, for his own shirts, and everything else, right out of his house. I grew up buying products, that shipped them from their homes, with their own handwriting on the package. And, I loved it! The humanity of it.

It was like, more personal. Or maybe, more personable.

Right. To me, a "hero" is not... my heroes are not people that, you might put on a pedestal. My heroes are people that talked to me. That wrote me letters that said, "You're in a shit town down south, but it looks like you're tryin' to do your thing". And, they encouraged me to keep going. And now, here I am. That came from both the punk rock scene, where bands would write me back... and, that meant a lot. And also, from skating.

You'd think that, with this modern age of the Internet, it'd actually be easier to cultivate that sort of thing. Instead, the Internet seems to have turned into a sort of Bullshit Zone.

The Internet is just like... when you're a little kid, and you're tryin' to ask a girl out, you'd try to write a love note or something. Because, that's where you got your gusto up, right...?

(laughter)

That's what these forum people are, pretty much. They're gettin' their gusto up, and they're all ready to talk big, and do this or that. But, a lot of it is really irrelevant, when you're just typing...

Typing is kinda, not really the same.

...you don't have any emotion when you're typing. Because, you're just typing! I wanna meet people, and talk to people. That's so much better, and that's why I encourage people to come on up, and talk to me about my art, or just about skateboarding. You can't skate and type at the same time.

One of the things you mentioned, is that you used to mail-order from Pushead. Now, today, we have Internet skate shops. What's your stance on that whole deal? Because, it seems like one of our major debates right now, in the industry, is "what is the future of skateboard shops...?" It just seems like, they're dying...

Right. That, obviously, is a huge, huge issue for everybody that deals with a skateboard, no matter what side you're on. I guess that, first, I'd like to clarify that I don't really... I don't really know what the rest of the skateboard industry is up to. I don't know what they're particularly worried about, I don't really know how their sales are, except that they're probably a little down. I try to ignore the 'greater world of skateboarding', and just focus on the skateboards I'm making, and the stuff I'm doing here.

That being said, when it comes to the shops... we don't deal with too many of the shops. Being a newer brand, many shops won't even return our calls. Or, some of them are taking such a beating right now, that they're not bringing in any new product at all. So, most of the shops that we work with, I feel like they really understand skateboarding, and are concerned with much more than just earning a dollar. They're either skaters, or they're very in tune with the various aspects of skating. It's rare that a shop would just order a popsickle from us, for example. But, we're not really in that many shops. It's just a few.

So, most of your sales are actually done online...?

Well, the truth of it is: Mostly, we just don't have "sales"...

(Laughing...!)

... that's just, a nice, blanket statement...

(More laughing...)

...so, if you don't really have sales, then, you don't really worry about 'em...

(laughing...)

... but, we do do a little business through the shops. And, some of the shops do some volume. But, most of the time, it's smaller numbers, and we keep small numbers here, and we move out small numbers, so it all works out just fine. We also sell a lot, just by hand. There's a big skate community in Brooklyn... pretty much, when people see our stuff, they buy it. Which is why the limited number of shops that we're in, tend to do a lot of re-ordering.

What I wanted to say... because, it's the truth... is that, our best customer in the New York City area (not including New Jersey)... but, our best NYC shop is Blades Board And Skate. Blades is actually a chain store. It's not a Zumiez, but it is a two-store operation in New York. And, typically, you would consider it more of a mall store. With that being said, they've bought more decks, pound for pound, than any skate shop, anywhere...

So, why can't you sell more stuff, through more "hardcore"skate shops...?

Because, 90% of the shops that we approach won't even return our calls, or write a return letter! Even some of our local, "hardcore"skate shops won't even talk to you, unless you're a major brand, like a Zoo York or something. We've tried to contact a number of shops... I send them all personalized letters, explaining who we are, and what we're all about, and the quality of our stuff. But, we never hear back. Only about five percent of the shops that we write to, ever even bother to write back.

But, Blades did.

Yup. Blades did. So, I'm actually getting most of my support and sales, from the most corporate of shops. Because, they gave me a chance. The buyer looked at our stuff, he took a chance... and, they hung it right over the register. Now, people come in from all over the world, and all over the country... and, they see the boards. And, they like them. So, they take a chance, they buy them, and they go home happy with them.

That actually brings up a good point that I wanted to ask you about. It seems like, maybe 15 years ago, most skateboard companies were actually owned, and run, by skateboarders. Whereas today, more and more often, that's just not the case anymore. More and more skateboard companies are owned by a board of directors, or a whole bunch of shareholders, or by some dude that maybe used to skate, but can't be bothered with it anymore. It just seems like...

Or, a surfer...

Right. Or: A Surfer. Which, y'know... whatever. But: What is happening to this concept of, a skateboard company, that serves skateboarders, that's run by skateboarders, and that supports skateboarding? Where is that going...?

Yeah, well... I think that it's still probably here. There are still other small, solid companies like ours, and they're making good products, and they're struggling to get it out there. But, they're there. And, they're probably the most critical part of the thing.

But really, I could care less what happens to skateboarding. Because, I'll always have my skateboard, y'know? I'll make my own, and I'll always skateboard, personally. So, if my business dies? Or, there's just no more kids in the world, or whatever? It doesn't matter, I'll still make skateboards and whatnot. The corporate stuff is what it is. And, if people are buying corporate stuff instead of your stuff, you just have to deal with it. It's like, how the best-looking guy in your school usually dated the best-looking girl. You could sit there and get all pissed off about it, but it's never gonna change anything. Stealing the girl with your sincerity or sense of humor is where the interest lies. I just concentrate on making the best stuff that I can, and I don't worry about them. I do feel like there should be more companies like me, and there's room for it. And, I feel like the corporate guys will eventually bail out of it. They were in it before, and when the money goes, they go. And, that's fine.

And then, all that will be left, will be skaters.

Yeah. It's kind of like, the blank phenomenon. If you wanna set the whole interview on fire...

(Laughing)

You won't get any complaints from me...

My stance is: Bring 'em on! What do I care? If kids wanna buy a blank board, and ride it, versus a different company's printed boards, then they should do that.

Instead of making a huge ado about it.

And, that's all there is to it. Kids should do exactly what they wanna do. They should have a blank board available, because I would rather have a blank board, than 85% of the piece of shit graphics that are out there right now! The quality, whatever... whatever your money buys you, is what you should skate. Whatever you think is a good deal for you. If you can't afford a Funhouse, or you think "This is retarded, I'll never pay that!", then fine: Don't buy it. Buy whatever makes you happy. If you can't afford it? I can understand that. Or, if you can get two shitty decks... or, even two okay ones... for that kind of money? Then, go for it.

The last thing we would wanna do, is stop a skateboarder from skating. If blanks are a part of the market, or a big part of the market, then that's fine. Other companies just got worried, because they weren't doing shit for graphics. They have no identity for their brand, past whoever's skating for them... and, they just don't know what's goin' on. So, of course a kid bought a blank graphic, versus a Ryan Sheckler signature down the whole board... who gives a shit about that?! It just turns kids into billboards.

They become fashion plates, instead of skaters.

That's why I say, bring on a blank. I'd rather see a kid on a blank, than turning them into a damn big-ass advertisement, because they paid this ridiculous amout of money to basically advertise for this company... and, the kids think they're gettin' a deal?! Twenty-five bucks for a company t-shirt, and they put it on, and they're basically advertising?! They're gettin' pimped out! They're walking advertising, and they overpaid for the product?!

If some kid walks into a shop, and puts a blank next to one of my boards, and buys the blank... what does that mean? That means, I didn't do a good enough job on the quality, or a good enough job on the art. It's not their fault, and I'm not mad at that blank board sittin' there. But, some companies get mad about that shit! They're mad about it. I'm like, "Well, make a better skateboard!" That's what the market wants, so give it to'em.

I'd rather see a kid skating on a blank, than not skating at all.

Right. That's it; that's all it comes down to. I want people to look at my stuff, and be inspired enough to buy it. But, if they don't, and they buy a blank? Then, I say: Grab that board, get out there, and get skating!

"Dishwasher", digital illustration, 2001.

Is there anything else you'd like to add...?

Oh, I don't know. Probably, just say "thanks" to people. For me, my skating and my artwork were always nurtured along by somebody else. There's always been someone else there for inspiration, ever since I was young. Skaters that were older, that took me under their wing, and showed me the ropes of punk rock, took me skating, and told me when my bushings were too ragged out, and had to be replaced... and, all these other lessons of life. They know who they are, and I'd like to thank them. I'd also have to thank my wife, Cari, who is the brains behind Funhouse. And, of course, much of the capital...

(laughing)

... she's amazing. I don't know how many wives would let their husbands try and do what we're doin'. And, at the same time, since she got behind me, a lot of good things have happened, like being in Thrasher...

It seems like, as a skater, one of the first things I look for in a girlfriend... is a huge, overabundance of patience...

That's it...! (Laughter...)

So, all you kids out there?! Stop looking for the blonde bombshell, and just look for someone that's really, really patient...

(Laughter)

... because, we kinda require that.

Yeah. And, I'm a gnarly 'ol skateboarder, on top of being a freaked-out artist. So, she's got both ends of the spectrum to deal with. But, she does a terrific job, and she's a pretty saavy lady.

So, how long are you going to keep skating...?

As long as I can. I mean, how old can you really get...?

Alrighty, JJ. I'm gonna turn off the recorder now. Say "bye" to the world, buddy!

"Goodbye, Cruel World....!" (Laughter)...

If you have a few minutes kickin' around, take a sec to check out JJ's websites, www.jjrudisill.com and www.funhouseskateboards.com.

Best Of Week: Freestyle, A Visual History

2010-11-21T08:31:00.006-05:00

One of the most fun, and most significant things that we did this year was to dedicate September as our first-ever "Freestyle Month" here at The Solitary Life. That was a wise decision on our part. And we'd like to sincerely thank the entire freestyle community for being a part of it.

One of the most touching things that I heard this year, was how happy The Freestyle Community was that we actually take the time to give freestyle skating regular (monthly, to be exact), thorough, and dedicated coverage. What's more: Our very-first staffer (AJ Kohn) was brought on board, right from Day One, specifically for this reason. To give freestyle skating the regular, thorough, and dedicated coverage that we thought it deserved all along.

Yet: I've never freestyled a day in my entire life. So, what the fuck gives?!

Here's what the fuck gives: It doesn't matter what I personally do, or even what I personally think. Any sort of publication that claims to serve "The Greater Good of Skateboarding"... whether it's an online publication, a print magazine, or anything else... ultimately needs to step their shit up, and make decisions that actually serves The Greater Good of Skateboarding, and serves it well.

Covering freestyle (regardless of my personal inexperience with it) was a solid step in what I thought was ultimately, the right direction to take. In the name of The Greater Good of Skateboarding.

This particular article was originally dumped onto AJ's lap. AJ of course being our freestyle correspondent, that was a perfectly logical assignment to dole out. However: At the time, AJ was way busy organizing the World Championships of Freestyle in Philly (which we also covered). So, I ended up taking this one on myself. Even though I didn't know the first fucking thing about the history of freestyle.

But: Where other heads see nothing but roadblock, I tend to see nothing but opportunity. In this case, the opportunity to learn something myself, for a change. And learn, I did. This article was the net result of about nine months of solid research. In the course of all that research, here's what I learned:

1. Everybody's essentially a freestyler.
2. Freestyle is truly the basis of everything that we do, today. As such:
3. Today's freestyle is tomorrow's mainstream.

If you doubt me on this? Check out Kilian Martin's newest YouTube clip, go home, and cry yourself to sleep tonight. Because most kids (and pros, I might add) are going to see this as the end of their sponsor-me rock-star dreams.

But, the rest of us will see it for what it is: The dawn of a whole new era in creative thinking, and stylish doing. And once again: All brought to us by a tiny handful of freestylers.

Watch history repeat itself all over again...

Before I begin this freestyle retrospective piece, I wanted to say how happy I am that "Freestyle Month" at The Solitary Life has finally arrived...! I'm so stoked. Because, it's gonna be a great month. I can feel it, man...

A few months back, we made the announcement that we wanted help from the freestyle community, to write a brief "History Of Freestyle" for September. Of course, skaters being skaters, nobody responded. Figures. The only help that we got was from our resident freestyle reporter, AJ Kohn. But even he was relatively tied up with organizing The World Championships of Freestyle... which are right around the corner! Those are happening on September 18th & 19th in Philadelphia, and we're absolutely gonna be there. We wouldn't miss it for the world... no pun intended.

So... why freestyle? The fact is, if you know anything at all about skateboarding's history... most kids don't, but whatever... you'll understand that freestyle is the basis for all "modern" skateboarding. Almost everything that you're doing on the street, today (as well as, much of what you're doing on vert, in skateparks, et cetera) was a direct result of the freestyle movement of the 1970's, 1980's, and through to today.

Let's take a look at just one example: The Ollie. Which is the building block upon which most of "modern" skateboarding is built. Invented by Alan Gelfand in 1978, the "original" ollies were done by scooping the tail off of the protruding coping of the era's concrete skatepark bowls. But, it took some time for skaters to figure out how to "pop" the tail off of flat ground, which is where the "Ollie" truly transformed the fundamentals of skateboarding. The skaters that "perfected" the Ollie, were freestylers. And skateboarding has never been the same since.

Counterclockwise, from top left: Alan Gelfand fires the first shot in the coming aerial war; Rodney and the flatground ollie snatch the cover of Thrasher, underscoring their contributions to things to come; the inventors, Mr. Mullen and Mr. Gelfand; and, The Mutt snapping up a flatground ollie-to-indy. Notice how he popped it off the nose, to avoid the plastic skidplate on the tail.

Today, most of "the industry" views freestyle as a relic of a bygone era, a neon and grotesquely flamboyant stepchild of the 1980's. However, "The Industry" has proven itself to be pretty damned clueless on a whole lot of issues as of late, and this one is no different. The truth is that freestyle continues to progress and promote itself just under the surface of "mainstream" skateboarding. And given the evolutions that are going on, I see no reason why the freestylers of today won't continue to influence the rest of skateboarding, tomorrow.

These "evolutions" don't stop at the simple progression of tricks, either. Parallel evolutions in the realm of film (Brett Novak), promotions and contests (AJ and The Worlds, obviously), personal style and longevity (Kevin Harris), and creativity (Killian Martin) are surely going to bring freestyle out of the "underground", and back into our collective consciousness sooner, rather than later. After all, a creative, exciting, and vibrant scene of dedicated practitioners can't be held down forever...

As for "the article", I ultimately decided that the "story of freestyle" would be far better told in images and video, rather than in hundreds of thousands of words. Skaters aren't real "big" on reading these days, and to be totally honest, I'm getting pretty sick of typing my ass off all the time. So, here's the end result: A chronological timeline of freestyle's history, and freestyle's contributions to skateboarding, in pictures.

Enjoy...!

"Thank God for the internet"...!

Because of modern technology ("The Internet" and "Search Engines" being chief among them), the "history of anything" has suddenly become a hell of a lot easier to catalog, document, and pass along to future generations. This is a little piece that we discovered on YouTube, titled "Skateboarding 1965"... and, it's a great place to begin telling the "story" of freestyle.

Freestyle, by definition, is "Any type of skateboarding, above and beyond the simple basics of rolling, and turning". By that definition, the very first "freestyle" tricks were things like kickturns, rock walks (essentially, sequential kickturns), spins (basically, a 360-degree kickturn... which evolved into multitudes of 360's being done in a single, unbroken motion), and "wheelies" (modern-day "manuals") were all fairly commonplace at skateboarding's early genesis. This video illustrates basic "freestyle" skating... yet, you can also see snippets of what would become ever more "specialized" forms of skating. Jumping up on top, and off of the curbs ("up-curbies" and "down-curbies", respectively) point to street skating's future, while we also see the reflection of surfing's early influences (getting "tubed" under a truck bed, for example), which will ultimately drive the upcoming "vertical explorations" that will result in pool and vert skating.

The famous 1965 Anaheim Skateboarding Championships! This neat archive features a lot of the first-generation of skateboarding legends, such as Skip Frye (who wins the slalom event), Davey and Steve Hilton ("Yes! They are uncles of Paris Hilton!"), Danny Escalante, Torger Johnson (who would come back in the 1970's as a pro freestyler for Logan Earth Ski), and Torger's future boss, Bruce Logan himself. In this video clip, we see "freestyle" almost immediately being taken off of the streets... where it was initially allowed to evolve in near-total freedom... and, suddenly being "boxed" into an exclusive "flatland" paradigm. Once the competition organizers had their way with bastardizing the "freestyle movement", there was no looking back: "Freestyle" would forever be defined by the flat, featureless expanse of perfectly smooth and unbroken concrete (or, whatever surface could be contrived by contest day). It would take almost thirty years for "freestyle" to free itself from the "flatland contest burden", and return to it's original birthplace: The Streets.

Here, we have the first-ever, twinkick skateboard... the aluminum "Banzai" freestyle board. While most "skateboard scholars" credit the much later World Industries Mike Vallely "Barnyard" model as the first twinkick skateboard on the market, a much more accurate assessment might be that the Barnyard was first "functional, and practical twinkick skateboard". As a heavy, solid lump of aluminum ultimately proved to be neither "functional", nor "practical". And the fuckers killed ya when they smacked your shins, too. I've ridden one... and trust me, it's not exactly "fun". But, it was the first of the many! That much is for certain.

A much more "practical" answer to the freestyle skater, was the Power Paw Ed Nadalin freestyle model. In this composite, we see one of the original ads for the Nadalin (along with a complementary, more "classic" shaped directional board for his teammate, freestyle pioneer Russ Howell), and a close-up of the Nadalin's twin-tip freestyle shape. This shape, combined with the double-kick of the Banzai, was the harbinger of things to come.

This photo is a composite of several photos of classic skateboards featured at the Skull Skates online museum. Here, we have a steel-wheeled, homemade skateboard from the late 1950's; a clay-wheeled skateboard from the early 1960's; and, the Power Paw Ed Nadalin model, circa 1975. Here, we can very clearly see the evolution of freestyle skateboards from simple rectangular planks... to a much more surf-inspired, "curvy" shape... to the semi-blunt, "twin-ish" shape of the Nadalin. While most skateboards of the era built upon the surf-inspired "curved bullet" shape, freestyle wizardry tended to point to the functionality of the double-tailed platform.

This is some of the "raw" footage of the 1975 Del Mar Nationals, which was shot (and thankfully, preserved) by Hal Jepson. This is the contest that was heavily featured in Stacy Peralta's documentary, "Dogtown and Z-Boys" as the place where the Z-Boys solidified their "contest-reputation as skateboarding innovators". Truth be told, the flat and featureless wood platform was a horrible, horrible venue for the Z-Boys to "solidify" anything... given that their expertise was vertical terrain, not featureless horizontal platforms... but, whatever. The story goes that the Z-Boys "destroyed freestyle" by taking the "stand-up, spinning, wheelie-driven paradigm... and smashing it into the ground". Unfortunately for the Z-Boys, history does tend to prove them wrong to some extent... as freestyle's "upright stick people" obviously do continue to move forward and progress their sport, completely unfettered by the Z-Boys' interpretation of "freestyle"...

... as proven by these two clips. The first one is some contest footage that was shot in England, in 1978. The next video- which is a far more "complete" archive- was filmed in 1981... a virtual "dead zone" in our collective history, where most forms of skateboarding dried up, and almost went extinct. Many skateboard companies of the era went out of business, and the sole skateboard magazine (Skateboarder) was on the verge of becoming a much more diversified "action sports" periodical (Action Now) which also covered some lame-ass pursuits such as horseback riding, and BMX. All in all, it was a pretty sad state of affairs for skateboarding. Yet through it all, Del Mar's "stick people" survived... maybe even "flourished", as we can see skateboarding moving from being a "Californian pastime" to a "Worldwide phenomenon", just based on where the videos were shot at.

In this reel, the subjects are Mark Christensen and Richard Ortiz, who are skating for Pacific Shore Surf Shop in Boulder, Colorado. You can see that "freestyle" is still evolving, and coming into it's own as the "freestyle" that we would all recognize as "Classic '80s Freestyle". And, the spread will continue to all corners of the world, from North Carolina (Reggie Barnes), to Florida (Rodney Mullen), to Sweden (Per Welinder), to France (Pierre Andre), to England (Don Brown), and back to Southern California (Primo Desiderio) before the end of the decade.

Classic contest footage from Vancouver, 1985. The subject: Steve Rocco, who would become heavily influential on the next "wave" of freestylers... notably, the the very young (and, very impressionable) Rodney Mullen, who credits Steve as being one of the smoothest and technically advanced freestylers ever. Here, the "Mullen Influence" is readily apparent in how quick, seamlessly, and effortlessly Steve executes his routine.

Louisville, Kentucky, 1988. "The Greats" of their generation are all lined up, and put on the chopping block at a fairly typical NSA-sanctioned event. Note the lack of spectators: The arena is nearly empty, showing that even in its heyday, freestyle wasn't "widely celebrated". Also note that the producers of the video mis-spelled "Per Welinder", and that the "announcers" really don't have much of a clue regarding what's going on out there on the floor.

Ultimately, it would take a whole new movement- the emerging "streetstyle" scene- for freestyle's numerous and incredibly important contributions to be fully clarified, defined, refined, and taken to "the masses" of skaters, everywhere.

Rodney Mullen, Future Primitive (1986)...

Rodney Mullen, Rubbish Heap, 1989...

And Rodney Mullen, in Plan B's Second Hand Smoke (1995).

If there is any series of video clips that truly illustrate why Rodney Mullen is the living legend that he is... these three clips will do it. Compare Rodney's skating to any of his "generational peers", and you'll see real quick that Rodney was light-years ahead of everybody. The reason? Rodney lived an incredibly solitary, almost hermit-like existence that allowed him to focus almost exclusively on his "craft" (as Mike Vallely so eloquently puts it, in On Video's Rodney Mullen retrospective), with a bare minimum of deviations and distractions to inhibit his progress.

In Rubbish Heap, we can also see the first shots in Rodney's "defection" to the world of street skating... shots that become a barrage by the time Second Hand Smoke is released six years later. We can largely credit Mike Ternasky (Plan B's founder) for bringing Rodney out of the "free", and into the "street".

A Powell-Peralta ad for the Rodney Mullen "Chess" model, which was in production between (approx.) 1983- 1987. The outline schematic on the bottom clearly shows how close this shape is to the Ed Nadalin model that we talked about earlier in the article.

The legandary Mike Vallely "Barnyard" model, circa 1989. Compare it to the Mullen freestyle deck above! As you can see, the Vallely is a bit bigger (nearly 10", instead of about 7.5" for a typical freestyle deck). And, the Vallely has a modern double-kick concave (as opposed to the flat, single-kick profile of a freestyle deck of the era). Still, visually speaking, the obvious fact of the matter is that this Rodney-designed shape is nothing more than a scaled-up freestyle deck, stretched out to "vert" proportions. By bringing it back down to size, we've ended up with the current "popsickle stick" that most of us (but, not all of us!) skate, today.

This composite image shows a timeline of Rodney's pro models between 1983, and 2009. It's the best and most direct way to illustrate just how much of an impact freestyle has not only had on the way we skate, but also on what we skate. The Vallely "Barnyard" would roughly coincide with Rodney's first "street" model... but right away, the size starts to come back down to "freestyle size" with most boards measuring in the 7.5" to 8" range.

"The House That Rodney Built" advertisement, Plan B Skateboards, 1992. One of the best testimonials ever created to the vast influence that freestyle has had on the modern street-skating movement. Even today, kids are "inventing" tricks that Rodney (and, his many peers) actually invented in the late 1970's and 1980's. The old cliche still haunts the new generation: If you don't know your history, then you're dooming yourself to repeating it. Not that that would be so bad...!

But still: You'll definitely sound like a kook when you claim that you "invented" something that's actually thirty years old.

Yet, through it all, "classic freestyle" (oftentimes referred to as "Rodney Mullen Freestyle") fails to die. Here, we have footage of "The Next Rodney Mullen", aka Cristobal Bahamonde, circa 2007...

... Kevin Harris for TransWorld SKATEboarding, circa 2008...

...Killian Martin, November 2009...

... and Kevin (again), with euro champion Steffan "Lillis" Akesson, demoing at the Ultra Bowl, August 2010. Supposedly, freestyle has been clinically "dead" since Rodney whittled out his first "street" model way back in 1991... but, the evidence just doesn't support the lie. Truth is, freestyle continues to pick up new practitioners every year. And it won't be long until freestyle returns as a recognized and influential aspect of skateboarding that continually points and paves the way toward the future.

This article would not have been even remotely possible without the following websites, their creators, and the photos, videos, and stories that they've contributed to the world wide web. They include:

Marc McKee, and www.skateboardgraphics.com

PD, and the Skull Skates online museum; www.skullskates.com

Russ Howell, and www.skatewhat.com

YouTube, www.youtube.com (as if we didn't know that already),

and Blair Watson at Skull and Bones, www.skullandbonesskateboards.com/forums.

Thanks to you all for your contributions to preserving and archiving our history. You're good men, and I wish you well.

What we're supporting in snowboarding

2010-11-16T04:41:00.008-05:00

This year will mark the second snowboard season in the short life of The Solitary Life. As time marches on, we're getting more and more support from not only the readers, but also the snowboard industry. Which is great! Because without snowboarding, our winters would be hella boring and depressing, to say the very least...

Historically, insofar as skateboarding goes, we've only supported a small handful of companies that we feel really reflect the best that skateboarding has to offer. Generally, we try to support a diverse group of brands that cover the entire spectrum of our pastime. As far as snowboarding goes, we didn't feel any need to deviate from our core mission of supporting only the best that the industry has to offer. The policy seems to be holding water just fine, so why even consider changing it...?

That said, here's the roster of brands that we're supporting this year here at The Solitary Life:

Growing up in Concord, New Hampshire, Burton was always our "homegrown, backyard" company (being located in nearby Burlington, Vermont). Burton was one of the first-ever, fully legit snowboard companies (the other being their west-coast arch-rival, Sims). They've always fully supported snowboarding right from day one, and have consistently made great gear that holds up to the test. Airs, Floaters, Customs, Kings, Mayhems, Supermodels, Deuces... yeah, we've ridden (and loved) them all. This year, we're product-testing the Burton Customs (bindings), a couple more gloves, and hopefully (if we're lucky), those neat new Freestyle One-Up bindings.

5150. Back in the day, one of the coolest snowboard brands. After a few rounds of buyouts, re-positionings, and consolidations, 5150 ended up being the big-box budget brand within the snowboard world. However: They are still one of the most underrated brands out there, given that their Dealers, Movements, and Strokes are always top-notch products at a hell of a steal price. This year, we've scored two new Strokes (in the 161 and 164 sizes), with the new Rad Rock rocker design.

And of course, we also support the hell out of 5150's big brother, Ride. Whereas 5150 is on the "budget" end of the yardstick, Ride generally handles the midrange-to-high-end market. Their Fleetwoods (sadly, gone this year) and Yukons (also gone this year) were legendary around The Solitary Life headquarters. But hopefully the Slackcountry (introduced last year) and the Highlife (brand-new for this year) will fill the voids in our hearts quite nicely.

Lib Technologies. Two words: Jamie Lynn! Fantastic Plastic? Banana Technology? Magne Traction! Whichever two words you choose, Lib Tech has always been one of our favorite snowboard programs, right from Day One. And to make things even better: They're made "Near Canada" (in the USA), and have a perpetually perplexing sense of humor that we really love around here. This year, our big-mountain gun is a Magne-Traction-equipped, 190 cm Skunk Ape.

This year, we're also going to be spending some time spotlighting some of the smaller, "core", made-in-the-states microbrews that we love so much. Keep your eyes peeled for coverage of smaller companies like Smokin', Humanity, Venture, Herr Vaughnster, Winterstick, Never Summer, and more.

As far as boots go, we're pretty committed to the whole Vans deal. Simply the best boots made, as far as we can see. This year, we're revisiting the timeless High Standards before we begin branching out, and checking out other brands next season.

Of course, just like skate, we fully endore and recommend supporting your local, independently-owned snowboard shop. However, if your needs are super-specialized (like ours), or you live in the middle of nowheresville (like we do), we do have two e-tailers that we can highly recommend. Those are The House (www.the-house.com), and Dogfunk (www.dogfunk.com). We've shopped both for years, and they consistently outperform. We love 'em.

Waxing and tuning are serious concerns to serious snowboarders, and we're no different. In the past... like, for the last twenty years... we've exclusively used Swix tools and waxes. Especially their excellent F4 all-temp, all-condition wax.

However, this year, we decided to check out alternatives on both the wax and tool front. With the waxes, of course, we're going to be testing those on an ongoing basis throughout the season. Some of the brands that we're looking at are Magical Go-Go, One Ball Jay, Whacks, Bluebird, Dominator, Toko... the list is pretty much endless, at this point. The wax testing alone pretty much guarantees that we're gonna be on for a solid 45-day season this season. Any less than that, and we would be testing waxes well into next year.

But as far as advertisers go, we decided to support someone a little more close-to-home this year. As in, "Made In America". And, that brand is Hertel. Terry Hertel also happens to believe that they're going to totally dominate in our head-to-head wax-testing, which is a pretty stiff claim that we're just itching to put to the test. Hot Sauce, Racing FC739, and Spring Solution are all in the house, and ready to rip.

For outwear, we generally support two brands that most snowboarders might not immediately think of: Columbia Sportswear, and Under Armour. Our position is that most snowboarding outerwear has gotten too flashy, too expensive, and too hype-and-style driven. Which is fine, as far as it goes. But when you're stuck out in the backcountry waiting to get picked up, or you realize that you have to hike your ass back to civilization? Hype and style aren't gonna save your ass from the elements. Let alone, save your life. Straight-ahead function, thoughtful design, and excellent execution will. That's why we sort of "support the unexpected" on this one. Watch for thorough reviews of both of these lines this season.

And, there ya go! The short-list of snow-brands that we support here at The Solitary Life. We hope that all of this makes your snow-buying a little easier this year. Have fun on the mountain! We'll see ya out there.