Life In These United States
LIFE
SKATEBOARDS
DAWSON
TAIL PUP
Words-Lowboy
Photos-C.R.Stecyk
SIDEWALK SURFING!
THE GOOD GUYS
NEW SURFING
GIMMICK FOR KIDS
By CORK WILLIAMS
OR
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Chapter One... The Big Sleep
Deadline time, it's 4 a.m. in some airline
terminal some place in the American
Southwest. Life in a concrete oasis amidst
shifting sands is the standard of social
measure. Another tourload of plastic
lei-wearing, "just back from Hawaiian
paradise" types has just deplaned. St.
Petersburg is off to the right and San
Francisco is over to the left. Airport
security guards have identified me as a
skateboard type due to my visible photo of
Candy, famous chimp star of motion
pictures and television. (If you ever want to
be hassled in an aeroport, just try carrying
a large framed photo of a chimp on a
skateboard. It's even worse than sliding up
to your departure gate atop your que.
Obviously the sight of a skate chimp is
most offensive to the civilian populace.)
The last phone call I received from
civilization informed me of several perti-
nent facts: (1) Legendary all-time skater
Torger Johnson just went down in a car
crash on the Isle of Kawai. (2) It's time for
a mag editorial staff meeting. (3) Board
sales in Japan are up. (4) Australian
counterfits proliferate, and (5) a much
celebrated closet case is attributing his
lapses to "being just part of a phase" he
went through.
What can you say, besides putting the
flag at half-mast for Torger, the inventor of
the space walk, how real does anything
else seem? Johnson once stated that
there were two types of skaters, the ones
that did and the ones that didn't. Torger
definitely did and his loss will be felt by all.
Chapter Two
Hollywood swinging on time for another
big-time editorial meeting in the much
fabled shipyard. Dr. Rick will, of course,
not be present. Thatcher will look con-
cerned but pay little heed. Mofo will offer
up some pertinent social criticism of our
publisher's "real motivations," and, least of
the lot, Lowboy will attempt to gain pardon
for past misdeeds by buying off the
corporate overlords with a pair of Vaurnets.
The topic of discussion will be something
like this:
Overlord 1: Sales are up.
Worker 1: How about a raise?
Overlord 2: Maybe in a couple of months.
Workers 2 & 3: That's what you said six
months ago.
Overlord 3: Stick to the subject at hand,
which is.....
Eventually all such non-event meetings
reduce themselves down to the least
common demominator which is...com-
plaints over staff conduct lodged by
various capitans of commerce. As usual
several advertisers have 'constructive
criticism' regarding such nebulous topics
as the FUTURE OF THE SPORT. Invari-
ably each mag issue contains subject
matter which someone manages to find
objection to. The right to decry is, of
course, every person's inalienable right,
just as the right to provoke thought is a
basic right of the press (occasionally some
screwball will set forth ridiculous demands
such as the perennial non-advertiser who
demands a contract in which he doesn't
pay for any ads which appear in mag
issues which contain 'material detrimental
to life, health and safety' in these United
States). However, in the interest of viewing
all sides of the matter, our intrepid pub-
lisher suggested we examine the historical
relationship of the mass popular media
towards the sport/art of skateboarding.
Instead, we decided to profile several
highly underpublicized skaters.
The average skater today exists for his
own reasons. Many top aggressors prefer
to create their specialized forms of
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