IRCLE-AUS
STEVE
CIRCLE-A
SKATEBOARDS
534 PATRICE PL. GARDENA, CA.
9 O2 4 8
(213) 329-1620
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MAIL
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Send all info, compliments and criticism to
Mail Drop c/o THRASHER, RO. Box 884570,
San Francisco, CA 94188-4570
BACKSIDE TOELESS
The interview with Eric Dressen
was great. I used to skate barefoot
too, 'cause I was too lazy to put on
my shoes. I quit skating barefoot a
year ago because I lost one toe.
Brian Thomas
San Francisco, CA
SKATE AND COMMUNICATE
I am writing this as a former skater,
vintage early 60s, when we transfer-
red from metal skates nailed to
planks and two by fours to the first
commercial Hoble boards (solid
maple with three pine stringers). Now
my son is a skater.
My exposure to THRASHER,
especially the letters, has left me
wondering if skating has become
primarily the province of foul-
mouthed, sniveling, whining wimps.
They seem to have nothing better to
do than complain that they have
been treated as pariahs after having
given society every reason to treat
them so. Flipping off everyone, they
proceed to skate and destroy-
destroy property, destroy others'
peace, destroy public safety and
destroy their own chances of ever
getting a fair shot at being treated as
equals.
I know this is not entirely so since
everyone in skating had succumbed
to hopeless pessimism and nihilism
so often associated with skaters.
Bonnie's reccomendations of organ-
izing to get recognition from the
"powers that be" were accurate. I
have proposed the same for my son
for the last several years. As a
political activist myself, I realize that
nothing will happen until he, or in this
case, skaters themselves, will act-
dare I say it-within the system. Lit-
tle will be won, and nothing retained
in the way of nods from the "powers"
if the work is done by others. Skaters
must become one of the "powers"-
not by whining or by anti-social at-
titudes but by reasonable, concerted
action. The sniveling I have heard is
merely a cover for laziness and
apathy; its fruit is in being treated as
any other child.
If you are waiting for someone to
wake up one morning, realize that
you have been denied respect and
wait. You must make yourself
heard-not with anger, aggression
and bitterness, but with reason. Do
deliver it unbidden, you've got a long
you think that tennis players
screamed, smashed their rackets
against public and private property,
and threatened people in order for
the city to build all those (often empty
and unused) tennis courts?
In cultivating the rebel image in
skating, skaters have done them-
selves a disservice. The image has
been so succesful that many in
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL
society-and those are the ones you
have to go to for recognition, gang-
believe that skaters are intractable
and violent. This is unfortunate since
I know the facts to be otherwise.
Perhaps one of the greatest bar-
riers I see is language. Not the
skater's technical language of ollies,
acid drops and air, but the mono-
tonous use of p-ed off, f-ing this
and f-ing that, and other signs of
mental deterioration. In the first i
place, constant use of these collo-
quialisms make it difficult to come up
with real communicative language
when it is most needed. Just imagine
a skater before the city council about
a skate park, "Well, Your f-ing
Honor, I want the city to approve the
f-ing skate park. I'll be really p-
ed off if the f-ing council votes
2001
against the f-ing thing."
Great impression, guys!
Such language is for
deadheads who have
nothing left in their burnt
out minds but the
rebellion of using the
naughty words their
mommies told them not
to use. The English
my son and many of his friends defy language is so varied and expres-
this rather dour image.
I read Skater's Edge with Bonnie
Blouin (Aug. '88) with relief that not
sive, why limit yourselves to sounding
like beer and drug-soaked dimwits
Take p-ed off, for instance. Pick
Cutter
TURNING HEADS.
Feather Light Street Tough
Quickest turning truck there is.
CUTTER TRUCKS
Send dollar for sticker and info:
PO Box 248, Cardiff by-the-Sea, CA 2007