Luchaskate
10
Politics and Religion Issue
Know your maker...
Contents
E
Cover: Tompson Shedsmoore Photo: Michael Niemonn
First Word: “Keep your God out of my Skateboarding” Skate and Religion by Brian Petersen Those Who Wander Can still Get Lost by Brian Czarski Branded (expanded version) The Shoe Debate with quotes from the Luchaskate Facebook Group and Garner Fisher Church of Skatan 2015 SOTY: Edward Pidgeon
Contents: Hippy Jump by Derek Howard
First Word
“Keep your God out of my skateboarding.” That is something I've heard many times both online and in person. And I get what they're saying. The last thing skaters want is someone interrupting the flow of a session to ramble on about their religious views. I recall a solo session I was having at Tobey Park in Memphis that was interrupted when a guy showed up and began talking to me about how God had changed his life and that he had found a home at a certain church. He kept telling me his testimony, and that I too could change my life. As he rambled on I wondered why he assumed I needed a change of life. Finally, I said, “Yeah, man. I'm a Christian already.” “Oh,” he replied and got silent. My belief being similar to his stopped his train of thought, and he left me alone afterward. It was as if finding out I was a believer in a higher power through him off his game. The same can be said about politics. “Keep your politics out of my skating.” When I'm with a group of skaters having a session, the last thing I want is to be lectured about who should be president. But what of the politics of skating? You know what I'm talking about. The “don't do it” campaign. The 'core shop' vs mall store debate. How about skater owned vs mega corporations? What about when the skater owned gets so big that it becomes a mega corp? What makes a local brand a legit company? While I'm not down for too many serious discussions during a session, once the helmet comes off I'm ready to talk about skateboard culture, religion within skating, and the politics of brand loyalty and skate culture. Welcome to the Politics and Religion Issue.
Skate and Religion By Brian Petersen
The relationship between skateboarding and religion is, at least for me, something fraught with tension. I realize that this is not the case for most people. In a very plain sense, skateboarding and religion seem far apart, even diametrically opposed. Yet this is a tension that I have always had to juggle as a lifelong skater and a reasonably devout religious person. Any attempt to reconcile the two always seems to fall flat in my mind. With respect to guys like Christian Hosoi or Jay Adams who were “born again” and tried to share their faith within the context of skateboarding, such a combination always seemed forced and unreal to me. I could never relate to the idea of the “radical skater for Jesus.” It always seemed like the two must remain forever separated by an unbreachable gulf. Yet as someone who grew up as a punk and a skater, and later became religious (to the point of attending seminary, getting a Master’s degree in Theology and becoming an ordained minister), the question always remained. However, I think that I was fortunate in a way. Since I was a skater and a punk first, even though my religious formation I always retained a strong attraction to the outside of things. Within my own faith tradition of Christianity, I sought out the fringes of the faith. It was there that I discovered such historical figures as Francis of Assisi, the twelfth century saint who grew up in a wealthy household, but basically flipped out at the hypocrisy of his upbringing and started hanging out with the freaks and the lepers. It was among those on the margins of respectable society that he truly found God. There were many others in the history of the church, such as Dorothy Day (founder of the Catholic Worker movement), Mother Teresa, and of course Jesus himself, who seemed to prefer the company of prostitutes and criminals to the ones who had made a name for themselves in society. This basically just affirmed what I had done my whole life as a skateboarder: gravitated toward the lunatic fringe, where real life and creativity were not only possible, but really happening.
So perhaps this discovery did not provide a clear and easy bridge between the worlds of skateboarding and religion. However, for me, it helped to make some sense of the two forces that so strongly define who I am. I suppose that as a religious skater, I’m always going to be a bit of a freak, but at least I know that I’m in good company, and that maybe this isn’t just my road to walk alone. Skateboarding, first and foremost, is about a community of those who choose to fit somewhere else than “normal” society. While most forms of religion might not fit this mold, I can say that it is possible to find ones that have similar values, even if they are on the outside of the norm.
Brian Petersen
Those Who Wander Can Still Get Lost By Brian Czarski
Growing up constantly exposed to the teachings of the People of Abraham can make a person a natural follower or a natural wanderer. I grew up in a solidly East Coast Catholic family and married into a conservative Midwest Jewish one. I have been religiously educated for most of my fife but it hasn’t made any choice easier for me. By my reckoning, you have two choices. You can tote the party line and claim faith even if you don’t understand it or you can try to figure it out on your own. I chose to be a wanderer. I chose to figure it out. By the time you are in your early forties you should have some things figured out. You may have answered what you wanted to be when you grow up. You may have decided on a fifteen or a thirty-year mortgage. You may have bought a sensible sweater that you can wear for three seasons. You may know what knee is going to give you what pain in what weather. Here is what I don’t know. I have no idea if there is anything beyond this life. No god has ever revealed itself to me. No life event has made me look for a deeper meaning. Frankly, I do not possess the intellect to presume to have the knowledge of things divine. I simply get up in the morning and I live. Part of living for thirty years of my life has been skateboarding. It feeds the wanderer in me. It gives me faith in something. A simple curb is church. A ditch is a cathedral. I close my eyes and pray to nothing more than gravity and am rewarded with the angelic chorus of the noise of bearings and the squeal of polyurethane. Sacrifices of blood and time are made in an effort to fly ever closer to the heavens. At times, I am rewarded. Other times, my prayers fall on my own deaf ears and I fall with them reminded that I am alone and outside the graces of any heaven that may exist. The pain of that fall reinforces my mortality and reminds me that I am alive and in that moment, I am my own god and I have answered my own prayers. I have wandered and I have been found. I will always pray at the four-wheeled wooden altar. It gives me clarity. It doesn’t ask from me any more than I can give. Through it, all things are possible except maybe pivot to fakies.
Branded
Skateboard fashion. As much as those two words stuck together make a lot of skaters cringe, skateboarding has always had a relationship with trendy clothes. 70’s short shorts gave way to the colorful board shorts of the 80’s, and the ultra-baggy 90’s that eventually gave way to the skinny jeans of post millennium skating. Looking back on each fad can make a lifer cringe and say, “I can’t believe I wore that.” In the late 80s, our entire skate crew bought in to skate fashion. We saw the rippers in the magazines and if we couldn’t ride the half pipes they had, we could look as much as possible like them while rail sliding our parking blocks. The Tony Hawk hair cut made the rounds and everyone wanted brightly colored shoes. Beyond simple fashion, each member of our crew, without thinking about it, branded themselves according to the company that met their personality. You had the Vision Street Wear guy, the Powell graphics guy, the screaming hand dude, and the punk rocker. For me, as a young teen, even if I wanted to have the trendiest Jimmy’Z pants and Street Wear shoes, my mother wouldn’t have it. She worked at a major chain department store and figured, “If those clothes were good enough for her to sell, they were good enough for me to wear.” As I wasn’t old enough for a job and my own money, I got what she bought. Sure, I’d go in and pick out my shoes from the rack at the store, but there would be no green suede street wear shoes and no screaming hand t-shirts for me. At my wildest I’d get two different color pairs of Chuck Taylors and wear a black right shoe with a purple left shoe. The left shoe would also, of course, be adorned with a wrap of duct tape since the canvas would have an ollie hole within an hour of skating. Usually, however, it was a pair of all white basketball shoes with a hand drawn Skull Skates logo right by the swoosh. Since I couldn’t get all the branded gear, the Skull Skates “Function before Fashion” motto struck home with me.
The hand drawn stencil and cut and paste aesthetic espoused by Skull touched me because my fashion rebellion had to be largely self-manufactured. In the 9th grade I shaved off my hair a la Bill Danforth. I borrowed my dad’s old military jacket, and I cuffed my jeans so my mismatched canvas sneakers were front and center. I was looking to be a punk in part because I loved the music, and in part because I didn’t have the choice. It was either look like all the other kids or put some serious thought into manufacturing my look. Years later, the black and white, lo fi aesthetic still influences my life. Black and white line drawings attracted me because of all those Skull Skates ads in the magazines. I would later cover much of my body with black line tattoos. As a theater major in college, I was drawn to shows by soloists like Spalding Grey. I was attracted to the solo performer without elaborate costumes standing on a blank stage. I was drawn to punk and black metal bands with black and white lo fi logos on the covers of lo fi, recorded on a budget, albums. My particular brand identification contributed much to this. As kids we get skateboards. After falling in love with the act of skating, we brand ourselves skateboarders. We find our niche within this culture, and it inspires and influences us to become the people we become. I look at the skateboard culture right now and see such much brand diversity. Even brands will similar marketing have a distinct point of sale in the branding. Toy Machine and Creature. Similarities within cultural branding exist yet are different from one another. Which one is a proper hessian to choose? Almost and Girl. Each brand has a distinctive fashion sense to brand, and each brand offers a starting place for young skateboarders to develop in taste and personal preference for art and music. But what is the moral of this story? We that still skate. We that have been influenced by skateboard culture and have remained engrained in the skateboard lifestyle now have the opportunity to influence skate culture for the future generations of young men and women that will in turn influence others. This begs the next question: What do you want the next generation to learn from you?
The Shoe Debate with quotes from the Luchaskate Facebook Group When a discussion come up about corporate involvement in skateboarding, you can be assured that shoe companies are going to be brought up very quickly. Since Nike started their SB line, shoes have been a topic of conversation. It makes one wonder, what makes a “skate shoe” a skate shoe? One Facebook group member named Jeremy said, “My opinion on shoes is if they grip then they're good.” I believe Jeremy is saying that a shoe that you enjoy skating in is a skate shoe. Many of us, growing up, wore Nike shoes. This was long before Nike brought out their skateboarding line. However, Paul wrote, “I think this taps into the larger issue of what these companies do or don't do for skateboarding. I'm, of course, biased having started skating in the early '80s. Punk, DIY, take care of your own, no outsiders allowed—these still inform my opinions on gear. I have had Vans on my feet since I started. Still skate in them. They work. They look good. And they have always been there for skateboarding. To each, their own. The current popularity bubble is the largest I've seen in 30+ years. When it bursts, all the companies that arrived to simply "make a buck" will leave. But in their wake, which of the small companies will be left? Skateboarding will survive as it always has. And new, dedicated skateboard companies will emerge. But there's no denying the impact large, non-skateboarding corporations will have on the brands in it for (in my humble, crusty, curmudgeonly opinion) the 'right reasons'."
Garner Fisher sent in this via email, “I grew up having a lot of respect for the Eastern Carolina shop owners. Doublewide and Backdoor are run by awesome dudes that carry what you need and do awesome things for their local community. I felt obligated to be loyal to them by spending my money at those two shops. Unfortunately, I didn't always have enough money to shop there so sometimes I would buy used boards for 5 bucks from my friends no matter the size or make just so I could keep rolling. Now I get my boards for free and live in Memphis. I always urge people to buy from their local shops but now my problem is shoes. There's the whole "Don't do it" campaign by the guys that religiously wear vans and the guys that only wear skater owned shoe companies. I've had skater owned company shoes soles complete rip right off of my foot after a couple weeks of use and Vans always tear way too fast causing my socks to rip too and make my feet bleed every time I do a trick. I've found that the best economical choice for me is to go to the Nike clearance store and buy their shoes for 20 or 30 bucks. They've proven to last me the longest and with their low price there im not ashamed to admit that. I know they kicked off Peter Hewitt for a bullshit reason and that my shoes are made by kids that are getting paid 70 cent an hour but being a young father leaves me with no sympathy for anyone that's not a friend or family to me. I'd like to go to our local shop every couple months and pay 60 bucks for a new pair of shoes but I'm just not in a position where that makes sense for me to do. My advice for any other skaters out there is to please go to your local shop to keep your scene pumping, but if you find an alternative way to get shoes that makes more sense for your situation, "Just do it" as long as you don't go to Zumiez. (Fun fact: Doublewide Skateshop is really a shop that's in a double wide trailer and when your done getting whatever you need from there you follow a dirt road to their skatepark that's in a barn. How badass is that!?) What is your opinion on shoe companies in skateboarding? Skater owned? Does your shoe company need to sponsor pro skaters? Do they need to put on contests? Where do your loyalties lie? And, at the end of the day, does it matter? You can write your opinion and email it to luchamag@yahoo.com
Church of Skatan
Putting in the work at Altown in Memphis, TN
Crawdad Chad. Switch Smith. Photo: Gurley
Jason Renn in the ditches again.
Last issues cover star, Adam Photo: Renn
S.O.T.Y. 2015 : Edward Pidgeon
In the first year of publishing the Luchaskate 'zine, we announced a skater of the year. That skater of the year was not chosen because of any particular skill displayed on a skateboard. It wasn't because of a film part. There was no spectacular stunt performed that could be done that would garner the accolade of S.O.T.Y. from the 'zine. The Luchaskate skater of the year was announced because of work performed to promote skateboarding within the pages of the 'zine and the community at large. The following year, there was no SOTY. It is necessary to bring back the distinction this year. It is necessary because? Because Ed Pidgeon. Several years ago Edward Pidgeon, along with a group of other skaters in North Mississippi and Memphis, began working toward a skate park in the small community of Hernando, Mississippi. Edward never wavered in his dedication toward the cause. He became a staple at the Hernando Farmer's Market where he lobbied for donations for the cause. Art show fundraisers were held. Grants were applied for (and won). Edward fund-raised 42,000 dollars which was matched by a state grant to fund a regional skate park. And, finally, Evergreen skate parks were brought in to design and build a skate park for the community of Hernando, MS. Edward has won the 2015 Dan Maddox Man of the Year Award from the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi. And he's our SOTY Thanks, Ed, for all that you do.
Coming in 2016
NOBODY Essays from a life spent skateboarding In order to fall, one must rise. Combining his personal essays of 2012's Common Criminals anthology with the newer essays featured on the Luchaskate Podcast (and some never before published materials), two time national award winning writer, David Thornton, will tell the tale of the nobody, the skater that dedicates his life to skateboarding with no accolades. The book will examine the whys and hows of skating from an intimate, intellectual, and education standpoint.
Kickstarter campaign coming soon