DUGAN
(this one is
angry)
What's Wrong with
Skateboarding This
Week?
8/25
LOGO FRENZY!
A few
months ago, the goliaths of skateboard distribution threw together a little
propaganda pack that attacked the sale of blank decks. The vitriol was
worked into a twelve page booklet and crammed into the business formal,
corporate-saturated Transworld Business Magazine (could you imagine a
Thrasher Business Magazine? Give me a break). Titled, 'The Blank Board
Debate', the booklet featured concerned interviews with CEOs, chairmen,
presidents, and company owners. The word 'debate' in the title is a little
misleading however,
as all of the subjects they interviewed were pretty much in agreement.
The message was clear: "cheap, graphic-less boards are ruining our
racket!"
The businessmen, after
pocketing untold amounts from naive skate rats, actually tried to sound
as if their argument was legitimate. In reality, it appeared as if they
were scrambling to come up with ways to justify the extra 20, 25 or 30
dollars it costs to buy one of their boards instead of a blank. No one,
of
course, said that the difference in boards was negligible. That would
expose the Big Lie. It's well known that there is no difference between
a blank deck and a deck that merely has extra paint, silly design, and
the name of a pro on it. But these board hockers are in the business of
deceit. They don't want the consumer to know that what they offer is a
parity product, or product that is
the exact same as a competitor's, so they channel a ton of money into
generating brand awareness. This permits the idea of the brand name to
take on a spiritual aura above the physical object itself. So you're not
just buying a board, you're buying a Blind, or a Foundation, or a Girl.
It's all the same shit.
Allow me to pick apart
their arguements. One of the most prominent ones you glean after reading
the hit piece is that owners say the blanks are of a cheap quality. The
sacrosanct notion that all boards must be made out of Canadian hard rock
maple is alluded to. This is nonsense though. The massive board
distributor Dwindle, which churns out Blind, Darkstar, Almost and Enjoi
decks farms out all of the labor to China, where the products are produced
en masse by cheap labor. Blanks that you find on the internet are constructed
in exactly the same fashion. To skate a blind that's made at gunpoint
in a sweatshop, is to skate an internet blank that is made at gunpoint
in a sweatshop. On another note, Mystery boards, coming out of the Jamie
Thomas imperialist Black Box empire, are supposed to be one of the biggest
brands out there now, riding on the coattails of Zero. However, the factory
supposedly cannot drill the hardware holes properly, because half the
time you need to pound out the hole in the last ply yourself. Where is
the quality there, Establishment??
Skateboard companies
also like to stress the importance of technology and the perpetuating
process of innovation. This too is mostly bullshit. The technologically
inane bells and whistles distributors like Dwindle throw on their decks
are impractically overpriced. 100 dollars for a single deck? Ooh, an Uber-Light,
which has a completely superfluous carbon core that true
skateboarders don't need or have ever asked for. What we are seeing is
a
shameless attempt to cram senseless gimmicks down our throats. We don't
want them, but you can be damn sure that Dwindle will spend millions on
advertising to make us think that we do. And that, son, is one of the
fundamental flaws of capitalism. The maniacal striving for growth wouldn't
exist without an equally maniacal PR industry.
Also with the Uber-Light
and Impact decks (boards that have carbon disks around the spots you screw
in the trucks), their demand is being instigated by all the wrong people.
See, these companies live and die by the teen market. Especially the younger
teens. We have a problem here. Younger teens weigh, what, 70
pounds? Yet their naivete and the skate company's duplicity is what's
causing these expensive bullshit boards to be sold. In theory, older guys
that weigh more are supposed to be buying the Impact boards, but fortunately
they're smart enough to see through the gimmick. With these guys purchasing
the tried and true
wooden shop decks, that leaves Johnny Peepants Preteen to buy the most
expensive deck... or beg their parents to.
Finally, Dwindle has
it wrong on technology. They assume that the wooden, 7-ply deck is antiquated
and is in need of a tune up. "Carbon fiber? Great! Fiber glass? Pile
it on! Up the price? Even better!" Skateboarders don't agree though,
which is why they are buying--and will always buy--the traditional set
ups. Allow me to quote the Bard here: "To gild refined gold, to paint
the lily, is wasteful and ridiculous excess". Maybe Dwindle needs
to take a course on Shakespeare, because here we have unneeded updates
on a classic form. Skateboarders to the industry: IF IT'S NOT BROKE, DON'T
FIX IT.
Another reason owners
give to justify their high prices is because the blank board producers
don't "give back to skating". I guess I don't know what that
means. Does that mean that the blank board company doesn't maintain a
team that we have to pay to see skate in a video, or pay to see skate
in person at a demo? Well, where the fuck is that money going to? Is it
really giving back to skating, Skate Company X, when you seperate the
skate community from the most talented by a fee? Is it really such a privelige
to see them rip, that you can't let ridiculously high board prices support
their life styles alone? We have to pay for vids too? Well, random pros
do need beer and Xbox's. No one can argue with that. And fuck man, it
really must be taxing for them to roll out of bed at 1 pm and skate around
a park for a few hours. Pamper them as much as
possible, industry, PLEASE. We mustn't upset their delicate abilities.
So now that you know
the blank board debate is a sham, is it any surprise then that the rest
of the industry followed in lock-step conformity under the wishes of the
bigwigs? The most prominent blank deck maker was once Powell, known the
world over for its Mini-Logos. Well, those logos are so "mini"
anymore. What was once a tiny P beneath the back wheel has inflated to
a gigantic, conspicuous spray-paint image of a P that takes up the entire
middle region. George Powell must've panicked in the time it took the
logos to grow. Ever the
conscious businessman, he would never dream of being accused of slacking
in the brand awareness department. Shame on you, George! God forbid you
ever forget to toe the corporate line.
I will wrap this up
by saying that if you like to skate graphic boards and you don't mind
losing out on an extra 25 dollars, then by all means, feed the corporate
leviathan. But if you want to skate like a revolutionary, break the chain
linked by businessmen, and find the niche that was carved by the everlasting
soul of the skateboarder. After all, we did get into this to rebel against
jock mentality and established sports. So let's not forget our roots.
For if the old-schoolers were all dead, and we were busy playing to mainstream
companies, they'd be bert sliding around their graves for christ sake.
So skate and be wise.
----------------------------
DUGAN
"Le
premiere" installment
What's Wrong with
Skateboarding This
Week?
8/18
GLOBALIZATION!
Skateboard
companies salivate at the thought of globalization. To them, clientele
in the United States is small potatoes- it's the people across the ocean
that provide the big dollars (or yen, or euros, etc). Look at the back
of any of their catalogs and you'll find a list of their overseas distributors
in Honduras, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and thanks to the 2003 invasion,
a forthcoming Iraq. So the utmost priority is to outfit a foreigner in
skate apparel or conspicuous shoes. That should be fine, right? In theory,
sure, but the problem is that those forced to stitch the stuff together
in China, Bangladesh or elsewhere wouldn't be able to afford the gear
if they saved up for 6 months. In some cases, the factories pay in peanuts.
Can you imagine a guy coming into the shop looking for Lakais, only to
buy that shit with a bag of peanuts? People in Cambodia can.
I once met a "rep" from the DC shoe conglomerate. Let me first say that any rep will invariably possess the same 2 qualities: really flashy attire, and an ultra-politeness combined with a feigned interest in your life. This neon shoe-wearing guy was no exception. When he asked me what I was into other than skating, I said 'obscure films'. Unsurprisingly, he riffed off of my answer and started hyping the Coen brothers and muttering about mainstream movies. He was mostly correct. Don't get me wrong, it's not the guardians of the capitalist system that bug me, but the system itself. So I didn't mind the feigned interest.
He then launched into this monologue about how DC was experimenting with new materials in order to prolong the life of their shoes. Not a bad idea, I guess. But then he said that a guy he works with, "Brett", wanders around the DC factories in Southeast Asia, looking for random fabrics tossed aside or laying in storerooms. And I looked at the shoes on his feet, and on my own, and I started thinking about Brett's behavior as he toured those choked and nasty sweatshops. When he walked by a child who had been sewing for nine hours, did he feel like crying? Did he feel morally vile? And when he witnessed an employee get beaten for attempting to form a union, did he trot right on by, avoiding eye-to-bloody-eye contact?
Maybe he assumes that in some crazy way, skateboarding's progression and edification justify the overall madness. If kids in the West can skate and have a good time, then that's all that matters. I don't know. But the cognitive dissonance is easier for us, because we're not in the slums, in the barrios, or jammed into hellholes of sore fingers and endless chores. We just wear the god damn shoes. Brett, on the other hand, is fully aware of the horrors behind every heelflip, behind every lazy push down the street. So which one of us is worse?
----------------------------
DUGAN
I'm
not familiar with this whole "internet" fad.
Anything that you can't
cut out and feebly glue to a piece of paper is no medium for me. Just
how instantaneous do your photos and text have to be?
Why would you want the world at your fingertips when you could instead
wait 6 to 8 months for a Sproink issue, which has all the info you need
anyway? Oh well, at least Sproink has the potential to beam out into a
million homes instead of resting on ten homes' bathroom magazine racks.
The key is to now attract those untapped millions. I may have found a
way, thanks entirely to our web guy Trevor who we pay in back issues.
On this site, in addition to comment boards and sweet photos, will be updates in the form of four topics. On here, hopefully weekly, you will find:
- What's wrong with skateboarding this week....
- Milwaukee Skate Spot Review
- Best Trick/Worst Trick
- Mini-Articles: Short, but Perception Shattering!
Thanks for checking the site. come back often and give us feedback--but just try to be more creative than just saying something "sucks".