by Board Retailers Association | Jun 9, 2022 | Book Review, Industry, Retail History, Skate Art, Skateboard
PHOTOS BY FRANCIS MAKIEJ SPOILER ALERT: I Made a Book/Zine Facebook sucks. (Full stop). If I were to think of something valuable about the platform or “product” as some call it, I wouldn’t try to kid you with claims about “connecting the world” or “providing a space for people to share ideas.” Nah. It’s not that. If I collected things, I might say Facebook Marketplace is kind of great but I rarely use Zuck’s creation. However, several years ago a page appeared with the images above, along with a grip of other equally stunning, weird, cool, and innocent photos of kids and their (mostly) new skateboard decks. I may not be a collector but I’m a digital hoarder so I downloaded them all, contacted said admin, and waited. The photos are from a shop called Mackies Skateboards and Bicycle Shop but for the skate of brevity, we’re going to refer to it as Mackies Skateboards. Notice there’s no apostrophe? That’s how it was written back in the ‘80s and I’m going to honor that. Mackies was located in Lowell, Massachusetts. I went there once. All I remember was that they had a great board wall and low ceilings. I don’t remember who told us that Lowell was a great city to ride skateboards in but it was, so one Saturday we convinced an older cat to drive us there and he did. That’s huge. He even took us to RRR Records and I bought a Uniform Choice cassette for $3.99 (the good one). Anyway, we were skating some stairs and I broke my board. One of the members of...
by Board Retailers Association | Aug 20, 2021 | Book Review, Community, Skateboard
Book description: A modern interpretation of the original Tao Te Ching. The meter has been preserved to its original intent, while the subject matter is about skateboarders and non-skateboarders instead of merchants and farmers. May this bring peace, empathy, compassion, and stoke to all who hear it. Short excerpt from Verse 2: Relative “We know style because there is stinkbug. We know good skateboarding by how it feels. We know bad skateboarding by how it looks. Being hurt and not being hurt, create each other. Difficult and easy, long and short, define each other. Just as push and roll follow each other.” Short excerpt from Verse 15: Know Your History “During the steel wheel era skaters knew their board through subtlety and grace. Because this is so foreign to us, we can only describe their skating with great effort. They were cautious to look for any crash inducing crack. Wary of any size pebble that would end in pain, dignified like golfers yielding like rotten wood innocent as a brand new board open like an empty skatepark turning freely like broke-in trucks. But today, who can wait for their trucks to break in?” BRA Book Review Both the Author (Ari Evan Gold) and I have known each other and skateboarded together many times over the past 30 odd years starting way back in the early 90s in Tampa. A few months ago, I noticed a post on Linked-In that contained a link to The Tao of Skateboarding on Audible so I communicated with him about his writing and his skateboarding as well as what he has been doing in...