Mike V, Scott Bourne. Why is skateboarding yet to produce a good wordsmith?

[N.L.]

This is very subjective of course...

But skateboarding has produced artists, photographers and musicians of note but no writers?

You have Craig Stecyk and Dave Carnie behind the scenes but what about actual skateboarders?

Too much ADHD?

[VCR]

https://boiltheocean.wordpress.com/

[EXTRA SPICY]

Jim Thiebaud

I'm sure there is more, after all if its art, anyone can do it and it's deemed great if you get another snob to nod.

[N.L.]

I forgot about Jim T. Didn't he put out a poetry chap book in the early 90s?

[Get fired up]

 Vancouver skater
Mike Christie  just published his second book.
His first book "The Beggar's Garden."
 Won some awards.

http://michaelchristie.net/mobile/index.html

His antisocial video part.

[straight]

Seriously? Spike Jonze... Oscar nods? Golden globe... That one slip ur mind?

[N.L.]

Spike Jonze. That BMX kid right?

I liked 'Her' a lot but screen plays aren't what I was looking for.

Michael Christie, might have to look into his stuff.

[beazlocal]

Paul Trepanier has been writing some nice poetry as of late

[oyolar]

https://boiltheocean.wordpress.com/

Frozen In Carbonite.

[Bobby Peru]

I think I heard Olly Todd has a degree in creative writing. His poetry is obviously ahead of the names mentioned so far - http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/olly-todd-some-poems-282-v16n12

Ocean Howell - Academic, but insightful and properly written, nonetheless - http://urbanpolicy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Howell_2001_Poetics-of-Security_NoPix.pdf

Not quite the same context but I love Sieben and Burnett.

[mini pebble]

 and I submit to you that I enjoy Seiben's ramblings. read this shit of fuck you. http://www.vice.com/author/michael-sieben

[Wizard Fight]

John Rattray?

[Powdered Toast Man!]

rattray's self proclaimed "midlife crisis" project

http://www.thepredatorybird.com/

[Radbloke]

How you gonna make a thread like this and not recognize our boy Doug Brown?

[Toadfish Rebecchi]

I'm a fan of Rattray and he's obviously a smart guy, but that comic he had in Thrasher was very poorly written with no direction at all. It didn't make any sense at all - not even in a tangential spaced out way.

[Toadfish Rebecchi]

Also: "Wordsmith" is the corniest shit ever. As soon as someone refers to themselves as a wordsmith you know they're not a writer.

 

[Glue Reed]

I don't know if you would consider him a "wordsmith", but I always thought Dave Carnie was a really good writer.
If you look through the smokescreen of dick and poop jokes he could be really clever and smart. 

And Jocko Weyland.

[N.L.]

I quite like the term. Conjures up the image of someone crafting away, as opposed to myself, when I write its just a spastic relief of verbosity with very little constraint or crafting.

[N.L.]

I don't know if you would consider him a "wordsmith", but I always thought Dave Carnie was a really good writer.
If you look through the smokescreen of dick and poop jokes he could be really clever and smart.  

And Jocko Weyland.

Yeah, I mentioned Carnie.  Jocko's 'The Answer is Never' was definitely one the better treatise on skateboarding.

Keith Hamm's 'Scarred For Life' was a pleasant surprise also.

I was actually thinking more about pros and their efforts to scribble. Obviously, there are plenty of skateboard journalists who can attack the type-writer with conviction.

[TheDraught]

The Gonz had some pretty good stories in Thrasher back in the day.

[shark tits]

The Gonz had some pretty good stories in Thrasher back in the day.

i liked the one about the turd burglars and the old man who was mad they were taking his shit out the toilet even though he just left it there. symbolism but usually he just wrote some garbage. i think there are great writers who skate, just not usually pros. carnie is prolly the best writer skating has given us unless black arm's book is good. i never seen it in real life. neil heddings wrote some awesome letters to thrasher from jail. my favorite was this old man who traded all his food for lettuce and made 2 cigs [lettuce cigs] and smoked em back to back. it was kiinda 'old man and the sea' but in the county lockup.
painful admission: i've rolled and smoked lettuce cigs [see also saurkraut] when i was in thurston county [OlyWa jail]. well not worth it.
there was a book of short stories by skaters/about skating whatever whatever and one dude ended the boook w/ hammers. he was an 'ovenman' dammit! anyone know what i'm talking about?

[Toadfish Rebecchi]

I quite like the term. Conjures up the image of someone crafting away, as opposed to myself, when I write its just a spastic relief of verbosity with very little constraint or crafting.

But do you consider yourself a writer? The term is "writer". Have you ever heard anyone say that Tolstoy was their favorite wordsmith? No.

Are you a skater or a boardsmith?

[Gray Imp Sausage Metal]

bourne by a mile (but i'm biased). has anyone actually read his book? i would actually be interested in reading it. might try and find a copy online

[Toadfish Rebecchi]

bourne by a mile (but i'm biased). has anyone actually read his book? i would actually be interested in reading it. might try and find a copy online

I've read it. As a piece of literature it's not bad. There's some horribly cheap metaphors and analogies of women in some parts (in fact his views on women come across as kinda fucked). Other than that I liked it. His descriptions of SF at that time are spot on.

[givecigstosurfgroms]

Dave carnie is an "actual skateboarder" - was sponsored by foundation.  Unreadable/same ol shtick

[Iceman]

some guy from austrailia...shit...can't remember his name. he has decent footy up on youtube too. i fail.

*edit....n.l. is that you? can you link to anything?

[N.L.]

Expand Quote

I quite like the term. Conjures up the image of someone crafting away, as opposed to myself, when I write its just a spastic relief of verbosity with very little constraint or crafting.

[close]

. Have you ever heard anyone say that Tolstoy was their favorite wordsmith? No.

Are you a skater or a boardsmith?

Actually yes. Not a skater. Always preferred skateboarder. Buts its bloody thread title on Slap, not a term I use on a daily basis.

Do I consider myself a writer? Sometimes but I'm not claiming to be any good. I've been published here and there. My most recent publication was in an Australian Mag called Great Ocean Quarterly. Its about skateboarding. I Wrote two terrible terrible novels that are gathering dust under my bed. Put out a few zines. Was a reporter and columnist for a street paper for a couple of years. I'm still learning.

[Rocuronium]

Pilot Light from Boil the Ocean is so good that once or twice a year I randomly pick a spot in his archives and read forth at least 8-10 posts.
Some get annoyed at his run-on wordiness but I feel that it is meant to be funny and enjoy the cleverness of it so much that I always read each post a second time once I have disentangled it, then it's even funnier.

I only get 75% of his masked jabs, but here is a great recent one from a post about Wes Kremer's SOTY video:
...Here is a Skater of the Year running lines in the wet and rolling in the dirt, getting over without instagramming hashtags or campaigning in still-creased SAD tees...
https://boiltheocean.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/2-wes-kremer-crusty-by-nature/

Here is an example of an inside baseball reference I could never get, from the same post:
‘Skater of the Year is the people’s award, but it is not of the people,’ a sly armadillo was heard to mutter at a recent Hurley exhibition.....

[mattdlx]

Stecyk, Mofo, Pushead.
Rob Brink.

and I definitely back the formerly mentioned (esp. Carnie, Burnett, Sieben, Thiebaud, Bourne)

[N.L.]

Stecyk, Mofo, Pushead.

The golden age of Thrasher. I might have been  illiterate without it.

My friend Justin, edited this anthology, there was some good stuff in it and some painful stuff also. Not Mike V painful...