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Skateboarding => USELESS WOODEN TOY BANTER => Topic started by: snowballz on March 11, 2021, 08:28:40 AM
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I'm a journalism student, and we had to do a piece on our favorite journalist/writer for my final project. I ended up doing mine on Carnie, but there are plenty of good writers out there.
Wondering what SLAP thinks. Phelps? (yes i know he was an editor) Nieratko? Earl Parker?
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Either Nieratko or Carnie, hands down.
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I'm a journalism student, and we had to do a piece on our favorite journalist/writer for my final project. I ended up doing mine on Carnie, but there are plenty of good writers out there.
Wondering what SLAP thinks. Phelps? (yes i know he was an editor) Nieratko? Earl Parker?
To me it is Carnie. I like Nieratko, but he just isn't as good. I'd like to read some of Earl Parker's pieces, but I have no idea how I could get a hold of those. I was too young when he wrote for Big Brother.
I also very much enjoyed Clyde Singleton's writing I used to read his blog and I always enjoyed his occasional contributions to Big Brother or Transworld.
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I mean.. Carnie in the early TSM was fucking insane...
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carnie
earl parker
c.r. stecyk
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the other pops
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Whiteley
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JOCKO WEYLAND ALL THE FUCKING WAY!
Best and nicest dude ever, always down to skate and is truly a character, the day i met him was so awesome, have seen him in my area a couple more times and he said he researched a song i showed him, a the clash cover by a spanish punk band, he loved it!
SALUDOS DESDE PUNTA DE MITA JOCKO!
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Carnie is my dude. I looked forward to his shit (pun) every month
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Carnie is my dude. I looked forward to his shit (pun) every month
Carnie for sure.
Who are the ladies in your sig?
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Carnie is my dude. I looked forward to his shit (pun) every month
Who are the ladies in your sig?
Kristin Davis and Kristen Bell!
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I'm still bummed on nieratko for his horrible Marissa make over interview. Shit was super lame.
Best skateboard writing comes from boiltheocean.
Also, kind of hard to call most skate mag writing as journalism...each mag was designed to be propaganda for someone's skate company. The mags are there to promote the skaters not to do actual journalism.
I've seen skaters say career ending stupid shit in interviews and ive seen that shit get edited out not to upset the dude's sponsor.
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fulltechnicalskizzy
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thought this was a graffiti thread
who else painted besides Mu$kA?
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thought this was a graffiti thread
who else painted besides Mu$kA?
theres atleast one pro who really gets it in with bombing and isnt corny about it aka keeps it seperate from skating and doesnt talk about it. and im not talking about big moe bobby worrest bc he loves talking about how he doesnt like talking about it.
back to business im gonna go with the anthony pappalardo dude. but just bc hes always letting us know he isnt the other pappalardo, as if anyone thinks that one is writing articles about ausyn gillette for jenkem or whatever he does.
free max b
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as a former journalism major, i wish you the best of luck in your future non-journalism related career
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JOCKO WEYLAND ALL THE FUCKING WAY!
Best and nicest dude ever, always down to skate and is truly a character, the day i met him was so awesome, have seen him in my area a couple more times and he said he researched a song i showed him, a the clash cover by a spanish punk band, he loved it!
SALUDOS DESDE PUNTA DE MITA JOCKO!
What's Jocko up to these days?
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Dave Carnie is my first choice, because he's funny and also is super talented. But after thinking about it Mackenzie Eisenhour has worked for Skateboarder and done some tremendous interviews (some of my favs), and is now doing interesting stuff with TWS (I hope he's still there, not sure).
Also, I really think after reading so much skate media over the years that Chromeball is the best skate media site out. I read everything from Berrics (occasionally), Jenkem, Quartersnacks, Thrasher, etc. And I always find that Chromeball knows his shit better than anyone and makes really interesting skate nerdy interviews. He's also the only site that when he posts "new interview", I instantly am excited to go read it and learn something.
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SmokinJuan
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thought this was a graffiti thread
who else painted besides Mu$kA?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fta1MfBUrQs
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(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41Fm79VEGwL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51p7MKXpzSL.jpg)
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(https://www.thrashermagazine.com/images/Adam/Jake_Phelps_RIP/JP-108-109-e_2x.jpg)
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I like when Jenkem writes up stupid articles...this one for instance:
http://www.jenkemmag.com/home/2021/02/03/skating-with-nails/
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Best skateboard writing comes from boiltheocean.
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Clyde Singleton
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Getoz
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woah that neil blender video just blew my mind
those kids heads just about exploded
that move on the ground was hilarious
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not sure if ‘best’ applies, but Gavin Hills, Simon Evans, Ben Powell and Niall Neeson have all done some excellent skate-related writing
(pls forgive my UK-centric post)
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thought this was a graffiti thread
who else painted besides Mu$kA?
love park guys
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Ted schmitz
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(http://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349065923l/9443604.jpg)
Real Dougalos know.
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Snackman from Quartersnacks (actually though, he writes some of the most heartfelt, direct, down to earth stuff about skating like multiple times a week for well over 15 years. is anyone else in the poll actually fucking writing about skateboarding right now?)
PilotLight from BoilTheOcean
Jason from FrozenInCarbonite
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Boil the ocean’s pretty good . But , yeah - carnie
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I'm still bummed on nieratko for his horrible Marissa make over interview. Shit was super lame.
Best skateboard writing comes from boiltheocean.
Also, kind of hard to call most skate mag writing as journalism...each mag was designed to be propaganda for someone's skate company. The mags are there to promote the skaters not to do actual journalism.
I've seen skaters say career ending stupid shit in interviews and ive seen that shit get edited out not to upset the dude's sponsor.
I still remember reading this interview, I think it was in the first skateboard mag I ever bought (TSM) when I first started skating. Even then, being a shitty middle schooler, that interview really rubbed me the wrong way. I've never liked Nieratko's writing since then.
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JOCKO WEYLAND ALL THE FUCKING WAY!
Best and nicest dude ever, always down to skate and is truly a character, the day i met him was so awesome, have seen him in my area a couple more times and he said he researched a song i showed him, a the clash cover by a spanish punk band, he loved it!
SALUDOS DESDE PUNTA DE MITA JOCKO!
Best skate book
(https://images.bwbcovers.com/080/The-Answer-Is-Never-9780802139450.jpg)
Best blogger is Pilot Light at Boil the Ocean.
Honorable mention to Frozen in Carbonite. I still laugh at this line "Writing effective poetry is hard as fuck, just ask Scott Bourne."
Second honorable mention goes to Ted Barrow for his In Rememberance of Things Whatevs blog. I remember a great post called "Redoubtable" EDIT: https://web.archive.org/web/20110511075612/http://teddybarrow.blogspot.com/
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(https://www.thrashermagazine.com/images/Adam/Jake_Phelps_RIP/JP-108-109-e_2x.jpg)
This
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Willy Staley, who profiled Tyshawn and Phelps in Nytimes.
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Clyde and, despite everything, Ted Barrow.
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Michael Sieben
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@silhouette has done some dope interviews for the euro scene. Give him some Respek SLAP.
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Either Nieratko Clyde Singleton or Carnie, hands down.
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mackenzie eisenhower
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I'm gathering from this thread that people haven't really read skateboarding articles since Big Brother went out of business.
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Britt Parrot
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Clyde Singleton and BoilTheOcean
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Bipsmound.
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I'm gathering from this thread that people haven't really read skateboarding articles since Big Brother went out of business.
Very true! What is the good shit being written right now?
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Second honorable mention goes to Ted Barrow for his In Rememberance of Things Whatevs blog. I remember a great post called "Redoubtable" EDIT: https://web.archive.org/web/20110511075612/http://teddybarrow.blogspot.com/
Damn thank you for posting this, that was Ted??? I remember the name of the blog but never read any of it. The crazy self-reflection is all there. gonna read all of this shit ASAP.
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as a former journalism major, i wish you the best of luck in your future non-journalism related career
why you gotta crush a kid's dreams like that
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Either Nieratko Clyde Singleton or Carnie, hands down.
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Best skateboard writing comes from boiltheocean.
pilot light for sure.
sticking to newer/active writers:
Recent article by Jono Coote in Thrasher really impressed me, don't know what else this person has done though.
Cole Nowicki has also caught my attention.
*forgot to say Gonz. Some of his short stories about skaters are amazing.
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Paul Zitzer, Aaron Meza and Sean Mortimer have written some great stories.
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as a former journalism major, i wish you the best of luck in your future non-journalism related career
LMFAO i knew that going in. you don't go into journalism for the money.
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Bipsmound.
That's what I'm talking about
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Best skateboard writing comes from boiltheocean.
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As a 12 year old I really enjoyed Tony Hawks autobiography.
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Carnie for me - great writer
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Has anyone read the new walker Ryan book?
It could be good but i feel like it's more likely to be a pile of pretentious pseudo intellectual dog shit.
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The guy who does the Thrasher video captions nobody else even comes close.
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Has anyone read the new walker Ryan book?
It could be good but i feel like it's more likely to be a pile of pretentious pseudo intellectual dog shit.
I haven't read it but considering it's a piece of fiction about a dude and skateboarding I really can't imagine it's overly pretentious or intellectual at all. It's literally just a story.
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I haven't read Walker's book yet, but I'm going to give it a shot. I have Evan Schiefelbine's book somewhere, so why not give Walker's a chance?
And, Walker is pretty cool and I don't get any pseudo intellectual vibe from him. I get a vibe of a dude who appreciated his education and appreciates all the experiences he's had traveling around the world.
Shit, Walker did an interview with me for some tiny little local magazine and he was down to be in the first issue of a mag I was trying to get started, which was pretty cool of him to do since he was already pretty established at that point.
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Y’all need to show Kevin Wilkins some love. Toner in TWS was great stuff.
Boil the ocean, without a doubt the best to do it.
Phelps was a great writer too. His “Party’s Over” piece in the AVE SOTY issue is so good.
Never read Scott Bourne but should.
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Recent article by Jono Coote in Thrasher really impressed me, don't know what else this person has done though.
Jono is from the UK and he's fucking tight. Used to write for Sidewalk and just dropped a book called No Beer On A Dead Planet. Big into Stockwell, hardcore, and Howard Cooke's front truck. Really cool to see him work for Thrasher and rapidly get a mention on here.
As a kid I always liked that Mike O'Meally text in SLAP back in 2000 I think - Mediocrity Is Roadkill? Nothing out of the extraordinary but at the time it blew my mind just because it could. The French Sugar Skate Mag was also incredible at the time whilst under Benjamin Deberdt's direction.
I loved Scott Bourne's A Room With No Windows.
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Either Nieratko or Carnie, hands down.
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The guy who does the Thrasher video captions nobody else even comes close.
Hahaha
Agree with a lot of the names mentioned here. I’ll also throw in Wez Lundry, and honestly I like Gonz’s short stories.
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Where can I read Gonz stories?
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Where can I read Gonz stories?
He did them in some issues of thrasher from the 90s. Search through the archive on their website. Hopefully someone working there starts updating it again, it's been stagnant for years.
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The primary dude who writes for quartersnacks is really really good. I get stoked when I see especially wordy content. Also Clyde Singleton as many said. I’m also quite partial to my own investigative report on if bathing suits are gangster
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no one
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Gavin Hills - Munster Article in R.a.D.
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Dave Carnie all the way. He was so good at BB because his articles were never about skateboarding.
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Y’all need to show Kevin Wilkins some love. Toner in TWS was great stuff.
this is true, hearts sent.
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Best skateboard writing comes from boiltheocean.
OP needs to dig WAY deeper.
Of the top of my head, Mackenzie Eizenhour did a lot of great history lists for TWS. Maybe not the bestest writing, but some of the best researching, so maybe call that 'skate journalism'.
Chrome Ball does the best interviews. Boil the Ocean is the best overall... or maybe CR Stecyk for his contributions back in the 70s. That Dogtown article probably changed the trajectory of skateboarding more than any other piece of writing.
But in order to avoid the risk of future ad hominem attacks, I'm going to have to say Ceaser Singh is the greatest skateboard writer in history, ever.
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One of my favorite books is a gonz book called broken poems.
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One of my favorite books is a gonz book called broken poems.
I have that book too! My friend got it for me for a birthday, saw it once on eBay and was surprised how much it goes for.
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Jeff Grosso
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as a former journalism major, i wish you the best of luck in your future non-journalism related career
gotta say man, you called it. starting a job at a PR firm next Monday
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How did no one mention Chops of Chromeball?
I'm a Carnie fan, too.
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Skate writers:
Group 1: Unfunny pricks who confuse “controversy” or being “dumb” with comedy.
Group 2: Joe College guys who misuse scholarly terms and write mystical/pious sermons/antisermons.
Group 3: Industry guy dullards who write e.g. deafening tour articles about the tour in-jokes and “X is so good in person”.
Group 4: Pros.
Writers x 3:
Clyde has an individual point of view, is clear-sighted and expresses both efficiently. He is the best.
Snackman is a trained writer who writes to illuminate rather than impress and is always worth reading.
Despite membership of group 2 and insane self-impressedness squashed into pretend humility, Barrow is a worldly guy with an education who can occasionally keep a lid on it. If he can gain self-control and then write a book about skating it will be worth reading.
Hon. mention Boil the Ocean for doing something original but it’s just a bit Doug Brown for me.
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Andy Jenkins writes great stories.
(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-xfMnoCfN3u8%2FUDIpUZckk7I%2FAAAAAAAACoA%2FEPxvE_FyfmA%2Fs1600%2Fwrenchpilot01.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
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Boil the Ocean for doing something original but it’s just a bit Doug Brown for me.
Doug Brown wouldn't know a skate reference if Rosa was burying his hardware.
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as a former journalism major, i wish you the best of luck in your future non-journalism related career
gotta say man, you called it. starting a job at a PR firm next Monday
lol great bump.
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(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41Fm79VEGwL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
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Steve Berras Instagram captions
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—sb
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Y’all need to show Kevin Wilkins some love. Toner in TWS was great stuff.
Boil the ocean, without a doubt the best to do it.
Phelps was a great writer too. His “Party’s Over” piece in the AVE SOTY issue is so good.
Never read Scott Bourne but should.
Was surprised to see Kevins name not mentioned till page 3 as well. He's a ruler
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Carnie is the only skate writer who would also be a phenomenal writer OUTSIDE of skateboarding. Which makes him the best.
Being a good writer within skateboarding isn't that impressive or difficult, nor are skateboarders difficult to impress when it comes to writing. The proof of both is everywhere, everyday.
I'd venture to guess most of the writers in skateboarding (and mentioned in this thread) would also answer "Carnie", which further supports the notion.
Shalom.
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no one
Carnie ... he and Wilkins' Toner, along with anyone writing in the early Big Brothers ... (Earl, Cliver, McKee, Rocco) were the inspo ... def not me ... but thank you kindly. Book in the works. Not about skateboarding ;)
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Dave Carnie was such a great mix of hilarity, insightfulness, and storytelling. I knew people that bought subscriptions to Big Brother magazine because they wanted to read his articles more than anything else. That’s really saying something. Wish we could still get his commentary on today's skateboarding.
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Sizzla
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I'm a journalism student, and we had to do a piece on our favorite journalist/writer for my final project. I ended up doing mine on Carnie, but there are plenty of good writers out there.
Wondering what SLAP thinks. Phelps? (yes i know he was an editor) Nieratko? Earl Parker?
To me it is Carnie. I like Nieratko, but he just isn't as good. I'd like to read some of Earl Parker's pieces, but I have no idea how I could get a hold of those. I was too young when he wrote for Big Brother.
I also very much enjoyed Clyde Singleton's writing I used to read his blog and I always enjoyed his occasional contributions to Big Brother or Transworld.
there's some scans online, and you may live close to one of those freeskatelibrary places that has some issues you can read. we have an indoor park/skateboard museum in my town that has pretty much every issue of big brother, i think.
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Mike Christie. Beggars garden is an amazing read. Vancouver legend as well.
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I'm a journalism student, and we had to do a piece on our favorite journalist/writer for my final project. I ended up doing mine on Carnie, but there are plenty of good writers out there.
Wondering what SLAP thinks. Phelps? (yes i know he was an editor) Nieratko? Earl Parker?
To me it is Carnie. I like Nieratko, but he just isn't as good. I'd like to read some of Earl Parker's pieces, but I have no idea how I could get a hold of those. I was too young when he wrote for Big Brother.
I also very much enjoyed Clyde Singleton's writing I used to read his blog and I always enjoyed his occasional contributions to Big Brother or Transworld.
there's some scans online, and you may live close to one of those freeskatelibrary places that has some issues you can read. we have an indoor park/skateboard museum in my town that has pretty much every issue of big brother, i think.
Issue 1 - http://www.snakewilliams.com/images/extras/bigbrother1.pdf
Issue 2 - http://www.snakewilliams.com/images/extras/bigbrother2.pdf
Issue 3 - http://www.snakewilliams.com/images/extras/bigbrother3.pdf
Issue 5 - http://www.snakewilliams.com/images/extras/bigbrother5.pdf
Issue 7 - http://www.snakewilliams.com/images/extras/bigbrother7.pdf
Issue 10 - http://www.snakewilliams.com/images/extras/bigbrother10.pdf
Issue 14 - http://www.snakewilliams.com/images/extras/bigbrother14.pdf
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How did no one mention Chops of Chromeball?
I'm a Carnie fan, too.
wait, WHAT??? Fuck.
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I love Sieben, but I’m also incredibly biased
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Dave Carnie was such a great mix of hilarity, insightfulness, and storytelling. I knew people that bought subscriptions to Big Brother magazine because they wanted to read his articles more than anything else. That’s really saying something. Wish we could still get his commentary on today's skateboarding.
For what it’s worth, he’s been writing here and there in
Strangelove’s Skateboards blawg.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CbVrqXYvOtx/?utm_medium=copy_link
And of course, there’s Dave’s fictional stuff from his collages. absolutely unrelated to skateboarding.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B94TEhNJCjv/?utm_medium=copy_link
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Lot29
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thought this was a graffiti thread
who else painted besides Mu$kA?
theres atleast one pro who really gets it in with bombing and isnt corny about it aka keeps it seperate from skating and doesnt talk about it. and im not talking about big moe bobby worrest bc he loves talking about how he doesnt like talking about it.
back to business im gonna go with the anthony pappalardo dude. but just bc hes always letting us know he isnt the other pappalardo, as if anyone thinks that one is writing articles about ausyn gillette for jenkem or whatever he does.
free max b
snitchin
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thought this was a graffiti thread
who else painted besides Mu$kA?
theres atleast one pro who really gets it in with bombing and isnt corny about it aka keeps it seperate from skating and doesnt talk about it. and im not talking about big moe bobby worrest bc he loves talking about how he doesnt like talking about it.
back to business im gonna go with the anthony pappalardo dude. but just bc hes always letting us know he isnt the other pappalardo, as if anyone thinks that one is writing articles about ausyn gillette for jenkem or whatever he does.
free max b
snitchin
Dont nobody snitch on big Rizzy
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I used to love the gonz short stories in thrasher.. . .
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tic tac: a peculiar analogy between skateboarding and tourette's syndrome, by dave carnie
March 29, 2022
A couple years ago I read a book by the late neurologist, Dr. Oliver Sacks, titled, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. (Sacks is also the author of the book-cum-movie Awakenings). Sacks employs a jaunty literary style in the stories he writes about his patients and the bizarre neurological disorders they suffer from. There is, for instance, a series of patients who can no longer recognize faces or common objects; others can’t remember their pasts, some can only remember their distant pasts, but nothing just seconds prior; some have phantom or alien limbs; and one mistakes his wife for a hat—it’s a bizarre and fascinating book, I’d even say it’s amusing, except that it’s all real and thus rather disturbing. Chapter 10, “Witty Ticcy Ray,” was particularly interesting to me because I found in it a peculiar connection to skateboarding.
Ray suffered from Tourette Syndrome. Today Tourette’s is a fairly well known condition. I’ve heard jokes about it for as long as I can remember, there’s a reality TV show dedicated to it (Raising Tourette’s), and I’ve always felt that the over-caffeinated South Park character, Tweak, was a nod to the disease, but at the time of the book’s publication (1985) Tourette’s wasn’t as familiar and required explanation. It was here that I first thought of Tourette’s in relation to skateboarding:
Tourette’s syndrome … is characterized by an excess of nervous energy, and a great production and extravagance of strange motions and notions: tics, jerks, mannerisms, grimaces, noises, curses, involuntary imitations and compulsions of all sorts, with an odd elfin humor and a tendency to antic and outlandish kinds of play.
That description could apply, at least in part, to a good number of skateboarders I knew growing up, myself included. (If ADD had been in vogue back then, my brother and I would surely have been on Ritalin because we were spazzes.) Skateboarding has, traditionally, been populated by a peculiar group of characters who, for whatever reason, seem to either enjoy the role of being an outcast, or are simply outcasts to begin with, and have sought refuge in a culture that welcomes weirdos and encourages individualism. In short, skateboarders have an affinity for “odd elfin humor and a tendency to antic and outlandish kinds of play” that are generally not acceptable in polite company. Sacks’ portrayal of Tourette’s could also be used to describe the stereotypical artist-type, or any number of personalities who have nervous energy and don’t fit in to “normal society.”
(Note: In no way do I wish to diminish the gravity of Tourette’s Syndrome by frivolously comparing it to skateboarding. This article is purely an intellectual pursuit. I discovered some interesting parallels between the identity issues a Tourette’s patient faces with those that have beleaguered skateboarding throughout its short history. There is, of course, a difference between an artist/skater and someone with Tourette’s: the latter is not free to choose their condition.)
This is what English people sound like to me all the time, but apparently this group has Tourette’s?
Sacks’ initial description of Witty Ticcy Ray, and how his Tourette’s manifests itself, illustrates both a disheartening condition in an extremely interesting and resilient character:
When I first saw Ray he was 24 years old, and almost incapacitated by multiple tics of extreme violence coming in volleys every few seconds. He had been subject to these since the age of four and severely stigmatized by the attention they aroused, though his high intelligence, his wit, his strength of character, and sense of reality enabled him to pass successfully through school and college, and to be valued and loved by a few friends and his wife. Since leaving college, however, he had been fired from a dozen jobs—always because of tics, never for incompetence—was continually in crises of one sort and another, usually caused by his impatience, his pugnacity, and his coarse, brilliant “chutzpah,” and had found his marriage threatened by involuntary cries of, “Fuck!” “Shit!” and so on, which would burst from him at times of sexual excitement. He was (like many Touretters) remarkably musical, and could scarcely have survived—emotionally or economically—had he not been a weekend jazz drummer of real virtuosity, famous for his sudden and wild extemporizations, which would arise from a tic or a compulsive hitting of a drum and would instantly be made the nucleus of a wild and wonderful improvisation, so that the “sudden intruder” would be turned to brilliant advantage. His Tourette’s was also of advantage in various games, especially ping pong, at which he excelled, partly in consequence of his abnormal quickness of reflex and reaction, but especially, again, because of “improvisations,” “very sudden, nervous, frivolous shots” (in his own words), which were so unexpected and startling as to be virtually unanswerable.
I would love to meet Ray. He sounds like a very interesting person. However, most people don’t get to read the charming description on paper before they meet him. Like most handicaps, people are introduced to the condition before the person, if indeed they ever make it past the person’s condition.
I always thought this sequence of Daewon from Big Brother #2 had a touch of the Tourette’s.
Again, Tourette’s is a neurological syndrome, but from a behavioral perspective, it sounds a little like a skateboarder: athletic and creative, but hyper, impatient, and “doesn’t work well with others.” That’s probably why the independent, authority-free landscape that skateboarding offers is fertile ground for this type of personality. Unfortunately for the Touretter, skateboarding is not a treatment option (that I know of anyway? FRIN). There are, though, dopamine antagonists, such as haloperidol (commonly known as, Haldol), which can smother or at least reduce a Touretter’s tics. Ray was very interested in treatment, but at the same time he was skeptical of what the medication would do to him—he wasn’t so much concerned about physical side effects as he was worried about what it would do to himself, his self Self, his identity:
“Suppose you could take away the tics,” [Ray] said. “What would be left? I consist of tics—there is nothing else.” He seemed, at least jokingly, to have little sense of his identity except as a ticqueur: he called himself “the ticcer of President’s Broadway,” and spoke of himself, in the third person, as “witty ticcy Ray,” adding that he was so prone to “ticcy witticisms and witty ticcicisms” that he scarcely knew whether it was a gift or a curse. He said he could not imagine life without Tourette’s, nor was he sure he would care for it.
But after a successful test run on a very low dosage of Haldol, both Ray and Dr. Sacks decided to give the treatment a chance.
Less than a week after Ray’s first foray into tic-less reality under the influence of Haldol, he returned to Dr. Sacks’ office with a black eye and a broken nose. As a ticquer, Ray was prone to quick, spontaneous movement and, apparently, one of his favorite hobbies was dashing in and out of revolving doors. While under the influence of Haldol, however, he made an attempt at one of his favorite revolving doors and, as evidenced by his injuries, the drug had an adverse affect on his timing.
“So much for your fucking Haldol,” Witty Ticcy Ray said.
Ray was very frustrated by this Haldol experience. It made him “better” by society’s standards, but it also made him less of who he was and how he identified himself. “Having had Tourette’s since the age of four,” Sacks wrote, “Ray had no experience of any normal life: he was heavily dependent on his exotic disease and, not unnaturally, employed and exploited it in various ways.”
Andrew Reynolds is not diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome, but he was the first person I thought of when I started writing this. Don’t we all do this to some degree?
If we imagine “skateboarding” as a Being, like an individual with Tourette’s, it could be said that skateboarding, too, was born with a disorder, or “defective.” In its infancy, skating was nothing more than a substitute for surfing when the waves were flat, and by the time it came into its own identity, it was openly disparaged by the general public and deemed dangerous and illegal in cities across the country. Anybody who skated in the latter part of last century (!!!) can remember constantly being hassled by cops and security guards not to mention the derision and hostility the general public openly heaped upon us. For the first three decades of its existence, skateboarding was considered wrong, dangerous, and it was outlawed.
But skateboarders, like punk rockers, relished their rebel status and skateboarding’s outlaw nature made it all the more attractive to its constituents. It was “wrong,” and, as anyone knows: wrong = fun. (This is not the place to get into it, but compare the conservative/Christian/Republican community’s recent zeal for embracing and celebrating politically incorrect—“wrong”—language, symbols, and ideology.)
So it’s not difficult to understand why any disturbance of its outlaw identity would be met with resistance. Older skateboarders, much like Ray, are uncomfortable with seeing skateboarding’s “tics” being smoothed over because those tics are its very identity. And this is the question that has been plaguing skateboarding for decades: how does skateboarding stay true to its fucked-up outlaw identity while also being tolerated by society at large? (Is it a question? And has it really been “plaguing” skateboarding? In my opinion, no. No one cares… but there are still more words in this stupid article, so we must press on.)
There have been many in the skateboard community, myself included, who bemoan any changes that move in the direction of organization and/or sport. In short, anything that attempts to improve skateboarding’s image and make it more palatable is frowned upon. Skateboarding’s inclusion in the Olympics is a prime example of something that has raised skateboarding’s collective ire. This, for instance, was the top post on the SLAP message board in my search for “Olympics”:
“I want to punch so badly the pro skaters who pushed skateboarding in Olympics. Don't they realize this is not just another contest? Skateboarding being included in the Olympics with all of it's consequences might potentially kill skateboarding in it's essence completely and then the core street rats won't matter, not even as important media as Thrasher is could save it.”
—The Lap Dancer, June 02, 2016, 02:12:41 AM
“I want to punch so badly…” You’ll note that I did not edit The Lap Dancer’s words.
Trinity Lewis teaches us how to tic-tac in this video, but he also has a peculiar tic that causes him to flip out without tact for no reason at all.
I’m of the opinion that skateboarding is not a sport and thus I don’t particularly care for the televised contests that attempt to treat skateboarding as such. I identify with skateboarding as an outlaw culture. I got into skating precisely because it didn’t contain all the trappings of traditional sports, so the idea of skateboarding being welcomed on to a stage usually reserved for professional athletes is a little disconcerting. At the same time, I realized many years ago that it’s futile to try and affect the direction skateboarding is going because skateboarding is going to go where skateboarding is going to go whether I like it or not. Skateboarding’s steering wheel is controlled by the kids—as it should be. I also like to keep in mind that being concerned about the future of skateboarding is like being concerned about the future of hula hooping—in the grand scheme of things, who gives a shit? I hope that kids are still riding skateboards (or hoverboards?) after I die, but I don’t care whether they’re doing it while wearing baseball uniforms with numbers on them or leather jackets with Crass patches on the back. I will only say that I would beware of anyone who is a proponent of the sport of skateboarding because, as history has shown, they are not so much interested Skateboarding as they are in $kateboarding.
My hunch, though, is that skateboarding will continue rolling along in much the way it always has: weird and dysfunctional, but able to mix with polite company when required. Which is essentially what happened with Witty Ticcy Ray. After much counseling and experimenting with his dosage of Haldol, Ray was able to achieve an unusual balance that might be a metaphor for the future of skateboarding:
[Ray] found that on Haldol he was musically “dull,” average, competent, but lacking energy, enthusiasm, extravagance and joy. He no longer had tics or compulsive hitting of the drums—but he no longer had wild and creative surges. As this pattern became clear to him, and after discussing it with me, Ray made a momentous decision: he would take Haldol “dutifully” throughout the working week, but would take himself off it, and “let fly,” at weekends. This he has done for the past three years. So now there are two Rays—on and off Haldol. There is the sober citizen, the calm deliberator, from Monday to Friday; and there is “witty ticcy Ray,” frivolous, frenetic, inspired, at weekends.
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me
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no one
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Mark Whitely inspired me to start writing as a youth. So big ups to MW
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Clyde
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Sean Cliver had some gems in the early big brother days.
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Jim T
(https://i.ibb.co/19YnTjG/jim-thiebaud-skateboard-book-1991-1-0861e9f43839e9059dd06a065d858d91.jpg) (https://ibb.co/19YnTjG)
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Interview with Dave Carnie in Jenkem:
https://www.jenkemmag.com/home/2023/04/27/the-dave-carnie-interview/
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Interview with Dave Carnie in Jenkem:
https://www.jenkemmag.com/home/2023/04/27/the-dave-carnie-interview/
Great interview. I do wish they asked Dave about the current status of whale cock skateboards
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Expand Quote
Interview with Dave Carnie in Jenkem:
https://www.jenkemmag.com/home/2023/04/27/the-dave-carnie-interview/
Great interview. I do wish they asked Dave about the current status of whale cock skateboards
And Hellvetica
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Clyde
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Ed Templeton
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gus bus
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Nieretko or Carnie. Yup. Their articles in Big Brother (don’t remember which one… probably Carnie) stood out and were completely engaging. The last Big Brother magazine that was really political was a great read.
Also, Ted Barrow is a great writer.
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Nieretko
Holy shit, are you kidding?
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tic tac: a peculiar analogy between skateboarding and tourette's syndrome, by dave carnie
March 29, 2022
A couple years ago I read a book by the late neurologist, Dr. Oliver Sacks, titled, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. (Sacks is also the author of the book-cum-movie Awakenings). Sacks employs a jaunty literary style in the stories he writes about his patients and the bizarre neurological disorders they suffer from. There is, for instance, a series of patients who can no longer recognize faces or common objects; others can’t remember their pasts, some can only remember their distant pasts, but nothing just seconds prior; some have phantom or alien limbs; and one mistakes his wife for a hat—it’s a bizarre and fascinating book, I’d even say it’s amusing, except that it’s all real and thus rather disturbing. Chapter 10, “Witty Ticcy Ray,” was particularly interesting to me because I found in it a peculiar connection to skateboarding.
Ray suffered from Tourette Syndrome. Today Tourette’s is a fairly well known condition. I’ve heard jokes about it for as long as I can remember, there’s a reality TV show dedicated to it (Raising Tourette’s), and I’ve always felt that the over-caffeinated South Park character, Tweak, was a nod to the disease, but at the time of the book’s publication (1985) Tourette’s wasn’t as familiar and required explanation. It was here that I first thought of Tourette’s in relation to skateboarding:
Tourette’s syndrome … is characterized by an excess of nervous energy, and a great production and extravagance of strange motions and notions: tics, jerks, mannerisms, grimaces, noises, curses, involuntary imitations and compulsions of all sorts, with an odd elfin humor and a tendency to antic and outlandish kinds of play.
That description could apply, at least in part, to a good number of skateboarders I knew growing up, myself included. (If ADD had been in vogue back then, my brother and I would surely have been on Ritalin because we were spazzes.) Skateboarding has, traditionally, been populated by a peculiar group of characters who, for whatever reason, seem to either enjoy the role of being an outcast, or are simply outcasts to begin with, and have sought refuge in a culture that welcomes weirdos and encourages individualism. In short, skateboarders have an affinity for “odd elfin humor and a tendency to antic and outlandish kinds of play” that are generally not acceptable in polite company. Sacks’ portrayal of Tourette’s could also be used to describe the stereotypical artist-type, or any number of personalities who have nervous energy and don’t fit in to “normal society.”
(Note: In no way do I wish to diminish the gravity of Tourette’s Syndrome by frivolously comparing it to skateboarding. This article is purely an intellectual pursuit. I discovered some interesting parallels between the identity issues a Tourette’s patient faces with those that have beleaguered skateboarding throughout its short history. There is, of course, a difference between an artist/skater and someone with Tourette’s: the latter is not free to choose their condition.)
This is what English people sound like to me all the time, but apparently this group has Tourette’s?
Sacks’ initial description of Witty Ticcy Ray, and how his Tourette’s manifests itself, illustrates both a disheartening condition in an extremely interesting and resilient character:
When I first saw Ray he was 24 years old, and almost incapacitated by multiple tics of extreme violence coming in volleys every few seconds. He had been subject to these since the age of four and severely stigmatized by the attention they aroused, though his high intelligence, his wit, his strength of character, and sense of reality enabled him to pass successfully through school and college, and to be valued and loved by a few friends and his wife. Since leaving college, however, he had been fired from a dozen jobs—always because of tics, never for incompetence—was continually in crises of one sort and another, usually caused by his impatience, his pugnacity, and his coarse, brilliant “chutzpah,” and had found his marriage threatened by involuntary cries of, “Fuck!” “Shit!” and so on, which would burst from him at times of sexual excitement. He was (like many Touretters) remarkably musical, and could scarcely have survived—emotionally or economically—had he not been a weekend jazz drummer of real virtuosity, famous for his sudden and wild extemporizations, which would arise from a tic or a compulsive hitting of a drum and would instantly be made the nucleus of a wild and wonderful improvisation, so that the “sudden intruder” would be turned to brilliant advantage. His Tourette’s was also of advantage in various games, especially ping pong, at which he excelled, partly in consequence of his abnormal quickness of reflex and reaction, but especially, again, because of “improvisations,” “very sudden, nervous, frivolous shots” (in his own words), which were so unexpected and startling as to be virtually unanswerable.
I would love to meet Ray. He sounds like a very interesting person. However, most people don’t get to read the charming description on paper before they meet him. Like most handicaps, people are introduced to the condition before the person, if indeed they ever make it past the person’s condition.
I always thought this sequence of Daewon from Big Brother #2 had a touch of the Tourette’s.
Again, Tourette’s is a neurological syndrome, but from a behavioral perspective, it sounds a little like a skateboarder: athletic and creative, but hyper, impatient, and “doesn’t work well with others.” That’s probably why the independent, authority-free landscape that skateboarding offers is fertile ground for this type of personality. Unfortunately for the Touretter, skateboarding is not a treatment option (that I know of anyway? FRIN). There are, though, dopamine antagonists, such as haloperidol (commonly known as, Haldol), which can smother or at least reduce a Touretter’s tics. Ray was very interested in treatment, but at the same time he was skeptical of what the medication would do to him—he wasn’t so much concerned about physical side effects as he was worried about what it would do to himself, his self Self, his identity:
“Suppose you could take away the tics,” [Ray] said. “What would be left? I consist of tics—there is nothing else.” He seemed, at least jokingly, to have little sense of his identity except as a ticqueur: he called himself “the ticcer of President’s Broadway,” and spoke of himself, in the third person, as “witty ticcy Ray,” adding that he was so prone to “ticcy witticisms and witty ticcicisms” that he scarcely knew whether it was a gift or a curse. He said he could not imagine life without Tourette’s, nor was he sure he would care for it.
But after a successful test run on a very low dosage of Haldol, both Ray and Dr. Sacks decided to give the treatment a chance.
Less than a week after Ray’s first foray into tic-less reality under the influence of Haldol, he returned to Dr. Sacks’ office with a black eye and a broken nose. As a ticquer, Ray was prone to quick, spontaneous movement and, apparently, one of his favorite hobbies was dashing in and out of revolving doors. While under the influence of Haldol, however, he made an attempt at one of his favorite revolving doors and, as evidenced by his injuries, the drug had an adverse affect on his timing.
“So much for your fucking Haldol,” Witty Ticcy Ray said.
Ray was very frustrated by this Haldol experience. It made him “better” by society’s standards, but it also made him less of who he was and how he identified himself. “Having had Tourette’s since the age of four,” Sacks wrote, “Ray had no experience of any normal life: he was heavily dependent on his exotic disease and, not unnaturally, employed and exploited it in various ways.”
Andrew Reynolds is not diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome, but he was the first person I thought of when I started writing this. Don’t we all do this to some degree?
If we imagine “skateboarding” as a Being, like an individual with Tourette’s, it could be said that skateboarding, too, was born with a disorder, or “defective.” In its infancy, skating was nothing more than a substitute for surfing when the waves were flat, and by the time it came into its own identity, it was openly disparaged by the general public and deemed dangerous and illegal in cities across the country. Anybody who skated in the latter part of last century (!!!) can remember constantly being hassled by cops and security guards not to mention the derision and hostility the general public openly heaped upon us. For the first three decades of its existence, skateboarding was considered wrong, dangerous, and it was outlawed.
But skateboarders, like punk rockers, relished their rebel status and skateboarding’s outlaw nature made it all the more attractive to its constituents. It was “wrong,” and, as anyone knows: wrong = fun. (This is not the place to get into it, but compare the conservative/Christian/Republican community’s recent zeal for embracing and celebrating politically incorrect—“wrong”—language, symbols, and ideology.)
So it’s not difficult to understand why any disturbance of its outlaw identity would be met with resistance. Older skateboarders, much like Ray, are uncomfortable with seeing skateboarding’s “tics” being smoothed over because those tics are its very identity. And this is the question that has been plaguing skateboarding for decades: how does skateboarding stay true to its fucked-up outlaw identity while also being tolerated by society at large? (Is it a question? And has it really been “plaguing” skateboarding? In my opinion, no. No one cares… but there are still more words in this stupid article, so we must press on.)
There have been many in the skateboard community, myself included, who bemoan any changes that move in the direction of organization and/or sport. In short, anything that attempts to improve skateboarding’s image and make it more palatable is frowned upon. Skateboarding’s inclusion in the Olympics is a prime example of something that has raised skateboarding’s collective ire. This, for instance, was the top post on the SLAP message board in my search for “Olympics”:
“I want to punch so badly the pro skaters who pushed skateboarding in Olympics. Don't they realize this is not just another contest? Skateboarding being included in the Olympics with all of it's consequences might potentially kill skateboarding in it's essence completely and then the core street rats won't matter, not even as important media as Thrasher is could save it.”
—The Lap Dancer, June 02, 2016, 02:12:41 AM
“I want to punch so badly…” You’ll note that I did not edit The Lap Dancer’s words.
Trinity Lewis teaches us how to tic-tac in this video, but he also has a peculiar tic that causes him to flip out without tact for no reason at all.
I’m of the opinion that skateboarding is not a sport and thus I don’t particularly care for the televised contests that attempt to treat skateboarding as such. I identify with skateboarding as an outlaw culture. I got into skating precisely because it didn’t contain all the trappings of traditional sports, so the idea of skateboarding being welcomed on to a stage usually reserved for professional athletes is a little disconcerting. At the same time, I realized many years ago that it’s futile to try and affect the direction skateboarding is going because skateboarding is going to go where skateboarding is going to go whether I like it or not. Skateboarding’s steering wheel is controlled by the kids—as it should be. I also like to keep in mind that being concerned about the future of skateboarding is like being concerned about the future of hula hooping—in the grand scheme of things, who gives a shit? I hope that kids are still riding skateboards (or hoverboards?) after I die, but I don’t care whether they’re doing it while wearing baseball uniforms with numbers on them or leather jackets with Crass patches on the back. I will only say that I would beware of anyone who is a proponent of the sport of skateboarding because, as history has shown, they are not so much interested Skateboarding as they are in $kateboarding.
My hunch, though, is that skateboarding will continue rolling along in much the way it always has: weird and dysfunctional, but able to mix with polite company when required. Which is essentially what happened with Witty Ticcy Ray. After much counseling and experimenting with his dosage of Haldol, Ray was able to achieve an unusual balance that might be a metaphor for the future of skateboarding:
[Ray] found that on Haldol he was musically “dull,” average, competent, but lacking energy, enthusiasm, extravagance and joy. He no longer had tics or compulsive hitting of the drums—but he no longer had wild and creative surges. As this pattern became clear to him, and after discussing it with me, Ray made a momentous decision: he would take Haldol “dutifully” throughout the working week, but would take himself off it, and “let fly,” at weekends. This he has done for the past three years. So now there are two Rays—on and off Haldol. There is the sober citizen, the calm deliberator, from Monday to Friday; and there is “witty ticcy Ray,” frivolous, frenetic, inspired, at weekends.
J quoting this for its obsurd length
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This reminds me... didn't Marc Johnson write a sci/fi novel? Ive tried finding it but can't seem to pull it up. Any experts here know anything about it?
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This reminds me... didn't Marc Johnson write a sci/fi novel? Ive tried finding it but can't seem to pull it up. Any experts here know anything about it?
There is a less than 0% chance Marc Johnson wrote a novel.
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Olly Todd writes poetry these days
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Sean Cliver.
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Black Arms wrote a book on a typewriter in gay Paree.
never read it but apparently that happened. Carn Carn is the funniest, consistently. Earl Parker was abstract and could be entertaining but not a long form writer.
Gershon writes poetry. as does Mike V. what is it with tough skaters and poetry? if you tell me Bo Turner has a book of poems out I'm jumping in front of a schoolbus full of nerds.
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Earl Parker is a legend
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Wonder if any other Canadians rember Jacob “da writer” Smid…by no means the best, but his articles in sbc were always entertaining.
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Pete Glover: https://warmupzone.com/
Clyde Singleton in old Skateboarder mags.
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farran is the only real answer
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cole nowicki
https://simplemagic.substack.com/p/building-the-third-place?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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Walker Ryan is out there somewhere clenching his fist like the Arthur meme because he wasn’t listed on the poll
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Boil the Ocean was great. or that blog about Jason Lee and Bastien doing cocaine and Ed Templeton doing cuckhold with Deanna. forget the name but it was lifelike fan fiction.
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cole nowicki
https://simplemagic.substack.com/p/building-the-third-place?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
This is great thank you for sharing
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no one
Just fucking with you, Mark Whiteley or Chops.
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Stecyk & Carnie (https://skateboardinghalloffame.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2010-shof-cr-stecyk-4-768x512.jpg)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Invert_by_Dave_Carnie.jpg)
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All of my homies on slap of course! Some of the best writing is on this website
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Zach Baker
Chris Milic write up
https://quartersnacks.com/2022/12/the-best-skate-videos-parts-of-2022-qs-readers-poll-results/
Max Palmer write up
https://quartersnacks.com/2021/12/the-best-skate-videos-parts-of-2021-qs-readers-poll-results/
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Anthony pappalardo :)
just kidding boil the oceans p great
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I'm still bummed on nieratko for his horrible Marissa make over interview. Shit was super lame.
Which interview is this?
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That big cat Cheetah Sheets wrote some stuff I can't stop thinking about
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Carnie best
Beachy worst
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Boil the Ocean was great. or that blog about Jason Lee and Bastien doing cocaine and Ed Templeton doing cuckhold with Deanna. forget the name but it was lifelike fan fiction.
That's http://secondhandembarrassment.blogspot.com
Boil The Ocean is still going and is still going and yes he's one of the best. https://boiltheocean.wordpress.com
All of my homies on slap of course! Some of the best writing is on this website
Let's not all forget the god Bipsmound.
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tim o'connor has written some really stupid/funny articles. it comes through that he was enjoying writing them. they made me think a lot about language use as a teenager.
michael sieben has a weird sense of humour and i love it.
i agree with carnie being good, though many times i felt he was drawing too much attention to himself/the writing and thus a little too cheesy for me.
when i subscribed to thrasher in the 00s/10s, i loved michael burnett's articles. if it wasn't for him, i'd never hear about buffalo '66.
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Wonder if any other Canadians rember Jacob “da writer” Smid…by no means the best, but his articles in sbc were always entertaining.
Yeah, I remember some of his stuff, usually near the back of the mag. I remember he mentioned once that you shouldn't drive a pickup truck, and "you know the reason why." I always assumed it was because of the hillbilly toxic masculinity vibe it can give off. I'm not totally sold on that, I don't think everyone who drives a truck is a toxic hillbilly, but that was my guess.
I guess Ted Barrow is my first choice for skate-related writing these days. Zach Baker is also solid. Also like Cole Nowicki's simpler approach to Simple Magic. I thought Sieben wrote some really funny stuff in old Thrashers as well.
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tim o'connor has written some really stupid/funny articles. it comes through that he was enjoying writing them. they made me think a lot about language use as a teenager.
michael sieben has a weird sense of humour and i love it.
i agree with carnie being good, though many times i felt he was drawing too much attention to himself/the writing and thus a little too cheesy for me.
when i subscribed to thrasher in the 00s/10s, i loved michael burnett's articles. if it wasn't for him, i'd never hear about buffalo '66.
to me personally, Tim O'Connor is the worst. yes, he enjoyed writing them but nobody else enjoyed reading them. you're not wrong about Carn-Carns being self indulgent but so was Tim O. you'd always hear how funny he was from tour articles but when it was time to deliver the funny, he fell short. he was cringe on any guest appearances with Bam too. I'm awkward on camera as well but for how funny he was billed as, it feels like gaslighting. and I only tolerate gaslighting from hot women.
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Backside Skate magazine's newest issue online is dedicated to the writing of Mackenzie Eisenhour (deadhippie on IG).
It's pretty great.
https://backsideskatemag.com/backside-volume20/ (https://backsideskatemag.com/backside-volume20/)