An alley-oop to god
Plus: Vans splurges on caviar while 82 former employees update their LinkedIns, Tacky produces the rarest of resources, Simon Bannerot reaches up to a higher power, and more.
The definitive weekly ranking and analysis of all the skateboarding and other things online that I cannot stop consuming and how it makes me feel, personally.
Curren, caviar, cocktails, and cuts
Rank: -82
Mood: 🧐
There's room, just some, perhaps an inch or two that lets the light of this particular reasoning in, that would allow for some sympathy in a situation such as the one Vans found itself in last week.
Could the brand marketers and event coordinators who dreamt up and planned the purposefully audacious and over-the-top release party for Curren Caples' signature model shoe, The Curren, have known how this, even satirical, show of excess — that included bringing hundreds of skaters, media, and influencers out into the desert to indulge in, as detailed in the below YouTube video description, "a broken full pipe under a chandelier... the sounds of yacht rock from a string quartet, rich caviar, and smells of leather scented cologne permeating through the air" — would take place just two weeks after VF Corp laid off 82 employees from Vans and a total of 400 hundred from VF Corp's suite of companies?
Doubtful. It's likely that a number of those brand marketers and event coordinators were laid off before they could see their project fulfilled. Yet, fulfilled it was.
Would it be fair to the Vans employees left, especially Caples, who spent years on the periphery of relevance before coming into his own over these last few years, to cancel the party celebrating his career-defining achievement? Could it have even been stopped? The product marketing campaign was already in full swing before the layoffs. I went to the mall last week and the Vans store had a large The Curren window display (I also stuck my head into a Zumiez — did you know Globe sells complete skateboards?).
It wasn't an enviable position to be in, and perhaps Vans thought scrapping the event in a show of solidarity or (further) belt-tightening to be an even worse signal, but the direction they chose paints a particularly vulgar picture: imagine those 82 people watching their former colleagues parade around poolside on Instagram while they update their LinkedIn profiles.
On Wednesday, VF Corp informed investors that, as Reuters reports, its "fourth-quarter revenue fell 5% to $2.14 billion from a year ago, missing analysts' average estimate of $2.18 billion... sending its shares down about 11% in premarket trading."
The only sensible reason
Rank: 1
Mood: 🎪
Considering the above and the general state of things, it's not unfair to ask why someone would want to start a skateboarding company now. From mercurial markets to tariffs to the world as we know it being on the precipice of a future that looks a lot like hundreds of years into the past, it's, for lack of a better description, a lot.
Still, people are going for it. Life moves forward, and Leo Baker, having moved on from Glue Skateboards, recently announced and premiered the first video for his new board company, Tacky Joy Factory.
Following what they describe as a rather messy falling out with Glue, Baker was initially uncertain of their next steps, as told to Ted Schmitz in Thrasher.
After, I was debating like, Man, should I just get a board sponsor so I don't have to fuck with anything chaotic like that ever again? But in my gut, I was like, There's just so much stuff that I want to do and that I want to make. I really sat with it for a while and then let my intuition guide me on that. My gut was just like, Fucking do it.
And do it they have. Along with help from behind the scenes from Alex White, Baker assembled a small team of relative unknown rippers, who all work regular jobs as barbacks, Old Navy employees, and handymen, and asked them to do the job of sponsored skateboarders: skate and film clips. It really is that simple when you put it like that. It's now Baker's job to help us care about these skaters and their clips. To promote them and make us want to see more.
He seems up for it, even editing the video and creating the soundtrack himself — a serious lift for little financial reward. But Baker knows this isn't a "lucrative business," it's about more than that.
I feel like it's more pertinent than ever to have a company called the Joy Factory. I’m like, Let’s just do whatever we can to produce joy. Despite the fucking horrors, this is like a thing to remind us that we can still have fun, skate and, you know, just be good people. Alex and I were laughing because I'm like, This is the trajectory of a skate brand: You start a company; you put a video out; a bunch of people talk shit about it on the internet; people talk shit about you, and then you do it again. But regardless, I'm just doing it to have a good time. This is where I find joy. I'm gonna keep doing it, and people are gonna be fucking haters. I know it. I'm like, Come forth. I'm giving you purpose, too.
Why would someone start a skateboarding company at this bleak crossroads in history? To produce joy is the only sensible reason.
That's bait
Rank: Ugh
Mood: 😒🤮
It is best to pay no heed to the desperate mewlings of bigoted far-right pundits like Tim Pool and stay aware of what they're up to. Conflicting, yes, and I've written on and contributed many times to each, but there is an important distinction, as I've noted previously.
"While it’s important to keep an eye on these jackasses and push back when necessary, it’s also important to ignore them whenever possible. To not take the bait and share their posts to “dunk” on their dumbassery because that [engagement is] exactly what they want..."
Pool recently teased online that he's going to sell skateboarders under the name "Slave," which was the moniker of Ben Horton's skateboard company for nearly 20 years before he decided to rebrand, launching Glass House Skateboards last week. In an interview with Jenkem, Horton said this of the switch.
It has been 18 years and $lave has run its course. I’m thankful to have something last this long, but I’ve been wanting to work on something new, with a new approach to modern issues. I don’t know what will happen, but I guess I’ll find out.
That didn't stop ShreddER News, a pitiful TMZ clone that is nauseatingly obsequious toward Pool, from framing the rebrand as $lave being a victim of "cancel culture," or whatever, and Pool being unafraid of taking on the wokes by selling skateboards with names and logos that might offend.
lol
This right here is the stuff to ignore. Pool correctly recognizes that the majority of skateboarders see him as a dipshit desperate to make space for himself in the culture, and this is a clear play to troll the perceived enemy and target of his bileful ideology and signal to those who follow it that he is some sort of crusader for... free speech? Anti-woke stuff? From a messaging perspective, it's never quite clear what the purpose of these stunts is. The end goal is obvious: everything Pool and his ilk do is a means of generating outrage and spurring their followers to give them money.
Is writing this giving the stunt more ink than it deserves? Probably. But, if there's a useful purpose, it's that this is another opportunity to remind folks, in detail, how much of a fucking idiot Pool is.
An alley-oop to god
Rank: 1
Mood: 👼
Have you seen this, this real-life miracle? How else would you describe an act that tests our shared understanding of reality in such a way? If you happened to come across these staggered brick embankments, would you think this — this — was something not only reasonable to consider but possible to land?
Thankfully, for those of us at home, Simon Bannerot doesn't think within such limited, human confines. He just lays down a few signs, runs, jumps on his board, and commits. Commits to whatever may come:
It's an alley-oop from Bannerot to some higher power that makes him spin and wait fifteen or so feet above the ground, in a moment that must stretch on forever if you're the one up there, before granting him permission to ride away and us the privilege to watch.
Something to consider: Instead of stopping this, our governments would rather censor their citizenry, deport, or send them to prison for speaking out about it. This is what politicians, lobbyists, and shrieking pundits have spent nearly two years defending. An abject evil that's become so normalized it drives one mad — and it should. Even Israel is surprised that they've been able to commit this genocide with no actual pushback from their Western benefactors. For nearly a century, they've enacted imperial slaughter with impunity and glee. We will all pay for this.
Michael Fakhri
Good thing:
Hanif Abdurraqib
A good local reportage thing:
Snack
Hey, we can still give Curren his flowers, he doesn't run VF Corp!!
Village Psychic
A longread that I wonder if Bob Burnquist has read:
Celia Aniskovich
A real good cover thing: Shiloh Catori and Georgia Martin grace the cover of the latest Closer (and Simple Magic fave Nelly Morville takes the back cover).
Good pod round-up:
'sletter friend and lawyer friend, Peter Wenker, gets into the details of Tyshawn Jones' legal action against Supreme with the gang at Mostly Skateboarding.
Posted by
Templeton
Speaking of courthouse drops and drama...: Another collaborative audio/visual column from Skate Bylines and this very newsletter.
Speaking of collaborative efforts...: Ted Barrow wrote about riding one's skateboard over bricks for the latest dispatch from the Dirt x Simple Magic series, Sensuous Skateboarding. Ca-thunk.
Ted Barrow
A skatepark upgrade thing: Liam from Friends of Stroud Skateparks reached out about a fundraising campaign they're running to help update their local in Stratford, England. Check 'em out.
Until next week… what produces joy for you? Find that thing, engage with it, hold it, nourish it.
Laser Quit Smoking Massage
NEWEST PRESS
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My new collection of essays is available now. I think you might like it. The Edmonton Journal thinks it's a "local book set to make a mark in 2024." The CBC called it "quirky yet insightful." lol.
Book cover by Hiller Goodspeed.
Right, Down + Circle
ECW PRESS
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I wrote a book about the history and cultural impact of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that you can find at your local bookshop or order online now. I think you might like this one, too.
Here’s what Michael Christie, Giller Prize-nominated author of the novels Greenwood and If I Fall, If I Die, had to say about the thing.
“With incisive and heartfelt writing, Cole Nowicki unlocks the source code of the massively influential cultural phenomenon that is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and finds wonderful Easter-eggs of meaning within. Even non-skaters will be wowed by this examination of youth, community, risk, and authenticity and gain a new appreciation of skateboarding’s massive influence upon our larger culture. This is my new favorite book about skateboarding, which isn’t really about skateboarding — it’s about everything.”
Photo via The Palomino.
