I hope you have a router, bro
Plus: Trade wars, Dern Bros. go PRO, Santa Cruz does rollcall, potential organ-level impalement in Prospect Park, 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.
I hope you have a router, bro
Rank: -25
Mood: 🪚🚪
If things weren't already tough for the skateboarding industry amid continuously rising production and shipping costs, messy corporate takeovers, private equity massacres, and a fractured media and market, now they've got Trump's tariffs to deal with. On Tuesday, after months of threats and one false start, the United States has followed through on its promise to sic blanket 25% tariffs on its closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, and 20% flat tariffs on China.
While there has been talk of exceptions and "wiggle room" for some industries, it's unclear if the ones that the skateboarding industry needs, like Canadian lumber and Mexican and Chinese manufacturing, will be included. Folks that I've talked to who work in the industry are currently taking a wait-and-see approach given the asinine, mercurial nature of the American administration, but all in all, this is not great for the people and companies that provide us with the goods we need to do the thing we love.
And unfortunately, there's nothing a nominal Canadian "border czar" can do to stem the tide of a made-up issue or the abject cruelty and idiocy vomiting out of Washington — but wait! As the United States announced yesterday, the tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports have been delayed until April 2. Or, at least, the products that fall under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. Who knows anymore.
Maybe a better course of action is figuring out how to make our own skateboards. It can't be that hard, can it? All you need is like, what, a router and a piece of wood? Easy. Turn a dining table into a fishtail. A bathroom door into a classic popsicle. If world superpowers want to self-immolate, we're going to have to get creative.
Pro-model skateboard = diploma
Rank: 1
Mood: 🎓🎓
No one is gonna come around here and tell me I can't spend 45-minutes of my increasingly finite time on this blessed blue marble watching a self-produced mini-documentary about Dalton and Kanaan Dern going PRO as all F. This is my life and I will live it, and waste it, how I damn well please. Could I have done more productive things with 3/4s of an hour, like read a book, play guitar, or call my dear sweet mother? Absolutely fucking not.
Sitting on my couch while eating a cosmic crisp apple and watching emotional talking-head interview clips with the Dern parents filmed by the Dern brothers was exactly what I needed to be doing. Their parents seem lovely! Incredibly supportive! Genuinely invested in the lives of all of their children! They brought their boys to skate the Carlsbad gap on a family vacation! They allowed their boys to bring along a friend who served as their filmer on those trips! That's bizarre but also moving, goddamnit.
It also offered what felt like an authentic view into the inherent desperation that is vying to become a professional skateboarder. Both Dalton and Kanaan pined after that title and have thrown themselves off and down life-threatening obstacles for years, despite it being unclear if they would ever reach their goal, much to the worry of their parents. Their father compares their eventual PRO boards to diplomas — proof of all of the hard work they put in.
Of course, the cheap veneer of this being used as YouTube content can't be ignored. Neither can the reality that their substantial YouTube fanbase contributed to Dalton and Kanaan getting the nod from Heroin and Zero Skateboards, respectively. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just different. To be clear, they both deserve it on merit alone — they're good as hell — but their sales potential thanks to their substantial online followings also played a part, as Fos and Jamie Thomas allude to.
So stuff it! And this video was generally enjoyable! "We did it," the brothers say to one another, embracing after getting a lovely PRO AF surprise party. It's a special moment that should be celebrated as such. Is it going to make me want to purchase their boards, AG1, or whatever their presenting YouTube sponsor is? No! Was I particularly engaged because I'd smoked some weed before watching? Probably! That's fine. Do we see archival footage of Dalton doing approximately 100 540s throughout the years? You better believe it. That's 100 more reasons to tune in.
Is it a strange marker of our times that this mini-doc, likely the most meaningful thing that the brothers have released, that's in a way, a culmination of their collective efforts, ends with a "special" shoutout to their channel member "Infinite Butts"? You bet your ass.
I know this doesn't matter but...
Rank: 3+4
Mood: 🦅😢
Really, it's nothing. He simply mispoke. It wasn't some prime-time effort at retconning; it was just an accident. When Tony Hawk was on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert this week to promote the announcement of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 remake, he was asked about a recent promotional shoot that featured a number of skateboarders, that Hawk explained, "were all featured in our very first game." The skaters in the photo included Steve Caballero, Kareem Campbell, Tony Hawk, Eric Koston, and Rodney Mullen.
Truly, I hate to be this guy, a guy who, unfortunately, wrote a book on this subject, but only Campbell and Hawk were in the original game. Cab, Koston, and Mullen were added to the roster in the second iteration.
I'm sorry, it's okay. Really. It's not the end of the world, and this certainly wasn't some silly way to plug my book that you and all of your family and friends will love and cherish should you choose to buy it.
Who is the Santa Cruz Skateboards TEAM 2025?
Rank: 1
Mood: ❓❓❓
You know what, thank you, Santa Cruz Skateboards. I didn't know the state or status of your team, but after watching This is the Santa Cruz Skateboards TEAM 2025, now I do. It's genuinely helpful — the team is different now! There are still generational mainstays like Emmanuel Guzman and Eric Dressen, but also newer adds like Phoenix Sinnerton and Yndiara Asp. Many skateboarding brands don't even include a "team" page on their website anymore. Santa Cruz has one. Fucking Awesome doesn't. Neither does Polar. Unsurprisingly, EDGLRD doesn't either.
What does that say to the viewing and/or purchasing audience when the website for a skateboarding company doesn't promote who its paid representatives are? To me, that signals that they aren't important. Or aren't as important as I was once led to believe in the heyday of print media, where team line-ups were prominently placed in a company's monthly ads. Perhaps they don't feel the need because it's obvious. Most of us have social media, we're constantly plugged in. We see the clips. Each sponsored skater is a media hub of their own, their profiles likely linking or tagging back to their benefactor's profile or site.
Still, it feels disrespectful not to feature your riders on your website. It doesn't take much. Even Ryan Decenzo's 2 Cents Skateboards does it, with each rider getting the traditional bio-via-Q&A. How else would I know that Trae "The Tank" Montgomery's favourite drink is water?
Potential organ-level impalement
Rank: Bruh
Mood: 💘
Last year, I wrote about the inter-community turmoil surrounding the proposed "skate garden" slated to be built in New York's Prospect Park.
Ah, yes, the skateboard park and acrimonious civic engagement. A tale as old as skateparks and their development on public and private land. A recent high-profile instance is the planned Brooklyn Skate Garden in Brooklyn, New York's Prospect Park. This 40,000-square-foot facility aims to be one of the largest on the East Coast. A recent New York Times newsletter reports that the Skatepark Project backed project, which mercurial New York City Mayor Eric Adams has already announced construction plans for, is meeting opposition from a newly formed group, Friends of Mount Prospect Park.
Among their points of opposition is that “Pouring concrete is Stone Age,” said Hayley Gorenberg, a co-chair of the organization, citing the lack of available greenspace in the city. They also "raised questions about safety, saying that skateboarders could try their moves outside the park, creating hazards on nearby steps and access ramps. The stone steps from the highest point in the park are only one 'tempting skate challenge.'"
For those unaware, these are the steps they were talking about:
And they are still talking about them, as a New York Post article penned by Nicole Rosenthal on Tuesday, with the headline "Plans for massive NYC skateboard park riddled with issues like potential 'organ-level impalement': foes" reports.
Gorenberg said a skate facility design expert she consulted also warned that if skaterboarders were to wipe out on the park’s granite stairs and hit the nearby iron-pointed fence, they could suffer “organ-level impalement.” They also might otherwise hit a crowded sidewalk next to the Central Library’s children’s wing, she said.
Nicole Rosenthal
Absurd*. Even more gallingly, the article goes on to do some grossly creative framing:
The irony of such potential injuries isn’t lost on Gorenberg, who noted the skate facility is in part honoring Pablo Ramirez, a Brooklyn-raised pro skater killed by skating in traffic in 2019.
It's fine to be opposed to a public infrastructure project. It is your right as a citizen to protest them, if you wish. But to continue on with this absurd fearmongering, to the point of bringing up Ramirez is not just embarrassing, it's disgusting. I don't say this lightly: What the hell is wrong with these people?
Anyhow, 'sletter friend Ted Barrow is also quoted in the piece.
Art historian and skateboarder Dr. Ted Barrow told The Post he supports the plan, calling the project “the natural evolution” of a city park given an estimated 50,000 skateboarders in Brooklyn – many of whom are young people.
“It’s New York City, you’re not going to get cars going much faster than 30 to 40 miles per hour [on Eastern Parkway],” Barrow said. “People cross that parkway all the time.
“The other thing is that most skate parks are located near public staircases and busy thoroughfares – the Lower East Side skatepark underneath the Manhattan Bridge is by FDR [Drive], and there have never been any issues,” he said.
"To use an example, baseball wasn’t allowed in Prospect Park until the 1930s – and now it’s like a completely harmonious activity,” Barrow said.
“It’s not this bad thing that derelicts are doing,” he said of skateboarding. “It’s probably gaining more popularity among young people … because it’s so accessible, there’s a really low bar to entry, and it’s fairly affordable.”
That's really all there is to it. Hopefully those concerned citizens can take a breath and consider it, or, at the very least, quit being such sickos about this.
*If Jamie Foy goes there and grinds that rail I'm gonna be so pissed.
Something to consider:
Mariam Barghouti
Good thing: The pals at Village Psychic are collabing with New Balance and I want to pet that shoe — fuzzy lil Tiagos.
Village Psychic
Another furry, fizzy thing: Freddy from Heckride talked to Farran at Skate Bylines about his new zine highlighting professional skateboarders and their creatures.
Farran Golding
Another good thing:
Allegra Rosenberg
lol, c'mon, bro:
Leyland Cecco
That said, it might not cut through the noise if you don't live up here, but people are pissed and afraid:
Luke O’Neil
A missed opportunity at diplomacy thing: If P-Rod wanted, he could've eased cross-border tensions while he was in Vancouver this week by putting me and all of my friends on Primitive flow. But he didn't, smdh.
If you're a Bobby Puleo head, this week is your week:
If you're still on a Bobby kick, you might enjoy this piece I wrote about the Puleo bootleg boards a few years back.
Cole Nowicki
Until next week… no matter what they say, I love you. So does that person over there. Same goes for the lady with the small dog you always see at the park. Love, it overflows.
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.
