Tunnel visions
Leo Romero, you beautiful bastard. Also, checking in on the Skate Board Association, some thoughts on moving house, moving backwards in time, and being moved by AI.
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.
Leo, you beautiful bastard
Rank: 1
Mood: 🛹
Three years ago I wrote this about Leo Romero and it still holds up today.
For over twenty years, Leo Romero has been travelling the world, leaving bits of fabric and flesh at the base of handrails and stair sets. His DNA can be swabbed off English cobblestones, towering Greek hubbas, and previously unseen multi-kinked rails that he and his Tum Yeto compatriots find by sifting through nondescript Midwestern towns as if their tour van were a roving gold pan. Yet, what’s most surprising across those decades and continents and the plethora of video parts that followed, is Romero’s consistency.
Of course, there’s the surface level. Besides adding the occasional wide-brimmed hat to his repertoire at some point in the 2010s (in what would appear to be inspired by the musician side of himself he’d foster while off the board), his aesthetic has remained virtually unchanged from Digital’s 2003 video Fajsha to now: Skinny jeans, tattered t-shirt, a toque or trucker hat, and a pair of low-top Emerica shoes. Physically, he’s remained as quick and angular as ever. No matter how brutal, his bails look more like the graceful collapse of a marionette than a failure of human means.
But more pertinent to the interests of the professional skateboarder, his on-board abilities have never seemed to stagnate, regress, or divert to less bodily-threatening avenues like transition or pure ledge skating, which is, frankly, stunning. Skateboarding, professionally or not, is ultimately an act of attrition. How long can your body withstand the abuse you subject it to in hopes of riding away from the fleeting and obtuse concept of “tricks?”
According to Romero’s latest video part, an effort succinctly and perhaps perfectly titled Skater, the answer is as unclear as ever. The rails he skates remain imposing, the eating-of-shit continues to be that same beautiful and unforgiving scene, and there are still signs of progression in the maneuvers he lands or at least attempts. As a skateboarder of comparably negligible ability and constitution, it is surreal to watch Romero continue to push himself as hard, or harder, than he did in Foundation Skateboard’s That’s Life (2004). His section one I had on constant repeat as a teenager and can still recall in crisp DVD-quality definition on the back of my eyelids to this day.
This recent solo effort from Romero feels like a culmination of and testament to that consistency. How he maintains course a feat of love and, paradoxically — when it comes to the merciless nature of skateboarding and its accompanying industry — self-preservation. Yes, it’s the only significant money-making career he’s ever known, but if you weren’t deeply in love with it, why would you keep battering yourself this way? His normal state of being is bruised. In that way, Romero is simply doing all he’s ever done to remain the person he’s always been. How long he can keep at it is uncertain, but it’s clear that he’ll keep going as long as he’s able.
Checking in
Rank: 2025
Mood: 🤷
For Simple Magic readers who have followed along as I've continued to ask what, exactly, is the Skate Board Association doing, I finally have an answer of sorts.
Cole Nowicki
Last week, the SBA put out a typically baffling statement that puts their initial promise of establishing an industry-changing skateboarding league in scare quotes, thanks everyone who has ever supported them in a bristling self-aggrandizing way, and promises more news "in the months ahead." This update comes after already being months late for delivering on their "new league," which was supposed to launch in the spring and now seems to be an afterthought.
If you remember, the last time we checked in with the SBA in March, they had announced a proposed deal to build the IDM Arena (IDM being the SBA's parent company and the incredible initialism "I Don't Miss"), per a press release at the time:
IDM and The Skate Board Association (SBA) today announced a landmark partnership with Cooperative LA, world renowned global design firm Populous, Visit Big Bear (VBB), and Aambé, to develop the multi-use IDM Arena, elite high-altitude training facilities, and a purpose-built community Sports and Entertainment District in Big Bear Lake, California.
Cole Nowicki
This was surprising for several reasons, the first being that the duo behind IDM and the SBA, Royce Campbell and Sheldon Lewis, have made a habit of straight-up lying about themselves and the SBA, going so far as to fabricate entire quotes and articles about their "league" that purport to be from outlets like ESPN and Sports Business Journal. They have also never successfully held a significant competitive skateboarding event, for the SBA or anything else. The closest Lewis came is what some allege was a rug pull.
Generally, their efforts don't pass the smell test, as I wrote in March:
"Beyond their principals' questionable history in the competitive skateboarding space and the lying-as-a-marketing-practice, IDM and SBA have yet to host a single event. There is an overt, amateurish nature to how they present themselves to the public. That anyone could look at IDM's website and agree that those three letters belong on the name of a world-class, and one assumes, multi-million dollar arena raises even more questions.
However, Cooperative LA and Populous are legitimate companies. Legitimate enough to convince Visit Big Bear, the tourism arm of Big Bear Lake, to partner with IDM on the proposal. I spoke with Travis Scott, the CEO of Visit Big Bear, in the spring to get his read on the project and to ask whether he was aware of the shallow resumes of his new partners. He wasn't and expressed concern at the time.
Following last week's statement from the SBA and noticing that the SBA Instagram account had removed all mention of IDM Arena from its profile, I reached out to Scott again for any insight on what the SBA might be up to (I've also reached out to the SBA previously; they gave me the runaround, and eventually blocked me on social media following my initial reporting). He told me that the land their group had earmarked for the IDM Arena had been sold out from under them in a left-field move from the plot's owner, which has put the project on pause while Campbell and Lewis regroup.
It's hard to have sympathy for an organization whose leaders claim their goal is "to build an association that elevates athletes, honors skateboarding's culture, and creates a lasting foundation that will evolve the sport for generations to come," while falsifying their own story for public consumption and insinuating that building a sports complex and achieving their own entrepreneurial goals is what honours skateboarding culture.
That said, these guys very nearly faked it 'til they made it. And they still might. If the IDM Arena ever gets built and is actually a boon to the local Big Bear Lake community rather than a grim monument to their Hustle Bro mentality, that might approach honourable. For now, the only concrete thing we know about the SBA is what they're not doing. The IDM Arena is on hold; the owner of that plot of land preferred cash in hand to promises made.
Tunnel vision
Rank: 3
Mood: 🕳️
The fuzzy logic of the skateboarder (or this skateboarder, anyhow) is such that in advance of moving house last weekend, I assumed I would use my skateboard to cart boxes from my third-floor apartment to the elevator to the car, as my partner and I slowly emptied our respective places in the days ahead of the big move on Saturday.
What is a skateboard if not a dolly in waiting? Even as I muscled around heavy boxes of books to make room for more heavy boxes of books, I held fast to the idea. We had booked a U-Haul and reserved a handcart and a furniture dolly, so there was no reason to buy one ahead of time other than laziness and perhaps an inkling of cowardice. It may even be a betrayal of the skateboard itself — using another four-wheeled platform besides the one you've passionately employed for nearly three decades.
That is part and parcel of, at least in my own experience, the tunnel vision of the skateboarder: the belief that skateboarding is all there is and all there could be, as far as interests and practice are concerned. Sometimes, however, the skateboard as you know it is not enough to take you where you hope to go, and you need to look elsewhere. In this instance, the internet, where I looked up sturdy and affordable handcarts, worried that I'd throw my back out trying to balance a bookshelf on an 8.38 Antihero eagle.
For demonstration purposes only
The handcart was a back and life saver, because, as it turned out, U-Haul, a company renowned for treating its customers like discarded packing paper, did not have the handcart and furniture dolly we had reserved, which, I must note, does defeat the purpose of "reserving" them. If I hadn't purchased one, we would have been absolutely fucked. A skateboard can inspire and even change a life, but it's not always the right tool for moving your life from one place to the next.
Cultural tunnel vision
Rank: '05
Mood: 🛹🕳️
This analyzing and prescribing of the skateboarder and their experience as if they are a monolith — something I clearly love to do in this newsletter — does, I'm sure, get as tiresome to read as it is to write at times. However, I will need you to bear with me for a little longer on this tip because when a DVS Shoe Company advertisement featuring Kerry Getz came across my feed this week, which, for context, is a week taking place in the year 2026, it was hard not to see it as another instance of skateboarding-specific tunnel vision.
This isn't to say that Getz isn't ripping in his 50s or not deserving of celebration from a company he was a foundational part of; he most certainly is, but what exactly are we doing here and who are we doing it for? Nostalgia as a marketing ploy will only take you so far. Yes, I remember Skate More. No, that doesn't make me want to purchase this hideous shoe.
When so much of skateboarding's cultural output, which is often its marketing output, is spent looking straight backward to long-dead eras, that leaves the present on the periphery and the future out of sight. Asking the consumer to remember only works on those who do.
If skateboarding has a missing middle, like Dr. Veith Kilberth contends in a recent piece for Bubble, a demographic and economic cratering exacerbated in part by the advent of social media, hanging on to the '90s and early aughts is not going to inspire the 15-20-year-olds that have historically helped define what is "cool" in skateboarding.
That's not just misguided, it's lazy. Not in the sense that whatever DVS is doing doesn't take work — what it lacks is imagination. And the recognition that skateboarding as you knew it isn't going to be enough to take you from that place to wherever you hope to go.
Sure, let's talk about the AI skater
Rank: ...
Mood: 🐎🧍♀️
In Cory Doctorow's latest book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, he writes that "science fiction tells us that the most important aspect of a new technology isn't what the machine does, it's who it does it for and who it does it to." Doctorow, a longtime science fiction writer, tech journalist, and blogger, argues that the primary purpose of "AI" being pushed on us in its current, omnipresent form is to convince investors in those AI companies of a sentiment shared by AI consultant Elijah Clark to Luc Olinga at Gizmodo: "AI doesn't go on strike. It doesn't ask for a pay raise."
"Practically everyone who falls for the AI hype is dreaming of getting a human need fulfilled without having to extend moral consideration," writes Doctorow. "That's as true of the AI girlfriend weirdos as it is of the bosses hoping to use AI to replace half their workers and terrorize the remainder."
He goes on to hammer the point home: "Never forget that you aren't the target for AI hype — investors are. To the extent that anyone thinks of you when designing the publicity and marketing campaigns for AI, they are merely hoping that you will be visibly and loudly impressed."
Being loudly and visibly impressed by AI, whether you know it's AI or not, can also make you a target, which Doctorow also notes. Scammers and deepfakers are tearing up our collective DMs and inboxes with AI-generated phishing scams at an astronomical rate. I've received four emails from faux "publishers" and "PR agencies" interested in "promoting" my books this week. I even received one from an alleged AI company whose "product" promises to help streamline the production of this very newsletter.
It only makes sense that at some point, this would make its way into skateboarding. Phishing, trolling, a social experiment, whatever you want to call it, the Instagram account @cursed.crybaby is doing it. The profile, which goes by the name "Jinx Marlow" and features images and videos of a cute young female presenting skateboarder, began posting about six weeks ago and has since racked up nearly 4.5 thousand followers and hundreds of thousands of views, according to Instagram's public metrics.
This is a tried-and-true engagement trap for stupid horny people (mostly men) of all ages, as the comment sections on all of @cursed.crybaby's videos evidence. It already brings on a wicked second-hand embarrassment to witness someone flirt via public comment, but to do so with what an AI-generated character is soul-deadening (and funny, in a morbid way). @cursed.crybaby has since prompted their thousands of followers to join their Telegram channel, follow strange links in their Instagram Stories, and has seemingly been negotiating "collabs."
The schemer behind @cursed.crybaby is, in their own way, appealing to investors: those willing to believe, interact, collab, and who knows what else. Here, the desire to not "extend moral consideration" goes both ways. For those thirsting, ask yourself: what is the person using this technology doing it for and who are they doing it to?
You know what, there's nothing wrong with simping after the AI skater. Actually, Jinx even said that it would be so cool if you became a paid subscriber to this newsletter. Nothing on Simple Magic is behind a paywall, but your money will get you stickers and swag, go towards paying contributors for their great work, and put some dough in my pocket as I write these each week. You can also leave a one-time tip.
Something to consider: Donating to the GoFundMe raising funds to "help cover funeral, memorial, travel, estate-related and other expenses arising from Marc [Johnson's] passing."
Good thing:
Another good thing:
Anthony Pappalardo
More good thing:
Robyn Stubbs
Even more good thing:
Natalie Porter
A good thing from last week:
Farran Golding
Good pod round-up:
Village Psychic
Posted by
Templeton
Some good basketball things:
Katie Heindl
Mel Woods
Henry Abbott
Good shoe talk:
Dolores at CPH Open:
Until next week… if you find a continual parade of cats tramping through your new back patio area, do your best to befriend them. Earn their trust and you may become something of a ringleader figure. Lead them with purpose, kindness, and bravery, and they might anoint you a Cat in Good Standing. As an honorary Neighbourhood Cat, you can now tramp through backyards around the city as you wish.
Laser Quit Smoking Massage
NEWEST PRESS
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A collection of essays that I think you might like. The Edmonton Journal called it a "local book set to make a mark in 2024," The CBC said it's "quirky yet insightful" (lol), and it won Trade Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2025 Alberta Book Publishing Awards.
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.
Photo via The Palomino.
