Identity Politics — On Skateboarding’s Evolving Attitude Toward Sports

📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Collage by Francesco Pini

Deathwish am Davey Sayles was too ripped to rip. “I couldn’t skate the first month, I was so top heavy, I was swole,” he says. Six years ago, Sayles quit college football. He took a three-day bus ride home from West Florida University to Vista, CA. At 5’10” he had a playing weight for the Division II Argonauts of 220 pounds. Sayles says his skating weight is 50 pounds lighter. “It took me three months to slim down.”

The 28-year-old says he was a skate rat turned running back who was a natural on the football field. Sayles says he played because his family has a history with the sport and that he broke records at every stop in his gridiron career; he walked away from it while having pro prospects in Canada. Still, he says, he wasn’t able to be himself as a football player – for years he watched from afar as friends like Rowan Zorilla succeeded as skaters, stacking clips and turning pro. Having given up on football, Sayles says he wanted to prove himself as a skater. And he has – check him out in Baker Has A Deathwish Part 2 for proof – cutting a fascinating career arc along the way.

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Starting a New Skateboard Magazine and Other Radical Acts of Love

📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Collage by Francesco Pini

Skateboarder magazine ended in late 2013, but according to its longtime editor, anxiety about the magazine’s viability was present a decade prior. “Even in the early Skateboarder days — the mid-2000s — there were signs that magazines could be in trouble in the coming years. You had to switch gears and do everything you could to keep it going,” says Jaime Owens, who, following Skateboarder’s demise, became editor of Transworld Skateboarding. Transworld, of course, which published continuously from 1983 through 2019, now lives on as a web-only operation, due to its mix of 1.6 million Instagram followers and 400,000 YouTube subscribers.

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Stories About Shirts — Skate Shop Tees And The Meaning of Life

📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Collage by Francesco Pini

The photo: It’s Kenny Reed, doing a backside nosegrind revert on a sketchy bar off some steps, probably in Barcelona. He’s got the hat, he’s got the hands, he’s got the shoes and he’s got this shirt, “Sky High.” The picture was in Transworld, shot by Brian Uyeda. “Imagine sitting in the shop and paging through that magazine, a beautiful black and white photo,” says Aaron Polansky, owner of Sky High Skateshop in Milwaukee, “and Kenny Reed is wearing that shirt.”

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And These Links From Snacks Not From YouTube

Photo by Greg Navarro 📷

Thanks to everyone who grabbed something off the webstore sale last week. Should be caught up on shipping by end of today 📦💨

The NPR Story on the A.V.E. bench spills a bit of the secret on how the bench got to Richmond, Virginia at the end, straight from…the Temple University police. Bravo to skateboarders, for always figuring it out. If you aren’t already aware, @ave_bench on Instagram has been tracking the world tour at every turn.

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Like A Farmer

What in the wide wide world of sports is a “Training Field?!” Ummm hellooooo, it’s a F A C I L I T Y. There’s a quick feature on the making of the Palace Calvin Klein collab up on GQ. If you want some more Willem Dafoe New York content, highly recommend you watch Light Sleeper from 1992, assuming you’re ok with your movies being more ~vibes~ than plot. Written/directed by Paul Schrader (dude who wrote Taxi Driver obvs), and Susan Sarandon is hot af in it (lol) 🥵

Switch flip goals via Jessyka Bailey’s part in There’s Ruining Skateboarding video, which went up on Thrasher late last week.

Sometimes the skate gods smile down upon you, and you and some friends get a lot of time at Forbidden Banks. SOMETIMES. All that and more in Misc Moments #4 from Marcello, Nabi, Caleb, and the Canal boys.

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