in honor of Dansworld being back up...I present HELL ON WHEELS...

[skategeezer]

You may or may not have caught this...pretty crazy article...and a lot has changed..but then again, not much hasn't...


"Hell On Wheels" from Bay Guardian

This article, "Hell On Wheels" appeared in the San Fransisco Bay Guardian in May of 1994. It was transcribed by murray (punklove@sirius.com)
"Hell On Wheels" Eight years ago, Mike Vallely was living every teenage skateboarder'swildest dream. At the age of 16, the New Jersey native signed on as aprofessional skater, earning as much as $10,000 a month: he quit school,left home, and moved to California. He's seen it all - the rush of fame, theexcitement of world tours, the fast and loose lifestyle that comes withsudden wealth. These days it depresses him. Vallely is 23 now, married, with a child. He's old for a skater, and hisskateboarding career is winding down - and he still doesn't have a highschool diploma. The one-time superstar regrets how he spent his teenyears: He blew too much of his money and saved too little. He signedcontracts without the advise of a lawyer or agent. Vallely's professional life has already lasted twice as long as that ofthe average skateboarding pro. When it ends, he isn't sure what he's goingto do. Yet he considers himself relatively lucky: He's not in jail, orsuicidal, or addicted to drugs. And he's convinced that his sport has tochange. "The #### that happened to me doesn't need to happen to these kids,"Vallely told the Bay Guardian. "They get tunnel vision and there's no moreschool. There's no more family." It's a timely complaint: Professional skateboarding is growing fast. Adecade ago, industry insiders estimate, there were only about 50 proskaters in this country. Now there are almost 300. Many if not most ofthem are teenage kids. They make as much as $50,000 a year and travelthe world on promotional tours, most often without their parents.Unsupervised, newly rich, and suddenly famous, some behave as one wouldexpect rebellious teenagers to behave: They go wild. Southern California star Kareem Campbell, 20, described the lifestylein an article in the March 6 Los Angeles Times: "You can party," he said,"like, 24 hours a day." Recent headlines present a disturbing picture: Josh Swindell, 21, isawaiting trial for murder in Los Angeles, the L.A. Times reports. LastChristmas day, 1980s Texas icon Jeff Phillips, 30, killed himself. MarkAnthony "Gator" Rogowski, a 25-year-old legend, was convicted of rapingand killing a 21-year-old friend of his ex-girlfriend in a Carlsbadcondominium - a tragedy documented by Cory Johnson in the "Best SportsStories of 1992" anthology. But the real story about professional skateboarding still has not beentold. Based on more than 30 interviews with current and former skaters,industry executives, and government officials, and an extensive review ofpublic records, the Bay Guardian has complied a profile of an industrythat has received strikingly little publicity. It's the story of a lucrative business controlled by a handful of men,whose vertically integrated companies thrive in large part on the imageof the wild young skaters who represent them. Based primarily in SanFrancisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, it's a publicity-wary industryworth an estimated $150 million a year that hires kids as young as 13 topromote its products - with remarkably little regulation or oversight,according to some industry leaders. If the kids who skate for a living were Hollywood actors, for example,their incomes and working environments would be strictly monitored,Bill Buell, a regional administrator for the federal Department of Labor,told the Bay Guardian. Their earnings would go into a trust fund; theirworking hours would be restricted to times when school was not insession (or they would be required to study with private tutors). If theirparents couldn't accompany them on "location" work, designatedguardians would. If skateboarders were considered amateur athletes, like football orbasketball players, coaches would probably restrict their contact withprofessional scouts. Even college recruiting would be regulated: the NCAAstrictly limits the contact university scouts can have with teenageathletes. In fact, if the younger kids were working for McDonald's, they'd have toget permission from their school counselors, and their working hourswould be tightly monitored. But skateboarders are considered to be neither athletes nor actors, andtheir contracts are more like commercial sponsorship deals than likemovie or sports deals. A pro who "rides for" a company is less a salariedmember of a team than a product endorser. The skater models equipmentin advertising, uses it in tournaments, and promotes it on tours. Thosewho are big enough stars can earn royalty checks from equipment that'smarketed in their image, sort of like a Nike Air Jordan on wheels. Thosecontracts, Buell says, aren't covered by child-labor laws. Stacey Peralta, the legendary former pro and onetime co-owner of thePowell-Peralta skateboard company, said the combination of big moneyand lax regulation is dangerous. "The sport attracts a lot of dysfunctionalkids," he told the Bay Guardian. "They come in with something missing andare easier to exploit." "What's direly missing in the industry," Peralta said, "is guidance fromthe manufactures." Professional skateboarding is a relatively new phenomenon, linkedclosely to the technological, cultural, and marketing changes that overthe past 20 years have turned skateboarding equipment into a biginternational business. The old-fashioned skateboards of the '50s and '60s were madeessentially of cheap plywood attached to metal wheels, which offeredrough rides at slow speeds. Their popularity was fairly limited until themid-1970s, when the advent of the polyurethane wheel gaveskateboarding a whole new element. The new equipment was smooth anddurable - and skaters figured out that they could kick the back of theboard, jump at the same time, and become airborne. Aerial acrobatics became increasingly flashy and complex. CONTINUED...

[skategeezer]

Skaters,mostly suburbanites, rode in empty pools, where smooth, sloping surfacesoffered concrete launching pads; eventually, parks that catered to theskating craze began to appear. But the stunts were often dangerous, and by the mid-1980s, suburbancommunities around the country had decided that skateboarding parkswere a liability. Parks closed down, the craze began to fade, and theskateboarding industry, which was beginning to make big money offequipment sales, was suddenly in mortal danger. Enter Fausto Vitello. A graduate of San Francisco State University,Vitello, now 48, had been a minor player in the skateboarding business asthe owner of Independent Trucks, which manufactured the flexiblemechanisms that connect skateboard wheels to the boards. Vitello, whoin 1981 founded a magazine called Thasher, which catered to the skaters,spotted the excitement in the minor trend called "street skating." Street skating needed no parks or pools; instead, the skaters used thebasic urban infrastructure - sidewalks, curbs, concrete steps, etc. - asthe backdrop for some increasingly dramatic new moves. Thrasher beganto run colorful photo spreads based on urban locations with professionalskaters as models, and street skating took off. Street skating not only energized a new generation of skaters, it alsoheralded a new generation of equipment. Boards and wheels had to becomesmaller to handle increasingly complicated tricks such as "curb flips"(and aerial move in which a street curb is used as a fulcrum), "rail slides"(in which the board itself slides down a staircase rail, the board'swheels on either side), and similar acrobatics. The new gear had a decided industry benefit: It wore out and brokefaster. Wheels became flat-spotted, boards ground down, and skaters -from pros to weekend amateurs - would have to replace their gear moreoften. For young skaters who were increasingly snapped up by equipmentmanufactures as models, that wasn't much of an issue. They got theequipment free of charge. But for the kids who emulated their teenageidols (and their parents, who paid for the boards), it was a significantchange. "We love it because kids go through the #### even faster," oneskateboarding company owner, who asked not to be named, told the BayGuardian. As Steve Kenon, the owner of Consolidated Skateboards in SantaCruz, points out, with skateboards costing as much as $100, "It's moreexpensive to be a skateboarder than to be a golfer." "Whatever the pros want, the kids want," he told the Bay Guardian. "Andthe kids don't understand that what the pro skateboarders get, they getfor free." Perhaps it was an accident of history; perhaps it was a stroke ofbrilliant marketing. Either way, most industry insiders agree that FaustoVitello - who was soon involved in companies that made wheels, boards,trucks, and clothing, as well as a magazine that promoted them all -saved the skateboarding business at a crucial point in time. Unlike most professional sports, the magazines that cover theskateboarding world are often owned and operated by the same peoplewho make and sell the products and hire the athletes as corporatesponsors. It would be like Sports Illustrated owning both the ChicagoBulls and Nike and paying Michael Jordan to play basketball, pose formagazine photo spreads, and promote Nike shoes - all in the samecontract. Three men control the majority of the industry, and each one publishesa magazine, manufactures equipment, and hires professional skaters, whoappear as stars and models in the magazines' pages. All three also seemdistinctly adverse to publicity. Vitello's S.F.-based Thrasher is the largest publication, with acirculation of about 160,000, according to the magazine's publisher'sstatement from December 1993. Steve Rocco of Los Angeles owns BigBrother magazine; Lawrence Balma of Torrance, Calif., owns TransWorldSkateboarding. The three publications have distinctly differentpersonalities, but they're similar in one crucial aspect: Each acts as theflagship for a varied hierarchy of skateboard companies. The companies founded, financed, or controlled by Vitello, Rocco, andBalma manufacture boards, wheels, trucks, and increasingly, as the styleof skaters, becomes chic, clothing. Although convoluted ownership dealsand subsidiary businesses make pinpointing difficult, industry sourcesestimate that skateboarding materials manufactured or distributed byVitello, Rocco, and Balma - all of whom have international distribution -make up 70 percent of the industry sales. And with the exception of advertising from record companies,skatewear manufactures, and a few independent manufactures, the threemagazines generally fill their space with ads from their own companiesand feature stories on skaters representing products in which they havea financial stake. The Bay Guardian found, for example, that 35 percent ofthe display advertising in the May issue of Thrasher was forVitello-associated companies - and that didn't include the numerousmanufactures for whom Vitello's companies make wheels and trucks for. A former pro who gained fame in his own right, Rocco, 26, established aposition in the market in the late 1980s by playing the role of therenegade. As a veteran of the legendary Dogtown skaters from SantaMonica, he positioned himself as a figure sympathetic to skaters whowould take on the then-dominant companies. Rocco, unlike the older menwho dominated company ownership when he was gaining a foothold, saidhe would let his pro skaters be themselves and keep the rules to aminimum. "That was the way he made all the skaters see him as their champion,"said Powell, whose Powell-Peralta company was a leader in the 1980s,skateboarding's halcyon days. "Steve's big ploy was to take apart theopposition by tearing apart the promotional teams." Rocco did not return numerous phone calls to Big Brother offices forthis article. The man industry insiders regarded as the most mainstream andsocially responsible of these major magazines figures is Balma, whospoke to the Bay Guardian in a telephone interview. None of his companieshave the visibility in skateboarding that Vitello's and Rocco's have. That,industry observers say, is in part, because Balma has taken the focus ofhis editorial space away from pushing his product and used it todocument the beauty of and events in skateboarding and snowboarding. No ads from Vitello's competitive High Speed Productions have appearedin Balma's TransWorld Skateboarding, but the magazine, which has acirculation of around 150,000, has run features on stars who skate forthe competition. "If they're skaters and are worthy of having an article about them,they'll have one," Balma said. When asked to list the companies he owns, Balma paused for severalseconds and then asked why this story was being done. After someprodding, he provided a list. The entrepreneur refused to give his age. (Hedid say that he has worked in the skateboard industry since the early1970s). Balma said that all of the companies he's involved with retain thepersonalities of the skaters that share interest in them. He also said thatit is important that he remain low-key about his involvement so as not todestroy in the eyes of young customers the image of where the boards andclothing come from. "There's a consumer out there who in his early teens really wants toidentify with [a product]," he said. "If it's part of one corporation, thenmaybe it's not so neat." Fausto Vitello met with a Bay Guardian reporter recently at one of hisHunters Point warehouses. Trim and distinguished, with a thick mustache,he sat on the floor of a small office. On chairs to his left were DonFisher, 31, and Keith Cochrane, 28, two shareholders in Thinkskateboards. They spoke in earnest tones about their belief in thecompany, their empathy for skaters, and all that being pros did for them. Cochrane and Fisher, both of whom turned pro after finishing highschool, tell stories about how they urge young skaters to stay in school,how they sent money directly to one skater's mother to pay her telephonebill, and how when they have sons - female pros are a rarity - they'd likethem to be pro skaters. "It made me an individualist," Cochrane said. "He [my son] would havethat time when he had his own spotlight." Vitello pointed to Fisher and Cochrane as an example of how, becausethe companies he's involved with are run by other people, his influence inthe industry is limited. "I've been accused of this [playing a dominant role in the industry] foryears and years, and I stand on my record," he said. "I'm not in control ofall this stuff like people think I am." Cochrane added: "I don't really appreciate being called a flunky. I runthiscompany [Think]. I sign the checks." Nevertheless, Vitello admits that he has a financial stake in Think andin numerous other companies, and that he provided the capital to help setCochrane and Fisher up in business. He insisted that many kids have done well as professional skaters -Cochrane and Fisher are two good examples - and said there was no needfor industry self-regulation. "It's just like surfing," he said. "There have been attempts to sign contrandustry is a machine and it cannot succeed without having a good team. "Since they can't survive without each other, they owe something to the kids."

[SpeedFiend]

It took a bit to read but was worth it.
I think that corporations like to make money.
They are not into skating for the same feel good vibe as me.
Oh well.

[mangels]

I feel used ...

[dcphotos]

Mike V is still at the top of the game though.

[SpeedFiend]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I see him on the Fuel channel doing those trick tip segments with Tony Hawk.
Makes it look so easy and he ollies about three feet.
He seems real chill like someone whose been around the block.
I was kind of surprised to start reading the article and first thing they mention is his falloff.

[skategeezer]

Remember, that article is 13 years old!

[slyfox]

yet still frighteningly relevant.

[rawls]

All these guys that have been arguing against the thoughts that the mid 80's skateboard marketing was the beginning of trouble can now see what was happening. Now maybe they can see alternate views that maybe the 80's weren't all they were cracked up to be, especially as the late 80's appeared. We saw this stuff occurring because we had a frame of reference for comparison. The 80's skaters had no frame of reference to compare to, they were just in the scene and thats all that mattered. Now, in retrospect, they can look back and see that there was something beginning to happen.

One thing in the write-up that really set me off was the Consolidated mindset. Remember the Nike thing a while back, and all that was said about Consolidated having a right to be there, they were "core". They have no leg to stand on. They jumped in like everyone else. Several people pointed this out and called RAT on consolidated, but were met with opposition. Maybe now, they will see what has become of the specialty market of skateboarding, and what happens when you are force fed things. Now the phrase "core" conjures up images of companies that jumped into the fray earliest, as opposed to any sort of allegiance to skateboarding.