Lowrider Librarian

My backyard in San Jose had two backyards.  One with a garage and a small patio and then a yard way out back that had a garden and some apricot trees.  We hadn't gardened in years and I had just started skating.  This is the story of how a group of skater kids with nothing created a place for others skaters to skate and hang out.  We created our own scene and didn't wait for others to do it for us. We had been hitting Paul's ramp downtown, but he just had to tear it down. "Hey, they had to tear down Paul's ramp!" "We need to build a ramp!" "Can we build one at your place?" "You have that extra backyard!" "I don't know--let me ask my mom!" "Hey Mom, can we build a skateboard ramp in the backyard?" She looked at me like I was crazy and said,  "I don't want someone to get hurt and sue us.  We could lose the house!" "Ah, c'mon ma!  We don't have anywhere to...

Dropping in.

Why Librarians Should Care About Skateboarders: A Personal Outreach Project By Matt Allison Mesa Public library in NM has a skatepark!               After Hurricane Sandy until the summer of 2015 the Peninsula Library served the Rockaway Beach community out of temporary spaces. As my staff and I waited for a fully operational library to reopen we had time to plan. I got attached to the community.   Along with the overall rebuilding I enjoyed seeing the surf community build a temporary skate park. I moved nearby in 2014. I got approved at work to have a special skateboard and surf collection. I got the green light to try programming. We reopened in September 2015. Making a connection to the skateboarding and surfing scene has been more difficult than I anticipated.   At work my pet project is to connect public libraries and skateboarders. For my area it’s logical to add surfing. This article will not foc...

Conversations With Skateboarders [2005: Reprinted from MaxM a subsidiary of Sleestak.net] Image is everything, at least thats what you see on tv, read in magazines, and hear on the radio. A cool image is something that has always been important, and always will be, but it bothers me when only one stereotypical image is portrayed as 'cool.' One image that bugs the shit out of me is the dressed in black, rock & roll Glam belt, drunk, dirty, ignorant idiot that is oftentimes used to characterize skateboarders. What is really sad is that our magazines support this type of image, offer no alternatives to impressionable kids, and encourage these stereotypes. Transworld does promote the image of skaters as wholesome jocks--which is just as bad, but I'm focusing on the aforementioned image in this writing. Here is an example of Thrasher's idea of a good way to gain skate time: Thrasher's Study Less page   [This page no longer exists--it was a coll...