Customer Reviews

The Answer Is Never: A Skateboarder's History of the World

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have a review coming out of this book in my magazine Concrete Wave. I don't want to steal too much from that review, but suffice to say that this book is a work of great signficance. I can only hope that the entire skate community (from EVERY generation) gets a chance to read this book

Well written, well researched and best of all, written by someone who truly knows skateboarding.

HIGHLY, highly, recommended.

This is a great book-

first -for skaters it offers the first real unglorifed view of a skaters life (in all of its glory)

second -for everybody else it offers a view of life intertwined with music and skating subcultures that may be the only real "history" of the actual experience. Not so much "I was there. . I was cool" stuff but the real view that the most people who did this stuff had- which makes it that much more powerful and inspirational. This book is also an important record of pre-MTV life when kids had to find things themselves and subcultures were different from niche markets.

Interesting, smart, fun to read. . all around an honest and important book.

Growing up in the 80s I was surrounded by skateboarding, whether it be in the form of my Mom's friend's daughter showing me how to (attempt to) ride down the street at age 10, the kids skating in the "hip town" of Hyannis, MA (which was a "city" to someone from The Cape), watching my neighbors skate and build their own ramps, watching the early skate videos, or ogling through Transworld Skate or Thrasher and wishing I'd had enough coordination to actually be able to learn what I was seeing. I found this book at the public library and thought it might be an interesting read, but I had no idea what I was in for. Granted, Weyland's writing can be very subjective and he tends to "go off" about what skating has become (as many people who have been skating their entire life can), but what he wrote isn't just his complaints about skating and the industry. There's a lot of information about the history of skating (which a lot of people who claim to skate might not have any ideas about), and also stories about what skating was like before The Circus of what is now began. What he's written gives the person who doesn't understand skating the ability to have some inkling of what it's like, and to understand that "skating" isn't just what they see, but it's a culture, a lifestyle, a thought pattern, a philosophical journey, and can even be a family. One truly interesting part of the book (for me, being a 28 year-old college professor) is Weyland's comments and thoughts about going from being "in the know" to being considered "old." I would definitely suggest this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about the history of the sport and the genesis of what they see before them today.

I have just finished the book after an extended sitting (couldn't put it down) and found it to be completely absorbing. I also have skateboarded for 25 years and this book came as close as anything I have ever read to summing up how a piece of wood attached to 4 wheels can completely inform and influence your life, the choices you make, the friends you choose and the way you look at every aspect of the world around you.

If you are just getting on board for the first time, or haven't stepped off in 25 years or more, read this book!

Indeed there is something to be said for reaching out with the internet. Jocko has, since my previous review, made good with a payment for the photo usage in this book, and has been added to my personal list, as another "Cadillac of Dudes".
-M.Fo

Weyland chronicles the history of the sport from its ancestry in Hawaiian surfing through its recent emergence as a mass-marketed ESPN drawing card. While carefully charting this history, he intersperses lenghty (though riveting) tales from his own experiences growing up as a skater. These tales, which are indicative of how the skating mileau of the time shaped him, are a valuable time capusle to which many readers will relate. He manages to do all of this very artfully so that what seems to be a bi-polar stucture is nearly seamless. Few books measure up to the narrative and literary standards I expect from authors--but this one far surpasses them (a pleasant surprise). Novice skaters and parents who wish to understand skating culture should read this book and also Tony Hawk's Operation: Skateboarder. Both are fast reads (despite their 300+ pagecounts) and demonstrate two contrasting aspects of the sport and the corresponding worldviews engendered therein. Really, it's so good if Weyland waxes poetic on ice fishing I'd have to check it out. Please note that this book is a lot more fun to read than my dull review.

Echoes many of my sentiments from the early days.
As for the days surrounding my involvement, it is how I remember it, and how I intended it.
That never happens, but it did in this book, and I don't even know this guy, and never talked to him. He did use some of my photos without asking me though, and I never got a dime. I can be reached through Thrashers publisher, in the event there is a check waiting for me, and no where to mail it.

being a 32 year old skateboard enthusiast (going on 18 years), i could feel myself re-living my past. he brings back the essence of what skateboarding is, was, and "will be" all about. i've had the wonderful opportunity to meet, and skate with this great author, and he truly does have a passion. the book is a part of his energy, and an element of the soul of skateboarding. i would urge anybody interested in skateboarding, or what skateboarding is about, to buy it. A+ jocko!

This book is absolutely loaded with memories, from us old surfers who skated pools, to the kids who skate all the parks around the country and haven't bothered to experience the joy of getting chased out of public skate venues--all of us need to read this work of art. All of a sudden, all these great books have come out about our little world: Hawk's book (HAWK, OCCUPATION SKATEBOARDER) takes us inside the life of a pro (okay, well, inside the life of a god); AGENTS OF CHANGE takes us inside the world of DC Shoes and they're all worthy of putting on our coffee tables or on our bookshelves and maintaining a little bit of history. I give this book a deep asian bow... I'll love it long time.

I found Jocko Weyland's book to be an incredible history of skating because he unearthed some of the more obscure heroes of skating (those that were not given credit in Dogtown) who hailed from disparate parts of the globe including Hawaii. I also love that the author skated with the elks in Colorado.
If you are into skating or know someone who is, buy this frickin' book. It tells the whole tale!