Who is/was Simon Woodstock?

I can’t find much about Simon Woodstock on the web. There are a couple of reviews of his religious tract disguised as a zine, but other than that, just this video clip, Skim the Fat doesn’t have a single listing of him, even if IMDB lists him as appearing in Boob. STF lists 154 skaters in that video, but no Simon Woodstock. It’s like he’s been blacklisted. Simon was in the limelight at a time when I wasn’t following the industry rags, not that I am now, but through the Interweb™ I sometimes find out about things whether I want to or not. I remember reading about some legendary shenanigans and talented skating in the past tense. What I get from this video is a heavy CKY vibe. Just as some people can’t stand Bam, there are lot of Woodstock bashers out there. You’d have to be blind to say he had no talent. Watch him ride both a skimboard and snowboard set up as skateboards while wearing appropriate attire and shredding as effortlessly as if he was riding a short board. Then there’s the clown suit. Funny stuff, but I can imagine it wears thin after a while. So someone fill in the blanks. Who did he ride for and what video is this from? Watch the vid and more after the jump.

Simon Woodstock video

Here it is. It’s damn funny and the skating is good. The user who is propagating it claims not to know where it is from. (UPDATE: Original video has disappeared, but it appears it was from a 1993 Thrasher title called Need for Speed. Watch this one while you can.)

This clip has the year 1993 attached to it. I don’t know if that’s accurate since IMDB says Simon was in Boob in 1999. No matter, cut to the year 2005. Madrid Skatebaords releases the El Cochino complete deck. The story as I remember it from Concrete Disciples is that Mark “Sumdumsurfer” Kessenich, a Madrid employee at the time, pressed a giant skateboard out of some birch plys that Madrid had stocked for their line of skimboards. This one had a kicktail and upturned nose. He outfitted it with some 13″ wide Gullwing trucks (for mountain boards), and brought it to a local skatepark as a goof. The locals reacted strongly in favor and demanded their own, so Madrid actually put them into a limited production. I don’t know if they had a bulletin board meltdown over at Concrete Disciple or what, because I can’t find the original “El Cochino” thread, but I did find this picture of it in action.

Nowhere Fast

Pretty much the only substantial information on Simon I could find was in this Jason Adams interview in Transworld. It’s like the all too familiar bipolar disorder. People tend to go from one extreme to the other. At some point in time Simon found God, and is now trying to make sure others find him too. He put out a publication called Nowhere Fast that, according to reviews, was not much more than a Chic tract disguised as a zine.

Here’s the January 2003 review of Nowhere Fast in Zine Thing, from Thrasher Magazine.

This is the work of former pro skater Simon Woodstock–you know, the guy who used to ride boogie boards or bowling balls with trucks at contests. Urifortunately, that’s where the good part ends. This is essentially a religious tract, in the same vein as those cheesy “You’re going to hell unless you repent now” comics from Chick Publications. Simon feels that his life was spiralling out of control, and he was “carousing” a bit too much, egged on by peer pressure and bad influences. Now the Lord is his latest in a string of influences, I guess. It’s funny and appropriate that the God squad now has a skateboarding clown on their team. Why can’t people just keep their beliefs to themselves? Remember this Biblical paradox when people try to pawn this stuff off on you. Only sheep need a shephard, and sheep are led to the slaughter. If you’re a glutton fur punishment or want a good chuckle, write the Calvary Chapel of San Jose, 1175 Hillsdale Ave, San Jose, CA 95118, or write to Simon directly: simon@calvarychapel.ch

Here’s another review on the Media Diet site.

This full-color pamphlet was written by Simon Woodstock, a former professional skateboarder who was active for seven years in the ’90s. Now he’s found God and a new calling — evangelizing to the youth set. This eight-page almost-zine, which was largely dismissed by the mainstream skateboarding magazines, outlines Woodstock’s self-realization. For the most part, his religious growth stemmed from falling prey to the party lifestyle he engaged in while a pro skateboarder, which caused him to lose focus with his skating. While the pamphlet is full of photos of Woodstock skating, complete with dyed hair and clown suit, it’s unclear whether he kept up his skating — although it seems he couldn’t regain and maintain focus without giving up his skating career. While I’m glad Woodstock found renewed meaning in his life, I’m not sure his work with the chapel or this skater-oriented pamphlet will have the evangelical effect he’s hoping for. One, very few people in the skateboarding industry will take this seriously. Two, people interested in skateboarding in general will not know who Woodstock is. Now, if Tony Hawk were to come out as a vocal Christian, the church might have something to work with. Regardless, this is an interesting outgrowth of church culture and skateboarding fandom — and an intriguing parallel to Christian punk rock. It’s just a shame that stuff like this always starts with religion and then culture instead of the other way around. Following that path almost always results in watered-down culture. Free from Simon Woodstock, Calvary Chapel, 1175 Hillsdale Ave., San Jose, CA 95118.

Simon Woodstock, TrendPimp

I originally came across this video via a feed from a rediculous web site called TrendPimp. It was titled “The Worlds First Skateboard Skimboarding” which made me think it was recent until I realized who it was. Trend Pimp is so bad, like Details for the mentally impaired. Their tagline is “Defining Style.” Puh-lease. Defining style for retarded robots and adolescent fashion parrots is more like it. The only thing they have going for them is that their video compression is better than YouTube, and they let you vote on whether not the video is good, like that means a damn thing. It just encourages vanity and a false sense of self importance. Much like Skate and Annoy does for it’s contributors, actually, so look for that feature to be added here soon.

(UPDATE: Video and entire web site for TrendPimp.com seems to have disappeared as well.)

If you are going to comment on this post, please refrain from saying something dumb like “Bam Margera has no talent either” because besides being ludicrous, it’s just not interesting enough to read again.

UPDATE: Simon Woodstock on Vans trading card

Thanks to reader Jan who pointed out this Vans trading card from 1997. Check out how they list his ranking from 1996. Click to enlarge.