How to fight for a skatepark

You may have noticed banner ads in rotation for Razorcake magazine here on Skate and Annoy. It’s originally the brainchild of Todd Taylor, author, punk rocker, publisher, skater, drinker and general all around good guy to know. Razorcake is bigger than him now, it’s a non-profit organization for baby Jesus’ sake! Issue #41 has a seven page article, How to fight for a skatepark that has heroes, villains and an epic tale of struggle, much like Homer’s Odyssey – mostly because the villains seem to have the intellect of Homer Simpson. Imagine you are tied to a railroad track in the middle of a dessert, and you can see the smoke from the locomotive approaching over the horizon. You think to yourself, surely someone will find and help me, right up until the point where you can see engine approaching, and feel the rails rumble. Todd Taylor was tied to the tracks just blocks away from his apartment as the Red Tape engineer of the City of L.A., The Cho-Bot, and Teflon were intent on railroading prefab modular skateparks from a playground company down the throats and up the collective asses of his L.A. neighborhood’s skateboarding population. It’s a good read, and one that explains how it is possible for the city like L.A. with the largest population base, and in the state that is the supposed birthplace of skateboarding, can only have three public skateparks in the year 2007. The article is not available online, so look for Razorcake wherever you buy your independent media, or head on over to Razorcake.org where you can buy issue 41 or better yet, subscribe for as little as $15.