Tony Hawk a Success
Success Magazine did a short piece on Tony Hawk. Chairman of the Board Maybe the print version includes skate photos. I could drop by a dentist’s office and check the waiting room.
I grabbed what has to be my favorite invert image off J Grant Brittain’s blog at the Skateboard Mag. Also here’s another crop of the image from the Success website.
“I could drop by a dentist
Just remember, the more pedestrians that think skating is a viable successful career path for their children, the more skateparks that get built… which equals more fun for ME (& maybe you).
… to be able to support a family skateboarding… cool.
“Success is obedience to a structured way of life” – Op Ivy
It’s probably unfair, but I’ve always had a problem with a suit and tie, or even just a tie, representing “success”. Hawk’s “successful” life in skating should mean that he never has to wear a suit, even for a cover shot on that mag. Especially for a cover shot on that mag. I don’t have any problem with his “success”. He’s earned it. Just his attire. Hell, maybe he just likes the damn suit…
That’s the irony of the photo shoot: he has never needed to wear a tie to earn or demonstrate success. Like or hate his business decisions, the guy has always called his own shots. Regardless of whether I personally would consent to all of the same endorsement deals and decisions, Tony has earned the freedom to do whatever he wants however he wants whenever he wants. In one word, I’d call that “success.”
Ditto for Duane Peters, Bam Magera, Steve Alba, Ryan Sheckler, and so on. I wouldn’t make the same decisions, but these guys are doing it their way in very distinct ways. To me, it’s not about whether they’re doing my way, but whether they’re able to do it their way.
Well said, Mac & Tom. (But chicks do dig a suit on their man.)
Sure, they have but at whose expense? You don’t get to that level of wealth or popularity without tromping on someone’s or some thing’s head. I’d rather read a story about a broke-ass 30 year old nobody who insists on continuing to rollerblade in 2008, than Tony Hawk’s “Success.”
Nice invert though.
“Ditto for Duane Peters, Bam Magera, Steve Alba, Ryan Sheckler, and so on.”
I don’t know about Duane Peters, and Steve Alba but as for the other two it seems to me that they have very limited freedom. All their choices come from a pool of possible decisions confined by preconceptions defined by others. Freedom is the ability to exist beyond that set of possible decisions and consciously define it in your own terms for your specific needs and desires. I agree that Hawk has that capability at others expense but at most the other aforementioned are incapable of possessing that trait and live a life unobserved.
unobserve this! Plato