Postcard from Simon Woodstock

Back in 2007 I wrote a short piece about Simon Woodstock, and it ended up being one of the more heavily trafficked posts on the site. Simon got in touch a couple of years later. Originally he wasn’t too keen on having his skateboarding past brought to the limelight again, but he’s since come to terms with it. I asked if he had anything he wanted to say to our readers and to my surprise he actually did.

[Left: Reprinted from The Skatebook. Right: Recent shot of Simon and his dog Scooter.]

The whole thing started when he asked why people think Rocco made him leave skateboarding. I guess he hadn’t seen The Man Who Souled The World.

While getting sued by Rocco sucked, he and his lawyers were actually pretty cool about the whole thing. Steve was just bummed that we attacked the WI brand and wanted to kind of send a message out to others not to mess with him. Everything ended on a handshake.

Although Rocco offered to let my then business partner, Rich Metiver, off for free if *he* would leave the industry, we wound up settling for a $50,000 payment without clause of either of us having to leave the industry

Rocco’s lawyers would attest to this and if you look at the history you will find that I dissolved my partnership with Metiver shortly after the lawsuit and rejoined with a reconfigured version of Sonic Skateboards under the umbrella of NHS manufacturing and distribution. It was under this Sonic/NHS partnership that I had my last 2 pro models and then that cooperate relationship dissolved and I subsequently retired on my own shortly after. (I don’t think Rocco was lying in his documentary, he probably just remembered things differently due to time lapsing)

I basically quit on my own (in mutual agreement with my remaining sponsors) in 1998 because recurring injuries rendered me incapable of skating at a competitive/demonstration level any longer and I could no longer hold up my end of the contractual agreements that I had left. After a short meeting with Steve Van Doren and two short phone calls with other remaining sponsors, fair exit strategies were agreed upon and my career was basically over at that point.

It’s not like I am really worried about what people think of my exit from skateboarding. I just felt like telling the story tonight so there you have it 🙂

A couple more quick things:

People often say that I quit skating for religious reasons. I didn’t quit skating professionally because I “found God” and then felt I needed to quit. I quit in 1998 and didn’t become a dedicated Christian until early 2000. I believe that people from all faiths can still skate pro and stay true to their beliefs. I quit for the most part due to injuries like I said previously.

Do I still skate? I guess I grab a board and try to every now and then. I played a pretty memorable game of SKATE with one of my friends sons a while back and tried to noseslide a curb after Church the other day. Nothing really serious anymore, though.

What am I doing these days? Other than horsing around on a few social networking sites looking up old friends, I lead a pretty low key life taking care of my Mom full time, doing a graduate degree in Christian Theology via correspondence, and doing as much ministry in the Church as I can.

Some of my old best friends are still in Hollywood doing a show, I think it’s called Donkey Butt or something, and they are rich and famous now. I make 80 dollars a week and watch Seinfeld re-runs on my couch with my dog, Scooter. I often wonder out of the old crew who is the happiest out of us now a days. It’s probably hard to tell when you think about it a little…