Scarred for Life: Eleven Stories About Skateboarders - Softcover

Keith David Hamm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811840530 ISBN 13: 9780811840538

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 2004

Synopsis

Skateboarding is a means of transport, a pastime, a lifestyle, an artful expression, and an ethos. Some even call it a sport. But until now, the scene has lacked an appropriate -- and accessible -- tribute. Scarred for Life is an intimate, you-are-there look into the culture and history of skateboarding, as told through the voices and experiences of those who have dedicated their lives to riding a wooden plank with wheels. Eleven chapters take readers on a wild ride through the evolution (and revolution) of skateboarding -- reaching as far back as the 1950s -- and includes oral histories and terrain reports of the major styles and techniques as they emerged. One hundred dynamic photographs capture skaters doing what they do best in pools and pipes, on hills, ramps, streets, and skateparks. From the early proving grounds of California hills and pools to the chaotic streets of modern New York City, Scarred for Life offers street-level talk and eye-to-eye truth-telling about skateboarders, scars and all.

About this title

About the Author:

Keith David Hamm is a former news reporter for the Santa Barbara Independent and a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, as well as numerous skateboarding publications. An avid skateboarder for more than twenty years, he l

From Publishers Weekly:

Despite the subtitle, this homegrown, lowdown book comprises a full-blown history of skateboarding through paradigmatic case studies. Former Santa Barbara Independent reporter Hamm, who has been skateboarding since age six and had a concrete "bowl" in his front yard, begins with a profile of the 55-year-old Bill Coleman and the Northern California scene of the 1960s and '70s and shoots forward from there. Some of the chapters cover favored locales ("Pools," "Pipes," "Ramps," "Streets"), others encapsulate decades, from the '60s to the present. Hamm writes in West Coast border vernacular ("kids became more stoked on learning how to frontside boardslide a hardrail than on smacking an alley-oop body jar on an extension with four feet of vert"), covering everything from the perils of taking a 40 mph turn on wet pavement to the pitfalls of corporate sponsorship. The 100 color and b&w photos, which he has culled from within the skateboarding community, are fetish-magazine hot if you're into it, but may seem somewhat anonymous and repetitive if not. The same could be said for the book as a whole, as beautifully designed and as lovingly pieced together as it is.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0811840530
• ISBN 13: 9780811840538
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240