Impossible: Rodney Mullen, Ryan Sheckler, And The Fantastic History Of Skateboarding

by Cole Louison

Overview

The Impossible aims to get skateboarding right. Journalist Cole Louison gets inside the history, culture, and major personalities of skating.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762770267
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/19/2011
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	456,609
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Cole Louison is a writer for GQ magazine and has contributed to Fader, McSweeney's, the New York Times, Buzzsaw and All Things Considered.  While at Ithaca College's Park School of Communications, Louison majored in journalism and reported for the Ithacan and the Ithacan Journal.  He also helped found one of the top alternative college publications: Buzzsaw Haircut.

Upon graduation, Louison moved to Martha’s Vineyard and began reporting for the Vineyard Gazette. While there, he became an island correspondent for WGBH Boston NPR and later moved to Cape Cod to work further for the station.
 
After a year on the Cape, a Vermont art colony offered him a writing grant, moving him to Johnson, Vermont. The one-month residency turned into a job offer, and Louison spent a year in Vermont before selling his truck and moving to New York City in fall 2004. Once there he became an editor at McSweeney’s Quarterly Journal, joined the New Yorker softball team, and temped for Vogue, Esquire, and Vanity Fair before coming to GQ, where he works today while continuing to write on a freelance basis.
 
For GQ he has covered a variety of subjects and interviewed Bill Clinton, Reggie Miller, Dave Navarro, Big Boi, Mohammad Ali, Ted Nugent, Don King, David Remnick, the world authority on Samuel Beckett, Jim Jarmusch, and Jean-Claude Killy. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, Outside, and the Los Angeles Times.

Table of Contents

1 There's This Kid 1

2 An Easy History of Skateboarding, Then another one 11

3 Rodney Mullen's Genius Roots and Femoral Anteversion 24

4 Tony Hawk Doesn't know when he started skating 29

5 What're Ya Cryin' About 34

6 Rolling Into Stacy Peralta, and the Strangest Day of My Life 43

7 Gunite, Snake Runs, and The Late Great ' 70s skateparks 51

8 Technical Reinvention of The 1970s, or How Mitch Hedberg Did Not Give Urethane Wheels to Emil Hersh In Heath Ledger's Skate Shop 60

9 Dogtown, Stecyk, and The Business of Skate Media 72

10 Ollieburgers, a World Championship, and The Skinniest Person I Have Ever Seen 80

11 Unable to Do Anything, Magic Mountain, v.c.Johnson, and the Chess King 90

12 The Golden Age of Skateboarding, or Tony Hawk was sixteen in 1984 95

13 Rodney Invents and Wins Everything, and His Dad Makes Him Quit, Again 109

14 Natas, Gonz, and The Birth of Street Skating 116

15 The 1980s End, and Skaters Die and Go to Jail 122

16 Rodney Nearly Dies in Sweden, and The Beginning of The 1990s 127

17 Ryan Sheckler Can Kickflip And He's Six Years Old 134

18 The 1990s Rebirth Of Tech Skating, And Chris Haslam Makes P-Rod Crack Up 143

19 Waist 66 Jeans And The Rise Of World Industries 151

20 The Insane Power Of Television 160

21 Mike v's Greatest Hits, or How Skating's Newfound Success Was Not So successful 172

22 The Best Skateboarder In The World Is a Seventh Grader 181

23 Rodney Rids His Body of Scar Tissue, and The First Stanceless Skater 194

24 Life of Ryan 199

25 "I Hate Sheckler," and The Exploding of Ryan's Right Foot 209

26 Healing at The Berrics 219

27 To Try and Talk to Shaun White and Ryan Sheckler 225

28 Dew Tour Finals 2010 236

29 Watching Sheckler Skate 244

30 Watching Rodney Skate, or Switch Nollie Laserflip at Midnight 254

Many Thanks 261

Notes 262

Sources 278

Index 289

About the Author 298

Editorial Reviews

David Foster Wallace on a skateboard.” — GQ

“With its infectious enthusiasm, precise lyricism, and rigorous deeply-felt reporting, the book brings to life the sport’s historical roots, its cultural significance, and most of all, its artistic possibilities. I was hooked from the start. —Ian Crouch, The New Yorker

“The last time I thought seriously about professional skateboarders, I was hoping to become one. This book blew it wide open for me. Until now, only obsessive freaks had any idea how interesting this sport is. And even obsessive freaks should stick around for the tale Louison has so lucidly spun. —John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Blood Horses and Pulphead

“I’d never so much as stood on a board, let alone heard the names Sheckler and Mullen, but I found myself entranced by the fascinating cultural movement they created. The Impossible is a universal story, told in imminently readable fashion by a tremendously talented writer." —Michael Koryta, New York Times best-selling author of The Ridge and Those Who Wish Me Dead

“The book provides a deep and nuanced insight into how contemporary skateboarding has evolved and where it will go. It honors the beauty, danger, and complexity of the sport, and lays bare its physical and psychological demands, and greatness. The Impossible is some of the finest writing on skating I’ve seen. I read it in one sitting." —Bret Anthony Johnston, best-selling author of Corpus Christi and Remember Me Like This

From the Publisher