The Answer Is Never Book Review @ The Sideways Guide!

*Book Reviews:*
The Answer Is Never
by
*Jocko Weyland*

Review by The Chraveler

	Jocko Weyland has crafted an intelligent look at skateboarding from a personal viewpoint in his book, The Answer Is Never. From the ancient Hawaiian surf culture to the modern days of the media magnifying glass, Weyland combines a well-researched, scholarly history of skateboarding with his own personal stories of growing up with a skateboard as well as many similar but still unique accounts of other skateboarders. Weyland begins with an in-depth chronology of the beginnings of the sideways stance in Hawaii, telling how the Hawaiians' religious practice of surfing was discouraged and outlawed by Christian missionaries but never fully eradicated (some things never change!), and of the eventual importation of surfing to the US, which set the stage for the folkloric and unintentional modification of the soapbox scooter leading to the birth of the skateboard.

He continues with the explosion of the surfing lifestyle that swarmed America in the 1950's and 60's, and the early exploits of skateboarding in America and the primitive equipment. He segues into the hibernation of the turn of the decade into the 1970's when skateboarding went underground, and then into recounting the introduction of the urethane wheel and its monumental effect on skateboarding. Weyland also describes in detail the many facets and products of skating's 1970's boom, both frivolous and legendary: Dogtown and the Z-Boys, the drainage ditches and reservoirs of southern California, empty swimming pools, skateparks, movies, magazines, the fabled "Dogtown" articles by C.R. Stecyk, and the numerous how-to books written at the time. Weyland also infuses into the history an interesting chapter on the concept of play, and how no matter how attempts are made at organizing and standardizing skateboarding for competitive purposes, for the most part they are unsuccessful, as skateboarding cannot be easily contained or defined.

One of my favorite chapters is "The Elk and The Skateboarder", where Weyland recounts his experiences growing up as the only skateboarder in his backwater Colorado town - an experience that I am all too familiar with growing up in Maine. I found myself in great relation to many of Weyland's experiences growing up: The sentiments of isolation in one's hometown contrasted and remedied with a sense of belonging found at a skatepark with other skaters; the transplanting of an unwanted, rickety backyard halfpipe; the rare but eye-opening and appreciated visits to an excellent skatepark near Grandma's house; and the temporary cessation of skateboarding to pursue a social life.

Weyland continues with his own personal stories from his nomadic formative years that take him from the Colorado Rockies to the martian experience of moving to Hawaii, to his collegiate years in the skateboard Mecca known as California (a title that state is losing to the Pacific NW, Europe, and elsewhere with every shitty prison skatepark they build!) In the latter half of his book, he writes about the organic sprouting of street skating, the media revolution chartered by Stacy Peralta's use of home-video technology to export skateboarding around the world into any living room with a VCR, and the current media-saturated skateboarding environment.

Weyland positively concludes The Answer is Never with the declaration that in the face of all the attention skateboarding has received from the mainstream - and no matter what its effect - there is and always will be the hardcore skateboarders for whom only the skating is important: To real skaters, the dollar sign has the same effect as an ancient, undecipherable hieroglyphic.

	The Answer Is Never by Jocko Weyland Publisher: Grove Atlantic ISBN # 0-8021-3945-0 Price: $13.50 (Cheap!) If your local skateboard shop stocks this book, then I strongly suggest you buy it from them as it shows they know what the hell is up! If they don't stock it, then ask! If they can't/won't obtain it for you, or if you just get a dumb look from the stoner behind the counter copying homework, then you can easily get this book on Amazon or in just about any bookshop.