From Publishers Weekly
At the beginning of this slim history of skateboarding, the author makes it clear that his version will be biased, prejudiced and discriminating. Weyland has been hooked on skateboarding for more than 20 years (he is 33 years old), making objectivity all but impossible. Instead, Weyland has written what amounts to a love letter to skateboarding and its culture. He cobbles old articles and reportage from skating magazines like Skateboarder and Thrasher into a breezy narrative of the sport from its birth in 1960s California as a way for surfers to pass the time when the waves were flat to the hugely popular sport of today, regularly featured on ESPN. Along the way readers meet legends like the Dogtown Z-Boys (skating pioneers who were recently the subject of a documentary film), Steve Caballero and Tony Hawk. But the real strength of this book comes from the personal experiences he skillfully drops in the mix. He does a great job explaining how, growing up as an alienated kid, skating offered him an alternative to institutionalized jock mentality and its attendant boorishness. Through his vivid remembrances, he offers a glimpse into the rebellious skating culture in the 1980s when it was still far underground. And while Weyland lapses a bit into sentimentality over today' s commercialization of the sport, he always returns to its true spirit. As he writes, It' s slamming onto cement and getting purple hip contusions that stick to your pants for weeks, riding on rain-soaked sidewalks and arguing with old ladies and running from cops. This is a rallying cry to true skate punks everywhere. (Sept.) Forecast: Excerpts from the book will appear in skateboarding magazine Thrasher (circulation of 500,000), which should drive sales. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
From the hard-ridden half-pipe of a suburban driveway to teens doing boardslides down stairway handrails in Rio de Janeiro, from the bright-light glare of ESPN's X-Games to the groundbreaking street-skating videos of Spike Jonze, skateboarding has taken the world by storm -- and if you can't deal with that, get out of the way. In The Answer Is Never, skating journalist Jocko Weyland tells the rambunctious story of a rebellious sport that began as a wintertime surfing substitute on the streets of Southern California beach towns more than forty years ago and has evolved over the decades to become a fixture of urban youth culture around the world. Merging the historical development of the sport with passages about his own skating adventures in such wide-ranging places as Hawaii, Germany, and Cameroon, Weyland gives a fully realized portrait of a subculture whose love of free-flowing creativity and a distinctive antiauthoritarian worldview has inspired major trends in fashion, music, art, and film. Along the way, Weyland interweaves the stories of skating pioneers like Gregg Weaver and the Dogtown Z-Boys and living legends like Steve Caballero and Tony Hawk. He also charts the course of innovations in deck, truck, and wheel design to show how the changing boards changed the sport itself, enabling new tricks as skaters moved from the freestyle techniques that dominated the early days to the extreme street-skating style of today. Vivid and vibrant, The Answer Is Never is a fascinating book as radical and unique as the sport it chronicles.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From the hard-ridden half-pipe of a suburban driveway to teens doing boardslides down stairway handrails in Rio de Janeiro, from the bright-light glare of ESPN's X-Games to the groundbreaking street-skating videos of Spike Jonze, skateboarding has taken the world by storm — and if you can't deal with that, get out of the way. In The Answer Is Never, skating journalist Jocko Weyland tells the rambunctious story of a rebellious sport that began as a wintertime surfing substitute on the streets of Southern California beach towns more than forty years ago and has evolved over the decades to become a fixture of urban youth culture around the world. Merging the historical development of the sport with passages about his own skating adventures in such wide-ranging places as Hawaii, Germany, and Cameroon, Weyland gives a fully realized portrait of a subculture whose love of free-flowing creativity and a distinctive antiauthoritarian worldview has inspired major trends in fashion, music, art, and film. Along the way, Weyland interweaves the stories of skating pioneers like Gregg Weaver and the Dogtown Z-Boys and living legends like Steve Caballero and Tony Hawk. He also charts the course of innovations in deck, truck, and wheel design to show how the changing boards changed the sport itself, enabling new tricks as skaters moved from the freestyle techniques that dominated the early days to the extreme street-skating style of today. Vivid and vibrant, The Answer Is Never is a fascinating book as radical and unique as the sport it chronicles.

SYNOPSIS

Weyland's (he's an editor for Open City and a contributor to Thrasher) intelligently written memoir chronicles a youth spent skateboarding and listening to punk music in California, Hawaii, and Africa (his fairly enlightened parents moved a lot). At the end of this memoir, Weyland bemoans the popularity of skateboarding now and the attendant loss of a subculture he cherished. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

The New Yorker

This chronicle, by a seasoned practitioner, of the halting but persistent ascent of skateboarding is sharp and winning, depicting from the inside the evolution of a subculture that has retained its stylistic distinctiveness even as it has spawned ESPN shows and tacky merchandising franchises. Unfortunately, Weyland spends too much time fretting that skaters have gone soft, and lamenting the decay of the anti-authoritarianism that once animated the sport. But his picture of the real world in which skaters live belies his warmed-over Frankfurt School critique, and he is at his best when he writes about what skating gave him as a kid -- what it's like to awaken to a sense of possibility, and to realize that what you've grown up with is not what you're stuck with.

Publishers Weekly

At the beginning of this slim history of skateboarding, the author makes it clear that his version will be biased, prejudiced and discriminating. Weyland has been hooked on skateboarding for more than 20 years (he is 33 years old), making objectivity all but impossible. Instead, Weyland has written what amounts to a love letter to skateboarding and its culture. He cobbles old articles and reportage from skating magazines like Skateboarder and Thrasher into a breezy narrative of the sport from its birth in 1960s California as a way for surfers to pass the time when the waves were flat to the hugely popular sport of today, regularly featured on ESPN. Along the way readers meet legends like the Dogtown Z-Boys (skating pioneers who were recently the subject of a documentary film), Steve Caballero and Tony Hawk. But the real strength of this book comes from the personal experiences he skillfully drops in the mix. He does a great job explaining how, growing up as an alienated kid, skating offered him an alternative to institutionalized jock mentality and its attendant boorishness. Through his vivid remembrances, he offers a glimpse into the rebellious skating culture in the 1980s when it was still far underground. And while Weyland lapses a bit into sentimentality over today' s commercialization of the sport, he always returns to its true spirit. As he writes, It' s slamming onto cement and getting purple hip contusions that stick to your pants for weeks, riding on rain-soaked sidewalks and arguing with old ladies and running from cops. This is a rallying cry to true skate punks everywhere. (Sept.) Forecast: Excerpts from the book will appear in skateboarding magazine Thrasher (circulation of 500,000), which should drive sales. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

VOYA - Rollie Welch

Extreme sports have gained popularity, but little is known about their origins. Here in exhaustive detail are the roots of skateboarding from its surfing ancestry to roller-skating to street boarding. At age thirty-something, Weyland relates his lifelong passion for skateboarding, enthusiastically defining the activity as one that appeals to rebellious teens, offers no guidelines or rules, and as the sport gains popularity, defies authority. Although valuable for its historical research, this book could easily be titled A Text on Skateboarding Locomotion 101, it is so detailed. A target audience of fourteen- through sixteen-year-olds might not comprehend phrases such as "rising speed as a destroyer of perception's stability, creating simultaneous panic and tranquility in ordered minds." Throughout the text, Weyland drops pop culture references and names that might be completely lost to today's teens. Despite providing an authoritative alternative to Thrasher magazine, it is doubtful that skating free-stylists would read this book cover-to-cover. The disappointing section of dated black-and-white photos also discourages casual browsing. Despite these drawbacks, there is a place in the young adult section for the book. Many teens, when assigned a report on a topic of their choice, will choose skateboarding. Here in one volume is the development of the boards, slang, an explanation of the skating lifestyle, the evolution of stunts, and publications promoting the sport. An extensive list of sources used adds to the book's value as a research title. Index. Photos. Source Notes. VOYA CODES: 3Q 2P S A/YA (Readable without serious defects; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; SeniorHigh, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult and Young Adult). 2002, Grove Press, 354p,

Booknews

Weyland's (he's an editor for and a contributor to ) intelligently written memoir chronicles a youth spent skateboarding and listening to punk music in California, Hawaii, and Africa (his fairly enlightened parents moved a lot). At the end of this memoir, Weyland bemoans the popularity of skateboarding now and the attendant loss of a subculture he cherished. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kirkus Reviews