03.14.2008: Okay, so it looks like I've been neglecting the site for a while now. Whoops. Guess I got busy with art shows and whatnot. Rather foolish of me not to have posted anything up here about those since they were all about the boards Marc McKee and I did in the early/mid-’90s. The show is titled Censorship Is Weak As Fuck and has since traveled about from San Francisco and Los Angeles over to Frankfurt, Germany and, most recently, Australia (Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, to be specific). Anyway, future hopes and dreams for free travel on the dimes of sponsors include Tokyo, Stockholm and New York.

Beyond that, I decided to take a sabbatical from the graphics trade and resigned from my artist position at Birdhouse and Hook-Ups skateboards. I'm now focusing most all my time and energy into www.jackassworld.com, where we've "reunited" the old Big Brother staff in the Interweb medium. Yeah, we're all a little older, but we haven't exactly gotten any smarter...which can only equate to entertainment value.

10.04.2007: I'll be the first to admit I've been nothing but a lazy bastard when it comes to updating this site. The gallery has become a neglected wasteland, the forum is an outright pipe dream, and the last time I hit the news was in May. Weak. Anyway, the new Gingko Press edition of Disposable hit the stores in July. You can pretty much find it anywhere in the world now, even in places like Chile, which is pretty cool to think. From what I've heard it's selling pretty good, too, like a brand new book, not a reissue, which confirms my suspicion that it never got a fair shake in distribution.

One thing I should mention, alas, is that my wife will be closing down our family website - www.townsendkid.com - so the book will no longer be available through that outlet, which was pretty much the only way you could obtain an autographed copy (last year the holiday/gift orders were off the hook). However, if you check the "Buy" page, you can see where there is still the possibility of obtaining an autographed copy, you just have to email me direct for further info on ordering.

05.09.2007: Well, I've just received an advance copy of Disposable from my new publisher - Gingko Press - and I have to say I'm pretty damn happy with it. Especially with the newly packaged in DVD feature disc and 16 more pages of bonus material. Just kidding, although I'm certain a few might not find that funny in the least. Anyway, the book has been out of print now for almost a year (it sold out from Blitz in July/August of last year), and I've been sweating bullets trying to get it back in global circulation. But come July, the bulk shipment will be in and winging themselves back around the globe to a variety of new retail outlets. Since I've received a few random emails, PMs, and whatnot about this latest edition, I'll assemble a FAQ list here and try to cover the bases in one fell swoop:

So what exactly is this, a new edition or just another printing?

Well, to be precise, it's a bit of both really. The new publisher wanted to distinguish the book from its past incarnations (Concrete Wave Editions, thank you very much), so a few cosmetic and structural changes were made. Technically, this would still be the book's 5th printing in softcover, though.

Cosmetic? What's that mean, like lipstick and shit?

No, nothing so literal, just some color swaps to the book title on the cover, a black instead of white spine, and a revert to the original back cover as it first appeared way back in November 2004 with the full bleed battered Lucero X2 photo. The "hard sell" copy went into and onto the book's cover flaps, which serve to sturdy the whole thing up in general.

Seriously, cut to the chase: what'd you go changing around on the inside? In other words, how'd you go about fucking us over this time around. You know we've all been suckered down this path before...

I can only offer so many mea culpas, but what the heck, here's one more: mea culpa. Okay, now the truth is I didn't really change anything at all in the guts of the book, EXCEPT for the deletion of a certain collector's name from a certain $10,000.00 board that is no longer in his possession. And I may have corrected a few odd release dates here or there or an artist's name. But that's it. Well, almost. There's this "Easter Egg" on the inside back cover flap for anyone who wants to know "more about the author" or what his stupid face looks like with a cleanly manicured mustache (not to mention the topless factor). All in good mocking fun of the stuffy author shots.

While we're at it, how many copies have sold to date?

Lumping the soft and hardcovers together, I think it was in the neighborhood of 14,000-15,000 copies, give or take for promo and such. I'd wager that 75 percent of those were sold/distributed directly to the skateboard marketplace - in other words, it never really got beyond that market, aside from a few boutique stores here and there and Urban Outfitters. I gotta imagine there are several thousand guys that once skated in the 70s and 80s that might enjoy the book if they happened upon it somewhere else other than a skateshop (since they haven't been in one of those in two decades), hence my interest in working with a publisher geared to that kinda distribution.

What's this about you working on another book?

Yes, much to my wife's good humor, for the past 10 months I've been working on another follow-up book of sorts. This one will be more "collector" based, and my main intent is to showcase a big gallery of deck images from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and just a smattering of the 00s. I've pillaged/shot a number of heretofore unseen collections and archives, so I promise lots of nice new eye candy, but I'm also using this as an opportunity to tie up a few loose ends from the first book, with quotes and stories from artists that were either MIA or just didn't fit in. Incidentally, if anyone has something they think I might be interested in, please contact me for photo specs if you're not in the immediate SoCal area (I'm done in the NorCal region...no more roadtrips for me). I can't guarantee I'll use all or any of the shots, because I'm continually finding new stashes of material. In the end, photo quality and/or colors will win out.

02.11.2007: It's official - Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art will be BACK IN PRINT COME SPRING 2007. Oddly enough, I've been taken in by one of the first companies I'd sent the initial book proposal to back in 2003: Gingko Press. With this new publishing house some minor modifications were made to the book's design in order to distinguish it from past editions published by Concrete Wave Editions and Blitz Distribution, including, but not limited to, some fancy flaps on the cover, some color swapping, and a new printer. Anyway, I'm stoked to finally have the book back on its legs and running for a wider global audience.

12.06.2006: A cheery holiday update: I may have scored a new publisher for 2007, so if everything goes well the book should be rescued from purgatory and back on the shelves by March or April. In the meantime, from what I gather from all the emails received, the previous softcover editions are all but impossible to find. Some retailer on Amazon is even asking like $60.00 for a copy? Weird.

9.15.2006: Today is indeed a sad day for me, because Blitz Distribution has decided to discontinue printing on Disposable. They sold out of the fourth printing in July and after great deliberation opted to hold off on any further orders. The book has done extraordinarily well for them, but they fear their current salesbase is saturated and have no interest in pursuing mass-market distribution after a minor headache with one such wholesale book purveyor (the issues of consignment, tardy payments, and damaged returns). So, unless I score a little divine intervention, this book is officially out of print. For now at least.

3.10.2006: I should probably clarify something about the updates made to the fourth printing of the book. The revisions mainly consist of corrections to inaccurate artist credits in previous editions; a few updated deck photos (for example, a better example of the Blind Henry Sanchez Beauty and the Beast board); and new quotes from Francesco Albertini, the former H-Street artist, and James Levesque, the original Agent Orange bassist. In no way do these updates compare to those made with the second edition - this is just out-patient cosmetic surgery for lack of a better definition. Someone did put forth the idea I post up downloadable PDFs of these corrections so they can be slipped into previous printings. I'm not opposed to doing this - it is indeed a good idea - but I may not be able to post them anytime soon due to current workload obligations.

08.19.2005: The third print is now in stock and shipping. Some even to mainstream outlets, from what I've been told. But do me a favor and boycott Wal-Mart. Aside from those trivialities, I've found some time to update the galleries with new decks and such. A few to see major improvements include, Marc McKee's, Ron Cameron's, John Lucero's, and mine.

08.12.2005: Not much to say. I've been swamped with work of late and unable to make any serious additions to the galleries portion of this site. In fact, the last thing I was able to do was add a few rare Powell Peralta boards to the VCJ and Kevin Ancell galleries, courtesy of Larry Ransom. Someday I'll get around to loading more deck images, though.

05.08.2005: Quick update to just say thanks to all those who stopped by the Tailtap booth to pick up a Disposable book or shirt. Turned out to be a decent afternoon and I managed to get my own book signed by a few old pros in attendance, most notably Steve Olson, Jesse Martinez, Lance Mountain, and Paul Constantineau.

Above: Steve Olson doing the reverse autograph thing.

Also, more importantly, I finally managed to get autographed copies available for sale online. For anyone interested in ordering a book with my name scribbled inside it, please visit: www.townsendkid.com

05.05.2005: Jim Phillips just sent me these photos that he had taken at last week's book signing. There was no particular reason that Todd Francis and Todd Bratrud wound up in the back of the signing bus...the seats just came out that way, I guess.

Above left: Rare group action shot featuring the two Todd's in back of everyone else.
Above right: Phillips Studios alumni shot with Mojo, Jim, and Jimbo.

05.02.2005: Okay, so the date has come and gone for the San Jose signing and I have to say it went off much better than I expected. Then again, I'm a pessimistic optimist, so the glass is always only slight more than half empty in my world. Anyway, almost 70 books were sold within the designated hour, and numerous people made the trek to the very southside of San Jose, among them being several skateboard collectors I've had contact with over the years- including the now legendary Got_Wood - and I'd like to extend a word of thanks for doing so. Also want to thank Jason Strubing at Skate Works for hosting the event and Jai Tanju for making sure everyone had a little Coke mixed with their red wine. Below is a haphazard selection of photos that were thankfully taken by my wife, otherwise I wouldn't have anything visual at all to spruce up this news bit:

Above left: The crowd as seen from the perspective of Steve Caballero, myself, and Kevin Marburg.
Above right: Sean Cliver and Steve Caballero doing the scribbled name thing.

Above left: Jim Phillips Sr. alongside Jimbo Phillips. A fraction of Todd Francis may be seen just to the left of Jim's head, conveniently situated beneath his Real "Texas Chainsaw Pigfucker" board.
Above right: Expanded view of the table with Johnny Mojo.

Above (left to right): Jimbo Phillips, Jim Phillips Sr., Johnny "Mojo" Munnerlyn, Todd Francis, Todd Bratrud, Sean Cliver, Kevin Marburg, and Steve Caballero.

04.28.2005: This Saturday, April 30, I'll be in San Jose at the Skate Works shop (located at 463 Blossom Hill Road) for a book signing of Disposable 2.0 from 5:00 - 6:00pm. Jim Phillips, Steve Caballero, Todd Francis, Todd Bratrud, Jimbo Phillips, Kevin Marburg, and Johnny Mojo will also be on hand to sign copies of the book, and yes, it will be available for purchase at the shop. A limited run shirt will also be on sale.

04.01.2005: Well, someone finally called me out. The past couple months have been nothing short of nutty on eBay with regard to a curious price spike in old skateboards and, as much as I hate to admit it, the book—and a few wayward promo articles for it—may be to blame. It was a double-edged sword, I guess, because on one hand there's the kick in the gut for inviting random new collectors to join the fray; on the other, it's the fanciful chance of luring out more of these rare boards from the garages and storage closets where they'd been all but forgotten about. Anyway, for a condensed version of the year's obscene first quarter, check out the latest eBay report onskateandannoy.com

03.31.2005: Just a word of thanks to Tim Steenstra over at spyhillskates.com for contributing a smattering of photos from his past and present collection—especially so since they all came pre-clipped and shot to spec. These additions have subsequently been posted in the Jim Phillips, Bernie Tostenson, V. Courtlandt Johnson, Pushead, Johnny Mojo, John Lucero, and Wes Humpston galleries. Thanks again, Tim!

03.10.2005: Advance copies of the second edition have been seen and it looks good - damn good. Normally I'm not a horn blower, but I have to toot a bit about this because Disposable now looks like I'd originally hoped it would. Beefier paper stocks and 16 pages of expanded/additional material, which includes original, never before seen VCJ concept sketches, rare Powell Peralta prototypes, new quotes/text from Don Brown, Rodney Mullen, Bernie Tostenson, Jim Knight, Jim Phillips, and Christian Hosoi, and a slew of new decks that I'd never have found if the book hadn't been published in the first place. Look for it in skate shops come mid-April sometime.

02.07.2005: Slowly and not so surely working my way through the web educational process. More very remedial work in the galleries section, most recently Andy Howell, Andy Takakjian, John Grigley, Bernie Tostenson, Natas Kaupas, Mike Hill, and Mark Gonzales. Many of these are still incomplete...just tackling them in small spurts. Still haven't worked up the nerve (or time) to hit the listings for Marc McKee, John Lucero, or Jim Phillips, but all in due time and probably in half-ass chunks.

01.31.2005: Nothing much to speak of really, but I am in the process of toying/updating the artist galleries. For the best example of what I'm trying to accomplish here try clicking on the Pushead, V. Courtlandt Johnson, Craig Stecyk, Wes Humpston, and Neil Blender galleries. This will be an ongoing thing where I flex my limited web muscles from time to time, so I guess you can check back in whenever you feel like wasting time at work or whatever. Chances are I will have either made some more fun, trivial updates or crashed the site altogether.

12.02.2004: So yeah, the book is out now and it seems to be fairly well received. Early reports have all been favorable and several mail order businesses sold out within the first couple days of having it in stock. Now it's just a matter of building the "word of mouth" power, because this thing ain't headed to mainstream bookshelves until very later 2005. So please pass the word on or at least kick your local skate shop owner's ass into stocking a few.

11.23.2004: It would be a bit of an understatement to say I'm less than comfortable with having my photo taken, and here's the visual proof. I don't know what's going on with me here, but I really do look overly serious and constipated about skateboard art. Very strange. The only thing I'm really proud of, though, is the scar that can be seen on my left forearm. It's the result of being intoxicated at the ASR trade show and I wound up in some random Long Beach hospital emergency room at 1:00am. Anyway, EXPN has posted an interview with me about the book and other related stuff. Click the laughably serious photo below to link to the article.

11.09.2004: Just received word today that the books are officially in territorial waters of the United States of America. The big question now is when they will be unloaded, released, and stocked on the shelves at Blitz Distribution. No one seems to know, so it's kind of a crapshoot when the book will be available to the public. Some say November 22. Some just have their fingers crossed. In the meantime, this site is being redesigned and expanded to include a number of new features, and will be somewhat set to relaunch whenever the book is released from its oceanic purgatory. I will then use my fledgling web skills to make it crash and crash, over and over again, so it's just as frustrating as most any other Internet site. Should be fun.

10.18.2004: Throughout the two years I've worked on this book there was, on many occasions, the feeling that I was just gonna let everyone down in the end. And I don't mean like if the book sucked or anything. I'm talking about just plain getting it published and printed. There were a bunch of people that I badgered to no end, all just to get interviews, obtain quotes, or to set up times to shoot board collections—and then the subsequent hours that it took to photograph the boards—and I just kept thinking, "What the hell do I tell them all when this project falls flat on its misbegotten face?" Well, today I can officially put those fears to rest, because 10 advance copies hit the mainland this morning from China —and I gotta say it felt pretty damn cool to finally hold the physical embodiment of all my stress and anxieties. The 4,990 other copies, incidentally, were all off to the docks for their transcontinental voyage across the Pacific. Unfortunately, however, as I was just informed of today, there are some significant delays in the Long Beach harbor right now—boats are backed up 40 deep or something—and imports aren't making it to shore in a timely "fresh off the boat" manner.

But what about the actual printed book itself? It's good, I think, but heck, I'm biased. What do you expect. There are a lot of words, a lot of pictures, and it's nothing that anyone is gonna breeze through in one sitting, that's for sure. But it also reminded me of something I probably should've stated in the book at one point: All the boards shown in the book are credited to the company, pro model, artist, and release date—and by release date, I mean what year the board was likely produced in, according to its shape, construction, colors, wheel wells, etc., not when its graphic was first issued. (Best example of this is the Powell Peralta Mike McGill Skull and Snake. From the tail end of 1986 to 1989, this board was released with the exact same graphic on three to four different board shapes/constructions.) I hate mistakes just like everyone else—hell, more than anyone else in this case, seeing as my name is attached to it—but it didn't help matters that many of the artists, pros, and company owners couldn't even remember the correct data, especially when it came down to dating boards in the ’90s. So there are a few minor discrepancies I've already noted and plan to, hopefully, correct them with future printings of the book. Most embarrassing, a few Jason Lee Stereo boards that are dated 1997 and 1998, when his Retirement model—which is situated right next to them—clearly states 1996. But, like any good human (or should I say American?), I'm refusing to take accountability for this error. Instead, I'm just deflecting the blame on the artist, Todd Francis, who supplied me with all the release dates on his Deluxe graphics. Thanks Todd, you ruined my book!

10.12.2004: The countdown has officially started. Color proofs were signed off on, a few corrections were hastily made, and the presses have started to roll somewhere deep in China. Maybe Shanghai? I don't know. It's a pretty big country. But the important thing is the book will be finished in one week, whereupon 5,000 copies will be hucked onto a boat headed for the USA. From there it's onto Blitz Distribution, where Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art will start to ship ASAP to shop accounts with pre-booked sales. Since I've had more than a few requests, I am looking into the feasibility of selling single, autographed copies through www.artofskateboarding.com, and from what I've been told this shouldn't be a problem. Who knows, if I manage to get my web act together, maybe I'll even figure out how to sell them here, too.

09.30.04: After years and years of allowing the technophobe within me to rail on the Internet and the monumental waste of time that it is, I finally threw in the towel and littered the worldwide wasteland with a load of crap all my own. I guess it just took a selfish interest in promoting something for it to all make sense. And now that I've just learned the most rudimentary pre-school basics of web use, expect loads of new updates as I impatiently countdown to the final release of Disposable this coming November—and beyond that who knows what further nonsense will come to mind and leak out onto the web.

09.11.04: Disposable was formally introduced to the public courtesy of a "book launch" event hosted by Blitz Distribution, during the fall ASR trade show in San Diego. Luckily the book's publisher, Michael Brooke, was on hand to talk a bit about the book, because I have all the public speaking skills of an electric toaster. At the time, the book had not yet shipped to the printer, so there were no hard copies to speak of much to the dismay of many of those in attendance. But there were loads of the new fall 2004 issue of Concrete Wave magazine, which features a four-page teaser to the book's contents, along with the obligatory poster previews. Faces in the decent-size crowd included Garry Davis, Andy Howell, Per Welinder, Johnny "Mojo" Munnerlyn, Kevin Marburg, Pierre-Andre (the ex-French freestyle pro whose last name is too confusing to type), Kevin Harris, Lance Mountain, Jim Fitzpatrick, Warren Bolster, Todd Bratrud, Kevin Wilkins, Dave Swift, Miki Vuckovich, Jim Goodrich, Nate Sherwood, and the book's designer Eric Simpson.