The Godfather of SLAP Gets Chrome Ball’d | Never went on the infamous message boards
Before SLAP was the message boards of choice for skaters to hate in and Steve Berra to loose his mind on, it was a print magazine run by Lance Dawes. Born as Thrasher’s nasty step child it grew into its own beast and really left a mark for some time. Hearing the story from the beginning really gets at the heart of skateboarding. No one interviews like Chops.
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But does the Slap Message Board jive with your original vision of what Slap is? Because in your very first foreword of issue #1, you wrote how Slap is all about giving the people a voice. One could say the Message Board is the ultimate expression of that.
I don’t think I know enough about the Message Board to truly answer that. But with what you’re saying, that’s basically social media in a nutshell anyway. It doesn’t matter if it’s Slap or not, those voices are coming out of everywhere these days anyway. It’s just that the Message board is our forum to do it on.
But let’s face it: sitting around and talking shit with your friends is one of the funnest things in skateboarding. Hell, sometimes it’s almost more fun than actually skating. I can talk shit with Sal and Grosso all day long and have just as much fun as I would on my board. If that’s what people are doing on the Message Board then good for them. And to all those pros and industry dudes who get pissed off at it, grow the fuck up. I mean, goddamn, how are you going to get pissed off at someone typing some shit? Who cares? That’s ridiculous to me.
So as we wrap this up, what do you feel is the legacy of Slap, beyond the Message Board? At the end of the day, what do you feel you were able to accomplish?
The fact that we’re talking about it right now. If anyone still remembers it and that it stoked them out, that’s all that matters. I honestly wasn’t sure if anybody was even looking at it back then.
But no, I don’t think there is a legacy. Is there anyone other than people our age that remember or care? I don’t think so. It was what it was and now it’s gone. I could sit here and tell you a billion stories of gnarly shit with crazy people, but who cares? I don’t. I don’t need to be stroked. It’s done.
That’s not to say I’m not proud of it. A lot of people go through life, doing what they do, and they have nothing physical to show for it. There’s no document. But with the mag, one day when I’m old and gone, my kids will at least have something that was a part of my life to look at. Other people, too. It’s something of that era they can feel and flip through. The same way we can look back on old skate mags from our childhood, I hope that Slap can serve that same purpose for its era, too.
Click to the CHROME BALL INCIDENT for the interview with Digs of SLAP Magazine
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