Latest Update: June 11, 2003

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From The Sacklunch Boards
Currently being discussed: Swell selling Monster Skate. Is it true, Batman? And who would buy it? Also, rumors of Airwalk/Genetic/Tare7 closing doors just surfaced. There should be more, so be sure and post your latest news item.

Sack The Vote
In the last issue of Surfer magazine, someone Photoshopped a logo off a T-shirt from an historical photo of Kelly Slater after his sixth World Championship title. Is altering photos okay? If so when. Click here to vote.

Jake Burton Holds Dean Fundraiser
Looks like Jake and Donna "Burton" Carpenter are doing what they can to elect the next president of the United States as they hosted former Vermont Governer Howard Dean in their home. The $250 a plate dinner raised more then $25,000 for Dean's campaign. Dean says if he wins he will come back to Vermont to ski, but not snowboard. "I'm just not coordinated enough."

Burton Hires New Brand Marketeer
The snowboard giant was happy to announce that they've hired Scott Struve as the new "director of brand marketing." Scott comes to Burton from Timex where he launched the Helix line of watches. His PR says he's formerly worked with Airwalk and Converse skate shoes. Looks like working with winning companies has finally paid off for Struve.

DynoComm Sports Shuts Down
They were the first TV production company to put snowboarding on TV with early Op Pro and US Open events on ESPN and FOX Sports Net, but the company founded by Alan Gibby had to close in May after a bad experience with a "motosports" project. DynoComm most recently produced TV shows for Clear Channel's SuperCross MX series.

Endorsing Three Year Old Sports Stars?
Kansas City Star sports columnist Blair Kerkhoff weighs in on the trend of sponsoring younger and younger kids including Mitchie Brusco, Termite's six-year-old main boy. He also makes mention of "pushy" sports moms. Hmm, do we know any of those?

Tony Hawk Metaphor
"Otherwise, it's like asking (skateboarder) Tony Hawk to compete in a 2-foot halfpipe. I'm no Tony Hawk, but I tend toward going bigger and harder." --South African freestyle kayaker Steve Fisher talking about a course in the Teva Games.

BMXers Trying to Barge Alameda
The city of Alameda, CA has a skateboard park that BMXers are slowing destroying. Now the BMXer's are begging for a chance to ride park legally. Don't those bikes work on dirt anymore?

Surfer Magazine Alters Photograph
It was a simple thing that was easy to do, but the question remains: why would Surfer Magazine jeapardize 44 years of photo integrity just to mask out a TransWorld Surf logo on Benji Weatherly's t-shirt.

Click image to go large

It was December 1998 and Kelly Slater had just clinched his sixth world championship. To Kelly's left was a stoked Benji Weatherly in a blue TransWorld shirt that Steve Zeldin had just given him. Surfing magazine ran the photo in their April 1999 North Shore issue. Last month when Surfer magazine ran a look back story a similar photo appeared except the logo on Benji's shirt was mysteriously missing. If petty magazine rivalries are enough for Surfer editors to doctor a photo, what would they do if $60,000 were on the line?
-What do you think? Click here to Sack the Vote.

Water Magazine Relaunches Website
Water Magazine has a smooth new website with story previews from current and past issues, lots of subscribing opportunities, and best of all a link to the Sack in the "supporters" section. Thanks, Zeldo.

Breck Gets $400 Million Upgrade
The town of Breckenridge, Colorado has okay'd a 20 year, $400 million redevelopment that will bring new village units to Peaks 7 and 8 with hundreds of new units and retail space. Isn't it nice to have Realtors on the town council?

Cable Vision Launches Sportskool
A new sports how-to video-on-demand channel is launching later this year. Featured on the new video: Revin' Kevin Delaney teaching you how to snowboard.

AK Snowmobile Deaths at Four Year Low
In a state where snowmobilers run rampant all winter, only 9 people died last season. The average is 26 and if you've seen the DVD One-Ten you'll know exactly why.

Gerlach's The Game Goes X
Looks like surfing has finally make ESPN's list of marketable sports as surfing joins the summer X Games with an East Coast/West Coast battle royale based on Brad Gerlach's new comp format. Damn, now surfing can be as exciting to watch as football.
-OC Register Story on X Games Surfing

Skateboarding Death Knell #2
The OC Register says the number of skateboarders has dropped 7 percent in the past year. This and more interesting discussion of skateboarding pending death.

Nike Launches Skateboarding Line
We give Nike a lot of shit, but just when the market is taking a dive they announce their plans for skateboarding. Sounds like a recipe for failure, no? At least they have Kevin Imamura doing the talking.

Primedia CFO Resigns
Primedia Inc. CFO Lawrence Rutkowski resigned Tuesday and was replaced by Matthew A. Flynn. An employee who can now ad CFO to his list of titles. Why hire a new guy if you're just selling everything off.
-Primedia Splits Units, cuts jobs
-Life's a Skate at SG

Tare7 Cuts Staff in Half
The marketing geni behind Airwalk and Genetic shoes cut nearly half their 100 person staff last Friday. Hey, it can't hurt.

Australia's Richest Women
Check out the list of the richest women down under and you'll see some familiar names. It's the dueling Nicoles: Kidman and Perrin. Sound familiar? Mrs. Matthew Perrin is worth $109 million. Thanks, Billabong.

Globe Not Going Private
Globe International's leading shareholder's rejected plans to take the company private Tuesday. Apparently, they'd rather lose the rest of your money the old fashioned way.

Specialty Stores Down, Chain Stores Up
The SIA recently released the results of it's annual retailer survey and guess what? Snowboard buyers are tired of service and are only interested in chasing down bargains. Or is that just what we got out of the results?

Pony Cans Jenna Jameson
The retro shoe company that is owned by an artist management company has hired a new ad agency to represent the brand and cut porn starlet Jenna Jameson. Don't worry, she won't go hungry, Jenna still has her Sims Snowboards deal.

Free Love Park Petition
A group of Philadelphia's historians are angry that Mayor Street shut down Love to skaters. Now, this group wants to make Love Park a central campaign issue during mayoral elections.
-Stevie Speaks Out On Love Park

Boom Boom Huck Jam Is Back
Tony Hawk's traveling extreme circus will be back again for another season and rumors are some of the bands that played last year will play again. Let's all pray that Good Charlotte isn't one of them.

Avril's Sk8er Boi Becomes Feature
The song that launched the return of pop girls who act their age will be turned into a film with the help of some TV writers and is being described as a musical like Footloose. Poor Avril Lavigne.

Pac Sun Doubles Up
Sales more than doubled in the first quarter of this year compared to 2002 and everyone who screens a surf logo on a T-shirt is ecstatic because all the big guys love the malls because they offer "more retail space."

Aussie Apparel 5 for 1 Stock Split
Apparently, America's youth are so excited about Hot Tuna that the company is kicking down a split for it's faithful shareholders. President and CEO Bruce MacGregor couldn't be happier.

Chris Senn Hates The X Games
In a Modesto Bee story the Grass Valley pro skater mentioned how stupid he thinks judging skateboarding is and how "ESPN just doesn't listen" to skaters. Then again Senn never would have been interviewed for the story if he hadn't been at the X Games.

US Ski Team Begging People To Ski
The US Ski Team is now combing the country begging former gymnasts to join the ailing ski aerials team. They'll even teach you to ski. How sad is that?

America's Most Feeble
John Walsh, 57, father of missing son turned fugitive hunter recently broke his left ankle while trying to copy a skateboard stunt done by a child. Stick to chasing the bad guys, John.

SF Surf Beating Part 2
Bodyboarder Ryan Farrell got 120 days house arrest, a couple hundred hours of community service, a ban from SF beaches and four years probation for a beating he delivered at Fort Point.

Tommy Guerrero's Taqueria
Deluxe Skateboard's co-owner's most recent album is more smooth-groove cool. He played May 16, but we missed it.

K2: Rods In, Poles Out
In a bid to "focus on core product" the owner of Adio, Ride Snowboards, Planet Earth, and Shakespeare fly rods sold it's light pole business for $19 million. The company will now be able to focus more of it's energies in the highly stable action sports industry.

Cool May Pulls Down Bikini Sales
The month that usually launches everyone into summer turned out too cold and bikini sales are close to 10 percent down over a year ago. Even Quik's Time Square store is feeling the slow.

Artisan Steps Into Liquid
The entertainment company has bought the rights to Dana Brown's new surf documentary Step into Liquid for a possible August release. Unfortunately, no one told the Hollywood reporter that Dana is a he.

Goofy Skaters Get Written About
Derek Munson and Ashton Mey have learned to pump their skateboard to gather speed and Seattle Times writer Ken Lambert thinks it's amazing. Someone's bong must be empty.

Mt. Hood vs. The Developer
More than 1000 people met in Hood River when county officials held meetings to discuss the $120 million expansion plans at the 160 acre Copper Spur Ski Area.

Activision Shares Dip
The company Tony Hawk Pro Skater built lost 4.5 percent in early May when analysts wondered if the company would be able to sell enough games.

Beach Boys In Sacramento 40 years?
It was 1963 and the Beach Boys played one of their first big shows in Sacramento at Memorial Auditorium. This is the story behind that show. Huh?

Primedia Editorial Director Axed
Burnquist Backs The Reefer
Machado On Promo Drive Through Japan
SF Surfer Sentenced In Beating

Previous Bags o' Crapola:
-May 6, 2003
-March 13, 2003
-February 26, 2003
-February 6, 2003

Special thanks: to Jim Romenesko's MediaGossip.com