Neal Thompson's Blog: Blood & Whiskey, page 9
September 5, 2011
Recent author interviews at Amazon.com
Links to a few of the posts I've recently begun contributing to Amazon.com's books blog, Omnivoracious:
Q&A with Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, authors of That Used to be Us .
video interview/reading with Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians and The Magician King
an interview with Seattle Seahawks coach, Pete Carroll, author of Win Forever
and, in homage to my summer Sk8 the St8s road trip, books about skateboarding
August 12, 2011
Sk8 the St8s skateboarding road trip comes to an end
[Note: this is the final post from my Sk8 the St8s blog, co-sponsored by CBS, chronicling my fathers-and-sons, cross-country skateboarding summer road trip, which I hope will form the basis of a book about the history and culture of skateboarding.]
I'm sitting in my backyard in Seattle, about to grill a chicken with my wife, looking back on driving a giant S-shaped route across the United States in three different vehicles with five teen skateboarders during a caffeinated blur of twenty intense days. And I'm realizing… this was one of the most ambitious, most challenging, most rewarding things I've done in my 46 years.
I'm exhausted, physically and emotionally. My butt is sore from driving more than five thousand miles through countless towns and cities in nineteen states. My body can still feel the hum and rumble of our beloved Dodge passenger van, purchased of necessity in Jefferson City, Missouri. For the first time since leaving Seattle before dawn on July 19, I'm not obsessed with reaching the next town, the next skatepark, the next hotel, with feeding the boys and keeping them safe and showing them America, with balancing our budget and staying on task and Google Mapping on my iPad, with taking photos and video and writing blog posts, while still attempting to keep my eyes wide open and have fun.
Last night I slept restlessly and had anxious dreams – I'm in the back of the van with the boys, going 90, but no one is driving; I'm in a hotel room but the boys are gone. My dog, who at one point was going to join our Sk8 the St8s road trip (thank god I heeded my wife's advice), keeps looking up at me with a worried look that says, "Are you okay?"
Following Friday night's emotional family reunion at the Amtrak station in Portland (photos here), we all walked around the Pearl District and ate dinner at Henry's 12th Street Tavern. Later, back at our hotel south of Portland, my buddy Reid and I stayed up late reviewing some of the highlights, lowlights and trends of the trip that began with a shocker – a broken-down bus in his home town of Charleston – and ended with a long goodbye to my kids yesterday at Windells Skate Camp at the base of Mount Hood.
Over cocktails at the Crowne Plaza, I told Reid that one of my disappointments during the trip was not having enough time to pull back from the day-to-day management, to analyze and observe the skate culture that I'd set out to understand. I'm hoping that a deeper understanding of my kids' obsession with skating, and my support role as skate dad, will come with time, and that with the perspective of distance I'll eventually find some answers to the question: what is skateboarding?
I did learn that skating meshes perfectly with the anti-authoritarian streak most of these teen boys possess, especially Sean. (As Sean's kindergarten and second-grade teacher, Reid saw the origins of this. Even at age six, Sean was challenging his elders). During one of the on-camera interviews I did with the kids (here), Sean explained how he prefers street skating to skate parks because it's more "guerilla," and that run-ins with security guards and the police is "something you need to be prepared for."
Leo, street skating in San FranciscoYesterday morning we had driven the final leg of our road trip, traveling an hour east of Portland to Windells Academy, a skateboard, snowboard and skiing camp that Sean and Leo have attended the past two summers. This year, Willem is making his first visit to Windells. (Nathan, alas, was bummed that he was headed back to Seattle on the van, while Niall, now back home in D.C., had already had a skate camp experience of his own earlier this summer at Woodward Skate Camp in Pennsylvania).
Windells was founded in 1991 by a former pro snowboarder, Tim Windell, who converted a roadside motel into his camp. Over the years, he's added more and more concrete ramps and bowls, basically turning the entire camp into a giant skate park called the Concrete Jungle, whose counselors are devoted to helping kids like mine fully explore their passion. Before leaving the boys, I met briefly with Tim to ask if he'd be interested in buying our Sk8 van, which is now plastered with stickers – from 'Sk8 the St8s,' Windells, generous skate shops and shoe companies, and our 14-year-old sponsor, Max Williams, and his skate wax company, Ledge Lovas – and putting the former prisoner transport and church van to good use at his camp. He's thinking about it…
One of the dominant Sk8 the St8s themes had to do with three of the boys (Sean, Willem and Niall) starting high school in a few weeks. This road trip was partly an attempt to give them a fresh perspective and a look at other parts of the country before entering that new phase of life. One thing I didn't write about was entering a new phase of my own… After ten years as a self-employed journalist and author I'm about to start an exciting new job, working for Amazon.com here in Seattle. My first day is a week away.
So as we wrap up this adventure, and this blog, I wanted to extend another round of sincere thanks to our support team and pit crew: the kind folks who donated to our Kickstarter campaign; the gang at CBS, especially Kristen, Kevin and Adam; the moms and dads who entrusted me/us with their kids; auntie Katherine and uncle Dave for helping us find our new van, and Pastor Mike for selling it to us; Gerry, Ed and Claire, the Chicago crew; Tina, for the T-shirts and moral support; Todd Morris and Caleb Clark, for the goodies and hospitality; and to the skaters and skate shops that donated boards, T-shirts, DVDs, stickers and such, especially Sno-Con, Marshall Reid, Max Williams (aka Ledge Lovas), Uprise, Windells, FTC and the Skatepark of Charleston. Finally, thanks to Willem's dad, Paul, and the deepest of gratitude goes out to my outstanding friends and co-pilots, Lou and Reid.
(Relive the whole coast-to-coast, dads-and-sons adventure here at http://sk8thest8s.cbslocal.com)
July 15, 2011
Sk8 the St8s: my dads-&-sons skateboarding road trip & book project
In the summer of 1979, my parents took my brother and I on a cross-country road trip in a surplus army ambulance that my dad had converted into a camper. The beast was slow and noisy. It was hot as an over in the back. My brother and I fought constantly. The ambulance broke down twice, once on the side of a two-lane in West Texas.
It was the best vacation ever. And it was the inspiration for the road trip I'm taking with my sons, starting next week. Sean and Leo are the same age my brother and I were in '79, and Sean is just weeks away from high school, as I was then.
Instead of an army vehicle our chariot will be an old school bus called Bustaride. And instead of visiting America's national parks we're touring her skate parks. Joining us will be my buddy Lou and his son Niall, plus two of Sean and Leo's skate friends.
Our adventure begins Tuesday in Charleston, SC. We'll drive to Charlotte and DC, followed by a blur of fast food and skate park stops in Baltimore, Philly, New York (maybe), Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Portland, where we'll deliver the kids to Windells Skate Camp on August 6. We'll be touring scores of smaller cities and towns along the way.
The goal is for the kids to videotape it all, and for me to write a book.
Our little project caught the attention of CBS in New York, and they've offered to help sponsor the trip. They're setting up our blog, Sk8theSt8s.com, which should be up and running by July 19, and they're working to get us on morning shows in some cities. Our blog will include daily reports from the road – one from the dads' POV, one from the kids – plus photos and videos. The blog will include an interactive map, so you can follow our progress. We'll also list dates and times of arrival in each city, plus the skateparks we'll be visiting, so please stop by and skate with us if you're in the area.
The trip has grown longer (nearly 3 weeks and at least 4500 miles), and costlier. At 5 to 7 mpg, the Bustaride will suck more petrol than ten Priuses – almost as much as a Hummer. That means we could still use some support from new donors at our Kickstarter fundraising site. Watch the video, which explains the purpose of the journey.
Now let's hope our Bustaride bus doesn't break down as often as the ambulance did.
June 19, 2011
A Hero & A Father
For father's day, I'm sharing this link to one of my favorites stories – a piece I wrote for The Baltimore Sun in 1999 about Vice Adm. William Lawrence, a test pilot and former POW, and his astronaut daughter, Wendy. Click here: A Hero & A Father
Also sending Father's Day wishes to my dad, who recently completed the decade-long odyssey of building his own airplane. Congrats, Phil…
June 14, 2011
“A Day at the Office”: authors Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan & Peter Mountford
Cheryl Tan and I worked together nearly fifteen years ago at the Baltimore Sun. She’s since worked as a fashion writer at the Wall Street Journal and recently published her first book, A Tiger in the Kitchen. During her recent visit to Seattle, I got together with Cheryl and local author Peter Mountford (author of A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism – read my review here) – he and Cheryl met at the Yaddo artists’ retreat. Over oysters at The Walrus and the Carpenter in Ballard/Seattle, we discussed coffee, late-night writing, and finding focus through reading, music, and cooking. Also: beer.
"A Day at the Office": authors Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan & Peter Mountford
Cheryl Tan and I worked together nearly fifteen years ago at the Baltimore Sun. She's since worked as a fashion writer at the Wall Street Journal and recently published her first book, A Tiger in the Kitchen. During her recent visit to Seattle, I got together with Cheryl and local author Peter Mountford (author of A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism – read my review here) – he and Cheryl met at the Yaddo artists' retreat. Over oysters at The Walrus and the Carpenter in Ballard/Seattle, we discussed coffee, late-night writing, and finding focus through reading, music, and cooking. Also: beer.
June 6, 2011
Tribute to legendary ski film director Warren Miller
This Wednesday at 7pm, I'll be on stage at Seattle's Benaroya Hall with Warren Miller, who is receiving a Golden Space Needle Award for lifetime achievement from the Seattle International Film Festival. The evening includes a screening of Warren's "Men of Steel On Wings of Wood," after which he and I will sit down for a 1-on-1 interview about his sixty-year career, his hundreds of films, and his passion for freedom. We'll take audience questions, too.
Tickets are $35 for the show; $65 "ski bum" tickets are good for a post-show cocktail party with Warren and I.
Ticket info and more details available at SIFF. Press release is here. And here's a short video featuring snippets from Warren's impressive career on the world's slopes:
[Consistent with my ongoing pursuit of stories about men striving to live large, I'm profiling Warren for Seattle Met magazine, to be published later this year. I can't think of many lives bigger than the one being lived by this 86-year-old skier, surfer, sailor, who has lugged his cameras around and around the world for six decades.]
May 5, 2011
‘Light This Candle’ autographed book giveaway
Alan Shepard inside Freedom 7
Today (as I’ve been reminding anyone on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, or Tumblr who’ll listen) is the 50th anniversary of the day Alan Shepard became America’s first spaceman. In commemoration of that event – which provided the title of my 2004 biography of Shepard – I’d like to offer two signed copies of Light This Candle.The scientific selection method works like this… send me your name in some digital fashion (Facebook, Twitter, or comment on this post below) and I’ll collect the names, throw them in the air, and snatch two.
Meanwhile, here are a few other anniversary links:
-My Op-Ed in the Huffington Post
-My Op-Ed in USA Today
-A Q&A with the BBC
-An interview with Space.com
-And my much-recycled seven year old Light This Candle talk on C-Span’s Book-TV
Also, I’m offering two more signed LTC copies to newly enlisted recipients of my newsletter. Sign up here:
Name
'Light This Candle' autographed book giveaway
Alan Shepard inside Freedom 7
Today (as I've been reminding anyone on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, or Tumblr who'll listen) is the 50th anniversary of the day Alan Shepard became America's first spaceman. In commemoration of that event – which provided the title of my 2004 biography of Shepard – I'd like to offer two signed copies of Light This Candle.The scientific selection method works like this… send me your name in some digital fashion (Facebook, Twitter, or comment on this post below) and I'll collect the names, throw them in the air, and snatch two.
Meanwhile, here are a few other anniversary links:
-My Op-Ed in the Huffington Post
-My Op-Ed in USA Today
-A Q&A with the BBC
-An interview with Space.com
-And my much-recycled seven year old Light This Candle talk on C-Span's Book-TV
Also, I'm offering two more signed LTC copies to newly enlisted recipients of my newsletter. Sign up here:
Name
May 4, 2011
Tomorrow is 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard, & USA, in space
In advance of tomorrow's 50th anniversary of the day Alan Shepard became America's first spaceman, I'm reviving this 2004 talk I did for C-Span/Book-TV, discussing "Light This Candle" at the US Naval Academy. It's been viewed all of 334 times in six years… any volunteers to push it toward 400?
Author Neal Thompson on C-Span's Book-TV from Neal Thompson on Vimeo.
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