Word: thrasher
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Philosopher, lawyer, teacher, former tackle for the Williams College "Ephmen" and compulsive thrasher in smooth waters, Bennett has clapped a restrainer on his formidable tongue until the confirmation hearings. They are expected to go his way, despite a legion of ruffled academics left from his 3 1/2 iconoclastic years at Education. He suggested, among other things, that tony universities were not giving students their big money's worth...
...industry for equipment and clothes that is reckoned to be worth, overall, about half a billion dollars a year. It says something about the devotion the sport engenders that with such big bucks at stake, skateboarding remains a pretty straight-ahead endeavor. It has its own magazines (Thrasher and Transworld Skateboarding are the most successful), its own lingo, its own half-mystical lore and its own concepts of < cool. No thrasher excessively applauds another for an especially rad move. Miss a trick, and another skater will say, with offhand censure, "That was totally lame." But get it right...
Clothes are important, and a thrasher turnout has standard components: oversize T shirt, baggy shorts, high-top sneakers and, often topping it off, a kind of revisionist Huntz Hall cap. Those basics allow for infinite variations in color and design, and the skateboarding T shirts sold in stores like Rip City in Santa Monica, Calif., have a heady graphic punch that combines elements of biker insignia, psychedelic coloring and underground-comics' goofiness. Surfers favor light colors, but skaters go for darker hues. "Dark colors make more of a hard-core statement than bright surf wear," says Santa Monica Artist...
When urethane wheels, which give a smooth ride and solid traction, began to be used around 1973, the streets turned into open thrasher territory, and there were pressures brought to institutionalize the sport. Says George Powell, president of the Santa Barbara-based Powell Corp., which makes the coveted Powell-Peralta skateboards: "People who had power in the industry tried to make skating a Little League sport. But kids want skating to be their sport, not their parents'." Skateboarding languished until it burnished its outlaw image anew. Now "skaters are the punk rockers of the sport set," says Thrasher Editor Kevin...
...spiced with occasional shots of black humor, all based on our exclusive knowledge that behind the smiling stepdad exterior lurks a raging psycho. Family Number Two is struggling for a reconciliation, and the Stepfather suggests, "C'mon, honey let's bury the hatchet." Gulp. But all you slasher-thrasher fans out there be warned. The Stepfather would rank low on Joe-Bob Briggs boobs'n'blood scale; this is suspense you bozos: protracted anticipation laced with adrenaline, not gory gratification every six and a half minutes, Friday the 13th-style...