Nate Willis: Thrasher Magazine June 1998 - Understanding The Urban Blight

Ever since I was a kid I loved the "counter culture" as it was called. From the age of 11 the main staples of my life were weed, skateboarding and graffiti. Back in the day, Thrasher Magazine was my shit ever since my mom ripped out a few pages she deemed to be inappropriate, like a one-page article on JT The Bigga Figga back in 1995. I knew it was forbidden fruit and somewhere in between the creases must have been the truth that all pre-pubescent rebels of society searched for. Thrasher remained as a mainstay in my adolescent years and my interests never really changed. All I can say is that I manage to juggle the responsibilities of adulthood to the level of expected norms while at the same time gritting my teeth and withholding my contempt of our societal structure that has presented itself as an "All or Nothing" game that I have hardheadedly decided to win.

Back in June 1998, Thrasher made one of its dopest issues. In the late 90's, other skate mags like Big Brother and Slap were starting to pop up and were making attempts at snatching a piece of the "publications for teenage assholes" market share. In this issue, Thrasher did something different than what it normally did. It decided to recognize graffiti art and give it a sweet little article in the issue. Thrasher always seemed to be hip to the art world but never as much to graffiti as much as it was to lowbrow. It regularly promoted it's sister publication, Juxtopoz Magazine in its pages. The style of art that I was exposed to seemed to be something that was naturally intertwined with the the unique kind of mind that makes a skateboarder. Skateboarders are working with artistic minds. It's the way you see the world and can see the line in another man's architecture. Where everyone saw a handrail to brace themselves while descending down a flight of steps on foot, Mark Gonzales saw potential for a rollercoaster ride. That's the shit I'm talking about. It's minds like that that create street art that turns concrete poles into cigarettes and gutters into a character's mouth.

I decided to dig through my old issues to fish out the article that has stuck in my head ever since my retarded days of yore. I had to refresh the imagery of the ill 90's style graffiti that I miss so much. One piece in the article has always left me wondering where it is and who it was done by. A few pages into the article, there's a sick piece that says, "Beloved Detroit" and the hand style on the characters is oddly familiar. I've seen it before but that was somewhere indistinguishable and a very long time ago. It eats at me.