Fausto Vitello, man who made skateboarding gnarly

FAUSTO Vitello, an entrepreneur and publisher who helped take the dying pastime of skateboarding out of the suburbs and into the streets, where it became a rude and riotous multibillion-dollar business, died while riding his bicycle in Woodside, California.

He was 59. Vitello was revered by skateboarders (and reviled by their parents) as a founder and the president of Thrasher magazine, which for a quarter-century has been the rebellious bible of the skateboarding subculture.He was also a founder of Independent Trucks, a leading manufacturer of skateboard equipment, clothing and accessories.”He’s the godfather of punk-rock skateboarding,” Michael Brooke, the publisher of Concrete Wave, a skateboarding magazine based in Toronto, said in a telephone interview yesterday.Skateboarding has been around since the early 1900s, when some thrill-seeking child first nailed a two-by-four to a roller skate.By the mid-70s, it was hugely popular among suburban boys, who performed in empty swimming pools and in specially built skateboard parks.By the end of the decade, however, many towns, concerned about liability, razed their parks, and the sport went into decline.Vitello, a devoted skateboarder who had founded Independent Trucks in 1978, capitalised on the fledgling sport, starting Thrasher with several associates in 1981.With its mantra “skate and destroy”, the magazine embodied the punk-rock ethos of the day, exhorting readers to devote their lives to their art.And if the pursuit of art happened to involve some imbibing and inhaling, it implied, that was all right, too.Fausto Vitello was born in Buenos Aires on August 7 1946, and came to the United States with his family as a boy.He grew up in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco and earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from San Francisco State University.Today, skateboarding is a US$2 billion industry, according to Brooke.And as the sport has been embraced by mainstream culture, including ESPN and the X Games, its roughest edges have been smoothed away.This did not sway Vitello from his original vision.”Fausto never cleaned up,” Brooke said.”You open up Thrasher and it’s still guys drinking and shooting guns.”- The New York TimesVitello was revered by skateboarders (and reviled by their parents) as a founder and the president of Thrasher magazine, which for a quarter-century has been the rebellious bible of the skateboarding subculture.He was also a founder of Independent Trucks, a leading manufacturer of skateboard equipment, clothing and accessories.”He’s the godfather of punk-rock skateboarding,” Michael Brooke, the publisher of Concrete Wave, a skateboarding magazine based in Toronto, said in a telephone interview yesterday.Skateboarding has been around since the early 1900s, when some thrill-seeking child first nailed a two-by-four to a roller skate.By the mid-70s, it was hugely popular among suburban boys, who performed in empty swimming pools and in specially built skateboard parks.By the end of the decade, however, many towns, concerned about liability, razed their parks, and the sport went into decline.Vitello, a devoted skateboarder who had founded Independent Trucks in 1978, capitalised on the fledgling sport, starting Thrasher with several associates in 1981.With its mantra “skate and destroy”, the magazine embodied the punk-rock ethos of the day, exhorting readers to devote their lives to their art.And if the pursuit of art happened to involve some imbibing and inhaling, it implied, that was all right, too.Fausto Vitello was born in Buenos Aires on August 7 1946, and came to the United States with his family as a boy.He grew up in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco and earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from San Francisco State University.Today, skateboarding is a US$2 billion industry, according to Brooke.And as the sport has been embraced by mainstream culture, including ESPN and the X Games, its roughest edges have been smoothed away.This did not sway Vitello from his original vision.”Fausto never cleaned up,” Brooke said.”You open up Thrasher and it’s still guys drinking and shooting guns.”- The New York Times