Prior to the internet, and specifically blogs, self-publishing wasn’t too difficult. All you needed was some creativity and access to a photocopier. Distribution, on the other hand, posed a real obstacle.

A man named Rich Jacobs contacted me earlier this year, asking if I could contribute some of my old skate zines to his art exhibition called “there is xerox on the insides of your eyelids.” I had only published three issues of my zine, called Altered Skates, in 1982-83, primarily to promote a skateboarding series that I was organizing called MESS.

I rooted through some old stuff and dug up the last remaining copies of my zine, which, thanks to Rich, have now made it to London. The sad part of the story is that I sold a huge box of zines and other memorabilia a couple years prior to someone in Florida. I had a collection of approximately 200 skate zines, the first nine big issues of Thrasher Magazine, and the first issue of Snowboarding Magazine (with Steve Caballero on the cover), along with other odds and ends.

I hope to be able to view the exhibition one of these days, since I carried one around with me for years, not realizing the magic contained in that box of paper. I appreciate Rich for seeing the value that I didn’t see because it was so much baggage.

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