Page 22 - THE ENDLESS WAVE | Skateboarding, Death & Spirituality

THE ENDLESS WAVE | PART ONE
some insight to the vast number of truly remarkable people I’ve had the priv- ilege of knowing.
I am going to start with Tim Brauch. Tim was someone I met at the Action Sports Retailer show. He died in May 1999, and I think I met him in January of that year. He would have been 24 at the time. My most vivid memory was just how incredibly friendly and down-to-earth he was. He seemed to possess very little ego. How I truly wish I’d been able to spend more time with him.
Next up is Bobby Turner. Bobby was a legend in the world of slalom back in the 1970s. His boards were extremely expensive back then. I met Bobby briefly and I recall him having a huge amount of skate stoke. The resurgence of sla- lom skateboarding seemed to be nurturing his soul.
Although not a professional skater, Fausto Vitello left a huge mark on the skateboarding industry. He was the co-founder of many of the brands you know and cherish. He helped establish Thrasher Magazine, Independent Trucks, Thunder and Real — just to name a few. I had the opportunity to speak with Fausto at length when I was doing my research for the book The Concrete Wave. He spent over 2 hours with me on the phone and the result was a hefty piece in the book. Oddly enough, the folks from Transworld Skateboarding never returned my calls and were pissed that they didn’t receive the same type of coverage that Thrasher had in my book.
Fausto died suddenly riding his bicycle at age 59. What is most intriguing is that the New York Times contacted me about his passing. With respect to the obituary, it appears I seemed to be one of their only sources for the piece. The folks at Thrasher didn’t seem interested in returning their calls. This is ironic in so many ways. I am publishing the piece in its entirety so you can under- stand my point.
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 Saturday while riding his bicycle in Woodside, Calif. He was 59 and lived in Hillsborough, Calif.
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