Here's the original "And Now, A Word From Our Advertisers...!" headline that we used when we first began offering ad space here at The Solitary Life. With that, I'd like to give a quick "thank you" to all of our advertiser-supporters.
These guys [generally] support The Solitary Life in everything that we do. Whether it's contributing time and energy to make The Life an even better read, supporting our various initiatives, or flowing the occasional product, they do a lot more for you guys- the readers- than what might readily meet the eye.
One of the main goals here at The Life, was to write an advertising paradigm that revolves around "Everything But Money". Instead of simply charging a fee for the advertisers to advertise here, we took the money off the table entirely, and asked that they instead make other tangible contributions to The Life... such as writing articles, contributing photos, helping us find our various contacts and sources... recruiting writers, photographers, and filmers... and generally promoting what The Life is all about: Simply Skateboarding.
With that in mind, I'd like to acknowledge the following advertisers for all they've done for The Life over the year, and thank them for their hard work and numerous contributions:
Mike Hirsch at Socal Skateshop. Socal is our one-stop shop for product review stuff (when we buy it), and the stuff that we need to set those products up right (when it's flowed). Mike always gives us great service across the board, so we're happy to support him as much as we can in return.
Jay Kelly and Bill Danforth at American Nomad, just for being a great all-around guys, being a great sounding board (Jay), being a huge inspiration (The Nomad), and being dudes that really represent the best of what no-bullshit skating is all about.
The illustrious Mr. Bennett, for making the wheels and trucks that 90% of our staffers ride, 90% of the time.
Dave Scherer at Miramar is one of the best feedback-givers and idea-bouncers we've got, as far as everything longboarding goes.
Jason Filipow and Mike V. at By The Sword... again with the huge inspiration factor, and doing things right.
Mike Niemann at Cockfight, representing Texas Pride. Had we gotten our hands on one soon enough, that Dan Wilkes deck might have been a real contender for "deck of the year".
We'll support JJ Rudisill at Funhouse 'til the end of days, just because he's the coolest motherfucker on the planet. Artist, genius, skater, humourist, what's there not to love?
Tyler Creason at Unity, who's essentially the rebel conscience of our advertiser base. Think Che Guevara, but applied to the skateboard industry.
Chris Brundstetter at Goldcoast, for bringing a whole new aesthetic flavor to longboarding.
Don Tashman and Kyle Chin at Loaded and Orangatang, for building long-lasting killer flex decks and happy-ass wheels. Still very much enjoying my orange "In Heats", thank you very much!
All of the girls out there who don't give a shit what the guys have to say about it...
Ryan Draper at Rooftop, one of our locally homegrown companies right out of Bedford, Indiana. Cool-ass kid.
Bart Kelley and the crew at the Old Indy Skaters skateboard club, now Indiana bred and Ohio strong. Watch out world, because the old guys are taking over and showing how it's done.
Sk8Kings, because Maria and Richy are the sweetest people ever, and Kilian Martin spends so much time getting [well-deserved] coverage in The Freestyle Report.
Dan Gesmer at 3dm and Seismic, who's [hopefully] going to fit in quite well here at TSL as our "The Longboarding Report" correspondent.
Michael Brooke at Concrete Wave, who not only writes for us on occasion, but who's magazine was the clear and present inspiration for our web-based spinoff/ripoff.
Al at Character, who's our go-to guy in Chicagoland.
Everybody that has a mind of their own out there in the skateboard scene (however many there are, there still aren't enough)...
Richard Kirby at Big Mess, who proofreads a lot of my stuff to warn me for potential kookiness.
Terry "The Waxman" Hertel at Hertel Wax, who allowed us to do our first-ever, web-based ad campaign, and acts as our stand-in snowboard tech.
Lew at Fickle, who's been instrumental in getting the Homegrown Project off the ground.
Bart Kelley at The Legion, who's probably our most direct-access advertiser and constant motivator (and being the head bossman at Old Indy Skaters, he's actually on this list twice).
And lastly (but certainly not least), our good friend, freestyle correspondent, and mindful genius AJ Kohn, who is the other half of The Solitary Life equation...
... and of course, everyone else that has ever sent in an ad, given us a heads-up, or tossed a couple of words of wisdom our way. Thank you all very much.
Many thanks go out to these guys, for everything that they bring to the table. The Solitary Life just wouldn't be the same without them.
