WORDS & PHOTO Marcus Bandy

This is a tribute to all of my fellow lone wolves—a shout-out to the skaters and creators who understand the necessity and value of purposeful isolation. Some of us learn this value willingly while other are forced to learn it. I myself fall somewhere in between having discovered the enjoyment of working and creating alone via an early aspiration to mimic the modern day monks and ascetics I looked up to as a kid (Rodney Mullen, Jack Kerouac, Martin Luther King, Dr Seuss, Bruce Lee, Jamie Thomas, Chuck D, Mark Twain and more.) I also learned early on that if you do not fit inside the boxes prescribed for you, or if you do not fall in line with the mob, then you will be forcefully isolated—doubly so, if the that pisses you off and you act out of anger as a response to it. But that’s a whole other story altogether . . . Anyway, I’ve personally dealt with isolation both imposed by others as well as by my own self. Regardless, the experience and discipline gained from creating and building things on my own has given me more power to believe in my abilities as well as my creative capacity.

So in times when others don’t have the interest, bandwidth, or motivation to go skate and create with me, I simply go out by myself and practice and explore, armed singularly with the creative juices in the juice-box of my skull. I do this because I know that learning and practice builds skill regardless of whether it’s done with others or on one’s own.

But yeah, I also know that working as a team is critical to achieving many amazing things in life—shit, the magazine is not just me—it’s a badass collective of skaters, creators, and dedicated supporters—without our team we would be nothing and I am so grateful and proud to be on this crew!

Basically though, I couldn’t find anyone to go skate with yesterday so I grabbed my board, cameras, a remote shutter and I threw it all on my motorbike and ripped around Long Beach until I found a spot to try and create something I thought might be inspiring. The above pic of me kick flipping while shooting the shot via remote was my attempt. Anyway, I had a lot of fun in the process and learned a lot more about timing and intervalometers, and I’m very glad I didn’t just stay home spudding hard on the couch. Win. Win!

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Thanks again for reading my latest Action Now column. BTW I look forward to chatting via the comment section below, as well as via Periscope this evening starting at 5pm PST. See details below. Much live streaming.

-Marcus Bandy

the magazine

Join the live-streaming discussion of this week’s Action Now column later today Friday at 5PM PST via the the magazine Periscope. THAT’S TONIGHT!!!

Also, please make sure to spread the word about this and add any comments ya have below in the comment section so that we can discuss them on-air tonight once I go live. Shredlove and thanks for checking out the original skate magazine and my column!

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I just want to reiterate that the comments and ideas presented above are published with the sole purpose to create dialogue, not as instruction. If any of these ideas get your panties in a bunch please first: relax, and then pluck and place said undergarments in a more comfortable position and let’s have a heathy skater-to-skater chat. The live streaming Periscope discussion for this week’s Action Now column begins at 5PM PST tonight (10/28/2016).