Clyde's Back Smith is straight fire .APOCALYPSE WOW!
Clyde Singleton says that when he was young he did a lot of stupid stuff, and that doesn’t even count the time he cut his Afro into a flattop and dyed it blond.
He imitates his earlier self, adopting a high squeaky voice: “Run a car over my foot! See if it hurts!”
For the record, running a car over his foot didn’t hurt that much. But then Singleton has a reckless streak and a high tolerance for pain. That helps if you’re going to become a professional skateboarder, as he did when he left the Northside for California at age 17.
That helps if you’re going to be part of what would become MTV’s “Jackass” crew, pulling off stunts of questionable safety and taste.
And that helps if you’re going to run your mouth off making fun of the skateboard industry, making fun of some of its biggest stars, and making fun of yourself.
In the insular, image-conscious world of skateboarding, Singleton is something of a celebrity lightening rod — a magazine columnist, a blogger, a video producer, a contest emcee, a satirist, a spokesman, a personality, all brash and provocative.
So, in deliberately misspelled and slang-heavy articles, he writes about things such as “The Top 10 Worst Tricks in Skateboarding.” “Ten Ways to Ruin Your Skateboard Career.” “Ten Things You’ll Find in White People’s Houses” (cheese is one).
And if you’re, say, a male skateboarder who wears tight jeans — or even women’s jeans, as some stars have been known to do — then prepare to be needled mercilessly.
“Some people are embarrassing jackasses,” he says, giving a laugh. “But I can be one too.”
On the message boards, the offended rail against him: “A hater.” “Washed up.” “Abnoxious.” Others get the joke: “You write articles that are fun, even if your opinions are wrong. Keep it up man.”
Singleton has spent much of the past 17 years in California, the center of skateboarding culture. But he came home in November for the holidays and has stuck around. His mom runs three day-care centers, and his stepfather and brother have their own churches. He’s been away for half his life, and it’s kind of nice to be back doing the family thing.
Now he’s trying to figure out if he can stay in Jacksonville and still be relevant in the skateboarding world. In the old days, some companies paid him just to wear their clothes or ride their boards. That source of income has dried up. But he can still get free shoes and clothes and skateboards — it’s all part of the business.
His days of competing are over but, for now, he’s still able to cobble together a living simply being Clyde Singleton.
“Sometimes I wonder if it’s ever going to end,” he says. “But hey, enjoy it for the moment. The moment might last forever.”
After Singleton’s parents split in the mid-’80s, he and his brother and mother moved from a black neighborhood on the Northside to a white neighborhood near Roosevelt Mall. Everyone there skateboarded. He got on a borrowed board for the first time and rode it 10 blocks to the school bus stop.
He was 12. He was hooked.
A few years later, he moved back to the Northside and started school at Ribault High School. No one else skated there, he said. So picture him, with his skateboard, with holes in his Airwalk shoes, wearing a Tony Hawk shirt. He stood out, though not always in a good way. “It was like [the TV show] 'Everybody Hates Chris,’ times 10,” he jokes.
By then, he was dreaming of going pro. He spent hours skateboarding at downtown’s Hemming Plaza, on its railings and steps. At 17, he headed to California for the first time as a sponsored skateboarder. Being black played a part in being noticed, he says.
“Skateboarding only takes a couple of minorities at a time,” he said. “That’s a fact.”
Was he one of them?
“Oh yeah, I was definitely one of the black ones.”
Minority skaters are much more commonplace now — something he chronicled in a video he put together in 2007 called “Minority Report.” Still, even he was surprised at the number of black skateboarders when he hosted an event at the Afro-Punk Festival in Brooklyn, N.Y., last year: “Wow. It was like this alternative black universe.”
The chronicles of Piff Huxtable
Pro skateboarding isn’t necessarily glamorous. Sure, he was in the “Jackass” movie, urging Johnny Knoxville to skate down a steep railing. But money was often short; he ate a lot of potatoes and Ramen noodles.
Still, it’s taken him around the world. In downtown Tokyo, his face was on a huge billboard. In Sweden, he was treated like “the black Brad Pitt.” In Prague, he almost died after slipping from a bridge on a rainy night and landing on his head. It didn’t help that a friend fell right on top of him. Both had been partaking in cheap beers after a contest.
In the late 1990s, he started writing for a notoriously bizarre skateboarding magazine called Big Brother, playing off his Southern, inner-city image. His first article was about “ghetto snacks.” He joked about fried chicken. He made a video on “ghetto surfing” — putting an ironing board on a surfboard and taking it out in the water.
He’s written for more mainstream magazines as well, and contributes to several blogs. In his personal blog (clydesingleton.blogspot.com) , his alter ego, Piff Huxtable, comments, often profanely, on skateboarding, music, books, black culture, white culture, fools and heroes.
Martin Ramos, manager of Kona Skatepark in Jacksonville, says Singleton is protective of skateboarding’s counter-culture legacy and is quick to take on those who would water it down.
“Clyde’s able to send a pretty controversial message out there in a pretty funny way, but it always has some substance, some relevance,” he says. “The secret to Clyde’s longevity is that there’s always been something that makes sense, whether you love him or hate him.”
Singleton admits that being notorious is pretty strange. “People think they know you. They think I like chicken. They think I speak really broken English. That I can’t skate. That I don’t skate. That I don’t like white people.” That’s all wrong — except for the part about chicken.
Still, it’s been good, this life on wheels.
“I accomplished everything I wanted to do. I just wanted to skateboard and be in California. Be in videos. Meet pros. Travel. Just skate,” he says. “I can’t explain the feeling. I’m about to be 35, but just jumping on a skateboard — it’s almost euphoric, even now.”
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