Alan Hughes / July 16th, 2021 / Spotlight
The True Story of ONE (Part 1)

Fifteen years ago two changes took place in the blade world that would have seismic reverberations for years to come. The first was the end of Daily Bread Magazine. The second was the launch of ONE Blade Magazine.

For many bladers, myself included, this was a shock to our culture’s very foundation. Daily Bread wasn’t just a magazine, it was the center of the rollerblader identity to people all over the world. To some, the simple explanation that the magazine had gone out of business was enough, but for others the loss was just too traumatizing and painful to believe. We needed to know what really happened.

But the ONE team was silent, focused instead on the future, and in that silence alternative theories began to spread.

Deceit. Theft. Sabotage. These claims provided emotionally satisfying explanations to the equally emotional end of such an important rollerblading institution. Every few years Angie Walton is invited to different platforms to re-tell her side of this story, while Justin Eisinger, Wes Driver, and Ryan Schude’s side of the story has remained painfully quiet.

For the last 10 years I’ve worked with ONE Magazine but I have never made it a secret that, like many of you, I loved Daily Bread. I grew up with the magazine, I still re-read old issues, and I have nothing but respect for what the magazine did to help create a cultural foundation for rollerblading.

Although I’ve worked with ONE since 2011, I wasn’t there at the beginning in 2006. When those who were there decided to tell their side of the story, they asked me to question them, the way many of you would probably like to question them. So let’s go back to that beginning, or actually just before the beginning…

* * * *

Wes, Ryan, and Justin, thanks for asking me to help organize this discussion. My first question is straightforward: Why did it take 15 years to tell your side of the story?

Wes Driver: The short answer is nobody has ever seriously asked to hear our side of the story. People have made a decision to believe one set of claims and not even entertain the idea of looking into both sides of a situation. Nobody has even asked us to comment on what has been said! However, I believe after the Mushroom Blading podcast 10 years ago we put out a statement on the old ONE website. So, we did do that.

Ryan Schude: Daily Bread going out of business was a traumatic event for all of us. It was a long time coming and the anxiety of what we were going to do with our lives after that left its mark. My only thought at the time was to get a new job as fast as possible, which involved moving to L.A. I commend Justin, Wes, and Jenn for having the courage to start something from scratch at that time and am amazed it still exists. After we all saw the state of the industry first hand, it didn’t seem possible for anyone to be able to pay rent and be involved in anything that had to do with rollerblading. Knowing what they went through to make that possible, it never felt like my story to tell. I left town and had a new job before the first issue of ONE ever came out. I think everyone felt it was better to just put it all behind us. Also, to Wes’s point, no one ever asked.

Justin Eisinger: Hey Alan, thanks for your assistance with getting this story all lined up. To answer the question, I guess at the time it didn’t seem like anyone needed to have this broadcast to them — because it’s some back-of-the-house business stuff. Also, let’s not forget, social media was not quite the end-all-be-all for most people that it has become today. Sharing was less immediate at the time. But as the idea to start what became “ONE” took shape, a group of us, at least Wes and me and Schude, all sat around in the backyard at the Rat-Tail house on 29th Street, then called all the industry leaders at the time to get them up to speed, and take their temperature on what was unfolding. What ended up happening was getting told by our heroes, like Arlo and Shane Coburn, or Azikiwee and Jess Dyrenforth, that they were excited about working with us, and proud of our decision to move forward on our own. So from our POV it’s like, what else did we need to prove, and to who? Let’s move on and focus on what we’re doing, adding to the community – that was the thinking, and honestly I still think it was the right call. We didn’t start ONE by swinging at “enemies” or settling vendettas. We just worked to showcase the coolest people and events in the sport with the best blading photography anyone had ever seen.

Rat-Tail / San Diego (2006)

Well I think obviously everybody wanted to hear your side of the story. You guys are “the media” of the blade world, normally you would be the ones doing the asking. You mention that the Mushroom Blading podcast guys invited you on after Angie’s first interview. Why didn’t you go on there right then? I think a lot of people have taken your silence as admission of guilt, that you didn’t have anything to say for yourself, that you didn’t have any defense.

JE: Wes mentions that we put out a statement. You can see it here: http://www.oneblademag.com/blogs/one-statement/ If you listened to the Mushroom Blading podcast, which god bless her, my wife Jenn just did again the other day, there’s so much excitement about these allegations against us and so much egging the guest on to say even worse things. I remember being really hurt that two people I had respected could carry on that way. Given the gravity of the subject and severity of the allegations, it was surprising that no one had reached out for a comment *before* the podcast went up, or include any sort of disclaimer about the murky claims being presented. Nope, it was just posted as some sort of gospel… which elevated me from Mid-West rube that got duped to some sort of mastermind business shark. That was interesting. So really that was a decision of “Nah, nothing we say will make anything better so let’s just let this go away.”

What ended up happening was getting told by our heroes, like Arlo and Shane Coburn, or Azikiwee and Jess Dyrenforth, that they were excited about working with us, and proud of our decision to move forward on our own. – JE

Okay, that’s interesting. In the most recent accusations, there seemed to be an admission that Daily Bread was no longer paying you during the final months of business, but since you were still legally employed by the magazine, any photos you took or articles you had written still legally belonged to the magazine. From that standpoint, it may be helpful to establish who – if anyone – was actually employed at the end.

WD: The Labor Board is very clear on things like this. To be an “employee” the employer must provide all the equipment necessary to perform your job. I was working on my personal laptop and software I purchased. But regardless of this, the minute an employer ceases to pay you, the status of employment ends. DBM was trying to treat us like 1099 contract employees (because it didn’t withhold taxes, didn’t provide equipment, etc.), yet reap the benefits of us being a salaried employee. You can’t have it both ways. The California Labor Board found DBM in violation and awarded Justin and I close to $10,000 in back pay. Now, we never collected this money that was owed, because DBM, Inc was no longer a real business (legally). That’s the REAL reason the frivolous lawsuit was tossed out and we moved on to start ONE. According to the Federal records, Daily Bread was done. That is why the work we left behind was never published and Daily Bread ceased to exist.

RS: It was my understanding that the court ruled we were not employees from the moment we stopped getting paid, and that Daily Bread hadn’t legally been a business for much longer before that. We continued to work there in hopes things would turn around, but by the time Angie announced to us that she had to close the business, we were just relieved she was willing to accept the fact that it was over as things were going quite bad for a long time before that. We did not want to leave, which is why we didn’t quit despite the harsh reality that we weren’t getting paid.

JE: That’s an interesting question, because you’re right — so many legendary people have worked at DB! But by 2006 it was down to just me, Ryan and Wes. That was it! No more Chris Peel, or Dan Busta, or Rusty, Deborah, Jenny, Jonny, or any of the other people that had rolled through a revolving cast of functionaries. I’m not sure that Ryan or Wes or I are qualified to properly explain any of this labor stuff, but I have a judgment from the Labor Board showing that I was owed salary pay that was never received… and that the final day of employment is marked as June 12, 2006. I suppose in another universe, where we were less gracious in our belief that Daily Bread would turn itself around, we’d have realized our employment ended in March when our paychecks stopped coming. You live and you learn.

Schude (2003)

How long were each of you employed at Daily Bread and what were your job titles and responsibilities?

WD: I started in March of 2006 and my employment ended in late May/ early June of 2006. I was the Art Director by title.

RS: I contributed as a freelance photographer from 2001-2003 while living in San Francisco before moving down to San Diego and becoming a full time staff photographer in 2003. I think it was sometime in 2004 when I became the Photo Editor which lasted until the final day in 2006. Responsibilities included developing the editorial calendar alongside Angie, Justin, Chris, Jonny, and Busta, then going out to shoot the content, as well as working with contributors to assign and receive their submissions. Other responsibilities included archiving and managing all the photo assets, both film and digital, developing film, printing black and white photos, scanning, retouching and working with pre-press.

JE: I drove out to San Diego from Greensboro, NC in December of 2003 to test the waters at Daily Bread, and see if the promise of a full time position was going to pan out. Everyone in my life thought I was crazy and that it would never work, but not for the last time, all those folks were wrong, and that month I started on as an Editor. One of the first things we undertook was downsizing the office from the 13th St. spot with the miniramp into a more modest office space across town on State Street.

The State Street office was where Ryan Schude and Chris Peel and I were officially “assembled” by Angle as her “Dream Team” in early 2004 — but as we’d learn over time, really we were the last three people with the necessary experience willing to roll the dice and come onboard.

Leaving State St. (2006)

So, I was the Editor or Senior Editor, and I worked pretty much full time out of the office, scheduling and coordinating all features, interviews, tour stories, contest coverage, and product reviews to fill eight issues per year, which eventually became an attempt to fill twelve thin issues per year. Sometimes I’d travel with Schude for a story, but for the most part I felt lucky as hell to earn a paycheck doing the thing I’d dreamed of doing, so I tried to work the job more seriously than it probably called for. My employment lasted from December 2003 until June 12, 2006. But even those facts became contested with the Labor Board because there became an issue of our employment status being misrepresented to us as full-time W2, but possibly reported as 10-99, calling into question all sorts of details that the Labor Board eventually made sense of. They awarded judgments for unpaid wages to both Wes and myself. We were never able to recover any of that unpaid salary.

Labor Judgement

During that period of time at the end, was there anything you were intending to give to DB but ended up using for ONE?

WD: The only thing that would fall into this category were photos I took of Jeff Stockwell on my own time (and with my own equipment). I had originally intended these to be used in Daily Bread, but after several missed paychecks I decided I wanted to keep them for my own use. I was never paid for these photos and none of my expenses were ever reimbursed. The truth is that Daily Bread had at least two dozen photos of Jeff Stockwell on hand that Ryan Schude had taken (who was the Staff Photographer), and those were never used. Everything else that was planned to go into the issue of DB that I was working on has never seen the light of day. All the content in ONE Issue #1 was different and new, aside from my photos of Jeff.

RS: When Angie finally conceded that Daily Bread was done, we all agreed that it was the best decision together — Angie, Wes, Justin and I — standing in her house that was doubling for the office at the time. She explained to us very clearly the reason she could not continue to pay us or print the magazine and why she had to close Daily Bread for good was that there were far too many outstanding debts. All that is to say, no, nothing that was used in ONE could reasonably have been used in a future issue of Daily Bread because Daily Bread was over before there was even a conversation about any new magazine.

All that to say, no, nothing that was used in ONE could reasonably have been used in a future issue of Daily Bread because Daily Bread was over before there was even a conversation about any new magazine.” — RS

JE: I think Wes or Ryan explain there were a ton of photos so there would be no reason to recycle anything. Regarding any written materials or text, whatever I’d worked on was left for a future DB to scrape together.

The reason we ended up in court has a lot more to do with exaggerated claims from a disgruntled former employer than any questionable steps we allegedly took. As our legal team explained to us later, they felt pretty terrible about how a few misrepresented claims were able to initiate a process that saw us repeatedly showing up in court for mandated appearances, while the plaintiff quickly began missing appearances, and then had her legal counsel withdraw due to nonpayment.

Legal Records (2006)

Did you intentionally leave any work behind because you felt it belonged to Daily Bread even though you shot it or wrote it?

WD: The only work I left behind was the layout as it stood… it still wasn’t done, and it was already late. The truth is that it was never going to make it to print. The financial situation was too perilous for Daily Bread and the vendors it relied upon. The fact that a majority of employees before me left on bad terms should be all people need to know. There are plenty of stories like that. But again, nobody has been interested in talking to any of these people.

RS: Yes, Angie has the originals of any film that was scanned for publication.

JE: I remember we left the layout for whatever mag we’d been making — I wish I could remember exactly what we had in store. When we started making ONE #1, it consisted of taking stock of our photo assets and crafting the mag around those. Plus, Wes was out shooting all the time, so new stuff with the 4×4 or Ground Control team was coming in weekly if not daily.

Was there any work that Angie herself produced that you stole?

WD: No.

RS: No.

JE: Not a chance.

Were there any computers or equipment or software that belonged to Angie or Daily Bread that you stole?

WD: No.

RS: No.

JE: More like, “Were we ever compensated for the use of our personal equipment for full time work?”

No. Daily Bread owned some old iMacs (like, the clear colored kind) and a bunch of cool, old desks from Ikea. The guys used their own photo equipment, and cars and gas, and I had my laptop… it was pretty DIY.

BCSD (2004)

It was also suggested you somehow stole advertisers. ONE Magazine has obviously always had advertisers, as every magazine in the world does. Was there anything you did besides telling them you were starting a new magazine that could possibly be considered stealing or shady?

She would probably claim that the only reason you even knew them and had contacts with advertisers in the first place was because of her, that she introduced you to them.

WD: We didn’t steal advertisers, because Justin and I already had relationships with everyone in the industry. The industry leaders at the time weren’t stupid. They knew Daily Bread was facing challenges for quite some time. These same advertisers were regularly approached to pay for their ads in advance as opposed to the usual payments terms they’d previously contracted to help cover the float.

She never introduced me to anyone. I made most of my contacts from the Rejects days and had kept in touch with a lot of people throughout the years.

RS: In my role as photographer, I didn’t deal with any of the advertisers.

JE: More smoke and mirrors. Advertising is based on relationships, and relationships are based on shared experience and interest. As lifelong bladers long before relocating to San Diego to work for Daily Bread, those industry-based relationships were already formed. If anything, our arrival at Daily Bread added value to the organization by bringing in fresh relationship angles for the magazine to pursue. But I ran Editorial and thankfully didn’t have to deal directly with the stress of handling advertisers.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t get an earful about things that were going on. Here’s a good example: Daily Bread accepted an advertising payment from the Mushroom Blading guys (then just the “Better Than Baseball” guys) but never put out a magazine with their ad in it. But Schude and I (and Jenn) were huge fans, so when we launched ONE we gave them a full page video review as a sign of our support in their cause, and because we sympathized with how their other investment never materialized. We felt bad for them. That was Issue #1, building a relationship with a budding entity we thought was cool. Then later on in Issue #7 the guys ran a paid spot for “Mushroom Blading.” I remember how stoked Joey was on the design, which was Todd with vitamins on his tongue in a classic RB-style blade logo.

Does that sound like shady ad practices? This industry is too small to play games.

MB Promo #1 & #7

Several times during interviews there has been reference to a specific photograph of Jeff Stockwell intended for a cover, that was allegedly stolen, that prevented the next magazine from printing, that prevented Daily Bread from staying in business, that ultimately became the death blow to the magazine. Do you know which photo she is talking about?

WD: It wasn’t about one specific image for a cover, that’s just a very simplified story. There were multiple cover options (per usual). Any of those could have been used. The main issue at hand is that there was a number of Stockwell photos that I shot on my own time (and paid for all processing and scans) that I intended to use in the layout for DB. Now, this was more of an ego thing on my part, because we already had Stockwell photos from Ryan (see previous answer above).

Later, in a move to ensure Daily Bread retained any content it could claim as its own, the federal judge ordered us to turn over a hard drive containing any files we had been using for our DB work EXCEPT the photos I’d taken.

Unused Stockwell Cover / Schude

If Daily Bread had wanted to print another issue at the time, they could have replaced my photos with any of the others in its possession and proceed to press. (Like the one above that Ryan pulled from his archives.) Instead, we were sued because of our announcement to move forward with ONE and a mistaken assumption that we would back down. We didn’t, of course. Justin, Jenn, and I stood in federal court with less than 24-hour’s notice. We weren’t even served properly! They sent it through the contact form on the new website! Then, as the lawsuit continued, our lawyers discovered that DBM, Inc had lost its corporate status in CA and was no longer a legal business entity. Therefore, they could NOT be filing lawsuits against individuals over trade secrets, photos, etc. So, case dismissed. She conveniently leaves this part out of every discussion I’ve heard.

The court dismissal is really what put an end to all this. That and the Labor board deciding against her due to failure to pay multiple paychecks to Justin and me.

Case Dismissed

RS: I don’t know what the exact photo was but I am assuming it was one of Wes’s. I was never asked to turn over any of the many photos of Stockwell I had shot for that issue which, to this day, have not been published anywhere.

JE: Ryan and Wes speak to this one really well, but the thing not many people know is that Jeff Stockwell gave a signed statement to the court that Daily Bread was forbidden — FORBIDDEN — from using any of these photos of him! Due to the Rat-Tail/Jon Elliott orbit, Jeff and Wes were close at the time, and Jeff felt pretty strongly that we were getting pushed around. He did something really brave that has never really been publicly appreciated for what it meant to us. Thanks, Jeff. Really proud to see how you’ve developed your career.

Legal Records (2006)

Some people would argue that even if you weren’t being paid anymore, you should have continued working for free (as you later began doing for ONE) to keep the dream alive, to keep the first “real” rollerblading magazine alive.

WD: My only response to that is at a certain point in your life, if you are going to work for free and toil-away for a business, it better be for a business you own. To me, someone who says I should work for free to help someone else make money, well they aren’t someone whose advice I would listen to. It’s naïve to say the least.

Another thing to consider is that a business only has so much “capital” before its suppliers and vendors become uncooperative. There has never been much ownership over this element of the situation by the previous management.

RS: Yes, that is a nice thought, I would have liked nothing more than for all of us to have been independently wealthy and created the magazine together without the burden of the business’ or personal finances. Unfortunately that was not an option.

JE: ONE exists because we recognized early on in the process that this was not an operation that could support a staff or any real overhead normally associated with a publishing company. We’d all have to have our own jobs, forever, and be blessed to posses the wherewithal and skills necessary to keep ONE moving forward in our spare time. And that meant total fiscal responsibility, which wasn’t something that rollerblading media had ever really worried about before.

Huge respect to our legion of contributors, that, like us, have poured their own time and hearts into capturing a photo, or arranging an interview, or getting a clip. It’s about the love, and we just have to believe that the more we can come together with that vision, the closer we are to a future where everyone can share in success. Until then, everything (and more) goes into the business to keep the mags coming and the websites spinning.

Did Angie specifically say she was closing the business? Or did you all just give up and leave on your own?

WD: Yes. She had a meeting where Justin, Ryan, and me were present and she told us it was over. We were relieved to hear some honesty at that point, because we knew things were not looking good and we needed to hear the truth. Not the usual spin where everything is going to be fine, despite us not having any resources and collectors calling every day.

June 12, 2006

JE: Yeah, and honestly thank god she did, because it was the emotional closure I suppose we never expected. The day it happened — June 12, 2006 — Wes and I heard the story twice, once in the morning and another time that afternoon when Schude was there. Twice we got the “This is the end, I can’t pay you or the bills” words, verbatim.

Contrary to the legend that’s been created, in those days I wasn’t the master antagonist anyway, those honors go to Schude. He, more than anyone, was fed up with the way things were unfolding. He really pressed the issue when we all got in the room together. I’ll never forget it.

What was the state of the business when you left?

WD: On life support and no signs of recovering.

JE: A shell of an entity that fought its employees on receiving unemployment benefits. There was a line of vendors looking for payment, and no prospects of another issue coming out the door. How do I know that? Have you seen a new Daily Bread in the last 15 years? Or a proper web site? Or steady content? Like someone else said, DB didn’t have a website in 2006. What was supposed to happen?

Unemployment System

How long had you seen the writing on the wall?

WD: After about six weeks of being in San Diego it became apparent that she was stalling and bullshitting me/us.

JE: In three years the business offices moved from a legendary downtown space with a narrow vert ramp, to a much more modest office space close to Little Italy, and then into a residential home in 2006 after spending three months prior working out of a coffee shop because everything was in storage.

And that’s the most frustrating thing! If there hadn’t been so much waste — on offices and expenses — and DB had “gone small” earlier, it should have and could have thrived. That’s definitely a lesson that three employees learned during the fading days of an empire.

Arrival at C St. (2006)

Wes, if you had already worked on and then ceased to produce Rejects, why did you move all the way across the country to begin working at another rollerblading magazine, if it was already on its way out?

WD: To be perfectly honest, I had hit a rough patch in NYC and was excited about the change and potential to do something good for the industry. I was very motivated in the beginning! And went to work right away on the next issue. I sat Angie down and asked her point blank before I started: “Are you going to be able to pay me what you’re saying, because it sounds like things aren’t going well.” She assured me things were fine and for some reason I believed her. I finished moving out to San Diego and got to work. Fast forward a few months, and I knew I had made a mistake.

RS: We brought Wes in when Chris Peel told us he was moving on. We obviously believed we could keep Daily Bread alive if were willing to ask someone to uproot their whole life on the opposite side of the country and come help us save the operation.

JE: I’d argue that Wes came as much for what Jon and Shima were up to at Rat-Tail as for Daily Bread, but that could just be my take. Those guys had a great relationship and made some undeniably cool images and moments together. So moving to San Diego for DB gave Wes a chance to see how all that would play out.

Brian Shima (2006) / Driver

When did you first begin considering starting a new magazine? Looking back on the website, the first ever post was July 17th, 2006 to introduce the magazine, and the first print issue went out September 1st, 2006. So even as you were leaving Daily Bread you must have already been planning something new.

WD: I honestly don’t remember when or where the first conversations about ONE happened. I know I didn’t fully commit to the endeavor until July 3, when I arrived back in San Diego after driving cross-country from Knoxville, TN. At this point I want to say a month had passed since we were told Daily Bread was done.

JE: Yeah, that’s a month after DB told us it was done, and things were moving fast. We were all fired up — and I remember on a different day we were at the Rat-Tail house again, and that’s when we realized we had everything we needed to make a magazine.

Also, Issue #1 wasn’t sent to the printer anywhere close to September 1st. That was a marketing goal, and everything was moving fast but we still ended up at least a month behind where we hoped to be.

Making ONE

Some people would say this was evidence or motive for you to sabotage Daily Bread so it couldn’t compete with ONE.

WD: Honestly, we weren’t worried about competing with Daily Bread, because we knew it was dead. There was nothing to compete with.

RS: There absolutely was no sabotage. No conversation was had about starting a new magazine until after Angie told us Daily Bread was over.

JE: That would give us a whole bunch of credit that we don’t deserve. But thanks? The reason Daily Bread couldn’t compete with ONE was because of a decade of fluctuating financial trends the industry had faced. Plain and simple.

If you were just going to continue working thanklessly without pay on a new magazine, what was the motivation for leaving? Couldn’t you have continued doing the same thing for Daily Bread?

WD: I already answered this above. This wasn’t an internship, this was our livelihoods… so ALL of us needed employment unless we wanted to move back home with our parents, and that wasn’t an option! Not to mention that Ryan and Justin had already been hanging on for 6 months plus, as they were owed even more money than I was. A lot of people sacrificed to keep DB alive throughout the years. Technically, I did the least and put in the least amount of time. But others gave it their everything FOR YEARS.

New Horizons

JE: Didn’t we cover this already? Had things been different, this may very well have been an option. But this was our livelihood! The idea of doing all this work for free didn’t even become an option until we moved on from DB and found real work to pay our rent and survive. We knew that if we were going to work for free as a glorified internship, it was going to be for something fresh and new, not to dig out of an impossible hole. Now we have the honor of producing ONE Magazine entirely for the sake of helping to showcase blading, not for the sake of paying anyone’s rent.

Wes arrives in Santiago (2007)

I imagine it was emotionally devastating for Angie to lose something she had worked so hard on and put so many years into. She said she basically went into hiding for years afterwards. Why do you think she is doing this now? Do you think she genuinely believes what she is saying or that she just has a grudge and wants to destroy ONE’s reputation?

WD: I don’t know why she went into “hiding,” but if I had to speculate it would most likely be about avoiding the labor board. In regards to whether she believes what she is saying or not, it’s my belief that she will use any opportunity she can to push blame on anyone but herself. It’s a cop-out of sorts, as when you’re in charge, you’re supposed to own the wins and losses. With a little digging and asking around, anyone could discover there is a pattern here.

The creation of ONE was not the reason Daily Bread failed and this underlying false narrative is what I hope gets corrected.” — RS

RS: I don’t think she made a conscious decision to continue bringing this up. She seems to have moved on with her life like the rest of us and may very well have preferred not to discuss it further, but when she is asked to tell the story, she is gonna tell it from her perspective. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a way for her to do that which isn’t at the expense of ONE’s reputation and that is the whole issue here. The creation of ONE was not the reason Daily Bread failed and this underlying false narrative is what I hope gets corrected.

Was it devastating that Daily Bread had to end under the circumstances it did? Absolutely. I sympathize with her a million times over for the trauma she must have endured at letting go of what she created. We all owe Angie an enormous amount of gratitude for what she built in the industry, and the opportunities she provided for us as a pioneer in rollerblading media are uncontested by all involved. I’m not here to disparage Angie, I will always be thankful for what she has done for me personally and the industry at large.

The fact that ONE has continued to create content and support the industry all these years later without concern for profit is a testament to the loss rollerblading would have felt without its existence. I have watched along the sidelines as ONE persists and am always in awe that they are able to do so while not only maintaining their own lives outside of the industry, but thriving in both of them. Thank you all for keeping it alive!

ONEblademag Crew

JE: I might have more sympathy if we hadn’t been harassed for the past 15 years with baseless claims about our business. But I understand the desire to create a dramatic fiction. And though I don’t regret our decision to proceed with discretion, I do understand the impulses that drove detractors to view our silence as an indication of guilt. Though that assumption is incorrect.

To add some larger context that really frames my entire relationship with Angie, everything was always about the fight. I guess for a long time we had that in common. The very first night I ever met her was in 1999 during the Action Sports Retailer show, on the roof of her apartment at 8th & K that she shared with Jonny Donhowe. There was a great sunset party with so many of the people that had inspired me. John Starr. Dominic Sagona. Dave Paine. Isaac Oltmans. Jess Dyrenforth. It was pretty incredible! But in hindsight the way all conversations kept returning to how Chris Mitchell and Box Magazine were the bad guys should have been a warning. But I’d already drank the kool-aid and was what Stan Lee would call a “True Believer.” The story I heard for years from then on insisted that Mitchell was some super villain that had set out to kill Daily Bread with Box. If not for Box, I was told, rollerblading would be a harmonious worldwide utopia, and Daily Bread would have been able to flourish.

Sound like another story anyone has heard?

Don’t take my word for it though, you don’t really have to. Go ask Arlo and Jess, or Azikiwee and Kato, or Jan Welch and Marcelo Abans, Dan Busta, Drew Bachrach, Cory Casey, Keith Wilson, hell, even Beau Cottington. These are all people that moved on from Daily Bread for their own reasons. I’m sad to report to no one’s surprise that, in their absence, often they too would become remembered as enemies.

In the end, all ONE is “guilty” of is moving on. We stepped out on our own to continue the mission that a huge presence in our lives started. And while in certain circles these accusations have hung over ONE like a cloud for a long time, that inconvenience is nothing when compared with the satisfaction and pride we take in working with our peers to represent blading the way our audience enjoys. Because even though I’ve said it for years that doesn’t make it any less true — We do this for you.

Thank you for reading this far. We’ve got a lot more to come…

[END – Part 1]

Discussion / The True Story of ONE (Part 1)

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  • Rollernews.com - July 16th, 2021

    love those cartoons

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