Tom Lynch

The Skate Park at Wilson and Lake Shore Drive is the perfect place for Dan Sinker and his Punk Planet crew to relieve stress on a late spring day. They skateboard in the morning, before stories need to be edited and the cover needs to be finalized. They skate and briefly forget the responsibilities inherent in adulthood. And Sinker takes note of his surroundings: everyone at the park is more than 25 years old, yet here they are, skating with the abandon of a bunch of teenagers. Well, almost--they all wear protective headgear and kneepads in a mature display of caution, and no one seems concerned much about physical appearance. Sinker looks on in amazement. The aging skateboarders rule the park.

Four months after exercise in the park turned into a bolt of inspiration, the first issue of Sinker's Bail magazine hit the stands.

Already editor-in-chief of the Chicago-based, independently produced Punk Planet, the magazine he started in 1994 when he was 19 and disappointed with the music literature of the time, Sinker's new project shifts the focus from punk to skateboarding, an obvious offshoot at a glance. However, Sinker has done something different--he's created a skater magazine for skater elders.

"My life is kind of a series of stupid ideas," he says, chuckling. "And Bail was another one."

Sinker seems delighted by his ingenuity, but he keeps it in reserve. "I thought it would be a kinda cool to make a skate magazine for older people," he says, "not for people who are reading Transworld, a magazine written for 14-year-olds who ask their parents for allowances. But, I realized that I didn't know the skate world anymore."

Because of his absence from the skateboarding scene, Sinker sought out his friend, Michael Coleman, for assistance. Coleman, an artist and instructor at School of the Art Institute, was more than interested in the project.

"Skating stuck out as a part of my life forever," Coleman says, "like eating and breathing. Bail came out of a mutual disinterest Dan and I had in the publications that are out there." And with that, Bail invaded Punk Planet's office.

Once Coleman was on board for the project, Sinker decided to just be the publisher and to allow Coleman and someone else to be co-editors. "I didn't really feel comfortable being the editor of this magazine because I didn't know the world enough," Sinker says. "Plus, I thought, `Shit, I really don't want to edit a second magazine. I have enough to do.' So I brought in Joe."

Joe Meno, fiction author and creative writing teacher at Columbia College, showed immediate interest in Bail. "When Dan asked me if I skated, I was like, `Yeah, when I was 20 and I had my parents' health insurance.'" Meno says, laughing. "I was like, `Dan, I haven't skated in eight or nine years.' And Dan looked at me and said, `That's the magazine.'"

A skateboarding magazine for men and women who gave up their boards for briefcases, or simply abandoned skating because they grew up and the skate world didn't. "No one is reading Thrasher magazine anymore," Sinker says, "and if they are, they have been reading it for twenty years. I just thought it would be cool to try something different, and I thought it would be cool to call it Bail, because that's funny, because I fall all the time."

Bail does not limit itself to skateboarding, just as Punk Planet isn't hamstrung by punk rock. In fact, Punk Planet has recently been publishing letters received from an unnamed soldier fighting overseas. The magazine's war coverage, as well as its features on playwrights and filmmakers, singles it out amongst the immensely specific collection of music publications that stack the shelves. The Washington Post describes it as "The New Yorker of punk magazines." Sinker wants to take Bail in the same direction. He wants it to follow in its big brother's footsteps.

"When we first got together," he says, "we mapped out a year's worth of stories to make sure we really do have a magazine, not just one issue." The first Bail features skater-turned-actor Jason Lee on the cover, as well as interviews with "Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator" director Helen Stickler and graphic designer Cody Hudson. But where do you go from there? "We know we need to bring more accessible stuff, because we can't have Jason Lee every time. But we need an `I know that guy' so people will keep picking it up. We don't want to showcase mythical skateboard figures and show them as those myths. We want to show them as people."

The first issue doesn't look much like skater lit. The editorial focuses on the "life" outside of skating, such as Jason Lee's anticipation of the birth of his child and Stickler's fight to get her film financed. "A lot of what Bail is all about is not showing a single guy on a skateboard," he says. He explains how he wants to create a publication that shows what's happening in the skate community, not just "trick-of-the-months" and snapshots of famous skaters doing their moves. "It's just that all of these things are happening that spawn from skateboarding. I mean, Spike Jonze is getting nominated for Academy Awards, and all of this stuff is coming from skateboarding that has nothing to do with skateboarding."

The 29-year-old Sinker has created a magazine for an audience he fits into comfortably himself, too old to skate to the mall but not too old to forget the freedom skateboarding once brought. The possibility of such a publication may or may not be farfetched. Sure, Bail will have its skateboarding readers, those intrigued by the Jason Lee covers and pretty pictures of skate parks, but will the rest of the underground catch on? Sinker has his doubts. "There are moments when we're putting together a magazine where I have this momentary fear of `Holy shit, I totally relate with every single piece in this magazine. I just created a magazine that's relevant only to me.' But, I mean, do any of the editors of, like, Details, think `Man, I just created another magazine that's a total topographical map of my emotional life?' I don't think they do."

"I just thought that maybe there will come a day when Punk Planet isn't around anymore, and that I might want to start another magazine," says Sinker, as he attempts to rationalize his decision to assume the responsibilities of running another independent publication. "We're just dealing with things that no other skate magazine has dealt with before." Does Bail intend to take on other skateboarding publications and skateboarding genres, like Transworld Skateboarding or the Tony Hawk X-Game genus? After all, part of the reason Punk Planet was conceived was because of Sinker's distaste for Maximum Rock `N' Roll and the rules and policies it attributes to punk rock. "It's like this," he says. "It seemed like a really good idea at the time. I mean, I really enjoy doing Punk Planet, but, at the same time, I've been doing that for ten years. I just thought it would be fun to try something else. Bail is an experiment, just to see if there will be that something else. It's just a configuration of having a little bit of free time and being really stupid."

Sinker's self-deprecating nature isn't much help in upholding his image as the king of Do-It-Yourself. He keeps the office attitude extremely casual, lots of joking, lots of laughing and storytelling. He and Meno share Thanksgiving anecdotes. They create headlines for Bail #2 while eating refrigerated Twizzlers. Someone has played a practical joke on him and switched around letter keys on his keyboard. They laugh in amusement.

The workspace--the office for Bail and Punk Planet--is hidden on Honore just south of Montrose, on what is considered a street but is more of an alley. The Brown Line runs directly above, and the warehouse they call home also holds offices for the Wagner Pump Company and other construction and design businesses. The space itself, a small room guarded by looming, poster-covered doors, consists of makeshift cubicles, each with its own computer. The "Dave Cave," the dark, two-wall-and-ceiling desk used by Punk Planet's mail-order manager Dave Hofer, immediately greets visitors. Stickers cover computer monitors and posters litter the walls, parading quotes such as "without dissent, it's not America" and "if you stand for nothing you'll fall for anything." An empty Krispy Kreme box rests in Sinker's garbage can, and the office refrigerator reeks of stale food. Pair upon pairs of free shoes are scattered around the room, perks of starting a brand new skateboarding magazine. Sinker, a large guy with short brown hair, big black glasses and sparse facial hair, seems amused by what he and his staff have built--a loft of relaxation, a Mecca for the punk writer. His dog Lucy, a white-and-black curious creature with a piece of pink cloth for a toy, roams the office freely, as if she is an editorial assistant. Her hair obnoxiously covers the couch in front of Sinker's desk. "That's the couch I used to sleep in when I would pull all-nighters trying to get Punk Planet out on time," he says, reminiscent but grateful that he's surpassed that stage.

Sinker keeps an incredibly low profile in the Chicago indie scene. He keeps to himself, either because he has little interest in gaining popularity through association with a successful publication, or because he simply doesn't have time to show his face off. Probably both. "I've never been a person that's very interested in making a name for myself," he says. "I'm not really interested in being seen by the right people or impressing anyone. It speaks much more clearly to produce something of worth." He enjoys the perks of going to punk shows and not being recognized. "I'm a private person. I'm not really interested in being trapped by popularity. I'm more about getting the work done. The thing is, I work too hard to be at bars and shows all the time now. I used to go to a ton of shows, but not anymore. I spend every single day doing this."

"I think Dan is inspirational," says author and Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis in commenting about the launch of Bail. "In the fanzine world, anybody who's doing anything like he's doing is doing it out of the desire to do something different. I think it may be an attempt to make some money, but it's done with integrity and, like Punk Planet, appears to be a labor of love. Dan's magazine will not be the equivalent to the Maxim of the skateboarding world."

If Sinker's intention is to get rich from Bail, he certainly works hard for it. The production schedules for Punk Planet and Bail run simultaneously, even though Punk Planet is bimonthly and Bail is quarterly. "It would be great if we could do one at a time, but we just can't," he says. "There hasn't been a day that's gone by since Bail started that I wasn't like, `What was I thinking?'"

Still, it's difficult to imagine someone expecting to cash big checks from heading an independently produced alternative skateboarding magazine. Five thousand copies of the first issue of Bail were spread across the country and less than 100 are still on shelves. That's a vast improvement on the sales of the debut issue of Punk Planet, which only sold 400 out of 2,000 pressed. (Its current circulation stands at 14,000.) Either Sinker got lucky, or, after ten years, knows exactly what he's doing.

Yet, Bail is far from an unequivocal success. It still needs to fight to keep breathing, as the publishing industry is suffering these days. "Bail #1 did a lot better than anyone would have ever expected," he says, after leaving dozens of messages to convince advertisers to buy space in the second issue. "But we are seriously, financially fucked in getting out Bail #2. We're in a tight spot, because the ad revenue won't jump up in the same way. All the love for it can't keep it afloat, you know? Punk Planet knows its expenses and can hold itself together. But the budgets are always low, everything has always been a struggle, and now that's doubled because there are two magazines."

Both Bail and Punk Planet are products of Sinker's publishing company Independents' Day Media, which he decided to create after buying a home in Edgewater with his girlfriend of five years. "Buying a place was the straw that broke the camel's back," he says. "We hit issue number fifty of Punk Planet, and I was like, `Holy shit, fifty issues is crazy.' It had been fifty issues of holding a magazine together with shoestring and rubber bands and bubble gum. I thought, `Do I have another fifty in me? No, I don't. I fucking need to incorporate.'"

The success of "We Owe You Nothing--Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews," an anthology of the best conversations Punk Planet writers have had with punk and political icons, published in 2001 by Akashic Books, also helped keep the magazine above water. It received unanimous applause from book critics and independent publications across the country, and helped bring Punk Planet some mainstream visibility. "Frankly, the book kept Punk Planet alive," Sinker says. "In the year approaching its release, we were in total financial dire straits." The problem with Bail is that skateboarding readers may not catch on immediately. "The new thing can't hold itself up right now," Sinker says, "but that's just because it's a new thing."

So far, however, reader response has been positive. "It's being received really well," he says, smiling widely. "I expected that there would be two camps with Bail. People that liked it and really got it, and people that just thought that we--personally--we're extraordinarily lame." But, the issue sold well on both coasts as well as in its home in the Midwest. If Bail can hold on financially, it might just have a distinguished future, and Sinker and crew are ready for it.

"A lot of the time you get excited about magazines because of the promise of what will come, but I think Bail #1 has more than just that promise," Sinker says. He pauses and launches Lucy's toy across the room for her to fetch. "Getting an issue of Punk Planet used to feel like magic. I've gotten over that now--it doesn't feel as magical. But Bail was definitely magic. Getting Bail back from the printer totally felt like getting Punk Planet seventeen back: `Wow, we did it.'"

(2003-12-10)

Also by Tom Lynch

The cock crows
As The Daley Center hosts the hearing regarding the potential closing of Big Chicks, the crowd breathes heavily on one another
(2003-12-02)

Windows for the world
A pink-haired Columbia College freshman, complete with a Camel cigarette and a matching backpack littered with Black Flag patches, winces as she witnesses a child swallowed by a river of thick brown ooze
(2003-11-26)

Tip of the Week
Geoffrey Bent discloses all of the dirty details in "Silent Partners," his satiric ode to necrophilia
(2003-11-19)

From Russia, With Love
Katherine Shonk's ticket into the book world comes in the form of "The Red Passport," a collection of eight short stories set in post-Communist Russia
(2003-11-19)

Tip of the Week
(2003-11-13)

Debbie does Dogme
(2003-11-13)

Tip of the Week
(2003-11-05)

Still biting
(2003-11-05)

Ollie oop
(2003-11-05)

Tip of the Week
(2003-10-29)

Psycho Killers
(2003-10-23)

The narrator stands alone
(2003-10-23)

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