The Cookbook. A BMX ‘Zine?
If you rode freestyle BMX in the late 80s and then the early 90s, Freestylin‘ magazine and later Go were your bibles (I’ve written about them previously here). When Go folded in the early 90s, a void was left in the freestyle community. Young BMXers/entreprenuer’s Hal Brindley and Steve Buddendeck were doing a line of t-shirts called 2B Homecooked Garments at the time, and the brand was picking up in popularity. Hal saw an opportunity and the need to fill the void, and with the help of Happy Zine maker Jimmy Deaton, produced one issue of The Cookbook. The Cookbook was a black and white, offset printed publication with a DIY aesthetic.
Hal put up $5000 of his own money (Print costs have decreased since those days. Now publications skip many of the expensive pre-press phases and go direct to plate.) to produce 10,000 copies of The Cookbook, which he mailed out for free. In return he requested that anyone who liked the ‘zine send a dollar. Anyone who liked it and wanted to recieve the next one, send another dollar. I sent two dollars, and Hal deserved it.
About a year later the first issue of Brad McDonald’s Ride BMX Magazine came out. Issue Two of The Cookbook never surfaced. Ultimately it was the Cookbook that made me realize producing a magazine on your own was attainable, and led to me working in the publishing/media industry, and even producing a few of my own magazines (here and here). After the jump are some details of the first and only issue of The Cookbook that I shot with my iPhone.
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Comments ( 5 )
mangler added this brilliant insight on Sep 04 09 at 1:16 amhal is the reason i ride bmx. i still rock a play crossbar pad for that reason. best dude ever!
Todd Seligman added this brilliant insight on Sep 04 09 at 4:51 amThose were good times. There was a brotherhood of 2b and we all followed Hal in ethic and practice. We made it work by any means necessary. The Cookbook documents what may be the purest period in BMX. Anyone who rode during this period- rode out of love of riding and a sense that if we didn’t find a way to continue to progress this thing we loved, it could die, or become something aweful, corrupt and misguided. Some of that happened anyway, but this was an incredible time to be a man with a 20 incher.
brian tunney added this brilliant insight on Sep 04 09 at 2:57 pmTruly a great magazine that helped pull me through the dark times between Go and Ride. That’s me in image 4 up there….
Bill Anstedt added this brilliant insight on Sep 10 09 at 1:57 pmI still have my copy of the cookbook somewhere. Hal was a cool guy, he would write me back any time I sent him my weird letters or drawings.
Hal is one of my favorite wildlife photographers. Some day he’ll be the photo editor of National Geographic.
BMX for Sale added this brilliant insight on Sep 15 09 at 10:31 pmAh… the old cookbook and the 2B Homecooked Garments….Still have alot of the old 90′s Go Magazines. Very cool story…those guys have got some balls and they deserve their success. Kudos
