I LEFT MY HEART, SOME BLOOD, AND CARTILAGE AT JUDKINS PARK....AND NO T-SHIRT TO SHOW FOR IT.

Patrick, textbook pivot to fakie. Nice form. Shot with my little Nikon COOLPIX.

Little Azai. Rock steady.

Matt and I, synchronizzzzed.

Q Flippy to Pivot Judkins, yawn. from Quinn Davis on Vimeo.

Never shift your feet AFTER a trick is landed. PLAY IT OFF....

AGAINST THE RAIN

Got rained out before even arriving to Jefferson park at 9am. Headed down to Marginal and pretty much had it to myself for a couple hours. Artsy shots ensued.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSORS.

TAKE YOUR OWN.

FUCK YOU SKATE BARN!!!!!!!!

Blair and I tried stopping in at the Skate Barn over the holidays. I had some free passes that my lady bought me thru Group-on. I had talked the the owner a week previous to make sure I could redeem my coupons, to which he replied, "no problem....yeah, over a thousand of those were purchased..." He failed to warn me (and I imagine the rest of the 1000+ people who obtained the Group-on) that they would be closing their doors for good within a weeks time. What a god-awful businessman. Not only did they obviously fail to meet their rental requirements, but they failed to let those who invested in their coupons (probably sold knowing they'd cash in on them as their business sunk into the ocean) that they should hurry to redeem them. They didn't change their website, they didn't send out a courtesy e-mail. I hope their debts outweigh what they ripped-off from their coupon constituents. I would hate to think all that money was a scam to help them out of bankruptcy. Shitbirds. 

Speaking of birds, that night, over the Skate Barn, there was an ominous flock of about 2000 crows swooping and screeching and diving around the sky. It was an omen. But for what or whom, we shall never know. 

Oh...really?!?

(NOT) DOWN WITH SKATE BARN!

Where to now? Another hour in the car to Inner Space...

DOOR WAYS

I took Nick to South Park for the first time. He seemed to really like it, especially the arches.

This is a make. Proper backside 5-0.

Attempted melon.

Up and over roll-in, and another hairball one with a grab and shove.

THE RESULTS ARE IN...

BEST OF 2011

BEST TRICK: 

James Hardy, frontside 180 to switch backside 50-50 the Clipper. This is gnarly. I always loved this trick, evur since da Gonz...

BEST PART:

This is a tie, so I'm just linking to Youtube. No posting here. (takes too damn long.)

a. Anything . by . Daewon.

b. Torey Pudwell's Big Bang 

c. Alex Perelson, Real Since Day One (Sorry, you gotta find this on your own. Just think 540 body jar.)

BEST PHOTO:

Goin' artsy on this one. Jack Sabback is rad. 

FAVORITE PART:

While living in L.A., the beige plastic school yard picnic tables were the uber bench. In the 90's, it was quite popular to do flip tricks over objects on flat. The plastic benches were hard enough to pop a good flip trick over. But if you could do something on, up or over a table on flat, that was about as good as it got. Even ollieing them was a struggle. And everyone knew exactly how big they were, so it was a (gold?) standard ruler for Big Pop. Jeremy Wray was the first to have a run with 2 flippies in a row (heel and back heel), and the only, for a long time.

So this is part nostalgia, and part recognition. You rarely see the tables anymore. Bryan Herman comes thru, pays his respect to the 90's, and kills tables for ever. And makes it look easy. Why bother now? Sort of like Tom Penny "shutting down" the chain banks in SD. I love that it's just an intro too. And Tom Waits is the icing. Thanks Herman.

AND THE TREE COMES DOWN.

STUCK IN TIME

Jay Adams, Stecyk's iconic eye classic. I used to to manuals at the bottom of that hill, Santa Monica. 

Do I need to comment? Another Stecyk. Not sure of the gnarler.

Bryan Ferdinand, backyard ramp pivot to fakie. Chucka boots or bedtime slippers??

Rodney Mullen, impossible over Grants stick cam, before most could ollie. 

Any photo of Gonz is rad. I remember thinking "why?" Now I think, "why the fuck not??" was always his attitude.

One of my top 5 favorites. Straight from San Diego to Seattle with Daniel Harold Sturt, (driving a rented car because he [Hensley] was too afraid of flying) got the photo, drove home. This hat is now 5 minutes from my house.

Another top 5. Wish the car and weren't there. But this is like herding cats. The only reason it's in focus is because they are connected. This is taken probably 50 yards from the Jay Adams photo.

Anyone know the story on this one? Is it real? Is he Gleaming the Cube?

Grant Brittain's experimentation (see also the Rodney pic) with cameras on sticks made for some of the best photos ever. Chris Miller nosebone. A very photogenic meteor. 

I remember Surt saying he had 911 ready to dial on his cell phone when he shot this. I was always amazed at how short Wray actually is in person. Flea gene DNA splicing?

I just love this photo, that's all. Dune, SF, circa whenever.


THIS POST WILL KEEP GROWING. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITES?

Also, odd I had this post already in the works, when I came across Grosso's Love Letter to skateboardings best photos. Bad azz commentaries, funny motherfucker. 

SPOT CHECK: JENNY WRIGHT, IN BACK.

First handrail I ollied onto (back in the day, cave-man's came first....) and slid. No straight runway, 90 degree Tron turn to get on. The motivation was seeing Alex Alvarez front board-sliding it. That was amazing not only for the time, but let alone the small town. (What ever happened to that guy??) We had some serious talent.

Seth took this photo. I'm posting it in lieu of a nice short visit from him, his better half, and brilliant son, Talus tonight.

This spot will come up again....I broke the subtalar part of my talus off kickflipping the little 5 stairs in front, (which I used to skate more than any other spot) then had it razed from its awkward, uncomfortable reposition via surgery. I have the removed bone and ligament scraps in a plastic jar, and showed it to Talus tonight. I wouldn't let him open it, no. Namesake it isn't, but odd it was.

FREEDOM IS A RELATIVE TERM / TIGHT TRANSITIONS

In light of Mumia's death penalty sentence being reduced to life, I thought this photo (an old top-5 favorite...one I remember vividly in one of my first Thrasher's) was appropriate. Still wearin' the stripes, but able to do amazing things in a small space.

TEXAS IS THE REASON

In the summer of 1995 Q and Chris took a greyhound for 4 days to Corpus Christi Texas, via Billings, to pick up a car and drive it back to Seattle any route we chose. Houston, the deepest limestone cave in the country: Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Los Angeles were major hits after leaving Texas in my new Chevy Celebrity. We traveled roughly 5252.9 miles round trip.

Unfortunately, our video documentation came to an abrupt end when Chris got hit by a big wave while filming us surfing on Padre Island, TX. Only a few photos and some skate footage was all we had of the rest.

This is a short edit of what we did get.

SKATERS: 1 - UNIBOMBER: 0

I vaguely remember this, which is to say, I don't remember it at all. Street skating brings you in face-to-face combat with so many poor souls, it's impossible to keep record of them all. Between knives, fireworks thrown from moving cars, iron clubs, mace, and guns, one tends to lose memory of the relatively passer-by's. Aside from the fact that I wish I remember this Cohen Brothers character, I need some assistance.

Who took the photo? (Blair?) Does Chris remember this? Did it escalate? He looks ready to watch a Bears game and shoot some shit if they lose the game.

Strange thing is, I dress more like him these days than the kite-flying shit I had on there. But I did have Jovante's last board....

LATER NOTE: I asked Chris about this and all he had to say was "Ha, mall grab skills."

SPOT CHECK: GENERAL SUPPLY

A lot of hours went down at this West Bremerton attraction. The new ledge looks fun, I need to check that out soon, had no time yesterday. It can be seen so far in these previous posts:

FEELING A BIT MELANCHOLY

Skate Rats 101

Props to Seth Book for the updated version. 

 

NOPING

Mr. Weinstock with a proper frontside ollie at the weirdest park we've got, Southpark.

FEELING A BIT MELANCHOLY

Greg Martin, old buddy, hometown ripper. Taught me board(rail)slides. This has got to be my first skate photo. Ma's point-n-shoot.

Wade Speyer, Aforementioned Bainbridge Think demo. Taught me I am a pussy. My old trusty Pentax Asahi, RIP.

Adam Crew, another hometown ripper. Blasting at Silverdale. Taught me what style looks like, holmes. Dad's newer Pentax, still got it. 

Blair Taylor, homeboy, running a little interference bonkage. What was that bank called? U-Haul? Pic taker?

BULLDOG SKATE GENE

Why do all bulldogs like to skate? I think we need to find and research that genome.

GOLF THUG LIFE

This one's for the old man, who is bewildered by the plethora of "No Skateboarding" signs in public domain. Well, turns out, we aint the only vandals.

SLOWLY GETTING MY GROOVE BACK

I GOT SHIN SPLINTS THAT DAY*

Think demo, circa 94, Bainbridge Island. Matt Pailes, pre-Rasta cult. Backside 180 over the volcano*, a smooth move. Taken with the old trusty (yet stolen, R.I.P.) Pentax Asahi. Probably one of my first skate photos ever. Got some others of Wade Speyer from that day I'll post soon.