EVERY DAY I'M STEN-CIL-IN, EVERY DAY I'M STEN-CIL-IN...

VELOCITY vs. INERTIA

Any downhilling on video is good video. Eating shit, well, reality. Usually hilarious. You live on to ride another day. There was a kid in my part of town that became a vegetable by downhilling. But he didn't have any practice! Crazy kids.

SPOT CHECK: PIER 1 CURB

This was the spot to learn feebles and feeble-slide combos. Sherman and Joe Cantu come to mind in this department.

Is it me or should good red curbs be on the national extinction list?

FAST CLASS

This is a great photo and looks genuinely older....but it also looks like Remmy Stratton. I want a back story! Either way I don't care. Cool ass photo. I shouldn't even comment on it. (back story!)

HANG IN THERE.

I re-drew the Real Thiebaud hanging clansman graphic when it came out because I liked it so much. We xeroxed it (some with the soul man cartoon...I think that was stolen from Andy Howell) and left it all over school.

The original impetus to do this was prompted after an unsettling event. I was casually invited over to this kids house who I rode the bus with in junior high. He said he had cool stuff to show me. "Cool stuff" referred not only to his giant t.v. complete with porn channels, but specifically to all of their guns. For instance, (but not limited to, no!) he had a Mac 10 under his bed. He must've been 13. And his good ol' dad slept with a cocked and loaded .45 under his pillow and a sawed-off shotgun under his bed, apparently, according to his delightful son, really wishing someone would break in so he could blow them away in his pj's. And then, when I was leaving (in a hurry) and I didn't think it could get any worse, he insistently handed me a piece of paper from a large stack of copies atop the kitchen counter. "You should fill this out!" It was a real (no pun intended) Ku Klux Klan application. I couldn't believe it. I said I was definitely not interested, at all...at all.

The next week I happened to acquire the Thiebaud board. I would dangle it in KKK jr.'s face every time I saw him on the bus with a big grin on my face. Empty threats ensued. Looking back, of course this (graphic, and pushing it) is not the right philosophy. (I did not plan this post for MLK Day...he would be rolling in his grave.) Evil begets evil. But it sure is fun to rile up the wicked...

Thiebaud doesn't get enough credit for how innovative and stylish he was. First kickflip front board and 10 foot high frontside wallrides. And what other skater can you name who has published books of poetry?? 

And...Banksy seemed to have (inadvertent yet oddly similar...who knows?) made this homage to the infamous graphic in his southern U.S. escapades not long ago. He dropped into Birmingham and threw up some bangers. My favorite artist (cliche or not), period. 

WOODWORK

Where are all these amazing fuckers coming from??? Stumbled upon this randomly on the interwebs. Quick footed ninja kid, good loosey-goosey yet somehow solid style, Mark Sucio. Amazing trick selection, reverts everything the wrong way, big or small looks to have the same (none) impact on him. Honorable (or Questionable) mentions in this corner are the gap to front board to fakie at the SF Library, nollie cab front board a rail, the back tail to over gap-to-3 stair at Pulaski Park (did I get that right?), ssbsnb a rail, the ridonculous ender...oh, just goddamn everything. I like the fact that he does lots of runs. Oh, and the rarest trick in his part, reading a book.

THE WHEELS ARE ON THE GROUND!

 This song will perseverate in my brain until I am dead. Love the stunt girl tick-tacking around and around and around....

HEP SNOW CATS

Alien sighting in the deep-end of Leavenworth years ago. If you live in Seattle and aren't familiar with Spacecraft, come out from under your rock. Conscientious consumerism at it's best. I just wish they made (made by scoped-out, legit suppliers in Bali, and elsewhere) more stuff. 

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.

"THEY'RE DIGGING IN THE RIGHT PLACE!!!"

Super cool series online by Skateboarder Magazine, "Raiders of the Archives." They are short videos looking into the offices and/or archives (literally, shelves, boxes, walls) of great artists and photographers in the professional skateboard world. This post links to my favorite (though they are all great), that being Andy Jenkins, one of my favorite artists, whom I've posted about before. He gives the rare treat of showing some of the conceptual work that happens before a graphic or ad is made, including sketches and renderings from another one of my absolute favorites, Evan Hecox who does amazing graphics for Chocolate Skateboards.

Very inspiring series, and makes you want to dig into the vaults. (And get organized...)

WHEEL BITE vs. HEEL BITE

This image comes to mind:

NEW (YEARS) SPOT CHECK

New Years Eve skate-a-thon, found some secret weirdness. Very fun. Old men street skating. As usual, Blair gets 5 things, I get 1.

I ONLY WANTED TO SEE YOU SKATING IN THE PURPLE RAIN...

Aside from the cost of ruined gear, skating in the rain is underrated.

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. 

THE DAVE CHAPPELLE OF SKATEBOARDING...

Didn’t Welsh basically save your life after you fell of that bridge? 

Save my life? He fell on top of me! That dude almost killed me! Son of a bitch fell on top of me and didn’t get a scratch on him! I fell off the damn bridge all drunk and woke up in ICU wondering why the fuck Joey Pepper is holding my hand? I had all these needles in me… looking down at the cathodor like, “What the fuck is this thing in my dick!?!”


EPIC CLYDE SINGLETON INTERVIEW OVER AT ONE OF MY FAVORITE BLOGS, CHROME BALL...


I also highly recommend watching 20 Shot Sequence with Clyde's commentary. (World Box Set)

"DON'T YOU EVER, EVER, EVER HAVE THAT MUCH FUN AGAIN!"

More wintery video. One winter night downtown Seattle, Brian Henderson and Quinn Davis, circa 1994. Downtown at night during the holidays is lit up like Vegas.

Previously posted at: QAD MISC: One Night Downtown:

NOT JUST LIKE THE GUYS IN THRASHIN'.

Really stoked to see this going to Sundance. Can't wait to see it.

Cool little Interview with Stacy Peralta with dates and showing times for the January festival in Utah.

Preview:



UPDATE: From the premier....

UDPATE 2: Tons of new/old merchandise and weird offers (including pre-ordering the video) in lieu of the release date approaching (Nov. 6, 2012) Check the video of Stacy and preview.

STAY CALM

DOLLY CAM AT MARGINAL?

The New Kid on Lib...filmed a commercial (I assume for Lib) at Marginal last weekend on a very cold day. Great attitude, he was very patient, helping a crew to set up a dolly cam and lights. He needed no warm up. Boneless to disaster on the tall wedge wall. Keep your eyes on this one.

STRIKE A POSE / TRIP ON THE EGO

Jammer jeans with suspenders, teal shirt, neon painters cap and a curly mullet.

Dear Lord, it's amazing what the ego can allow you to do (to yourself). I saw this guy once in Maui at a gift shop, I was probably 9. All I remember was he was super tall, and I was not the biggest Night Rider fan, but I was stoked. The fact that this guy is still famous is a serious embarrassment to our species, and a major set-back to any dignified woman trying to identify with a hetero brethren in modern Western culture.

I wish I could see how long it took him to wobble down into the solitary surfer stance....hope he didn't get hurt. And where did the brand new Powell set-ups come from?

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.

CHRISTMAS LIST TOPPER

I beat this when they had it in the mall...is that something to brag about?

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.