The Neglected Mistress

As many of you may know – either through relation or observation – Ben and I are very much skaters at heart. In fact, I’m comfortable admitting that our interest in fixed gear bikes is rather recent and while not without precedent, our new found love. But skating has and will be the percocious high school whore that popped our cherry. Admitedly, she has kind of taken a back seat but I assure you, I will never retire four 50mm for two 700’s (back and knees willing).

So it was rather refreshing when I stumbled on this. It goes without saying that Cardiel, Speyer and Tsocheff were probably the best skaters if not of the 90’s but of the last 2 decades of skating. But re-watching their skating gives me boners left, right and center…metaphorically speaking of course.

Talk about aspirational. Watching this makes me want to skate the city red. It also quickly reminds me of how absolutely impossible it is to skate like these dudes. Sobering, yet amazing.

I’m so Confused

I know I’ve seen a lot of security guards show up at skate parks before, and I’ve certainly been known to carry a roll of duct tape in my duct tape holster while “riggin” skate spots. Don’t even get me started on the setup the “Career Skater” is rolling on.

Tony Hawk Enterprises with a (in my books anyway) HUGE MISS.

Anyone Remember This?

I do. Three skaters I really enjoy watching….until Dill went all Robin-Hood-tights-Ludlow St. on us.

Name the vid. Should be easy and by no means is the skate-trivia-of-the-day considering the benchmark Ben set.

Rob Piontek – R.I.P.

Last night many of us lost a great friend, a brother, a son. Rob was a fucking terrific individual and he won’t be forgotten. I sorely miss you already dude and I know you’ll be ripping wherever you are – ben.

Barca 2006/myself, sam, jarrod, robbie

Skate Trivia #3

As hard as the last trivia question might have been, the people over at Zoo could have figured it out seeing as they are hooking Pupes up now.

We’ll keep it Canadian for this one, hopefully one of you left-coaster’s can get this.

Jon West’s first video part on a major skate company… (Hint, this company is no longer so major) What video, what company and as a bonus, what was the song?

I’ll even post the cover, sans title. Ring any bells? Shit, I’ll even give you guys a beer if you know one of the two skaters on the cover.

– footnote: If anyone has this video and is willing to dub me a copy, let me know since mine is long gone.

Finally Sounding Good (Again)

Far be it from me to be critical of skateboarding’s sometimes oddly-elected ‘forefathers’ but over the last 20 years there’s been no one easier for me to bitch about than Jason Lee. When Video Days came out I (along with every other skateboarder at the time) was blown away. The first incarnation of Stereo Skateboards was pretty much the best thing to come out in the 90’s. Ethan finally had a place to feel comfortable in dickies amidst the sea of bullshit that was quickly amassing over at the once great Dwindle camp. A Visual Sound was one of the best videos to date. Let’s not forget that this was more or less the same time that DC made it’s entry into skateboarding, things were changing.

After the extreme-games came about, Jason was long gone and Stereo was in the hands of Deluxe, which isn’t a bad thing but they really didn’t treat Stereo properly at all, it suffered the humiliation of having a team of children (J.R. Nieves, Dustin Dollin, etc…) who now are all great in their own right, but back then it just killed it for everyone who loved the pre-’98 Jason Lee/Dune ship. Stereo sank into the abyss officially at that point, for many it had already been over for a while.

Remember that magazine that was around for a while called BAIL? Oh shit, it still is. Well that’s how we all found out that Stereo was making a comeback, JLee was refreshed, invigorated and stoked on skateboarding again. Him and Chris Pastras were picking up the stuntwood and giving it another shot. Teeth clenched tightly, and ready for disaster I joined the few in hoping against hope that this reincarnation wasn’t just a money grab at the peak of skateboarding’s 2k popularity. For the first while the ‘new’ Stereo was stuck on a wretched sort of Adult Contemporary station where it was pretty apparent that they were trying (hard) to please us old folks and new kids all at once “Hey look at us, we’re back, we’re cool, hey…. it’s Jason Lee… remember? the knife song…. three flips…. backside 360’s…. anybody?” The sad thing was his skating was worse than his acting. At least Dune was there to keep things sort of legit.

Well, a few years in and they seem to have gotten it back, at least in my opinion. Here’s the new teaser for the upcoming Stereo film. It’s ten minutes long and unconcerned with vignetting. Thanks, and welcome back – this made my day.

The Sweet Irony

The other day, Ben and I rode to our rink spot in Trinity Bellwoods to fuck around on our bikes. As we got there, we noticed Noah, a TO skateboarding fixture, teaching about 6 kids at one end of the rink. It was really a good vibe. Little groms learning ollies and us learning 180 skids. About 30 minutes into it, out of nowhere, Noah calls to us asking if we can go bike elsewhere. This took us by surprise but it also confused the shit out of us. Not only was a tenth of the rink not being used, but did we just get kicked out of a spot by skateboarders?

How did we, long time skateboarders ourselves, get kicked out a spot by skateboarders for biking?

We dug deeper and found out that a concerned parent had asked Noah to do her dirty work. In all fairness to Noah was doing his job and really couldn’t care less if we were there or not. As Noah said “you know the deal”.

To make a long story short, we vacated the spot but not without giving that fat cow of a mom a peice of our mind pointing out how hypocritical and backwards it is to kick out people out of spot so that her kid can skate. And what made matters worse, is that when we explained our history in skating, she pulled on her smoke with her fat lips, looked at us incredulously and ignorantly said “so? what’s your point.”

Anyhow, to read a far more detailed and accurate account of the situation, go here.

This is what Ben did to get us booted.

Tae Tae

Ok, so Jovontae has been covered. But being bored at work, I stumbled across this

which reminded me of this

Personally, I like both versions of Jovontae.

Skateboard Trivia # 2

So the last time I did this I was accused of the question being too easy, So this time around it’s going to require a little more thought.

Take a look at the video below, there’s another name for the trick Tim O’Connor is doing here (hint, it was named after someone).

June 14th 1:30 pm – Contest Closed –

Some interesting guesses – “wee-man grind”, the “mcbeardy” among others –

No, the backside 180 fakie 5-0 was for a few minutes known as the “Pupecki Grind” after none other than the famously forgotten Eric Pupecki. Eric also received the nickname “Eric TooTechy” from someone over at Big Brother Magazine, which stuck around for probably as long as the trick’s nickname did.

– b.

Free Coffee

So I won Sam’s free coffee giveaway the other day, which was relatively easy considering there were only three dudes in the late 90’s brave enough to skate subway stops in the bronx, that and Mr. Williams is one of my all-time favourites. I upped the ante on the contest though and old-man-skateboard from the north answered correctly, so I gave up my freebie to him. Good job.

So here’s my contest response. Take a look at the picture below, anyone who gets this correct gets a beer, expensed to me. Your only hint is that besides having one of the best flippy things ever, he also now wears glasses. *Edit – I’ve been told by a few people that I had thought would have got this right off the bat that it’s “too hard”. Okay, well here’s another hint; He’s been on both World Industries & Girl and while on World, had probably the most controversial sticker ever put out in skateboarding.

Good luck.