June 25, 2020

Kill Fee: What if 'everybody's good'?


Though Adrien Bulard did a backside tailslide down a 20-stair rail nearly a year after this piece would have run, there is no better example of everybody being real damn good at skateboarding right now, and how little meaning that can have.

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In the year 2017, that distant time, I tried to tackle something that had become real obvious about 2010s skateboarding: everybody was really good. I don't remember the exact reason I went after it — IG the year prior had switched to minute-long videos, maybe that pressed the issue — but I pitched it to Jenkem and they wanted it. I did some interviews (first time I ever talked to Templeton Elliot over the phone! I do a podcast with him now and talk to him weekly), wrote the thing, and then the rope got lost in the editing process. So it goes. Templeton mentioned "everybody's good" in a text the other day and I, wholly forgetting I'd interviewed him for this piece, said, "Yo, I actually wrote about that ..." He had the bright idea to dredge it up, so here it is. What if "everybody's good"?

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Its blown 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals notwithstanding, the Golden State Warriors basketball team has been the most fun and dominating team in the sport for the past three years. It’s easy to be a smug skateboarder, because we don’t treat current greatness like old basketball heads treat Golden State.

Former NBA stars spanning four decades claim the Warriors are a bunch of suckers. They’re soft, their game is wack, we’d beat their ass. The slights against the Warriors, who posted the best regular season record ever, are so hypothetical, of course, that they’re meaningless. Good thing more mature generations of skateboarders don’t dis the young rippers in that stupid a fashion — “we’d totally skate better than them” — since, obviously, those old guys wouldn’t.

But skateboarding has its own sneaky way of undercutting the young. It’s tossed around on the internet and concludes discussions at the shop. You’ve maybe said it and I’ve definitely said it and we weren’t necessarily aware we were dismissing the ridiculous and heroic skateboarding that happens nowadays, but we were. Whatever, everybody’s good.

It’s the most backhanded, devaluing, almost-a-compliment I can think of — and I hail from Minnesota, the land of passive aggression. Yes, these kids rip, but it’s standard, everybody’s doing it. In my day, our time, skateboarding was more ______. Can it be much of a dismissal, though, if it’s a statement of fact? Is everybody actually good, and if they’re not, would we even know it? How’d they get so good, anyway?

Hometown heroes, global heroes

Without objective ways to assess everybody being good, it comes down to the eye test. Templeton Elliott started his website, Mostly Skateboarding, in 2005 because at the time, no one was aggregating the world’s skateboard content. For years, he also did daily updates for The Skateboard Mag’s website. “I watch shit tons of videos and definitely make a lot of judgements,” he says.

Since skateboarding was the United States’ gift to the globe, the U.S. had a head start, and it’s not all that controversial to say it was ahead of the rest of the world for a while when it came to being good at skateboarding. Nowadays, not so much, Elliott says. “I think for a long time there was a divide, where guys in other countries — especially somewhere like New Zealand, that’s small and farther off the map — I think there was a time that those guys were far behind.”

It’s definitely as easy as it’s ever been to check out Auckland’s skate scene, just as it’s easier than ever for Auckland locals to see what the rest of the world is doing on its skateboard. That plays into a related idea that’s not all that new: The free flow of skateboard information, as opposed to the slow drip of a video here and a monthly magazine there, in past decades, kicks up the speed at which skateboarding progresses.

This progress and the means to put information out there — Instagram, basically — means there are more opportunities than ever for people to show how good they are and to get noticed for it, says Mike Sinclair, team manager for Foundation, Toy Machine and Nike SB. He’s also judged contests for 20 years; he very much evaluates talent for a living.

“More people are given the opportunity these days than they were [in the past], so it creates not the illusion, but [it seems] like everybody’s hooked up, everybody’s good,” he says. Put another way, there has never been a shortage of hometown heroes, skaters ripping in obscurity who never had their chance to barge a demo and be seen by guys like Sinclair — but now you can see those skaters instantly, he says. The awareness is raised. “Every year, every era has good kids,” he says. “But now, more than ever, you can see all of them if you just know their name.”

Less hypothetically, and more to the point of where the bar is currently set, a day after judging the recent Damn Am contest at Woodward West, Sinclair recounts the highlights of some of the top runs. “A kid” — a nameless kid he says! — “who got second place, did a 360 flip noseblunt slide in his run.” The kid also did a 360 ollie kickflip — the board spins and the body with it — to lipslide, in the same run, and got second place. So everybody’s good?

The black mirror?

Davis Torgerson isn’t necessarily buying it. “Everybody’s good to the point of what you see of them,” says the Real Skateboards pro. Basically, you’re not getting the full story. He says everyone can curate their best selves, skating all day at the skatepark and posting the single minute’s best stuff. Who hasn’t faked it a little bit for online? He says in the days when YouTube ruled the land, he was probably dismissed in the same way. A lot of it is the distance created by skaters only seen online. “Part of it is how you see it on Instagram,” Torgerson says. “It just doesn’t have the same shock value as when you see a true skill in person.”

The true skill — the outlier — is something and someone who’s always been around. Sinclair points out Pat Duffy’s deranged part in Questionable 25 years ago; both he and Torgerson namecheck Shane O’Neill. “He’s fucked up good,” says Sinclair.

“Not everyone’s Shane O’Neill,” says Torgerson. “Not everyone’s Steph Curry.”

Short of being fucked up good, in the video realm, a lot of other factors are in play. Elliott, with all his clip viewing, has some tried and true rules about the footage he consumes: no park foote and no dolphin flips. He says when a clip’s breaking his rules, “It’s a signifier of someone who’s not thinking about the whole package of a skate video. It matters how you’re dressed, what the spot looks like, whether you filmed it at night or the day time …” Expecting some random kid’s skate part to be a work of art is too “precious,” Elliott says, but it should still be a “work of something.”

These are the metaphysics of “good” — the intersection (or divergence) of the 360 flip noseblunt slide in that Damn Am second-place run, and that ollie, powerslide then backside tailslide line Marius Syvanen does in the GX-1000 video. “What it all boils down to: Does this skater’s tastes align with mine?” Elliott asks. “I guess I look for some sort of relatability even though these people are way better than me. Sometimes less is more.”

Extras

Or something else is more. Torgerson says he’s gobsmacked by skaters like his Real teammate Zion Wright, who, on top of all the street exploits, can throw a McTwist, on concrete, at will. At 28 years old, he says he’s come to the realization that some things are now just beyond his reach. “I guess it’s easy now to say, ‘I’ll never do a 540,’” Torgerson says, telling himself. “‘Don’t have to worry about doing that!’”

Wright differentiates himself with his inverted spins, and in this time of wondering if everyone is actually good, some sort of signature trick — Reynolds’s frontside flip, Jamie Foy’s front crook — is one way to go. Sinclair says Matt Bennett’s going to be 50 years old and people will still want to see his namesake grind. Elliott agrees, “That dude does it all over the place — that’s a rad looking trick and he does it really well so I’m happy to see that.”

Jaime Owens, the editor of Transworld Skateboarding, agrees that skaters, when all may be equal when it comes to skills, need to have something more, especially to get some editorial coverage in his magazine. "You have to keep going down the list of what makes them special,” he says. It’s factors like whether or not they’re a jerk, how’s the style? “What makes them stand out in the crowd?” he asks.

Speaking as one of the few remaining gatekeepers in skateboarding, Owens throws cold water on the hotter implications of “everybody’s good,” even if he agrees with the sentiment. "I don't need the next new good guy — there's already established skaters, good pros out there,” he says, who will end up in the pages of Transworld. Still, intangibles like charisma can take skaters over the top — Owens mentions new pro Nora Vasconcellos. "That's why she really shines,” he says, “she's a larger than life personality and that stands on top of her awesome skating.”

Where do we go now?

There are implications to everybody being good. Sinclair says a certain type of pro skateboarding career is done — chalk it up to the expected output of footage, and those gunning for the spot. “Tom Penny came in hot and was amazing,” Sinclair says. “He had that video footage drop and you couldn’t get enough of it.” Then Penny disappeared — for years. Sinclair says that in times past, four years worth of footage could make for 15 years of a pro career. Not anymore, because everything moves so fast. “I don’t think those types of dudes could ever exist again,” he says.

After I spoke to him initially, Elliott wrote to reassess his stance on everybody being good — he says he woke up one day and it hit him — he was agreeing with Torgerson, even if he didn’t know it. “The internet has changed our perception. A guy on my soccer team called me a ‘really good skateboarder’ the other night and that really surprised me because I'm not that good. But every once in a while I'll get a good trick and post it on Instagram. So it looks like I'm a lot better than I really am. So multiply this by your entire Instagram feed, and every clip you watch, and it starts to warp your perception of things.” In the end, he says, everybody’s as relatively good as they’ve ever been.

Owens, on the other hand, says “everybody’s good” is real enough and not all that negative of a thing to say. "It might not be too much of an actual dis,” he says, but a starting point, from his place at the magazine, to start filtering who makes the cut for print. "Our whole job is editing — you have to cut things down."

Embracing the idea, Owens says today’s crop of skaters are “skewing the scales,” throwing into question the established standards. "Kids who have grown up in the past 10 years know that everything is possible. Kinked rails — they don't even matter anymore,” he says — Cole Wilson comes to mind. "Oh yeah, you can flip out of kinked rails, and so this next generation is going to be even gnarlier."

With this ongoing march towards some skate singularity, the limit of possible, where does the rest of skateboarding fit in? Its subjectivity, the metaphysics of “good,” will always be a buffer against it occupying the same space as basketball. “Basically, with a dude doing two tricks that would have won any best trick contest, in the same run, I don’t want kids to be discouraged,” Sinclair says. “I would be just as psyched to see a kid skating the course different than anything I’ve ever seen before. I don’t think people are thinking outside the box.”

August 12, 2018

'Boondoggle' at 10

There hasn't been a better Twin Cities skateboard video since Boondoggle debuted 10 years ago.

The video, a first offering from a new generation of metro area skaters, premiered at Oak Street Cinema on Aug. 23, 2008. In the decade since it came out three skaters with parts in it have gone pro, one has since passed and the makers of it have continued on making things.

Nearly everyone involved with Boondoggle was at Familia Skateshop for a 10th anniversary party on Aug. 11. One of the pros the video spawned -- Davis Torgerson, its first -- had a commemorative pro model from Real for sale. The board references the brilliantly awkward Boondoggle intro, a remake of the opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show -- the show's namesake, forever stuck in statue form throwing her hat on Nicollet Mall, is the graphic.

The flyer promoted free beer and an hour in the shop was packed with a cohort of skaters that grew up on Boondoggle, or even found the video after they started looking for older metro skate fare. Phil Schwartz, one third of the video's makers, was there with his infant and wife. He'd found the improbably ancient-looking laptop on which the video was edited and the Sony VX-2100 on which he shot it, and had them sitting on the shop display case. A reel of raw footage played on another technological aughts artifact, a tube TV.

Tim Fulton, another member of the video-making trifecta, handed out beers. He shoots video for Real, a part of the strange Minnesota contingency that's infiltrated the company -- three Twin Cities skaters, Torgerson, Jack Olson and Tanner Van Vark are full-on the brand, a historical anomaly for sure, something that can likely be traced to Boondoggle's ascendancy. If a photo on display as a part of the anniversary party is to be believed, Pete Spooner, the third camera operator behind the movie, hasn't aged a day.

As for the talent in the video, David Jaimes had last part, and a reporter can still drum up some ambivalence in him about that fact with simple goading. A favorite photo of Dan Narloch hopping a hydrant downtown was on display, sparking a quick debate about if he put out one of the best Twin Cities video parts at 17 years old. Narloch, whose brother Ben is another skateboard maniac, laid down a motorcycle about a year ago and wrecked his ankle, but said he's better now and is hoping to film a part for an upcoming Calsurf video.

The third pro the video spawned, Pat Gallaher, ate fried chicken on a bench in front of the shoe wall (Tabari Cook was the middle pro for those keeping count). Out back, the preferred bathroom since packs of young women packed the indoors restroom, the old heads talked about old times since the nostalgic theme of celebrating a decade-old video had set in.

Fulton and Spooner agreed that the next video -- several videos by the three have come out since -- should have been called Boondoggle 2. That never happened, but Schwartz did put together a montage -- some more beloved "throwaway" -- that played on a loop in the shop. My mid-30s experience of skateboarding tends to be all tied up with aging and memory. The montage hits nostalgically but also proves this whole skateboard project is ongoing. Midopoly turns 20 next year.

Find the Village Psychic write up on a decade of Boondoggle here.

December 19, 2017

'17 Platty's


By Pat Smith. Maybe the apostrophe in the award name means Platty is a person?

And so it was that this is the tenth edition of the Platty's, arbitrary local skateboard awards done in the style of the T-Eddy's.

How has a decade passed so fast? Can it even be true? PAST YEARS: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.

Trog Lock'd: 3rd Lair

Pop Tart: Tanner VanVark

Man Am, Almost: Jack Olson

IG Story All Star: Cody Davis

Live That Best Life: Tabari Cook

Rad Dads: Ryan Damian, Kyle Ross

Brother's Keeper: Ben Narloch

Where You At?: Wylie Tueting

Local Deion Sanders Award: Joe Sexton

Over The Top: Ricky Nunn

Back in STP: David Jaimes

Ride the Pony: Brian Estrada

Cabin Fever: Mikey Carter

Publisher: Kevin Horn

Krooked Kronichler: Tim Fulton

Solo Project?: Phil Schwartz

Hype Man: Rayshaun Crawford

Still Cookin': Jeremy Reeves

Fathers Time: Chad Benson and Steve Nesser

Maybe Go Next Year: X-Games

Higher Priority?: X-Games parties

Best Time: Aqua Jam

Now You're a Man: Henry Gartland

Family Man: Emeric "Olu" Pratt

Skatepark Retirement: Kyle Henkler

IG All Star: TJ Moran

Important MPLS Skatepark Development: Cheese box

Still Faded: @theheshdotcom

Good Question: Why isn't Chicago a bigger deal in skateboarding?

Expat: Josh Harmony

Wizard and Architect: Mark Leski

Limping Along: Platinumseagulls.com

Still Haven't Been There: Burnsville plaza

Yuge on IG: #35mm

Best Come Up: Beer brands infiltrated by skaters

SP: Davis Torgerson

Car Wreck: Familia's Fiero

Thrashin': Dana Ross

Still Waiting: More numbers on skateboard tickets

Ripping Forever: CJ Tambornino

September 6, 2017

NBDs in the postscript

It was strange seeing CJ Tambornino do a regular-old nollie inward heel but here we are -- Tim Fulton and everybody else who helped put together this tribute video did one hell of a job. This isn't a maudlin retrospective but a celebration. Shit -- who else could have had NBDs in their postscript?

June 25, 2017

Remembering CJ Tambornino

UPDATE: According to CJ's family, a memorial celebration for CJ is being held July 6 from 2 to 5:30 p.m. at Familia HQ, 835 E. Hennepin Ave. in Minneapolis. There won't be skating but it is a chance to celebrate CJ's life.

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CJ Tambornino was an outsize personality and an audacious skater. From the huge red beard he grew once he was able to quit his job at McCormick and Schmick’s and focus on skating full time, to his trick selection — nobody knows for sure what it was, but wasn’t it a nollie 360 bigger spin triple flip? — the dude stood out based on style and skill.

He was a skate rat. Back when he was 12 or 13, it happened more than once, he’d be traversing the 26 blocks of East Lake Street from his house to get to the old 3rd Lair and get jumped. He was never all that phased, he’d dust himself off and skate.

I was 18 or 19 and working at the Lair. He was endearingly annoying, the prototypical shop-lurking kid you had a hunch would end up ripping, the kid who’d always challenge the guy working the counter to a game of SKATE, who had a chance of winning.

An image from that era to which I always return is him skating with an above-the-elbow cast, yellow Supernatural shirt and weird wicker hat, flicking nollie bigspin flips over the hip — style and skill.

It was either Jamiel Nowparvar or Mike Guy, two guys who know a thing or two about positivity, who said CJ put the “G” in genuine. He was humble, even though a part of what made his skating so electrifying was a certain cockiness on board —and no humble man thinks he can do the shit CJ did on a regular basis.

CJ is nothing short of a legend in Minneapolis skateboarding — one of the few who can legitimately claim to be from the city —and an argument could be made a plaque should be placed at The Marbles to memorialize the three-trick wonders he put together there. Or else the old Science Museum triple-set should just be knocked down, since CJ already laid waste to it, anyway.

CJ was 30 years old when he died this week. His death is marked by deep sadness and tinged by anger. Skateboarding and all his friends are better off for having him.

#thecallofcj

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The Front Benches works, too.

March 16, 2017

Chicago notebook

Cropped scan via The Chrome Ball Incident -- Blogger doesn't want to make it a better size.

I wrote a feature about Chicago's place in skateboarding. It was borne out of years of watching smaller cities do their mightiest to be noticed by the wider world for their modest contributions to skateboarding while the big metropolis on Lake Michigan never gave a shit -- at least that was my read on the skaters from there I met who called and still call Chicago home.

Why isn't Chicago a bigger deal in skateboarding? I'm still working towards an answer -- I doubt it remains that way, though, as hinted at in the story. Even though the piece ballooned far past my initial word-count estimates (thanks Lucas!) there were still some details from interviews that just never quite fit. Everyone I spoke to for the story was really generous with their time. That meant I heard at least two fathers fathering their kids and that Chaz Ortiz put up with the craziness of my crying then-3-month-old daughter while we talked. Here are some quotes that didn't make the cut:

Dave Ruta:

Ruta reiterating the weather situation: “There’s been times when certain things have blown up, but I think for the most part it doesn’t have a crazy scene like LA or New York for the main reason because of the weather. Everybody knows the shit gets rough.”

On why the Grant Park plaza is whatever: “Now, there’s kids popping up and they’re on the radar. My whole thing, I think, which is the whole problem with skateboarding period, right now, is the skatepark kids … you know? In my opinion, looking at the talent out there, I’ll go to that plaza, the new plaza they built down here, it’s like a breeding ground for those kids and that’s all they’ll do. That’s all they’ll skate. I’m downtown -- been skating downtown for 20-something years and I just don’t see those kids down there.”

On indoor skateparks in the suburbs and why they only help so much: “There’s been stuff in the suburbs, but you know kids got no cars, we luckily knew a dude here and there who had cars. You have to travel an hour and a half just to go skate.”

Kyle Beachy

Beachy on an idea that was very hard to articulate for others: "Chicago exists on its own because Chicago doesn't really care too much because Chicago is a self-sustained entity. It's the same with neighborhood culture here, music, it's a totally contained ecosystem."

On certain spot issues in Chi: "We've got the fourth-largest public school system in the country and like four ledges total between all of them. It defies logic, man. You cruise around town and stare at what you swear is a spot, then get closer and realize it's maybe a good place to wait for someone, but otherwise there is no activity to be performed there. It really is uncanny, it keeps happening, it's a city haunted by disappointing spots."

Josh Kalis

Kalis on the stigma attached to blowing up the spot: “When skate teams would show up out at the skateparks -- Rotation Station or whatever -- I remember it being kind of frowned upon on inviting those teams downtown to skate.”

On one memorable time downtown that would have been 800 words if fully hashed out: “All the skaters scattered across the city and I remember going across the river and we were on the lower level of a bridge and we were walking right past a cop … and over his radio, you hear the people saying ‘Calling all cars, motherfuckers, we’re looking for skateboarders! Grab any of them!'”

On the Grant plaza: “I hear people all the time, who are not from Chicago, and they’re just like, ‘Man, I can’t deal with the hassle.’ And with the skatepark, most kids think it’s 100 percent legit to film in skateparks, so why would they even bother [to skate downtown]?”

On the Uprise heads how have been downtown for the past 20 years: “If you go down and spend a night with Loof Life, it’s just one of the greatest feelings a street skater could ever have. Just being in the city and pushing around and bouncing from spot, to spot, to spot, with a great group of dudes. It’s literally awesome.”

Chaz Ortiz

Ortiz on having space to move in Chicago: “There’s so much of the city -- I mean, it’s been skated, don’t get me wrong -- but there’s a lot of room out here to do shit compared to like, New York, or Cali, you know what I mean?”

On his canine companions: “I’ve got two dogs, those are my fuckin’ kids.”

On the Grant plaza's effect on downtown: “There’s a lot of skaters in the city, especially now with the plaza and shit. Because kids come out just to skate that and then they’ll cruise around the city. You see skaters now more than probably ever.”

On maybe why more dudes don't come up out of Chicago: “I just feel like it’s really easy to get caught up in the city, in Chicago, especially when you’re like 21, there’s a lot of bars around … like every other fucking corner there’s a bar. I see a lot of fools falling off, you know what I mean?”

On the city's attitude: “People will be fucking dicks out here. Kid from Cali came to the park the other day -- he thought he was a cool kid -- everyone was like, ‘You’re fucking wack, nobody cares that you’re from like, Huntington Beach. You’re in fucking Chicago!'”

On all of the good stuff, and the fact it might actually really be the weather: “That’s why I can’t leave -- but it’s cold as fuck.”

February 27, 2017

Crunching numbers on Minneapolis skateboard tickets

Kevin Romar's infamous encounter with the MPD, as seen here.

Based on personal experience alone, one would assume the Minneapolis Police Department issues a decent number of skateboarding tickets each year. One of the more enjoyable aspects of my day job is writing a police blotter, and between the reams of citations written to people driving with a revoked license in the suburbs I cover and the fact I got my first skateboarding ticket at 14-years-old (albeit from the University of Minnesota Police Department), skateboard tickets would seem like a normal occurrence. Maybe not.

Based on information requested by Phil Schwartz of Minneapolis police, linked to here, between May 2006 and June 2014 police patrolling downtown Minneapolis for the First Precinct issued 67 skateboard tickets, sometimes to multiple people involved in the same incident. An imperfect way of framing that -- because of winter -- is to say MPLS police gave out .67 tickets per month over that nine year and 99 month timeframe. Sort of underwhelming.

Still, there are things to be gleaned from the spreadsheet. Schwartz said he requested the information based on curiosity about how large a shadow an officer James Bulleigh (an actual cop's name) over the mountain (or molehill) of tickets. Schwartz explained why Bulleigh was of particular concern:

"I’ve gotten about five skateboarding tickets in my life and for a majority of those, he either issued them to me, or was present. I remember my first skateboarding ticket was about a year after I started skating. I ollied over a crack outside the Uptown McDonald's while waiting for a showing of Dogtown and Z-Boys at the Uptown Theater. And he came out from his dinner break at McDonald's to ticket me.

A couple years later, at the underground garage with manny pads at 50th and France was the next ticket I got from him. Also, I got a ticket downtown from Metro Transit Police for skating on the sidewalk -- not illegal, I appealed it and it got tossed out. As they were writing the ticket officer Bulleigh happened to be nearby and must've thought 'Ooh, skateboarder getting a ticket,' and came up and egged on. Just had to be there. Seemed like he wanted to be a part of it.

Another time, I was skating on Nicollet Mall and he said something along the lines of, 'Just because your parents didn’t do a good job raising you doesn’t mean you can come and skateboard downtown.'"

Schwartz was onto something -- of those 67 tickets written over a nine year span, Bulleigh was involved with 28 of those incidents -- a solid 42 percent of them.

Bulleigh is also known amongst other skaters. Schwartz did the legwork for me and sent out a text querying other dudes who frequented downtown in the mid-to-late 2000s.

At some point, Bulleigh stopped Dana Ross and taunted him for skating with a bunch of 16-year-olds. He gave Kirian Stone a curfew ticket once while he was out skating (an educated guess says that's case number 241507 on the spreadsheet). Bulleigh was also present for one of the more memorable examples of MPD cracking down on skaters -- it's pictured above, he's at left he's the guy at right, in the thick of the action.

Kirian?

The clip is from an éS tour clip circa last decade. Somewhere on Nicollet Mall, Kevin Romar, one of many of a group of skaters but singled out, is mashed into a bench as he's handcuffed. There's not much context but it obviously looks bad, and through the grapevine, Schwartz said he'd heard dudes from the trip thought the whole thing was racially motived.

The spreadsheet does list the race of those stopped/ticketed -- Schwartz said that was another data point in which he was interested. Of the 67 tickets, 13 of those were given to someone the police listed as black; three were given to people listed as "other," race-wise, and two had no data entered.

For what it's worth, that ratio of black skaters ticketed to those of other races matches Minneapolis demographics, if not exactly -- skaters listed as black make up 19.4 percent of those ticketed. Minneapolis is 18.6 percent black.

There may be no real secrets hidden in this skateboard ticket data. It would be illuminating to see it from other agencies -- U of M PD in particular -- and for a broader timeframe than 2006-2014. Schwartz has volunteered to ask for more data from the MPD, covering more years. A followup post will likely happen, but it isn't imminent: he said his initial request for information took roughly three-quarters of a year to be filled. Other highlights from the existing data:

* The youngest skater ticketed was 13 years old, the oldest was 30.

* The vast majority of tickets were issued on Nicollet Mall -- 57 of 67 -- a good 85 percent of them. What will policing be like on the remodeled mall, assuming there's something to skate?

* The year the most skateboard tickets were written was 2006, the year the data starts, with 16 citations. The numbers essentially decline from there, bottoming out with no tickets written in 2012 and a total of three between 2013/2014. Here's the breakdown:

2006: 16
2007: 6
2008: 10
2009: 15
2010: 7
2011: 9
2012: 0
2013: 1
2014: 2

* One piece of information not included in the ticket data? Sex -- seemingly everybody assumed it was all guys ticketed, myself included, until I checked.

~~~~~

Schwartz said he thinks Bulleigh retired a couple of years ago. Of note: In spring, 2015, Minneapolis Minneapolis settled an excessive force suit filed against Bulleigh for nearly $10,000. Can't remember when you were last ticketed? There's a chance the ticket will be listed on the Minnesota court records portal