Photo from Bobshirt
This may or may not debunk my conspiracy theory that Pupecki is actually hiding out under the assumed name of Rob Welsh...You know? Anyways, Bobshirt.com holds it down with a proper Pupecki interview. Thank you very much.
And just to further ride the coattails of other people's content (OPC!), Chromeball's got some Puleo.
It's this Saturday, already. Heaven forbid we have any fun.
Mac vs. PC nerding, in favor of the PC more or less.
Training camp opens today and The Wolves are ranked at 28, which seems a bit weird to me, but whatever, let's say 33-49 and call it a day, but I said that last year as well.
Foot Locker bought CCS. Just something to think about.
Yeah, whatever.
Name: Seth McCallum
Nicknames: Zed, Zedward zcissor hands, zeddie
Age: 30
What's your deal? Standing on a skateboard and stationary rolling because the earth is spinning so fast under me.
Where are you doing it? Minnesota and Kentucky.
How high can you ollie? 2 parking spaces.
Can I have your board? Yours looks just fine, you don't need my board.
Favorite local video: The Roll Series
What's in your car? Mad Gallons of WVO(waste vegetable oil).
It's a hot day, should we go skating or swimming? Skate to the empty pool.
Who's your favorite local skater? CJ RAMBO
Where's the best place to eat? Three Sons- Signature Cuisine (threesonskitchen.com)
Mini-ramp and beer or out on the streets all day? Skate streets to the empty pool( dont forget to grab beer).
How old are you in skate years? Roughly 75.
It's 10 PM on a Saturday night, what are you doing? Making a beer can staff with Tucker.
Now, Jamiel's my homie so you know I'm choosing him, but Kelly Hart is pretty damn good, and I almost had to pick him on principle, but his part got kind of redundant, like, tre flip, tre flip, tre flip. So, Jamiel wins for mixing it up, being from Minnesota, and handling some NBD's in the part. Adios.
Ah, I love watching Anonymous. At the time, there was drama to be had, talk of pulled foote, custom songs that were taking a little longer to be produced than expected...and other shit too...but that all melts away and I'm taken back to mercurial days of pagers and baby blue Gap shirts and Daewon 3s and Girl Decks and never having a plan or money or blah blah blah. It was fun. Oh yeah, I bring this up because The Badger was kind enough to post a download of it over on Hardflip. Get it today.
What else then? Take Your Pick is kinda fun, huh? Keep the suggestions coming of course. Josh has an entire list of possibilities, though, as I've already found in trying to do the third installment, Youtube has it's limits.
I'm fully loving this Chrome Ball Incident post. The Japan Airs are priceless; I saw him do one at that Girl Demo in Des Moines.
Shit, speaking of Iowa, cha boy Sam is outta here, of to the land of cheese to shoot photos of Mayhew and others for the fully noble pursuit of a Midwest article. Hopefully he'll make a surprise guest appearance sooner than later, otherwise it's Iowa City Halloween Part Two or bust!
First round of "Take Your Pick", in my humble yet correct opinion, goes to Quy Nguyen. Remind me of some other dudes that have skated to the same song and we'll do this again.
Ah yes, another weekend, another amazing time traveling experience; where does the time go? Cutty and Sam, the hot ass men above were helping Kyle, Bonnie and I hold it down all weekend. We merked The Front, handled skate day challenges on Saturday, and then got froggy again that night. Thatch and Cookie's show last night was a good low-key bro-storm. Thanks you guys. And then it was Monday.
Skatistan is awesome and inspiring. I saw that link on Skatedaily.
How long has this HD foote thing been going on? Not that long, right? Well, while watching this, I have to say, The slo-mo HD montage thingy with the roll ups and all that shit and the testing of the rail/ledge/etc. has officially become a parody of itself. I mean, the foote is sick, but I'm tired of watching that same montage over and over.
Hot new gear, you know who Seekins is? Now you do.
That's wassup, again.
Photo by Nate Reiman
Name: Josh Holtan
Nicknames: Chips, Chips X, J-HO, Cheeps
Age: 33.5 years
What's your deal? New dad/hubby adjusting to the changes and still squeezing some shredding in. To paraphrase Tasty Taste from Fear of a Black Hat, "All types of ill shit."
Where are you doing it? Mpls metro. St. Paul working on the rockin' East Side. Swede Hollow represent. Rutledge kickin it Cabinista style. Various Holtan Hideouts in SE & S Mpls.
How high can you ollie? Currently classified. We're talking not so high right now. I'd be hard pressed to produce a thirty incher right now.
Can I have your board? My six month old Huf? No, I still occasionally need it.
Favorite local video: Shitheads Vol 8
What's in your car? Jeep: baby seat, board, shoes, K&N air filter for the Belair, old master cylinder for Belair, gloves, raincoat.
It's a hot day, should we go skating or swimming? Swimming at the river-the Kettle Room
Who's your favorite local skater? Jammin Jay. Best made it by the skin of your teeth style. You can look away like you knew he wasn't going to make it and then next thing you know he's on the next wall after reverting twice on the flatbottom. Runner up: Bob Bogema for his George Carr style.
Where's the best place to eat? True Thai
Mini-ramp and beer or out on the streets all day? Mini & beer at this point.
How old are you in skate years? Physically I would be a step below Wes Humpston. An out of shape mid-30's. Just enough time to formulate a comeback.....09 Year of the Cheeps???? Whether I think I can or I think I can't, I'm right.
It's 10 PM on a Saturday night, what are you doing? Drinking at the cabin, listening to barred owls hoot.
Photo by Sam McGuire
Name: Jamiel Nowparvar
Nicknames: Whodi, Lil' Whodi, Yung Whodi, etc.
Age: 24
What's your deal? I got a lot of 'em.
Where are you doing it? Everywhere.
How high can you ollie? Not nearly as high as I used to.
Can I have your board? Dont you got your own?
Favorite local video: Midopoly.
What's in your car? I'll let you know once I get one.
It's a hot day, should we go skating or swimming? Days are pretty long, I think we can fit in both.
Who's your favorite local skater? Nate Compher.
Where's the best place to eat? Caspian Bistro.
Mini-ramp and beer or out on the streets all day? Streets.
How old are you in skate years? Well in this moment of time I believe the ratio is somewhere at .5 to 1 so im about 12.
It's 10 PM on a Saturday night, what are you doing? Just startin' work.
Photo by Sam McGuire
Name: Michael James Munzenrider
Nicknames: The Munzka, Munz, Munzkratt, Mr. Gerbik, Munzy, etc.
Age: 26 and 3/4
What's your deal? Just Trying to live.
Where are you doing it? Northeast Minne. It's great.
How high can you ollie? I never could ollie that high, and now I can ollie less high.
Can I have your board? No.
Favorite local video: As it stands, Shitheads Vol. 8. It took only a year to make, not even, and it encapsules a very fun time of my life.
What's in your car? A ton of garbage, my skateboard, a computer that my dad wanted me to get rid of three years ago, and sunglasses.
It's a hot day, should we go skating or swimming? Swimming for sure.
Who's your favorite local skater? It's a three way tie: the pseudo loc Neal Erickson, tied with Nesser, tied with Davis Torgerson.
Where's the best place to eat? On the easiest of days, it's got to be Baja Sol.
Mini-ramp and beer or out on the streets all day? I'd love to say out all day skating street with beers, but really, it's skating a mini with beers; or no beers...
How old are you in skate years? Probably about 30? There is no mathematical formula for figuring this out. I feel good for the most part.
It's 10 PM on a Saturday night, what are you doing? Either drinking a beer in the shower or drinking a beer somewhere else.
All the gems that one finds while moving, and to think I was awfully close to throwing out all of my old magazine. Straight out of the November 1997 issue of Big Brother, a Minneapolis article, plus a really sick photo of Billy Pepper at the Kaufman Union, if it was a make.
It's amazing to think that everyone pictured, 11 years later, is still around with the exception of Caz, even if it was just five dudes in the article (Edit: Caz still skates for sure, and LeRouex still shows up and rolls around once a year. I was close.). Olu put in work!
Back on Kaufman, I know for a fact that Mr. Elijah Collard grinded that top coping thing on a cruiser board one night many moons ago; Viking may have done it too. Either way, Elijah pretty much holds the banger key on Kaufman, his nollie backside flip will never be beaten, for numerous reasons. That shit was amazing. For some hellafied reason Anonymous isn't on youtube. Someone should take care of that.
And then 20 Shot. Saw it for the first time at 1072, and later that Kool G Rap CD ended up in the bathroom boombox and I took about 1,000 showers listening to that song.
Red Wave video. FL Project team montage by Tim Fulton. Skart show, I haven't seen Thatcher in a minute. That's wassup.
So I'm doing my job and shit with this website, checking comments and such, and I notice the verification code above. Is that weird as hell or what?
Speaking of the comments, sadly, it doesn't seem like the "Pilsbury P" contest will be happening anytime soon, because for all intents and purposes, that would suck. I mean, just think about it. At the Red Wave event me and the ultra hated B-Show had floated the idea of a "Steep Bank Of Doom Contest" (the metal sculpture bank formerly on the corners of Central and University), but alas, that would suck maybe not as much as a "P" contest, but it would nonetheless suck. Word on the street is that the sculpture bank is sitting somewhere behind St. Thomas though, someone should try to steal it? Huh? Shakas.
Linked to it already but maybe a little description of shit is in order too? Yeah, well, ok. It was raining that day and I slept in hella late and then we made breakfast and we watched Ocean's 11, because, you know? We were late to the wave but why not? Shakas.
There was a bunch of the younger generation and some old dudes that showed up too; even some real young dudes jumped into the mix once shit had cooled off a little bit. Anyways, Jackal failed to qualify on the Red Wave due to a failure to Sal Flip off the damn thing, but he already did the real deal, so, he's off the hook for the most part. It was consistently entertaining, and one can't say that he didn't try, and he did get heckled by a possible comment lurker who at one point was ballsy/drunk enough to say, "I hate you," to Dan's face. Wow.
Struffert and Sherman (happy birthday Ian, you pile. I'll buy you some CLs soon) both made a bunch of tricks that were called for and both came up on cash. George Akande won the switch flip in to ride lottery; everyone and their damn brother was trying that one. Davis did a switch heel to ride way early on, and then mind-melted by hauling ass and ollieing off the second to last hump and gapping the rest of the wave. Chaboy Tom Rohrer managed the banger of the day by popping a bigspin flip way higher out of the wave than should be possible, and I owe him some more highfives.
Then at the shop today...I'll let them have the witty headline.
Homies at Wiskate been updating because of the rainy weekend. New Video! (Wow, I fully posted that earlier today). Get Money! When's that video gonna be on Youtube?
Then there's a little trip to Wisconsin that went down last week with Nesser, Luke, Wayne, Zeddie and Sam. Those parks look hella fun, if not a bit scary. I made it to the Delton park in passying, though it was mostly underwater at the time hindering shredability. Dan and Chad say that park sucks too, but...really? However you got to live guys.
The dudes at Wiskate have a bit of a post frenzy going on, reminding me of some of the fun shit that I should be out doing like all the time. That trans-dimensional vortex like place is haunting. If I keep flaking on trips to Milwaukee maybe I'll end up there?
First he popped up on The Facebook, and now, he's blogging, again...Todd the Blog God, @ Hardflip.
Conversation starter: Ron Knigge.
And we're almost to the weekend. They just keep coming don't they?
The river skate ripped. Photos here and better ones here.
Spoke to Wizard today about the Wizard Party and he said it best, "I saw the beer can go flying, and then you go flying." He also proposed that I'm related to Dusty's dog (as seen in Weekend Warriors); pick the biggest person in the room and go for it!
Not much else crackin'. Here are the Gino episodes for the commenter who wanted them embedded:
Part 1
Part 2
The Jackal just put out a new and very time sensitive board, and it's Plat approved. My one suggestion is that Morrissey could have easily been Lil' Wayne, but different strokes for different folks.
We understood the vibe about skating rivers on Saturday. Pictures will ensue.
And then there was that Wizard Stick Debacle. If you weren't a walking bruise on Sunday, well, then you probably didn't skate or attack a well known local pro skateboarder with beer. Either way, you're gonna lose, and your face will ache; it was hecka fun though.
It was posted in the comments, so here it is, Davis is full on Real. He killed the river too man. Ca-ching!Red Wave Challenge in less than a week.
RIP Van Wastell.
Edit: Wizarding dude.
Let's trip out; here's a sort of review of Boondoggle. The video starts and the boys reached high in trying to remake the intro to the Mary Tyler Moore Show, indeed, a gutsy move since most people either haven't seen it or are just stupid. It worked for the most part; they kept it short and to the point and it was rad seeing all the dudes from the video ham it up for a bit. The reason I say it worked for the most part was simply because it was shot with a VX-1000, which is still the best camera to shoot skateboarding on, but not really when it comes to skits and whatnot. Throw a filter on that? Whatever, it turned out rad.
Davis Torgerson has first part, but you probably knew that. You know what though? Real just put him full on as an AM. That's what Sam told me at least, and he's on the A+ List. When it comes to the NBA draft, they always talk about dudes that are NBA ready or not, and, as evidenced by his promotion, Davis is "the most NBA ready" dude in the video. He's made the leap to some next level shit, and we're proud. Congrats. Yes, seriously, congratulations on that part Davis. And thank you. Moving on...
Gregg Clover, second part. From what I could tell he didn't have much time to film but he handled biz. He chose a good song to shred to and mixes his shit up nicely. High fives.
Who's next? I'll go with Pat Gallaher because I can't remember and I don't have the video to reference. Aight? Pat's intro is sort of bizarre and I know the story behind it. He gets a lot of play out of his soccer jersey and lazily shreds plenty of stuff; he rips to a great Paul Simon song to boot.
Casey Copenhaver's part was a crowd favorite at the premiere. Staple guns and ankle benders abound in his section, including the treacherous anti-bender on the back of this bank. He keeps it way fun and creative and gets gold stars for sure. Tim Huey shares the section with Casey, and he made me wish that he had more foote. One of the best switch frontside shove-it's on flat and a frontside no-comply over a street gap come to mind right now, but he did a ton of shit in a small amount of time; it was a time to rememeber.
Tom Rohrer! Tom, like a lot of the dudes in the video, doesn't limit himself to really one way of skating, and it seems to pay off the most for him. He does a frontside halfcab noseslide to nollie heel, ala Mariano, and also manages to keep the dream alive at the red wave bench. Good job Tom.
There's a montage in there too. I've only seen it like twice though, so I'm not going to get into it really. Then there's Tabari Cook and Neal Shipe. Real talk, Tabari looks so mini on camera. Was it just me? Gotta love that guy though, and now he's gotta film a full part. Do it son. Neal is awesome. He can turn a backside 180 one footer into a late shove-it at will. Watch his part.
Dan Narloch is a man, something that I've stated and re-stated many times. He understands the vibe about skating rocks and has one of the best parts in the video. That fire-hydrant ollie is bananas, still.
The video ends with two dudes that I've known for a really long time, CJ Tambornino and David Jaimes. CJ didn't skate to hip hop which was refreshing but also semi-disappointing. Maybe a web only alternate edit to something grimy as hell is in order? Anyhow, CJ does some shit that's never been done, and has so much ridiculous control that it just dawned on me that he's fully NBA ready as well.
David rounds out the video with a two song part. He's so low-key sometimes that the difficulty of the tricks that he's doing doesn't register on your brain; a blessing and a problem at the same time. David's got lines for days and will jump on sketchy rails and do everything in between. He's vying with Reeves for the title of St. Paul's favorite son, and either way, he's making the East Bank proud. His ender is mind bending.
What else then? It's great to see crews of friends putting videos together and then putting them out, and doing it right with premiers and whatnot. It keeps this scene ticking away as one of the best in the country, real talk. High five Philmer Phil and Pete Spooner and Tim Fulton when you see them for merking it. Peep their own foote in the bonus section too. There's an hour of raw footage in there as well, just to keep the awesome going. Buy the video.
