DROP

Too high concept to be summarized, The Pharcyde and Spike Jonze make great Friday fare. Note The Gonz artwork at the end.

Happy Weekend.

VERY IMPORTANT SHIT

Cool picture huh? In an exciting turn of events I got my first clip for the Glue Factory video today, a video which has been in production for more than a year and a half. You know.

On the internet: Plat Jr. is spreading libelous slander against me (watch the top fives video). I'm five foot six and a half inches tall, thank you very much. Photographic proof of my tallness superiority and possibly a beat down--in the works.

Badger came through with footage of the afore-opined Tum Yeto Demo at the Lair from '98. In light of that video...has Rada aged at all? Putting the "two" in the one-two-video punch, peep the Scraps 2004 video and take a time warp back to easier, or something, times.

My ex-girlfriend said this is the second best blog on the internet for this week. Cool.

Have you heard of the Anti-3rd Lair Group on Facebook yet (you'll need an account to see it)? Busted in plain sight. Teenagers are pretty dumb. I can't wait until Kirian and Tabari turn 20 so I can ban them (teenagers) from tha' Plat.

Evidently, after punks get spracked up to get beat down, there's an after-party at The Best Bar In America. Meyer's got the drink tickets!

Fifteen posts strong and one month ago, Public Passion turned one year old. Cute!

Luke continues chronicling my coverage history here. And by coverage history, I mean not even a blip on the coverage meter.

Meyer???

I Should Be Doing Other Shit Right Now

Via DANKNUGGZZ Twitter.

Redbull Bailout-A Spracked Out Carcass Toss

This Saturday head on down to the riverfront and watch a best trick contest on the sketchy big four that Heck kickflipped in Open Iris, made a little bit more skateable for the event, and maybe come up on some cash to buy that new pair of shoes. The RBs will flow, you have a chance to become famous, or entertain everyone else hucking yourself down the stack. Let's do this.

(Totally) Beachy Keen

Ah yes, an opportunity to get a pun in the title and to pimp my own wares, YES. But that's not the point here.

Today I saw the new TWS Video, Right Foot Forward, a part of, at least right now (I read somewhere that Thrasher was about to throw some salt into the "big deal" skateboard video game once again), the almost defunct genre of high production value magazine generated videos. As with all post-Ty Evans TWS vids, it delivers to an extent, though it mostly seems to be somewhat of a toned down re-hash of what Feedback set in motion, and what culminated in Modus Operandi; no offense, but whoever TWS brings in to fill Ty's long shadow only seems to imitate, not innovate. As a reality check, the skateboarding within is bananas, the NBDs abound, and the production is wet platinum smooth (whether or not I checked the special drawer for that last bit is up for conjecture).

The line up is filled with some of our favorite goofy footers, one of whom, is the oft polarizing but always ripping Duffman, Corey Duffel. While most of the modern skateletariet mostly and only comes to blows with his female hairdresser on 'roids look, most of the older bloc remembers him for his seemingly (at the time, completely) unforgivable trashy Stevie Williams SNAFU; needless to say, he weathered the storm, and even presented some award this one time with Stevie himself. I might have been there, it was awkward.

Anyhow, it seems that about five years into this young millennium, Duffel had last part on reserved lock, no questions asked. And simply put, I fully expected him to be anchor man in the aforementioned production, though, as some old dude, I was really hoping for some Matt Beach as well. The video went on and on, and as the younger dudes ripped and then the montage came it became increasingly possible that Beach was holding down the quite-respectable second to last part position. Then something funny happened; Duffman came on before Beach. And there you go.

Of course, Beach rips, and his ender will leave you smiling, scratching your head, and saying "oh shit" as he ads a little exclamation point on the end of it. What impresses me most about Right Foot Forward, as maybe you surmised, is that the editing duo of Jon Holland and Chris Ray eschewed the obvious and went with Beach as the ender ender. We could extrapolate many motivations for this move; a reverence for the comeback or pretty much legend status, or that they simply thought it was a better fit. Who knows? What is known is that this, in a way, makes up for some dubious ender ender choices in previous TWS vids, ironically from the Ty Evans era.

Grievance number one is Matt Mumford over Stevie Williams for last part in The Reason. Perhaps, ten years ago in 1999, a smith grind down El Toro was a greater asset than a hardflip frontside noseslide on an above knee high ledge. In fact, many things have changed since then; perhaps Ty would have been more comfortable giving a young, mainly shirtless, black man last part if he'd witnessed the inauguration of a black president. Baseless theories and race politics aside, it seems that Williams' sprawling, sweaty, inner-city opus (plus Kalis and KT, c'mon!) should have won out over Mumford's momentum grinding, slo-mo happy, (pointlessly?) black and white section. But there's more.

Grievance number two can, in hindsight, only be recalled as a fuckup. As Modus Operandi is remembered as having a bangin' sort of coming out party part with recently to grips "I'm going bald so I'll just shave it" Marc Johnson, as well as a section showing glimpses of the still Expeditioning Brandon Biebel (who stole last trick in a part that wasn't even his part), most and many remember, well, two words, one name; Mike Carroll. Whether it was the "possibly best line ever" line at the SF Library, or the nollieflip five-oh frontside revert, or the perfectly synced feeble grind, or SJ's assist with the frontside 180 switch K-grind, or the general Kuruption of the part, or the ending backlip to dust ride, when the dust settled, Carroll had won.

And then there was the Brian Anderson/Brad Staba ender part. Set to Muskabeatz? Need I say much more? The two parts, even at the time, paled in comparison, and it baffles me to this day why Carroll wasn't given last part.

If I ever get the chance, I'll ask Mr. Evans what he thinks about that editing choice almost a decade on. Maybe it was just giving props to BA as the '99 SOTY, but that, frankly, is a little thin. Cool if you read this far. Oh yeah, I oozed over MC's part so much that I decided to embed it:

On another note, Mr. Tambo gets his name spelled wrong but also gets a sequence up at Thrasher.

On a utilitarian note, does having the links open in a new window make things less frustrating than things were? Comment if you want.

Happy weekend. Avoid the tipped up TV and go get the real thing.

This Solidifies It...

...all Glue Factory graphics are a direct portal into Dan Jackson's mind. I was going to say that I'd bet you five bucks that the next series is a Little Caesars series, but then I remembered that there already was an attempted pizza place series, so, yeah. If it were '92 and the GF was under World, maybe we could get a "tipped up TV" series.

For The Weekend

Also, on Saturday night (I think?) Familia is showing Thrashin' along with a performance by skate-metalers Lockgnar at the Uptown, though those are all the details I've got.

Summer Rock Redux

Luke's post on the Summer of Front Rocks got me sparked, and then, you know, I started noticing our shared front rock steez. Side by side, from two different angles and differing degrees of lapped'ness still shows exciting similarities. Taking things a bit further, note the shared finger splay steez. And finally note our shared lead arm strong L/rebound elbow. That is all.

Oh yeah, over the weekend I decided to try and get a book deal with Urbanoutfitters. rapvideossummarized is the first step of that plan. Peep it.

HA!

Weird, but its kind of cool. Summers past.

Just Stoop It

True summer fare, the stoop, the porch, the fire escape, the etc; here's some pictures from some of the best places on Earth.

Summer Cool

Today was rather cool for mid-July but that's not the point here. I just read in the newest Thrasher a little write up about AVE, Andrew Allen, and Alex Olson, and their Greaser/Fonzie haircuts. I've attempted to rock a similar look before but never committed to proper pomade so the 'do kind of didn't; but that's beside the point. The bit I believe was by Mike Burnett, the unsung hero of everything that is good about Thrasher, in my humble opinion. Burnett muses about the relative conservatism of the look and how it seems counter to the Sammy Baca-esgue fuck you mentality that someone sometime gave to skateboarding and somehow made canonical. I for one, for lack of a more creative way of stating, just think the look is kind of badass, Pony Boy. And classic. Track it down and read it, it rules, its in the Wallenberg issue, CC on the "wish it wasn't photoshopped" cover.

Oh yeah (edit), Happy Weekend.

Right Dude?

SUMMERLAND

Twolves Related Post

Rumor has that Kurt Rambis could end up as coach of the Wolves. That's amazing.

Shower Beers

Be there this Saturday and get on the come up.

Malto is down with the Twisted Tea.

Majestic Seagull? Weird.

Kevin Love's twitter page just because.

Got my beer bong back from Trevor, and, well, I'm ready.

Perhaps one of the best internet posts in history. (Sam McGuire coverage!!!)

Rumors re-confirmed

My blogging skillz finally getting the recognition they deserve.

Speaking of Davis, PIMP CUP!!!

Meyer???

WISKATE!!!

A Midsummer's Night Something Or Other

As a continuation of our meta pseudo e-beef battle for control of the Minneapolis skateboarding internet waves, all I can say is, damn, good job Badger. Hardflip.com is a bustling place of internet content with a capital "C", and their current header is more than chuckle worthy. So I cede a bit of wave power, and would like to say "cheers" to Badger's latest semi-coup of content, the un-Earthing of footage of Plan B's 1998 3rd Lair demo. Badger, the dewy-eyed newcomer to the MPLS skateboarding websites block is killing it, and while this gristled vet is still standing on the corner saying something, I can only commend the Mustelidae.

The reason I bring this all up is because that Plan B demo was the best demo I've ever seen, some 11 years on(subsequent Girl/Chocolate demos have been almost equally awesome, but the general shock and awe vibe of the Plan B foire has yet to be beaten). While much of the bright lights and bangs and bombs can be credited to Rick McCrank's cherry bomb of an impression, Caine Gayle was no slouch in any way (and I pray he isn't packing boxes at Syndrome), Pat Duffy won with a backside noseblunt, and Jeremy Wray had me with a single frontside flip in the bowl (one of the revelations that afternoon was that, even compared to a 16 year-old version of me, Jeremy Wray in some bizarro realm way, was all but two inches taller than me).

The repercussions of this demo were felt one week later, if not with a little help from Ben Ragsdale. The consensus was that Plan B, uh, fucking killed it, and after Ragsdale did a switch heelflip frontside crooked grind on the box at The Lair, a good 25 or so people exited the build just as the combined forces of Tumyeto, at the time, showed up. The show was over, as they weren't topping the accumulated acts of the past week. As consolation, they put up a good fight, but it was no Plan B demo.

So yeah, that shit was cool.

Steep Bank Edit

Zorched!

LUCHINI POURIN' FROM THE SKY

The dreaded Steep Bank of Doom will once again confound and frustrate the skateletariat of the Twincities today. Be there suckers.

His Airness

Happy Weekend.

Quicksilver Demo Holmes!!!

Oakdale Park, 6 PM to 8 PM, 7/10/09. Don't pose, be there.

Real in Minne

Is this actual content? Sweet. Crunch up the second part here.

Skateboarding Is Cool And All...

Claude Lelouch's Rendezvous... from Dat on Vimeo.

But so is strapping a gyro-stabilized camera onto the front of a Mercedes-Benz, and mobbing through Paris at five in the morning, pulling no permits, blasting through red lights, and so on. Dub in some Ferrari noises and you good. Its worth all nine minutes. Link via Slate.

Happy birthday Viking, we're getting old.

Where's Dolo?

Is it Dolo and Heron, or is it Heron and Dolo? Maybe the boards/wheels give it away, who knows? Happy 4th to the permanent/temporary Minne-Diaspora in NYC this weekend, to ya'll here, and ya'll elsewhere. I'm going campin' nearby the cabin; happy weekend.

PREACH Redux

Dude rips. Damian has the assist.