April 29, 2014

Visions of Dykstra

Over the weekend we were blessed with two* new skate videos available for free over the Youtubes, Brogazelle 3, ABD and The Hesh Mixtape Vol. 1, above and below, respectively, by the practitioners rival skate blogs, Village Psychic and The Hesh, respectively. Both of them are dope, dissimilar and more similar than I'd have originally thought, and here's the thinking on that. You've got to appreciate the love and care with which these were put together, beyond just being awesome artifacts on their own. Local skateboard videos, maybe excepting the most craven examples, are vehicles of nostalgia, the proof found in Spencer Gillespie's inclusion of himself in Globes and baggy cargos with a little shirt, and Kevin Chartrand's inclusion of, well, a lot of footage, called out as old (the peak of the unseen video-hype-man, it will never be done as well again, I'd predict). It seems strange to call both of these videos highly personal works, but by the 43:00 mark (the videos watched concurrently) when "Bird Is The Word" comes on, so much is just laid out there, in the open.

Via supreme content hunter, Templeton Elliott, a quick tutorial that's applicable to skateboarding, on how to make a sick mountain bike edit. *No Collar, which I have yet to see, should still be available at 3rd Lair or Calsurf, and can be purchased online, right here.

April 14, 2014

At The Old Fire Station


There's been some progress concerning Mankato's Chelsea YMCA Skatepark, which burned down February 1. Per Jay Jensen, who built the ramp above:
Mankato's temporary skatepark opens this coming Saturday... It will be open for about 6 months until the new building is finished, then the ramps will be moved over to the new Chesley Skatepark. Bummer that an electrical fire burned the old park down!!!
More details, as seen in the Mankato Times:
The YMCA will be operating in a skate park in a temporary location at the old Fire Station at the corner of Madison and Broad until the new park is built or the city sells that property – whichever comes first. Authorization to occupy that location was given at the City Council meeting held on March 24th.
Headline advice: Burnt down skatepark to be housed in old fire station.

Update via vapors, from the comments:

I guess it's technically a Plywood Benders build, at least the mini ramp is. It's 24 wide by 5 1/2 tall. The locs are taking care of the street course setup.

April 9, 2014

Clips on Clips on Clips


Gotta love it when you're a couple days behind that other skate/rap/whatever blog and you're just pretty much re-hashing what they already posted. This happens. I thought Teenager With a VX was a killer name but Mitch Guth is calling it No Collar and premiering it at the times and places listed above. Couple that with Kevin's crowd-sourced 17-years-in-the-making mixtape and you've got yourself a night.

Breaking, for the last time, my self-imposed park foote embargo, there are two three more worth-while additions to the already crowded catalog of ripping that #FamiliaHQ has witnessed. First, further proof that the kids are alright, Guth's winter ender ender with plenty of heavy lifting by dudes no older than 23*, in three movements. Next, Plat favorite and keeper of old product, Nate Compher, with, probably, his wife and baby waiting for him up front. "IF THIS IS YO FIRST TIME SEEING NATE SKATE AND WANT MORE, CHECK OUT HIS OLDER FOOTAGE BELOW." So that's a concern now. We old! Finally, finally, then the embargo is back on forever (until December), there's the clip from that Cons trip that rolled through here in January, which makes Malto's park look fun and makes snow look fun too, but hell no! *Aware that TJ is >23 but he's probably the only dude, right?