Tabari Is Pro

One of my favorite skaters is now pro!!! Congrats @tabaricook #sendhelp

A photo posted by Chad Benson (@benson_chad) on Oct 10, 2015 at 3:49pm PDT

In a glorious moment of surprise, Tabari Cook, handed a box of SendxHelp boards during a product toss at the Familia HQ Open House, today, looked down at the board and his name was on it. He then had to throw them to the crowd but he also got to keep some. Yeah Tabari!

Former-local boy done good

It was difficult not to get just a little bit giddy watching Dane Vaughn's pro part because it's just so, to put it simply, cool that it happened for the dude. Around here, many folks' first memories of the then kid called Lil' Dane were of him ollieing the Science Museum triple set in the rain prior to the Real to Reel premiere--15 years ago. It was never that you wanted to bet against the kid--Dane ripped from day one as countless clips profess--it was just that from an outside perspective it seemed like life was pretty raw for the guy and that if skateboarding didn't work out, it was, more than anything, the universe's fault.

Jumping ahead to more recent times, and things seemed to shift when the likes of both Jamie Thomas and Josh Kalis (guest trick!) seemed to have his backing, hard. This website and at least a fraction of Village Psychic tend to think Dane is a social media genius as well as one of the hardest working skaters out there. His Instagram account is a case study in skateboard marketing, often the topic of an ongoing multi-platform discussion centered around different ways of saying "Wow."

"Wow" works for the legit full part above, beginning with the fact that a dude who seems to have a daily Insta-line also had three-plus minutes of footage at the ready. I suppose turning pro is a great motivator. Standouts include the line on the big naval fastener thingies that ended with the frontside nollie heel to switch crook; nearly all the outfits; the song, completing the circle of dope white guys skating to the same Rakim song (see Caine Gayle in the XYZ video); only one of but a damn good one of those patented nollie inward heels; that tornado nollie heelflip to frontblunt at the end; all the kickflips, you gotta love those.

Congrats, Dane.

GRIIIIIIIINDING

@hankstagramofficial with that chill weekday grind'n #wiskate #milwaukeeskateboarding #pizzahut

A video posted by Josh Ellis (@stinky_dinky) on Sep 24, 2015 at 5:00pm PDT

Happy weekend.

Also, it should be noted that Village Psychic did a rad job tracking down Rob Sissi to talk about Supernatural. If there ever was a Twin Cities skateboarder "uniform" SPRNTRL gear was the closest we got.

Beer, Bro.

Put on your drinking shoes--rumor has there's a cash reward for the brave soul who performs the Guthrie dirt bomb, successfully, entertainingly or otherwise.

THNKU Premiere 9-25-15

Another Chris Burt banger; featuring Mike Lemnitzer, Nathan Cameron, Jack Olson, TJ Moran, Julian Mejia, Pat Gallaher, Andrew Ellison and Dalton Jones. Some of us are bummed about our months-old cabin trip that coincides with all these dudes and more popping beers at the Bell.

I wonder why CBurt90 is so down on having multiple vowels in his video names? Says Burt, "Haha, the vowel thing isn't really intentional. I guess by trying to make titles concise, the vowels happened to be the first things to go." Promo below.

Top Five TC Wee Park Tricks Ever*

Twin Cities public skateparks have been really quite bad for a long time but that finally seems to be changing. Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is finally updating its forgettable skatepark system, lots of far-flung suburbs have their nice and shiny parks, not to mention the Front Street Plaza, St. Paul's most important trump card when it comes to its twin city. It's been a long winter waiting for all of this to come around.

But let's not get it twisted; me, you, we came up skating shitty wee park skateparks. We kind of liked it. Good parks churn out padded children and the all-terrain dudes du jour, while a proper, no-frills wee park creates something much more interesting. They make skaters excel at the awkward--nollie heelflip crooked grinds on round-coping ledges, long grinds on unsuitable quarterpipes, inhuman leaps--things that actually prepare the young and inexperienced for real life in the streets.

We kind of love wee parks. And as the metro slowly creeps into the modern skatepark world, let's not forget from whence we came, forced to do awesome things with the middling tools cities half-assedly gave us. Let us remember the top five TC we park tricks ever, and embrace them.

Darrell Pelton at Shoreview

More than a decade and a half ago (likely 16 years!) Shoreview's freshie Trueride skatepark was one of, if not the only show in town, and people flocked to it from all over. In the course of another life, I've even told the then-presiding/still-current mayor of Shoreview how much we loved that joint. Darrell's move showed up in Midopoly, it was filmed artfully and it is likely the most difficult/well-executed tricks done on those largely 50-50ed across and down ledges that dot the Midwest.

Dan Narloch at St. Anthony

Another of the original parks, St. Anthony's tier 1 spot just received a breath of life after Jammin' Jay and Woody gave it some new sheet metal. The sunken ramps were to the point of nearly un-skateable; now the ancient asphalt is the biggest issue. The channel grind Narloch does must be the envy of everyone who can't sufficiently backside smith anything and generally strains credulity, though its doubtful he knows much better. The Fulton clip this was in is 7-years-old.

Gregg Clover at Elliot Park

MPRB's least miss of a swing, Elliot Park provides the needy with something to skate without having to go to the far-flung reaches of the city. The layout was never anything that anyone who actually skated would think was a good idea, but they've since given it more room to breath. Clover's crooked grind, as seen in Boondoggle, is the wonderful end result of warming up at the same spot way too many times.

Jamiel Nowparvar at SLP

During the final summer of filming for Weekend Warriors we got into the habit of filming until the wee hours of the morning, from which springs the bright idea to film something amazing by lighting up the wee park at midnight. Jamiel did this pretty quickly, of course.

Steve Nesser at Merriam Park

Literally a gorilla fighting a trick in a phone booth, Nesser's frontside ollie is the sort of shit that'd be only a wee park myth if we didn't have the digital proof above. The mind slows as one attempts to understand A) getting speed for that in cage-like Merriam B) hitting the air breaks or whatever for casual re-entry into that landing ramp and C) the hippie jump after:
*I came up with five tricks that I could plausibly find on Youtube, I'd love to know about more.

Iota in Oshkosh

A kind commenter dropped this unseen (by me) gem last night. Evidently, 12 years ago, the majority of the Iota Skateboards dudes drove the 200 plus miles to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for what looked like a pretty decent demo. Featuring Brian Heck, Chad Benson, Olu Pratt, Jeremy Reeves and Steve Nesser, along with the Oshkosh locs. Sadly, there's no sound, but archeologists gotta take what they can get, that's a saying. Elsewhere:

Wylie eating a can of tuna

A photo posted by Kevin Horn (@kevin_horn) on Aug 13, 2015 at 8:03am PDT

Shit's in the works.