Monthly Archives: June 2010
Summers Over!
Ok well maybe Im jumping the gun a little BUT today is June 22 the day after the Summer Solstice. That means the longest day of the year has passed, and with it summer starts to wane. Sure the hottest part has yet to come but you know that cliché saying its always darkest before the dawn well lets just apply that to heat and winter too.
The Solstice is the first nail in summers coffin but here in SLC the dominoes start to tumble pretty fast. Next month Ill get the buyers guide issue of Transworld and Snowboarder Magazines (Whats a magazine?) with plenty of eye candy for the upcoming season. Before you know it August is here and we get a few more hints that summers almost gone. Usually in late August (on average around the 26th … yes I keep track) comes that first magical morning where I need to turn on the heat in the car, I really love that morning. Sometimes in August we will get our first mountain storm of the season. Once September hits theres no going back. In September theres more snow and usually at least one storm that gives us enough for some preseason rail sessions/hikes at the resorts. Over Labor Day weekend season passes go on sale and the Pro Sale in the Milosport parking lot goes down. Through out September and into October the out of town kids start to filter back in and theres tons of premiers of all the new shred flicks. Sometimes if we are super lucky well get a few good storms and we well be open before Halloween. This has only happened three times since Ive lived out here so its not too common but even if it doesnt theres still tons of preseason jibbing going on by October. Next thing you know its November and opening day!
So just because its June now doesnt mean you cant start to get mentally prepared for the season. Of course maybe Im jumping the gun a bit. Some would say Im even delirious… maybe thats true. After all I am in full gear watching dvds and damn its hot…..
Im not really an autograph guy but……
Im not one for hero worship. Well not in the OMG LOOK ITS THAT ONE GUY FROM T.V. OMG HAVE MY BABIES!! sense of the phrase hero worship. I mean of course there were people I looked up to growing up. People who seemed to have it all figured out. Of course the inevitable happened and some one went to jail or some one couldnt live up to the hype or maybe hero X turned out to just be a dick once I met them, whatever. The point is no one really has it all figured out in life and going around with the sense that your favorite actor or sports figure or whomever is perfect just because they have a really great image and P.R. team isnt fair to them or yourself. Thats not to say I havent been stoked to meet folks but Ive always kept that shit low key. Handshakes and how you doings are far more cool than freaking out and grabbing an overdraft notice from your car floorboard for an autograph. Chill, its just a person like you and me. For this reason Im not an autograph person, unless of course youre willing to put that autograph on the bottom of one of your checks made out to me. Sometimes though, well sometimes you have to break the rules….
The Lakai team was in town today doing a demo for the Zumiez Couchtour. It was just down the street from my house and there were some legends and new guys in the group that I really wanted to get a look at. For the record Daniel Espinoza and Vincent Alvarez fucking killed it. Im sure on the couchtour website they have an edit up. Rick Howard, Cairo Foster, Beibel, Mike Carroll were also in attendance and were of course solid as always as all four are legends. However most importantly for me Guy Mariano was there. Guy Mariano holds a special place for me. Hes been up and hes been down, way down, but Im not here to get into the details of that after all a mans demons are his own. However sometimes the man is so great that his demons can even haunt those he doesnt know. Guy Mariano is such a man. Skate writer Mackenzie Eisenhour wrote a small article in Transworld Skateboarder a few years back when Mariano made his big comeback. That year with the release of Lakai’s Fully Flared DVD Mariano won Best Street Skater, Best Video Part, and Readers Choice Award making him the first to win three achievement awards in one year. Theres no way I could write anything in tribute that could compare with Macks piece and I couldnt find a link to it online anywhere so to be honest Im gonna straight copy that article word for word …
The following (in all bold)appeared in the 2007 Skater of the Year issue of Transworld Skateboarder and was written by Mackenzie Eisenhour….
There was a rumor the Spike Jonze cried when he first saw Guy’s part in Royce Hall. I have to admit, no matter how many times Ive watched it since (my wife can give you the exact count), when he pulls open that sliding door and the first haunting chords of “The Funeral” come in, I cant help myself either.The emotions are overwhelming. I swallow hard. I get goosebumps. My heart grows heavy. But why? In Spikes case it makes perfect sense. He put down Guys first solo part in Video Days (’91), has witnessed and nurtured his gift through fifteen years of co-owning Girl, and obviously has a near father/son relationship with one of skateboardings near mythical prodigies, period. A prodigy that a few years back despite all his accolades, ridiculous natural talent, and landmark achievements saw his pro-model board on the company he helped build slip through his fingers as he battled a host of real life problems real enough to put even the strongest soldier among us down for the count – probably for good. Theres something in stories of redemption that touches the most primordial of human emotions. I have met Guy a number of times through the years. Ive talked to him on the phone extensively for various interviews. Ive given him appropriate daps at appropriate parties but it would be a lie to say I know him well enough to even get close to calling him my “friend.” All the same, when I saw him on the mat and the count was getting low -so low that I feared for his life- I could have sworn I was watching my brother. At least it felt that way.
My first rationale for all of this was that Guy, from his first splash in Ban This (’89) with the “L.A. Boys” to his Herbie Hancock accompanied reinvention of skateboarding in Mouse (’96) is the one-man embodiment of my entire generation of skateboarders. I still believe this to be true. When I was twelve Guy was twelve. We grew up with him. He was our champion- our Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, our Babe Ruth, our Pele’. With every smattering of footage he put out a reminder ran through our generation that were part of something big enough to change skateboarding. When our champion went down, it hurt, and so, when he rose from the ashes, crawling back tooth and nail like a modern day messiah, to put down one of the most monumental video parts since, well, one of his earlier video parts, we -or at least I- had no choice but to let tears of joy well up just enough not to look like an emotional nutcase walking out of UCLA’s largest concert hall in front of half the skateboard industry. I can only assume that many of the pros who voted Guy Best Street Skater Award and Best Video Part of ’07 Award felt the same way I did.
Yet my rationale omits a major integer in this equation. Guy also won the Reader’s Choice Award. Thats the one decided by you the actual TWS readers. A demographic most other publications snidely assure us all is composed of twelve to fourteen year old children who will grow up and join the Army. Why in the hell would you care? By Chris Nieratko’s math this voting block should have elected David Loy and yet you chose Guy. Not only that but in doing so you ultimately made Mariano the first skater to ever single handedly win three separate trophies at any TWS Awards ceremony to date. Did you cry when you saw the part? I have no idea. Surely some of the older heads out there knew the score but what amazes me most about this entire triple crown coronation is that there must certainly have been a vast number of people out there who simply judged te part on the skating. And there in lies the biggest testament to our champ’s resurrection. Without even adding in the baggage, without even knowing his path and frankly without even really having seen the guy in a video since sometime in the late 90′s (probably 5 years before most of the kids out there starting skating) young readers of our humble magazine cast their vote for Mariano. These were not sympathy votes. These were not “rad youre even still skating” votes. These were not “the old guard rewarding their own” votes. These votes were for the best mortal human being riding a skateboard today, and hopefully tomorrow. Props, Guy and thank you. Seriously.
So if I couldnt find the link to the article how was I able to copy it word for word? Easy, it’s been hanging up with a few other things in my entertainment center for the last few years, and today I took it down the street, waited in line for two hours, shook Guys hand, gave him a how you doing, said my thank yous, and collected my first autograph…
Hoverboard….
So this hoverboard Video came out on Vimeo over the past week and of course made its way around the internet. Now before I start my mean old man rant let me put up a disclaimer. I am in no way bashing this guys work as an artist. Its actually a very well done piece in an exhibition for a show entitled Back to the Future. I also realize its not a real hoverboard capable of flight/play. Ok so heres my point… why in the hell is everyone so stoked on hoverboards? Seriously you toss hoverboard into Google and you get all sorts of hits where nerds everywhere are peeing on themselves talking about hoverboards and how awesome they are. Now of course nerds will be nerds and I know why THEY like hoverboards but I dont understand why the same reaction is had on sites that publish the clip like Transworld. As a skater I cant really see anything in a hoverboard that would make me stoked to ride one. I mean ok let me get skate nerd on this…
- 1 you cant grind a hoverboard, in fact thats so major it counts as 1-3.
- 4 how do you snap an ollie on a hoverboard? Does everyones pop become the same? Does it even ollie, I mean wouldnt taking the board out of its parallel position negate the hover effect? I dunno Im not one of those hoverboard know how nerds Im just asking.
- 5 no wheels is just as bad as no trucks. If theres one sound in my life that I love to hear its the click clack of a skateboard going down the street.
- 6 without wheels could you pump transition or have manual tricks? Anything that endangers the career of Daewon Song gets a huge no vote in my book.
I guess its not really anything to worry about in the long run. Its not like theres really going to be hoverboards on the shelves anytime in the forseeable future. I would however like to encourage any random nerd that falls upon this post and thinks it would be cool to make a hoverboard to actually try and work on something that would be way more freakin awesome instead.
How (not) to care for your snowboard…
Summer time is here, skate edits abound on the Snow Sites, birds are singing, flowers blooming and all that kind of crap that goes with this god forsaken warm up. So you got your last little bit of shred in and you are reluctantly ready to put your board away until the snow falls again. What tips are good to know before you lay your board dormant for the next 3-6 months. What little bits of knowledge can I pass forward to help you keep your equipment in tip top shape and ready for the next season. Well to be honest youre on the wrong site today because I treat my board like shit.
I guess this is just skateboarder spillover because skaters really dont care about their boards. They throw them down, slam them against buildings, toss them into on coming traffic or onto buildings and then when they are at their last breath of life WHAM the focus ( intentional breaking for those not in the know).This has for sure spread into my use of the snowboard.
Wax? … very rarely if at all. Wipe to clean and dry after use?… uh only to get the biggest snowy bits off before tossing it in my car. Edge tune to keep them sharp? … uh full on rust on my edges which I scrub off by riding. Proper storage to ensure long base life? … well if tossed in the back of the Audi ALL SEASON counts as storage then I guess Im doing that. Base Grinds to keep them smooth and fast?… yeah I grind my base, on fucking rocks at the resort. Now Im not saying all of this to sound cool or whatever it really just is a product of my skating background where the board is never given any sort of pampering or love. Part of this may also be the fact that living here in the SLC Im always able to get gear on the cheap whether its from hookups, markdowns, or the ample supply of boards on Craigslist from poor up and coming kids selling flowed product to pay for rent ( and when I say pay for rent I mean buy weed). For those reasons I dont have to stress over a $500 dollar board like most folks and that of course makes it a bit easier to not care for them appropriately. So at the end of the day dont come looking here for board care tip cause I got nothing.
