Skateistan

This NY Times article and video has been everywhere the past week. Amazing inspirational stuff right here. Official website for the cause here.

Kanten Russell and Plan B

His infamous Big Brother interview where he talks about the whole Plan B fiasco. I was never a fan of Kanten but this story is pretty crazy. I'd be straight up bummed if the owner of the best company wanted me to represent but the team riders said no. Harsh. Scans courtesy of cbi.

Rip the Ripper

This looks like an interesting concept. Powell is having an art show at this months ASR. Many great artists including former Alien Workshop artist Don Pendleton, OG Powell Peralta artist VCJ and Canadian Andrew Pommier.

The show premiers at this years ASR January 22-24 in San Diego, but for those of you who aren’t industry insiders the pieces will be available for purchase at a fixed price on Ebay linkable directly from the Skateone website Jan 26th 2009 at 12:00pm eastern time. If you miss the show and sale a book will also be available on skateone.com shortly after the event.

Image and blurb from Mumble. Are these art pieces going to be on skateboards or more traditional medium?

Alien Workshop Mind Field

So psyched on this. Full list of premiere dates here.

Wallride # 17

Didn't really have a board graphic in mind this week so I'm linking you to the latest catalog from the Crailtap family. The art direction of Girl and all affiliated companies has been on point for as long as I can remember. I really like the simplicity of the Plank and Surf & Turf series as well as the Chocolate sugar skulls, a staple of Dia De Los Muertos, the Carroll (RED) series with proceeds going to HIV/AIDS research, and Alien vs. Predator. The Spike Jonze directed Where the Wild Things Are movie looks interesting.

Environmentally friendly skateboards

Pretty cool feature on Comet Skateboards and what they're doing to build a better, environmentally friendly skateboard. I think they are more well known in the longboarding community but are slowly moving into the more traditional popsicle stick market. The Habitat Eco-ply boards are pressed by them. In fact, you can even see the Habitat cutting template being used in the video. Using non-toxic glues, paints and lacquers allows all their waste materials to be easily recycled. Most other woodshops run into wood waste recycling problems.

Here is another amazing clip of their process. Their board presses looks similar to most other woodshops except they use heat in the process and they don't appear to apply glue to the individual veneers. It looks like there's some sort of chemical reaction with those green e2e soy resin composite veneers that fuses/bonds everything together. Pressing boards one at a time also helps the consistency of concave and kick from board to board. I'm not certain if an Eco-ply has those green veneers or bamboo. Doesn't really say in the description on the Habitat website and based on the embedded video, look like standard 7 plies of maple. Regardless, a Habitat Eco-ply is definitely one of the next boards I'm going to try.

Lakai 2009 Fall Samples

A few scans of the Lakai 2009 Fall Catalog. It includes the Koston Mid, MJ 5, Guy, Guy Hi and Manchester Selects. Scans yanked from Slap Forum.

Ocean Howell

In those first years when Rocco companies dominated, there were a handful of other guys who were keeping up, Ocean Howell being one of them. A French kid named Rene gave me a tape with a bunch of videos on it and it contained this Ocean Howell part from the Birdhouse video Ravers. Super sick. Dude had a smooth style and a nice bag of tricks. Around the time of that video, Birdhouse swung by my city to do a demo. I was pretty psyched to see Ocean but was pretty disappointed when all he did was try big spin flip fs nose slide on a box the whole time. This Next Generation part was also really good.

Homegrown - Guest Artist Series - Rat Race

This board is a limited run by Homegrown Skateboards out of Nova Scotia, Canada. The artist is Labrona, who's a dude I grew up skating with in Ottawa. I've never skated a Homegrown board but you gotta give props to any company that presses one board at a time.

Alien Workshop/Habitat Wood

For the past 8+ years, I've only skated Alien and Habitat boards. This is primarily because of the Schmitt wood and shapes, which I seem to get along with quite well. I have two Alien boards at the moment that I got via mail order and one of them has a PS Stix serial number while the other has this Made in Mexico sticker. It appears Alien/Habitat is having their boards pressed by more than one wood shop. I used to be able to just pick out any Alien board with a given width and not take any time to adjust to it. They just felt perfect to me. Those days appear to be gone.

Every time I stop by a skate shop, I'll check out the Alien/Habitat decks and I'm seeing fewer and fewer with PS serial numbers and more and more with the Mexico sticker. Not good! I've yet to skate my Mexican Alien board. The primary difference I see is the Mexican one has a noticeably steeper nose and tail.

Strangely, at my last shop visit, the company that had the most PS Stix boards was Flip. I'm sure all that has changed now that they are under the NHS/Santa Cruz umbrella.

Cuba Skateboard Crisis

I ran across this at Chris Nieratko's website. Cuban skaters really do have it rough when it comes to skating. I think it's great that Chris is getting a lot of companies and organizations involved to hook these guys up with product. Click here for more info.

With the US embargo on Cuba, I understand that it's not possible to get product from the States. I'm curious why they can't get it through Canada or Mexico. I suppose it is quite expensive. It kind of reminds me of golfing in Mexico. The average local can't afford to buy clubs and pay green fees. The only way to really be able to play is to work as a caddie. As a caddie, you get the privilege to play for free on certain days of the week and some wealthier club members are kind enough to loan out their equipment.

New Deal Andy Howell

When New Deal first started, they definitely had a different image than anything else out. In particular, the yellow ads and graffiti style graphics. The Promo was good, with all the Odd Number tracks (even when I hear them now, they transport me back to grade 10), as well as Useless Wooden Toys. The majority of the graphics early on were done by Andy Howell, a good pro for the time and a great artist. Board from Disposable.