New York Times writer Alex Williams follows along with a group of old guy longboarders called the Bergen County Bombers and gets into the heads of some who believe skateboarding is the best midlife crises there is.
Forget the little red sports car: the new symbol for midlife crisis is the skateboard. Graying members of Generation X, and even their older brothers, are reclaiming their youth and rebellious streak by hopping back on a skate deck. Some are even showing off old tricks in the skate park. . . It’s the latest gasp for a generation of perma-dudes who listen to Black Flag in their BMWs and trade high-fives in client meetings. It’s a bid to escape the corporate grind, beat back their flagging vigor and even make good on a generational cliché: to extend their adolescence until their federal prescription-drug benefit kicks in.
Concrete Wave’s Michael Brooke is even quoted saying “The skate geezers are having their revenge.” Well, as long as they stay out on the streets with their longboards, we guess it’s okay. . . but we still find ourselves being a whole lot less annoyed by the kid on the left.
Tommy Agriodimas, Royce Bannon, Peter Dean, John Gordon Gauld, Derek Kettela, Lady Pink, Kenzo Minami, Garrett Rowland, and Julian Ungano as well as collaborations with Jayson Atienza, Borbay, Billi Kid, Pete KL, Lady Pink, Jack Laroux, Marco, Alice Mizrachi, Tim Nolan, McDonald Predeleus, Jen Props, Jason Shelowitz, Monica Watkins, Tim Young, and Paul Zepeda.
The San Clemente, California Parks & Recreations department voted 6 to1 on Tuesday night (May 8, 2012) to uphold the current ban on scooters at the City’s Ralphs Skate Court, according to a story in the OC Register.
Commissioner Steven Streger said he would be open to revisiting the discussion of legalizing scooters at Ralphs Skate Court, depending on whether the city’s insurance covers only skateboarding and whether it bans “mixed use.” He said the statewide immunity protecting the city on skateboarding applies only to skaters 12 and older and to skaters doing tricks. There is a broader rule that covers dangerous activities, he said, so the key is the wording of the insurance, which commissioners didn’t have available to them Tuesday.
Not really sure that this ban makes any sense, but then again, the fewer scooter riders at skateparks, the better.
A 13-year-old skateboarder from Livermore, California died last night after “crashing into a moving pickup truck,” according to a story in the LA Times.
The boy “had some speed” as he rode down a hill Tuesday, but there was no indication the truck was traveling over the speed limit, said Sgt. John Hurd of the Livermore Police Department. . . Drugs and alcohol did not appear to play a role, and the boy was wearing a helmet, he said.
Nathan lived in Livermore and was an eighth-grader at Mendenhall Middle School. His mother, Katie, is a science teacher at Rancho Las Positas Elementary School in Livermore, and his father, Sam, is assistant principal at Williams Middle School in Tracy. . . “He was just very caring and responsible, and very, very smart,” Katie Strube said. “I could count on him for anything.”
Our deepest sympathies are with the boys parents and especially with his brother Calvin.
Wondering where Penny Skateboards came from? So were we. That’s why it was great of founder Ben Mackay to kick it all down for us on Vimeo.
From his humble beginnings to the challenges of breaking into the industry, Ben tells in his own words how early lessons in life had inspired him to chase his dream in helping to bring the “fun” back into skateboarding.
Seriously, that’s one of our favorite skateboarding stories. Click play and hear it again.
With the LA City Council’s recent attempt to crack down on hill-bombing skateboarders, the LA Times has been the repository for comments from general citizens who applaud the work of the council. Our favorite was from Edward Golden of Northridge, California.
Skateboarders should have been reeled in a long time ago. Their total lack of accountability should have been lawfully addressed from the start. . . They menace the citizenry and disturb the peace in residential neighborhoods and vandalize city property by relentlessly pounding curbs, streets and you-name-it in an endless pursuit of becoming the next Tony Hawk.
It’s never a real discussion until someone mentions Hitler Tony Hawk. Apparently, Golden is the real “caveman poet” of skateboarding.
How can a visit to a local skatepark demonstrate important physics principles? On Saturday, June 2, the world’s most famous skateboarder and exhibit namesake, Tony Hawk, brings the gravity defying answer to Berkeley in a . . . tag-team demonstration with Berkeley physics professor Joel Fajans. . . “Tony Hawk is famous for skateboarding, and UC Berkeley is famous for science,” said Gretchen Walker, Associate Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science. “This is a great match, like centripetal force to a kickflip.”
The exhibit runs all summer and is included in museum admission. Mr. Hawk and friends will only be there on June 2, 2012 and to see them you have to buy an event ticket. Click the link for more info.
On Saturday, May 5, 2012 skateboarders, sponsors, and hundreds of fans joined Ryan Sheckler and the Sheckler Foundation at the etnies Skatepark for Skate For A Cause. The event, held to help raise money for A.skate, collected $86,000 in total, $57,000 of which will fund A.skate’s 10-stop Be the Change tour this summer. It was a great day of skateboarding, friends, and doing something good for kids on the Autism spectrum.
For photos and the official word, follow the jump.
New Zealand’s Stuff.co.nz has a great catching-up profile on skate legend Lee Ralph that is worth a visit.
THINK of how the Sex Pistols, with all their shooting star aggression, changed modern music, and you get an idea about the impact Ralph has had on skateboarding, a 20 million-strong nation these days. . . . . . ”He was aggressive, but had a really good style. Just so flowing,” film-maker Andrew Moore, director of the documentary No More Heroes, which focuses on the rise of Kiwi skateboarding in the 70s and 80s, says. . . ”He did a lot of tricks that no one had seen over there, and the Americans just loved it. To this day, any American skater you meet will always ask about Lee Ralph.’ . . .”Lee’s more hardcore than any sort of hardcore rock and rollers I’ve met. He’s almost Bukowski-like.”
That’s just the start. Click the link to read the rest.
We rolled to the Ryan Sheckler FoundationSkate For A Cause event at the etnies Skatepark in Lake Forest, Califronia on Saturday May, 5, 2012 and it reminded us what skateboarders and skateboarding can do when pointed in the right direction.
And example of being headed proper is filmmaker Ben Duffy. He’s working on a film titled Heartchild that tells the story of Crys Worley, her autistic son Sasha, and the work Worley has done creating A.skate to help kids with autism through skateboarding. Duffy is raising money for the film on Kickstarter. Click here to help him get the movie done right.
