Larry Stevenson (center) with his son Curtis, Dale Smith and the crew.
We’re sad to report that Skateboarding Hall of Fame member Larry Stevenson, the founder of Makaha Skateboards (and inventor of the kicktail) died yesterday March 25, 2012 after a long illness. He was 81 years old.
Larry put together the first skateboard exhibition team in 1963 with …Bruce Logan, Woody Woodward, Danny Bearer, Scott Archer, Gregg Carroll, John Fries, Joey Saenz, George Trafton jr, and Squeek Blank.
Aside from Makaha, Stevenson was a competitive swimmer, lifeguard, and magazine publisher of such titles as Surfguide Magazine and later Poweredge Magazine.
After repeatedly asking skateboarders to stay away from a grom camp skateboard competition at an Auckland, New Zealand skateboard park Craig Platt appeared to have finally lost his temper and knocked one kid off his skateboard and then pushed skateboarder Leighton Smith, 38, in the neck, according to a story in the Otago Daily Times. The altercation became such a big deal that it was featured on a morning talk show on TVNZ.
A nice reminder to always be careful when interacting with angry papa bears.
It’s Friday so that must mean there’s a new Weekend Buzz with Mikey Taylor and Davis Torgerson. Hear tales of Mikey’s first and last car crash, Davis’ trick, and the official definition of the Active Erica to fake. Speaking of Erica, what is up with the first four seconds of this clip?
And another from the “We’re way behind” files comes this addition to the shit people say collection, Shit Photographers Say. Yes, Crailtap put it six days ago, but we still like this one because it features Thrasher Magazine’slikable workhorse editor/photographer Michael Burnett.
We’re kind of bummed that it took us this long to notice, but on March 6, 2012 Bob Kronbauer (the creator of Pacific Skateboarding, Clubmumble.com, VancouverIsAwesome.com et al) decided to “lay the Club Mumble website to rest.” Here’s what he said:
Like any project, if you let something sit for long enough without stoking the fire and tending to it and shaping it (or launching new Honoris Professio projects, etc), it gets old. And it gets obsolete as new technologies come in and make it easier and easier to publish. I’ve been publishing online since 1997 when I started the first online skateboarding magazine (Pacific Skateboarding, remember that?) and if I know one thing for certain about myself it is that I have to dedicate myself completely to something or else I simply can’t be involved in it; I have an all or nothing kind of personality.
Kronbauer tried to get some of the many notable contributors to take of the site and maybe share a slice of the advertising with him, but no one wanted to do it so as he says he’s “closing the book on this chapter of Club Mumble. No longer an active blog, this site will now act as a time capsule for all of the super interesting projects that the members of our Club have shared here over the past few years.”
We’ll miss the site and most of all we’ll missing linking to the always engaging content.
Over the past five years 500 workers have been killed in fires at garment factories in Bangladesh. Last year a fire reportedly swept through a factory that made Hawk Clothing for Kohl’s killing 29 people. ABC News used this as an opportunity to ambush Tony Hawk at a skatepark opening to see if he thought celebrity clothing endorsers should keep closers tabs on the safety of workers in the factories that make the clothes that carry their names.
“It’s tragic,” Hawk told ABC News. “I think that the safety standards need to change and I support whatever change that they can make there. . . I definitely want to follow up and make sure that it’s safe. I mean that’s the bottom line, it has to be safe.”
Nice work, Tony. Kind of a cheap shot from ABC News who obviously knows that every single thing American’s consume in mass quantities is made offshore in factories where people are paid next to nothing. But hey, celebrities sell news, right?
Penny Skateboards is stoked to announce that free surfer Nick Rozsa is the company’s first signed athlete. For more about who Rozsa is, where he came from, and where he’s headed check the video.
