This Friday night, July 30, 2010 from 6 – 10 PM we are recommending that everyone cruise down to San Diego’s Subtext Gallery and check out the opening of Grant Brittain and Josh Higgins art show Look.
Friends and fellow artists Grant Brittain and Josh Higgins will grace the walls of Subtext in a joint venture of unrelated themes. Brittain’s portraiture of some of skateboarding’s greatest names through the years features icons and underground heroes. Higgins’ poster-art focuses on his work with punkers, musical heros, and charitable causes. Together, the collective work suggests what it would be like to eavesdrop on these guys hanging out, having a beer, and comparing broken wrists and paper cuts.
Sean Smith, 41, of Fresno, California died Sunday July 25, 2010 after reportedly crashing into an SUV while longboarding near Auberry, California, according to a story in the Fresno Bee.
Smith and three friends were skateboarding on Auberry Road near Jose Basin Road when he was hit at 3:18 p.m. by an SUV, California Highway Patrol officer Mike Higgins said. Smith was flown to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, where he was later pronounced dead.
According to ABC 30, Smith was trying to pass his friends on a tight turn and swung wide into an oncoming car. Our thoughts are with Smith’s family and friends. Follow the jump for a memorial video that his friends have posted on Youtube.
Kris Markovich has taken his Given Skateboards brand to a new distributor according to a release issued by Switchboard Inc.
“Through this new partnership, Kris has more time to focus on his passion for art and design,” says Mark Sweetser, VP of Sales at Switchboard, Inc. “The Switchboard Inc. family, is excited to bring Given Skateboards into its long term distribution plan.”
A woman who claims she was injured when a skateboard fell on her from an overhead compartment is suing US Airways, according to a story in the Chicago Sun-Times.
The lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court doesn’t spell out how Diana Burgess was injured on the August 2008 flight. . . It only states she “suffered physical and emotional trauma” after the airline “permitted a passenger to board and place a dangerous instrumentality in the form of a large, heavy skateboard with appurtenances in the form of attached, heavy sharp metal wheels in a position of danger to fellow passengers, without security in such a manner,” the suit states.
Heavy, sharp, medal wheels? Sounds more like a prop from Rollerball.
During a Quiksilver demo at Anaheim, California’s Downtown Disney at 6 PM Saturday, July 24, 2010 Tony Hawk slammed harder than he has in a long time. “Did a tailbone 5 & my foot was a little off, sent me into b/s revert (chicken-neck) to flat,” he said on Twitter. “Hit my back & head HARD,” he said.
The fall resulted in a trip to the UC Irvine Trauma Center, according to Tony’s Twitter feed.
Doctors there told Tony that he had a “Pelvic vertical shear injury” & a hematoma,” Hawk said on @TonyHawk. “All I know is: I can’t lift my legs & it sucks.”
A little later things were looking up. “Thank you for all the well wishes,” he said. “Hooray for morphine & fentanyl, big fan.”
We are amazed that Tony was able to walk back out on to the ramp, thank everyone for coming, and promo the rest of the guys in the demo as injured as he was. The man is all pro. All the time.
A second San Diego Bank was robbed last week by a man described as the “skateboard bandit,” according to a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
An armed robber used a skateboard to get away after holding up a bank in Torrey Highlands Friday, San Diego police said. . . .Witnesses at Wells Fargo Bank on Highland Valley Place believed the robber was carrying a black pistol when he demanded cash from a teller, police said. . . Officers are checking the area for a white man wearing a black hooded jacket, jeans, a green bandanna and sunglasses.
A guy with the same description robbed a different San Diego Bank on July 12, 2010.
Can’t believe it has already been three years since Baltimore Police officer Salvatore Rivieri was caught on video jumping out of his golf cart and roughing up a 14-year-old skateboarder (click here for all the stories). Now, according to the Baltimore Sun, that officer has been “cleared using excessive force and discourtesy.”
A three-member police panel called a trial board held a hearing last week and found Officer Salvatore Rivieri guilty of failing to issue the youth a citizen contact receipt and file a report but not guilty on charges of using excessive and unnecessary force and uttering a discourtesy.
It is difficult to imagine a police officer be more discourteous to a kid, short of beating them, but apparently in Baltimore that’s perfectly normal police behavior.
