Skateboarding

Kennebec, Maine may have the worst anti-skateboarding ordinance ever to be passed by a City Council. Check it:

The current city skateboarding ordinance states: “No person shall course, slide down, across, in and along any street or sidewalk or public parking lot of the city upon any board jumper, skateboard or otherwise, unless such street, way or parking lot has been designated for such purposes by the Police Chief.”

In other words, the Kennebec Police Chief is the king of skateboarding. This ordinance is up for review tomorrow night at the Kennebec City Council meeting and hopefully things are going to change.

[Link: Kennebec Journal]

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Paul Maxim, 36, died from injuries he received at the Ranney Skate Park in Lansing, Michigan on Saturday, according to a story on WLNS.com. Apparently, Maxim and another skater accidentally collided knocking Maxim to the ground.

Adithya Kosgi, witnessed accident: “The person who was coming from the other side actually clipped Paul’s board and he fell off of this board off of the fun box and onto the ground.” . . .Police say Paul was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries. Saturday he was declared brain dead, Sunday doctors took him off life support.

Police say Maxim was not wearing a helmet, but he had one in the trunk of his car.

[Link: WINS.com]

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It was Go Skateboarding Day after all so there’s really no surprise that the police got in on the action. In Calgary, officers had to deal with what The Vancouver Sun called “a rash of mischief,” and even used their helicopter:

“It was resource intensive and included (our use of) the helicopter,” said Duty Inspector Vic Trickett. “We had skateboarders going up the wrong way on streets and avenues, going through red lights, causing a great deal of disruption to the regular traffic flow. In my opinion, they were endangering themselves and endangering others.”

At Love Park in Philadelphia the police held it down all day and threatened everyone with $1,000 fines if they got on their boards, according to Larry West’s blog Angry, Young, and Poor.

Look, if we catch you, it’s a $1000 fine, you loose your board, and you go to jail! I’ve already got 10 skateboards in my trunk! Now I’m giving you a warning!” . . . The other officer stood there, loosing his patience as I tried to calmly explain that… well, they were wrong. Its always an odd spot to be in, and you rarely ever win.

But in Afghanistan things went the other way. Police actually provided an armed escort for members of the Skateistan crew, according to a story on TVNZ.co.nz:

With sirens blaring, officers shouted commands through a megaphone at motorists telling them to make way for the kids of Afghanistan’s first skateboarding school: Skateistan. . . “In the name of God!” cheered one man at the side of the road, clapping and smiling in disbelief. . . “Long live Afghanistan!” the children shouted in reply as they skated past. . . Wearing white T-shirts adorned with “Skateistan” logos, the children zipped from the national stadium – once the scene of public Taliban executions – to another part of the city to take part in a competition in honour of world Go Skateboarding Day.

And that’s just the kind of police interaction we’d all like on GSD.

[Link: The Vancouver Sun and TVNZ.co.nz]

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It’s not all love and kisses in the world of skateboarding today. Louisiana skater Neal Boyd has set up a website to explain his problems with Go Skateboarding Day. It’s called No $kateboarding Day.

This site was created by a skateboarder in response to some corny corporate marketing. Skateboarding is great, spending a day skating is sick, and taking the day off to skate is something I can plead guilty to. However, skateboarding is also largely illegal, it’s loud, and it’s dirty. I like it like that. . . . Any excuse is a good excuse to skate, but this holiday shit has more corporate sponsors than a Nascar driver. . . Anyway, go skate and celebrate every moment that you get to ride… but don’t buy into any bullshit about what this contrived holiday really is… a big fucking commercial.

Can’t really say there is too much to disagree with here.

[Link: No Skateboarding Day]

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Clyde Singleton is announcing at the Kona Fantasy Cup Team Challenge which begins tonight at midnight in celebration of Go Skateboarding Day. And that was enough reason for the Jacksonville.com to run a full profile on the man.

In the insular, image-conscious world of skateboarding, Singleton is something of a celebrity lightning rod – a magazine columnist, a blogger, a video producer, a contest emcee, a satirist, a spokesman, a personality, all brash and provocative. . . Singleton admits that being notorious is pretty strange. “People think they know you. They think I like chicken. They think I speak really broken English. That I can’t skate. That I don’t skate. That I don’t like white people.” That’s all wrong – except for the part about chicken.

It gets better from there. . .

[Link: Jacksonville.com]

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June 21 is Go Skateboarding Day, but we’re thinking it would be a good idea to get a run at it and skateboard everyday until then and be ready:

Skateboarders everywhere will show their love and support for skateboarding by holding fundraisers, contests, protests nad demos. They’ll skate across cities, gather in skateparks, stream into their local skate shop and some will even revel in the solitary act of skateboarding alone at their favorite spot, all bringing together the skateboarding community in the grind heard around the world.

Check out the GoSkateboardDay.org website for the official countdown clock and complete listings of event around the globe (all on an interactive Google Map). Or click here for some GSD trivia with The Skateboard Mag. Or click here to see what the pros are doing (according to Fuel TV).

[Link: Go Skateboarding Day]

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