The San Francisco Chronicle profiled Ian Johnson today mentioning that art school dropout has work being “featured right now at San Francisco’s White Walls Gallery, another show is coming up in Tokyo in May and a book on his art is due in August.” And Ian says he owes it all to skateboarding.
“Skateboarding is entirely responsible for where I am right now with my art career,” says Johnson, who is known for his detailed portraits of authors and jazz music icons from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. “I’ve always been into art but never really considered it as a career until Western Edition launched.”
Sole Tech’s Bill Conrad, who builds window displays for Emerica and sets up their tradeshow booths was in Las Vegas on his birthday and won $1.7 million at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Congratulations, Bill! Spend it all in one place! Just kidding. Don’t do that. And you better not quit your job here, cuz we love ya.
Let’s see, $600,000 will go to taxes, another chunk to paying bills, we’d say maybe you should keep your day job, Bill.
Robust Flavor spy cam operators grabbed some shots of Shaun White’s new ride. It’s a Lamborghini Murcielago and here are the it’s stats:
It sports a 6.2 Liter version of the legendary Lamborghini V12 engine, a six-speed manual or six-speed sequential automatic transmission, and four-wheel drive. It also has a rear spoiler that can be raised to an angle of 70 degrees, side mirrors that fold in to improve aerodynamics, and side scoops that automatically open to the needed size to let in just the right amount of air needed to cool its engine.
Kinda reminds us of something our favorite former NFL playing rap artist F-a-m to the o-u-z said: “just look at me now, I’m gettin’ it . . . on the Lambdy Lambo, as many bad bitches as a nigga can handle. . . ”
We’d like to hear more stories like this one from the Baltimore Sun:
A Baltimore police officer was suspended Monday after a YouTube video surfaced on the Internet showing him berating and manhandling a teenage skateboarder at the Inner Harbor.
On the video, the officer, Salvatore Rivieri, puts the boy in a headlock, pushes him to the ground, questions his upbringing, threatens to “smack” him and repeatedly accuses the youngster of showing disrespect because the youth refers to the officer as “man” and “dude.”
Here it is in all it’s glory. A nice reminder to keep those cameras rolling no matter what. Guess this is what happens when a grown man is forced to patrol the city in an electric golf cart. Congrats, Officer Rivieri, you deserve all the trouble you’re getting, dude.
For the average person, days are comprised of routines. But Todd Grossman’s days are anything but normal. The Spaulding graduate has spent his adult life pursuing his passion, lucky enough to find success and make a living at it. And every day is different.
We’re glad Skate and Annoy is all over this Tony Hawk celebrity spotting stuff, otherwise we’d miss it completely. We especially like their comment “expecting his fourth child from his third wife.” We know what they meant.
Zumiez Inc. (NASDAQ: ZUMZ) a leading specialty retailer of action sports related apparel, footwear, equipment and accessories, today announced the company’s comparable store sales increased 1.7% for the four-week period ended February 2, 2008, versus a comparable store sales increase of 12.4% for the four-week period ended February 3, 2007. Total net sales for the four-week period ended February 2, 2008 increased 16.3% to $20.7 million, compared to $17.8 million for the four-week period ended February 3, 2007. Due to the addition of the 53rd week in fiscal 2006, January 2007 had five weeks of sales versus January 2008 which had four weeks of sales. Total net sales for the four-week period ended February 2, 2008 decreased 11.7% to $20.7 million, compared to $23.4 million for the five-week period ended February 3, 2007 due to the loss of one week of sales in fiscal January 2008.
To hear the Zumiez prerecorded January sales message, please dial (888) 317-6095 (no passcode is required).
We’re going to dial it up right now just for kicks.
We’ve all known about this since October, but it took until today for the official word to go out that Burton is moving in on the skate hardgoods market by picking up Alien Workshop, Habitat, and DNA Distribution. Follow the jump for the complete press release with all the glad quotes.
Forbes Magazine kicks down on the details on Nike’s new decentralized domination plans for different market segments thanks to a big tear-down by Nike Chief Executive Mark G. Parker, 52.
The biggest thing he did: reorganize the company. It used to be divided into categories of products (shoes, apparel, gear like golf clubs). Now it’s divided by sport. There’s a division for soccer (shoes and apparel combined), a division for running, one for basketball, one for men’s fitness, one for women’s fitness. Each has its own product-development and marketing executives. In this taxonomy a running shoe is entirely different from a cross-training shoe—why, running is an entirely different sport from training. There are parts of the company that sell only to golfers or only to kids on skateboards. Dreamer athletes, the people who don’t run or pole vault but want to dress as if they do, have their own division (called Sports Culture at Nike).
No wonder Nike is the number one selling “skate” shoe.
