by The Editors on March 28, 2009
In a country where a vacationing woman was thrown in jail for two months for drugs after being given an injection by a doctor at a Dubai hospital and another couple spent three months in prison for allegedly having sex on the beach it’s amazing that anyone would show up for a protest. But surfers in Dubai did just that on March 29, 2009 after a swimmer died Friday on Sunset Beach near the world famous Burj Al Arab hotel, according to a story in The National.
The municipality argues that surfers are a hazard to swimmers, but defenders of the sport claim they actually save lives, and that Friday’s tragedy illustrates their point. . . “There would have been surfers to pull out the person who drowned as we often do, but we were just too afraid to turn up, not knowing what to expect from the police and municipality,” said Danny Van Doreen, of Surf Dubai.
Surfers have been ticketed not just for surfing, but also for having surfboards on the beach or in their cars. The surfers say the beaches that have been closed to surfers are the only beaches which “benefit from swells generated by winds blowing down the Gulf,” and they have no place else to go.
We wish them luck.
[Link: The National]
by The Editors on March 25, 2009
Baldwin Park, California’s world famous skateboarding parrot Gordo, has reportedly been stolen from his cage and owner Fred Mirales is distraught, according to a story in the Pasadena Star News.
The bird-napping occurred about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday as Gordo – a green Malaysian parrot from Guatemala – played in his cage on the front porch of his owner’s Bess Street home. . . “My mother was at home and she heard somebody trying to break into the cage,” said Fred Mirales. “When she went out there, the guy was already (running away).” . . .Gordo has become a popular city figure, said Mirales, who has had the 30-year-old parrot for about a decade.
Just one of the downsides of fame, apparently.
[Editors’ Note: We’re having a hard time believing that we just posted this, but shore ’nuff there it is.]
[Link: Pasadena Star News]
by The Editors on March 23, 2009
Lewis Smith, 45, of Orange City, Florida got so mad at the kids who were skateboarding on some ramps near his house that he burned them down, according to a story on WFTV.com.
The sheriff’s office says the man put the neighborhood near Orange City in danger and forced the county to divert firefighters already battling huge brush fires. The man admit he set the skateboard ramps on fire in the middle of this dirt road on 17th Street (see map), near Orange City, because he was fed up with kids playing on them so close to his home. . . Lewis Smith, 45, was booked into the Volusia County jail, but released Monday morning. He’s charged with criminal mischief, but Volusia County sheriff’s investigators said the minor damage he caused could’ve been far worse.
And we thought the Tampa Pro was the hottest skate event going on in Florida last weekend.
[Link: WFTV.com and Orlando Sentinel]
by The Editors on March 18, 2009
A Del Mar, California surfer out for dawn patrol this morning noticed six bulging burlap sacks along the railroad tracks near the end of 11th street in Del Mar, according to a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
As he continued to walk toward the water, he came across two men lugging a seventh sack and he asked what they were doing, Reynolds said. . . .The men said something in Spanish, dropped what they were carrying and ran. The surfer called deputies, who later found an eighth sack closer to the water, Reynolds said. The sacks were filled with 80 plastic-wrapped bundles of marijuana, Reynolds said.
This is the second time this year that a surfer has discovered weed in Del Mar and reported it. Wonder how many loads have gone unreported?
[Link: San Diego Union-Tribune]
by The Editors on March 16, 2009
Portland skateboarders Taylor Appelo, 20, and Clayton Hunt, 16, were waiting at the MAX line Skidmore Fountain station early Saturday morning March 14, 2009 when they got jumped by four men in their 20s, according to a story on OregonLive.com.
Four men, three of whom appeared to be in their mid-20s and one perhaps older, approached and almost immediately began making threatening statements, Hunt said. . . “They told us we walked into the wrong tunnel,” Hunt said, referring to the area underneath Burnside Avenue. . . One man “came up to me and told me and Taylor he wanted to lay one of us out on the tracks,” Hunt said. “He said he was drunk and looking for a fight.” . . . Hunt said he and Appelo started walking away from the four but they followed and one of them shoved Appelo, who bumped into Hunt. Both fell onto the track surface.
Both skaters ran but were followed and when Appelo turned to look back he was hit in the face and knocked to the ground.
“I saw him hit the ground really hard, face first,” Hunt said. “I saw a lot of blood everywhere. I saw his teeth on the ground. It was really scary.”
Appelo was taken to the Legacy Emanual Hospital & Health Center where he was treated for a jaw broken in three places, a broken rib, dislocated thumb, and multiple facial cuts. The police hope to review video footage from the station’s security cameras and will start their investigation today.
[Link: OregonLive via Skatedaily.net]
by The Editors on March 12, 2009
While in Lima, Peru shooting and filming some tricks in “a seemingly unsketchy area” filmer Mike Mansoori, photographer Oliver Barton got robbed at gun point of $13,000 in camera gear in “about 6 seconds” by the guy pointed out in the above photo, according to a story on the és blog.
While no one else in the crew is watching, the striped shirt lurker creeps up on Manzoori and the kid, pulls a gun, shoves it in Manzoori’s face and grabs the video camera. Like a cartoon…the kid gets up and runs so fast that one of his shoes falls off his foot and is left on the scene. Manzoori lays face down on the ground to get away from the gun. Just at this very moment, a black Toyota Yaris comes down the street toward the thief who’s running away from Manzoori, to the car, brand-new free high def video camera in hand.
It’s a reminder that in many places carrying around expensive camera equipment is like wearing a placard that says “Rob Me.” We’re so glad no one was hurt. Click here for Quicktime video.
[Link: és Footwear]
by The Editors on March 6, 2009
Tomorrow night (March 7, 2009) on FOX TV former pro snowboarder and The Bachelorette winner/loser Jesse Csincsak will be helping John Walsh and America’s Most Wanted in the search for the person responsible for murdering snowboarder Benjamin Bradley in Wyoming sometime in June 2006. The key to “cracking this case” may be a one-of-a-kind Never Summer snowboard Ben was carrying when he disappeared.
Ben’s board is black with an eagle grasping lightning bolts in its talons. The eagle’s wings read “Never” on the left and “Summer” on the right. On the second banner that runs parallel to the eagle’s wings is the word “Denver,” and the bottom of the snowboard reads “Legacy.”
We’re not sure what Csincsak is going to add to the show, but apparently these are the kinds of jobs you get after you become a reality TV star.
[Link: America’s Most Wanted and Extra TV]
by The Editors on March 5, 2009
Brad Kremer, the director of Burton’s film department commented to Twincities.com on Tuesday’s citations of their film crew in St. Paul saying the guys did not know they were tresspassing and that they’re “not a bunch of punks.”
“We travel all over the world and film the best snowboarding, whether it be in the cities or the mountains,” he said Wednesday. “We’ve come to Minnesota for quite some years now for a couple of reasons. First, you have good snow; second, there are really good features for urban snowboarding; third, the people are very kind.” . . . Kremer wasn’t present Monday, but he said he thinks the police were doing their job. . . .”Were they trespassing? Yes,” he said of his co-workers. “Did they know? No. I think they probably should have just got a warning, but I’m not upset at the police.”
Kremer even included this video to show just how polite they are to local officers. That is some nice PR work.
[Link: Twincities.com]
by The Editors on March 4, 2009
Burton photographer Jeff Curtes, along with Aaron Hooper, Gabriel L’Heureux, Alex Andrews, Keegan Valaika, and Kenneth Zima ran afoul of the law in the Twin Cities yesterday after police found them snowboarding in a West Seventh Street neighborhood, according to a story on Twincities.com.
They set up a 6-foot steel tower and connected a wooden ramp to it in a St. Paul neighborhood. Then, they snowboarded down the ramp, along a 2-foot ledge of a limestone cliff, and jumped — 20 to 30 feet onto the railroad tracks below, said one man who saw Monday’s action.
The paper reports that the snowboarder were rude to a local neighbor so the man called police:
“Eff you, eff this. We can do whatever we want. This is our job.” He asked not to be identified because he said he believes “these guys are important to the snowboard world” and he fears retribution from “their idols who feel they have been messed with.”
Luckily, the six were cited and then released. Maybe they should have been nicer to the nosey neighbor. . .
[Link: Twincities.com and Star Tribune]
by The Editors on March 1, 2009
A Pensacola Florida skate spot was the scene of a robbery last week when Mark Furches, 20, found himself “looking down the barrel of a shotgun” instead of his video camera, acording to a story in the Pensacola News Journal.
He had been filming some of his friends skateboarding at a makeshift skate park on Massachusetts Avenue, and he didn’t notice when two men, one armed with a shotgun, approached from some nearby woods. . . “By the time I turned around, he already had a gun on me,” Furches said. . . . After a few tense moments, the men made off with Furches’ $3,500 video camera and another skateboarder’s cell phone.
Kind of reminds us of walking back to our car at The Berrics. Okay, not really.
[Link: Pensacola New Journal]
In a country where a vacationing woman was thrown in jail for two months for drugs after being given an injection by a doctor at a Dubai hospital and another couple spent three months in prison for allegedly having sex on the beach it’s amazing that anyone would show up for a protest. But surfers in Dubai did just that on March 29, 2009 after a swimmer died Friday on Sunset Beach near the world famous Burj Al Arab hotel, according to a story in The National.
