Witness Steve Berra’s tear-jerkingly earnest discussion of the Berrics Unified skateboard shop seal of approval program. Which is not to say we disagree with anything Steve has to say. As one PR executive mentioned to us: “Passion is a great weapon.”
If that’s true, this little video is a “firing AK-47.”
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Portland, Oregon’s Hollywood Theatre will host the premiere of Erich Lyttle’s new Oregon big wave movie The Find: Claiming Nelscott Reef tonight, November 18, 2009, at 7 PM.
The film stars the break known as Nelscott Reef. Reaching faces of fifty feet, this Oregon wave rivals notorious surf spots like Hawaii’s Jaws and Mavericks in Northern California. But Nelscott’s powerful conditions come only a few times a year, lying undiscovered until Lincoln City transplant John Forse attempted to surf it. . . .The film was co-written and produced by Billy Miller, produced and filmed by Sarah Henderson and features the surf photography of Richard Hallman. Executive Producers are John Forse, Adam Wagner and Jim Kusz, with music by Northwest-based indie musicians and an original score by John Askew.
If you’re anywhere near Portland tonight, be sure to check this film out. Tickets are $5 at the door.
Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Boulevard, Portland, Oregon.
[Link: Nelscott Reef The Movie]
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The Wall Street Journal’s Hannah Karp lightly discusses halfpipe judging to see just what will happen if Shaun White or any other snowboarders pull out some tricks in the Vancouver Olympics that the judges have never seen before.
Sweden’s Ola Sundequist, the Olympic Head Judge, chimes in with some color, but doesn’t really get into how the judging is really going to work. And that’s probably a good thing, because snowboard halfpipe judging never really has stood up that well to rigorous analysis of any kind.
[Link: Wall Street Journal]
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It seems like somewhere along the line skateboard media kind of forgot what their purpose was. Luckily, Steve Berra and Eric Koston were there to blend their knowledge of skateboarding and Hollywood pop culture connections with a little technology to turn the entire skateboard media game upside down with The Berrics.
What began as coverage for their skate warehouse in downtown LA turned into the largest skateboarding media site in the world with a reported 6 million visitors viewing 20 million pages of content each month, according to an interview on Malakye.
Berra explains:
The consumer is not the jaded skateboarder who hates everything and everyone and tries his hardest to get everyone else to feel the same way he does. This person is a slight, slight minority, but wreaks the most havoc for brands and skaters because these brands and skaters tend to think it’s a majority opinion when it’s not. The majority of the skaters out there are excited about skateboarding and professional skateboarders. They don’t hate everything and everyone. I know because I get thousands and thousands of emails and I read every single one and I know what they’re like and I know what they’re saying, probably more than anyone in skateboarding, just because I’ve taken the time out to really listen. I think as a result of this, we’ve seen fantastic growth. I also try not to use the word kid because they are skaters, just like I am, and I think sometimes people use the word kid as a derogatory term. I remember being 13 and not appreciating being called a kid, despite being one.
Follow the link for the rest of the interview.
[Link: Malakye and The Berrics]
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Tony Hawk has been out on the road for the past couple days rolling out his newest video game Tony Hawk: Ride and its wireless skate deck controller. One of the places he stopped as at the Wall Street Journal in NYC where he ran into our favorite WSJ writer Conor Dougherty for an interview.
How does Tony think core skateboarders are going to respond to the game (which arrived in stores today)?
I think that if skaters just take an approach that this is a fun way to experience something else, then they’ll enjoy it. If they get on it and expect to do skateboard tricks, that’s not the approach. The movements that set your character into play are very subtle. Like an ollie [the basic skateboard jump] just takes a little kick up. A kickflip [where the board flips over] takes just a little kick up and twist to one side. In that sense, you can do more because it doesn’t take as much effort. But if skaters approach it like they really are skating, it won’t be as fun.
Click the link for the rest of the interview.
[Link: Wall Street Journal]
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Nemo’s Trevor Graves has posted a collection of photos from the I Am Snowboarding collaborative art project that is on display in The Village at Mammoth through November 29, 2009. If you didn’t make it, these photos will make it better.
[Link: Flickr via @trevoratnemo]
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While resort buying and selling seems to be an endless Ponzi scheme where no one ever really comes out ahead it is worth mentioning that today Intrawest announced that it is selling Copper Mountain to the Park City, Utah based Powdr Corp.
The transaction is anticipated to close in December 2009 and the agreement is subject to regulatory approvals including the issuance of a U.S. Forest Service special-use permit to Powdr Corp.
Powdr currently owns Park City, Killington, Pico, Mt. Bachelor, Boreal, and Soda Springs. They sold Tahoe’s Alpine Meadows in 2007 and apparently wanted to get their total back up.
Intrawest, as we all know, is up to their ass in debt and sold two French resorts last summer. So this sale probably comes as great news.
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When a post on the Ashbury Eyewear site featuring Kr3w’s new snowboard team started a blazing 114 comment flame war between people claiming to be from Comune, Ashbury, and Kr3w it did more than waste time for everyone involved. It sent one more reminder to other companies that what their employees post online from work can come back to bite them.
In the comments the Ashbury Eyewear site admin eventually exposed all the posts that were coming from what they believed was Comune’s IP address. A similar thing happened last month when Yobeat.com’s Jared Souney called out Burton employees for posting anonymously to the Yobeat.com comments.
This debacle caused at least one manager to take action. “After I saw those comments I seriously sent an email to my staff telling them not to do shit like that,” one company executive told us. “With online you always have to try and stay one step ahead on shit like that. Employees can screw things up without even realizing they’re doing it.”
Most employees understand that whenever they speak, they’re in some ways “speaking for the company,” but with social media taking over it becomes more important that ever to remember that what is Tweeted, facebooked, myspaced, or posted to comment boards has a far larger audience than just talking shit between friends at an after party.
It’s not all downside, however. Conflicts are great for traffic and we’re guessing this feud probably ended up helping Ashbury get more traffic than they’ve had in a while.
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Orange 21, the parent company of Spy Optic filed their Form 10-Q today for the quarter ended September 20, 2009 and reported drops across the board.
Looks like management is pulling in the belt right along with the sales drop. But then what?
[Link: Guru Focus]
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What do you know? Pac Sun shares reportedly “plunged in after-hours trading” today after the company announced that it lost $10.9 million in the Q3, according to the Associated Press.
Revenue fell 17 percent to $268.3 million from $323.6 million. Sales at stores open at least a year fell 18 percent during the quarter. Sales at stores open at least a year are a key measure of retailer performance because they measure growth at existing stores rather than from newly opened ones.
Shares were only down 19 percent. Follow the jump for the full press release.
[Link: Associated Press]
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