The Santa Cruz Sentinel tells the story of the “hold-down” of Darryl “Flea” Virostko’s life. It wasn’t at Maverick’s. It was a week after a group of his family and friends held a little intervention that Flea finally drove himself to Monterey’s Beacon House drug rehab center and checked in.
When nurses admitted him, Virostko’s blood alcohol content registered at 0.28 on the breathalyzer. A BAC of 0.30 and above is usually enough to put a person in a coma, if not flat out kill him.
The rest is classic story of drug abuse (strangely similar to this clip we just watched of Steve-O) featuring sadness, loss, methamphetamine, and a blown professional surfing career. But that is all old news, the story claims, because now Flea is back and has been sober for eight months.
Today, the intensity in Virostko’s face has returned. The hunger is there. He’s surfing every day. He’s following a healthy diet. He’s moved to Ben Lomond with his girlfriend and three dogs, Mija, Riddle and Passion, to “get away from my wreckage.” Virostko surfed Maverick’s twice this winter – on the only two legitimate Mav’s swells that came through – including the Nov. 30 “Turkey Day” swell, which saw some of the largest, cleanest paddle-in Mav’s in years. He managed to nail a handful of heavy drops.
Twenty years ago, a Canadian ice hockey player named Duncan MacPherson, 23, disappeared while snowboarding on the Stubai glacier in Austria. His still frozen body was found 14 years later by resort workers. Planetski.eu retells the story once more hoping to find some answers.
In that time his parents, Bob and Lynda, fought a long campaign to try to find him, to discover what happened and came across what they believe was bureaucratic bungling, police intransigence and even corruption. There are accusations of something even more sinister. . . .They claim the authorities had no desire to discover what had happened to their son and wanted the whole incident hushed up to protect the multi-billion euro Austrian tourist industry.
Pool party, pool party. . . If you can’t attend it the Pro-Tec Pool Party in person today, then there’s no better place to watch all the action than on Fuel.tv live and online. Show starts at 1 PM PST.
Rob Dyrdek is a trooper. He’ll go out and sell and sell and sell. He’ll even do in-store appearances for DC Shoes at Sport Chalet over in the skate department between the climbing gear and the trampolines.
Craig Levra, Chairman and CEO of Sport Chalet, stated, “We are continuously working to bring unique experiences to our customers that are relevant to their sport of choice. Rob is an icon in skateboarding and an inspiration to many of our customers and we are delighted to have him in our stores this month.”
On Sunday May 17, 2009 from 2 p.m. to 2 p.m. he’ll be in La Canada, California and on May 20, 2009 he’ll be in Tempe, Arizona. And you know what? He’ll do a great job and all the kids will go home happy. Is that so wrong? [click to continue…]
Looks like Tony Hawk (the video game brand) is taking another leap into the future with something called THRide which is apparently being launched at the E3 Expo the first week of June. Here’s what Tony said on Twitter this morning:
Here is the info on our new game (finally!) Warning: highly addictive once you get on board http://bit.ly/ELtc6 . . .The board controller is a marvel of new technology. Responds like a real skateboard, you can even go for grabs and the sensors detect it.
Brown Cannon is a professional photographer who likes to put his water photos on surfboards an then show them in galleries, according to a story in the Marin Journal.
Cannon’s images of whales and waves and water, of sea life and coastal environments – “the full scope of a person’s relationship to the ocean” – adorn classic surfboards that are both fine art and functional – sculpture that you can actually surf on. . . He has been creating these custom boards for two years now in collaboration with GP Surfboards, a company in Capitola near the rideable waves of Santa Cruz.
Currently Browns work appears to be on display at two locations (Richardson Bay Audubon Cetner in Tiburon, CA and Casa Romantica in San Clemente, CA) with a third at The Bolinas Museum going up on May 20, 2009.
The Chicago Park District is apparently opening four Lake Michigan beaches to surfing according to a story in the Chicago Sun-Times.
Vince Deur, who founded the Surfrider Foundation’s Lake Michigan chapter in 2007, said Wednesday that supporters met Tuesday with Park District Supt. Timothy Mitchell, who agreed the district would begin taking steps to allow surfing at four beaches between this Labor Day and Memorial Day. . . The surfing group and the Park District are also looking into allowing surfing at the 41st Street Beach all year, beginning perhaps as early as Memorial Day weekend, Deur said.
