2009 brought a lot of new dilemmas to skateboarding. But, a lot of good came out of sticky situations. The word “recession” circled around and made pros re-analyize what it meant to be pro. People that hadn’t been doing much suddenly appeared, proving why they were pro. Skaters showed up to contests in droves, eager to win. Companies found creative ways to push cool stuff, while holding the thinning industry together. But, most importantly, there was visual proof of a kind of transfer of power from…
Eli Reed admits he’s part of the problem in his recent Venture ad and talks about his hometown, Phelps’ trash-talking abilities, JR, PJ, NYC, McTwists, Boston legends, “Wicked” and other things. Have a Venture read (Reed?) from Zoo York’s newest pro.
Sometimes I feel like I probably don’t get the joke. In fact I know that can be the case. I’m often too literal-minded and sarcasm (especially written, Internet sarcasm without facial expressions) sometimes goes right over my head. So here’s what I’m trying to figure out: Does Ernie Torres ride for Ambiguous or not? The whole video joke is just too ambiguous (get it?). It would seem that Ernie would fit on the Ambiguous squad with his penchant for tight black jeans (they make a lot of those) and…
As a little belated Christmas gift the folks over at Thrasher were kind enough to include a free copy of Prevent This Tragedy in the February issue of the mag. This would of been perfect a few days earlier for cheap skates like myself, I could of gotten a new issue of my favorite mag and a DVD I could of given to someone as a gift. Oh well, give them a break they’re on Nor Cal time. Plus they got hella hyphy at Cole’s S.O.T.Y. party.
Anyway, go pick up the issue and get a free skate vid. To hold you over have a beer with Trujillo, Brain Anderson, Slash, Baca and the boys in the clip below:
An American footwear icon has teamed up with an American media icon to bring you a limited edition collaboration of epic proportions. Converse shoes and Thrasher magazine have gotten together to bring you the Cons Prevent This Tragedy collection in celebration of Thrasher’s newest video. It’s a line of three different shoes, three different shirts and three different hats, and the release of which has coincided with the release of the new flick, Prevent This Tragedy.
The shoes, shirts and hats are an intermingling of what Thrasher and Converse are all about check out some of the line below:
CTS available in black, white and royal blue or black, black gum
CTS mid available in black, white, green.
The different shirts with three different graphics available in three different colors.
One hat style available in royal blue, white and black, black.
For more on this line go to www.converseskateboarding.com. Here’s the trailer for Andrew Allen’s part in the flick that inspired this whole line:
In the spirit of the holiday season the Baker/Death Wish crew cruised by Dyrdek’s Carls Jr. park in LA last weekend and put on a little skate jam for the kids, then a product give-away. check out the footage below:
This past year had some stellar video releases as far as skateboarding goes. Flip finally released the much anticipated Extremely Sorry,which was certainly the biggest release of 2009, but their were a slew of other videos that were dropped. My favorite cinematic experience of the year was Alien Workshop’s Mind Field, Greg Hunt killed it as usual. For some reason I thought it was released in 2008, so it didn’t make my rough draft, but after further investigation I came to find it was indeed an 09er. Here’s MORINfocus’s Top 10 Skate Video Releases of 2009 (now you have something to spend all that X-Mas/Hanuka/Kwanzaa/etc. money on):
1. Alien Workshop’s Mind Field 2. Flip’s Extremely Sorry 3. Zero’s Strange World 4. Tiltmode Army’s Bonus Round 5. bLind’s The bLind Video 6. Black Label’s God Save the Label 7. Baker Boys Distribution’s Baker Has A Death Wish Summer Tour 8. Girl and Anti-Hero’s Beauty And The Beast 2 9. Thrasher’s Under The Bridge 10. Zoo York’s State Of Mind
The year 2009 is winding down and as of this Friday will cease to exist. It’s been an eventful year in the world of skateboarding, and unless Sheckler has a Tiger Woods-like sex scandal that breaks in the next three days, I’m pretty sure I can give you my top 10 happenings in the year 09′.
I should savor this opportunity because according to a civilization that didn’t even have electricity, I’m only going to get three more opportunities. In case you haven’t heard the Mayans predicted the world is going to end 2012, I think there’s a movie about it out right now, and if there’s two things we can trust it’s Hollywood, and a 3,000 year or so old civilization that practiced human sacrifice. Not to offend anyone of Mayan descent, I know they were very advanced and ahead of their time when it came to art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. It’s just, that was a long time ago, it’s not like we watch the Dog Town guys to better our modern skateboarding.
Anyway, here’s the MORINformed Top 10 Skate Happenings of 2009 in no particular order:
1. Chris Cole. Enough said, if you don’t know what he did this year, you better get in the loop.
2. It was a tough year for the NYC skate scene. They lost someone special, a true skate legend as in Andy Kisler. Then they lost their most legendary spot the Brooklyn Banks.
3. Extremely Sorry premiered and didn’t disappoint.
4. Baker/Death Wish had another tour, and this time the sober guy, Jim Greco, went to jail.
5. Girl and Anti Hero got together for a honeymoon, as in the Beauty and the Beast Tour 2.
6. Koston Just Did It and signed with Nike.
7. Jereme Rogers preached in the buff, on his rooftop, high on mushrooms. Then retired from skateboarding.
8. Thrasher Brought us Back to Wallenburg for the last time, and #1 did his thing.
9. There were two sets of Battles at the Berrics. The first was won by Mike Mo, and the second was won by #1.
