"Yeah, Well, Y'Know That's Just Like Uhhh Your Opinion Man."

Prosocial

2012-01-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

I was checking out a thread on Slap today with a picture of McCrank wearing Lakais.

Of course his homies giving him a free pair of shoes since eS is no longer doesn't really mean anything at all, but anytime any pro is photographed in any shoes, the rumour mill starts a' turnin. But that's not what this post is about. (Although I sure do think it would be neat if McCrank got on Lakai.)

This post actually came about because people were posting up some of McCrank's older sections and I felt it necessary to post up his section from the Antisocial video that was released in 2004.

That video was so good. I remember that Yeah Right came out shortly before the Antisocial video. We had been waiting so long for Yeah Right, and we drove 2 and a half hours to Regina to see the premiere in the IMAX theater. I also remember Yeah Right being the first time I was really disappointed with the Girl squad. I was expecting a classic video, but got a bunch of garbage ruining some really good skating.

Shortly after that the Antisocial video came out and when I watched it I immediately thought "Damn, this is how the Girl video should have been." Probably the best Canadian video ever made, with so many good sections from Canadian rippers. Mitch Charron, Quinn Star, Jesse Booi, and Keegan Sauder all have super good sections.

Anyway, after finding McCrank's section on YouTube, I noticed that whoever uploaded had the entire video split into different sections, but all put into one playlist so you can watch the whole video. Some of the sections may be blocked due to YouTube music Nazism, but the ones that are available are really good quality.

Just figured I'd share because I think it was easily one of the best videos to come out in 2004, but if you're not from Canada, you may not have seen this gem. Also it's a great video to watch for any ignorant retards who buy into that generic tall tee Canadian skater bullshit.

Hope McCrank gets everything coming to him.

Oodles Of Snuggles

2012-01-18T16:44:00.001-08:00

This increasing popularity of skateboarding in the eyes of the mainstream is a real double edged sword. On one hand, the exposure to and acceptance of skateboarding makes us feel as though our sport, and especially our culture isn't the underground fringe activity it once was. On the other hand if more acceptance leads to more skateparks being built, or makes it easier in general to go out and shred, then that's a good thing.

Also with possibly more poseurs than actual skaters wearing skate clothes and shoes, we have every 3rd dildo on the street feeling like they somehow belong to our culture even though they have no idea what it's like to be out there on your board shredding around (or even worse they could be longboarders who think they share a kinship with us). On the other hand, if any of the money these retards spend to try and look like us trickles down to the independent shops and lets them keep doing what they're doing, then that's a good thing.

And of course since it is so popular with the youth culture (and grown ups who still like to think they're young like me), skateboarding is obviously a highly sought after image for companies trying to capitalize on that market. So we see all sorts of bastardization of skateboarding on television, movies, commercials, print ads, everywhere you look basically. We also see all kinds of skateboarders show up on talk shows, reality shows, variety shows, all over the place. On the other hand, we get to see the Snuggle Bandit himself Andy Roy on TMZ talking about how he just wanted to give DMX a "top ramen hug" because they've both been in jail, which is obviously fucking hilarious and awesome.

A real double edged sword, I tell ya.

Timbuk 3

2012-01-16T19:16:00.000-08:00

Do I really even need to say how much I liked this video? That it's easily gonna be one of the best sections to come out in 2012?

Do I really need to say how refreshing it is that there's a kid out there who obviously has the talent to skate like P-Rod or do combos like Shane O'Neill but actually chooses to skate creatively and fast?

How about that Habitat is continually fostering the sickest young dudes coming up in skateboarding?

Or how stoked I was on a raw street section with no slow motion or bullshit editing?

And do I need to mention how awesome it is that every once in awhile you get bummed out on the world of sponsored skateboarding and think it's all shit, and then something like this comes along and you think to yourself "Oh yeah! That other side of skateboarding can still be fucking awesome!"?

No? Don't need to mention any of that because you all realize it also?

Okay.

AW Goin Home

2012-01-15T17:36:00.000-08:00

So by now I've had some time to think over Dyrdek's premature announcement that he is planning on buying Alien Workshop. I say "premature" because apparently nothing is official and nothing has been signed yet, but from what I hear it's pretty much a done deal.

As soon as I heard the news I wasn't sure what to think of it. There's a lot of ins, a lot of outs, and a lot of what-have-yous. I definitely haven't kept it a secret that lately I haven't been a big fan of Dyrdek. I appreciate that he gives back to skating in the form of public parks and whatnot, and I understand that to a certain degree he is just capitalizing on opportunities that lay in front of him. On the other hand I think he's strayed so far from where he started that he's basically a foolish caricature of himself now. Very foolish. And I also loathe Street League and the image of skateboarding that it is promoting to the masses. However, obviously I'm stoked on seeing one of my all time favourite skate brands back in the hands of a skateboarder instead of a snowboard conglomerate.

The thing about Burton though is that when I heard about a snowboard company (and a really lame one at that) buying DNA Distribution, obviously I wasn't happy about it at all. But as time went on, it didn't really bother me because nothing seemed to change too much. As far as I see it, Alien's still killing it. People like to bitch and moan about the company and how it isn't what it once was, but let's face it, what long time company is? I know there's been changes at Alien (apparently enough changes to make long term rider Kalis want to leave), but for the most part I think Alien is still fucking sick. With the exception of Mikey Taylor (and ironically Dyrdek) the team is fucking amazing (as is Habitat's) and I still think the image and the brand are on point. I think Alien is doing a better job of sticking to it's vision than Girl is, and everyone still hangs off of Girl's nuts like they're still the most amazing company in existence. But the weird team additions to Girl and Chocolate, increasingly horrible Ty Evans bullshit videos, and continually decreasing quality of graphics (Chocolate's still pretty tight though), have definitely
tarnished the once infallible Girl Camp in my eyes.

Like come on, are you serious with this bullshit?

But besides the fact that the Burton acquisition didn't seem to hurt the Sovereign Sect any more than the passage of time may have naturally, I'm still more stoked on the prospect of a skateboarder owning the company rather than a company that employs the fiery dingleberry which is Shaun White.

Honestly, I think I trust Alien being in Dyrdek's hands. Although he definitely has done some corny and embarrassing whoring out of himself and various companies he owns/represents, I really think that the Sect is sovereign enough to him (pun intended) that he wouldn't fuck with it too much. Dyrdek is obviously a very savvy businessman who likes to make money. And with his high profile in the mainstream media, I'm sure that he's had plenty of opportunities over the years to switch to a board company where he could have made more money. The fact that he never did and that he stayed loyal to Alien the entire time shows me that he's not connected to Alien for the money, he genuinely loves the brand. It's like it says in the Shit-Eat-Surf article:

"Rob said he feels a huge emotional connection the founders and to the brand, which he has been with through his entire journey from an unknown Midwest skater to a mega star. While some of his many businesses may come and go, he said he plans to own Alien Workshop forever."

But then again, Dyrdek has definitely been known to like to stack all his chips together when it comes to sponsors. So a huge and very justified concern for many people is that Dyrdek will turn Alien Workshop into just another logo screen printed on a Nascar-style Street League shirt (literally and metaphorically).

Can a hustler like Dyrdek with the tendency for unapologetic promotion really resist the urge to use his various mainstream platforms to increase the visibility of Alien, or vice-versa use Alien to try to increase the credibility of his various mainstream platforms? I mean as much as Dyrdek has stayed loyal to Alien over the years, it's not like he's never used the brand for some tacky crossover promotion. Not by a long shot.

So a bulldog and a fucking mini-horse have had a board on Alien? Fuck. And that's even BEFORE the Burton acquisition. So I guess any of the higher ups at Alien are just as to blame as Dyrdek for that dark moment in the company's history. So will we be seeing more of this sort of thing now that Dyrdek will be the big boss and have final say? Can we look forward to seeing Young & Reckless collabo boards and Ridiculousness pro models for that stupid, stupid bitch Chanel "West Coast"?

Personally I have hope that there's still enough of this guy in Dyrdek to keep Alien on the right path. I guess there's no way to tell for sure though, and we're just going to have to wait and see. I know for lots of people, including myself, this will be the final judgment for Dyrdek. By saving the company, he'll really be saving himself. The way I see it, if the company goes to shit, the only valid point in any argument regarding Dyrdek will be "The dude ruined Alien". Conversely, if Alien stays true all you'll need to say "Well yeah, this shit sucks, but the dude bought Alien and didn't fuck with it."

So make us proud Rob. Please.

Perma-Tongue

2012-01-15T17:19:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to make sure that some of the biggest news in skateboard industry history isn't overshadowing some of the best news in skateboard industry history.

Seriously, look at these two pictures. Same photo shoot, different shot, same bullshit.

"Okay Braydon, great shot. Now put on the black and white shades, maybe take the jean jacket of for this one and..... oh... you're gonna stick your tongue out again? Well, okay."

You're not fucking David Lee Roth, fuck off.

FYI

2012-01-11T20:25:00.001-08:00

2011 Soonies

Coming soonie.

(Yes, I know it's a horrendous photoshop job, but is it any worse than the horrendous green screen job?)

Woah.

2012-01-10T21:01:00.000-08:00

(Link.)

(Link.)

Gimme some time to think about this one.

Emerica Just Got A Whole Lot Cooler.....

2012-01-10T19:08:00.000-08:00

That's right because they've decided not to renew the contract of everyone's least favourite bat-faced, blouse-wearing, tongue-wagging bad boy.

If you're too stupid to figure out who I'm talking about, let me help you out.

Yes, Braydon is no longer on the Emerica team. I've actually known this since early December, but was waiting for it to become official before spilling the beans. (I can totalee keep a secret!) No word so far as to why he was dropped from the team, but I can only assume it's because they asked him to take out the garbage or clean his room and he said "Nuh unh! No way! You're totally not the boss of me and you CAN'T tell me what to do!" and then stuck his tongue out and went "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

But Braydon doesn't have to worry too much. Even if he's off Emerica, the Fly Society's still got his back.

And if you thought that video was embarassing, well.......

Roger/Adidas Collabo

2012-01-09T18:51:00.001-08:00

Speaking of Adidas and good videos and people I like, my friend Michael over at Roger Skateboards just released a new video to promote the Adidas/Roger collaboration, and it's really awesome. This definitely got me super stoked out today when I was eating a chicken pot pie for lunch (which was already getting me super stoked out, so it was pretty awesome being double super stoked out).

Kevin/Adidas Collabo

2012-01-09T18:07:00.000-08:00

I'm assuming that by now all of you have seen the Adidas Montreal video clip, but if you haven't WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

Adidas is killing it with the web clips every single time. Easily one of the best teams in skateboarding (although I'm very sad to see Tim O'Connor go), which means the skating's always on point, but also every single clip they come out with is filmed and edited so good. For any of you out there yadda yaddaing and blah blah blahing sticking up for Ty Evans' bullshit by saying there needs to be progression in video making and all that garbage, take note. These Adidas clips show how you can be artsy through quality filming and editing rather than resorting to some trite exercise in editing-room masturbation. A pat on the back to you, Dan Wolfe.

If you've already watched the video then I'm sure you'll be able to guess another reason why I'm plugging the Montreal feature. None other than our good bro Kevin Lowry makes a guest appearance with the big boys at 2:09. Kevin killed it as usual in 2011. A full section in the Ninetimes video, a starring role in the best tour vid ever made, the Adidas appearance (all that stuff was actually filmed right before we met up in France), and also a full length article earlier in the year in SBC Magazine.

I was actually gonna talk about the article right after it came out, but I was going through one of my not-posting-much over-it phases. But it's a really good article written by sometime friend of the blog Rob Brink, with amazing photos by our main man Owen. The entire article can be read and viewed over at Brink's site.

In particular there were a few photos in the magazine that I was really stoked on. The backside 180 nosegrind in the overpass of course, because it's just a fucking amazing skate photo.

And then this photo of Kevin ollieing over the rail into a janky bank at the University Of Saskatchewan.

Kevin's been ollieng a lot of bars lately, but when I saw this photo it seriously blew my mind. There's a ledge just down the hill from this bank that I've been skating for at least 15 years, and every time I skate the ledge, I dork around on this very hard to skate bank, basically only doing some carves and shit. And even though I've been skating there for 15 years I can honestly say the thought of anyone ollieng the bar into the bank had never crossed my mind once. So when I saw the photo I distinctly remember going "WOAH!"

Sick shit Kevin. Great photos Owen.

BONUS SHIT! When I asked Owen to hook me up with these photos to write this post, he hooked me up with an alternate daytime shot of the ollie into the bank, which I actually like more than the one that ran.

Sherminator

2012-01-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

You know, I really try my best not to indulge Jereme Rogers in his grandiose delusions that any publicity is good publicity. That's why I'd never write a post concerning his painfully pathetic Slap Pals Questions videos where he trolls the trolls themselves with "cryptic" answers while flowing through a collection of poorly delivered accents. It's also why I don't even bother to watch or comment anymore when he comes out with a new rap video. It's also why I try not to acknowledge it when he releases one of his little "breakdown" videos.

But my refusal to talk about Jereme's little escapades are based on the assumption that he's actually a little more clever than most people think. I've compared him to Charlie Sheen before, and it's a very apt comparison. Sheen legitimately went a little crazy, and in doing so tons of people started paying attention to him. So he kept acting crazy, and wouldn't you know it, the more he acted crazy, the more attention it garnered him. Eventually Sheen figured out "Well if I'm already getting this much attention, maybe I can make money off of it.", so he embarked on a one man stage show tour which failed miserably. If you substitute Jereme's name in the place of Sheen's in any of those previous statements, you have the exact same story except Jereme started a board company rather than a stage show, and the board company has somehow not failed miserably yet.

But again like Sheen, every once in awhile J-Rog will do something to let me know that he actually is a complete retarded lunatic rather than the idea that he's a cunning marketing genius that my mind sometimes flirts with. In this instance, early yesterday morning, Jereme has once again decided to get fucked up on drugs, take his clothes off, and go crazy. Although instead of shrooms, this time it was good ol' angel dust.

NY Daily News: Pro Skater With A Love Of God And Psychedelic Drugs Goes On Rampage Inside Midtown Hotel.

Yes it looks like the boy once referred to as "The Sherminator", has traded in the mushrooms for sherm. Fuckin guy. What a way to start 2012.

Unfortunately, the news stories are abound with tails of Cassanova's latest escapade (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), so surely all of this mainstream news coverage will make Jereme feel like he's a fully fledged celebrity, and he'll be milking this until at least 2013, perhaps even releasing a Selfish board taking a jab at it. Perhaps this, but put a treble clef on the cheek of the skull?

I seriously never thought I'd see the day when a pro skateboarder getting high on PCP and tearing pictures off the walls in a hotel room equaled international mainstream news.

2012 is gonna be crazy. What's next? Andy Roy makes it on TMZ for jumping on stage and trying to choke DMX? Oh.... wait.....

video platform video management video solutions video player

Dang.

OMG DC!

2012-01-03T20:17:00.000-08:00

Oh hey, did you guys hear the big news?! Mike Mo is on DC now! Oh wait, I already knew that.

Well did you hear the other big news?! Nyjah is on DC now too! Oh wait, I could care who he rides for.

So I guess maybe the big news is that they re-did that classic team photo, but this time with a few of the original dudes, a bunch of dudes just in it for the money, and then some dingus on the left who doesn't even skate anymore.

Yeesh, how forced does that photo look? Not that I'm surprised. I mean, everything about this new DC super team seems forced. Something about seeing all these new guys rocking DC gear just seems so disingenuous. Like part of their multi-zero'd paycheque stipulated that they must be seen wearing DC logos X amount of times. Most of these young dudes on the team aren't known for wearing big flashy logos. Most of them wear plain white tees, so you're telling me they're actually stoked to pull this out of their closet and put it on?

Actually to be fair, it does seem like Nyjah is stoked. It's funny to hear him and Mike Mo talk about joining DC. Nyjah seems actually stoked while Mike Mo's justification is "Well I have lots of friends on the team."

Speaking of Nyjah, I can't figure out which is worse, this:

Or this:

Goddamnit kid, it's a fucking hat, not a yarmulke.

And while you're at it, get some better fitting pants. This baggy shirt/tight pants combo looks like shit.

Actually you know what? Don't take my advice. I'm old. I see 100 kids your age a week at the park or coming into the shop wearing outfits exactly like yours. It should be great for sales. What the hell, huh? Go get yourself some more diamonds bud.

Drink The Poison

2012-01-03T19:50:00.000-08:00

If you were ever given the task of putting to paper a list of qualifications that makes some skaters or skateboarding awesome and makes some lame as fuck, I'd say good luck to you sir. It's an impossible job. One of the great things about skateboarding is that there's always going to be this indefinable quality to what's great about it and what's not great about it. Even if you can instantly feel it, you could never describe why. Sometimes a skater or a skate video may meet all the qualifications of "awesome" if you were to make a pros and cons list to try and figure it out. However, once you actually watch the skater or the video, instantly you recognize that shit as wack. It takes a really refined love of skating to have the ability to inherently know the good from the bad, and to know it consistently.

One person I feel shares this discerning quality is independent video filmer/producer Jeremy Elkin. The dude is obviously an obsessed student of skateboarding and skateboard videos. That doesn't always automatically make for a good "filmmaker", but in the case of Jeremy, he's proven time and time again that if he's making a video, that shit is gonna be classic, and it's gonna be good.

So without a doubt if you feel you share the quality of being able to discern proper skating and skate videos from the bullshit, you should definitely pick up Jeremy's newest video Poisonous Products.

Jeremy's latest video features no full sections, and also no single tricks. 100% lines, 100% filmed in New York, 100% set to classic New York hip-hop. It's like EST 3.0. A very cool concept video.

The video will only cost you around $10.00 including shipping and can be ordered through Color Magazine in Canada or through Josh Stewart's Theories Of Atlantis in the US.

If you like supporting real skateboarding, you have no excuse to not buy this DVD.

Locked Down

2012-01-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

If there was any doubt in anyone's mind (I'm sure there wasn't), 2012 is going to provide us with just as much ridiculousness as 2011 did. (And I'm not talking about Dyrdek's show. I hope 2012 does not provide us with any of that.) Brian Wenning, one of 2011's brightest stars of "buffoonery", shortly before the new year dropped another painful web clip on us letting us know that he was off Selfish, but also reassuring us (again) that he's back on his board, and concentrating on skating (again). For the most part the video didn't seem to show any ill will towards Jereme or Selfish, but apparently there are indeed bitter feelings towards the two since yesterday a Jereme Rogers diss track featuring Wenning and a couple other fatties hit YouTube.

The diss track itself is too fucking horrible to even... well... diss, so I'm not going to bother. But one may wonder, why after sitting dormant for so long has the once great one Wenning risen from his slumber to make a fool of himself again? Well it looks as though Wenning may be taking a chapter from the promotional book of the very man he's participating in innanent gangsterism against, Mr. Selfish Rogers, as it seems that Brian Wenning is now starting his own board company.

To me, it seems that despite hating on Jereme, Wenning is following his business model to a tee. Wenning probably took note of Jereme's philosophy (however erroneous it is) that any publicity is good publicity, and since he already has the internet going nuts over everything he says or does, he can transfer that notoriety into board sales. I mean look at the parallels between the two, they're just way too similar. Both of them were pretty much thrust into instant stardom in the skate world at an early age. Both of them blew their careers on partying and lost all their sponsors. Both of them think far too highly of themselves in regards to their importance in skateboarding, and both of them make embarrassing YouTube videos talking about it. In return, both of them are prolifically shit talked on message boards. And now, both of them have started their own terrible board companies with shitty names. Not surprisingly the graphics look interchangeable.

Personally I don't think this company stands a chance in hell of succeeding, but then again when it started if someone had asked me if Selfish would still be in business at the beginning of 2012, I'd have guessed "FUCK NO!". But it certainly seems as though Wenning could use the money if the company succeeds, considering that he has no sponsors, and even when he does have sponsors he always claims they don't pay him. I wonder if this lack of a paycheque has anything to do with the fact that his original sponsor-me tape was recently up for grabs on Ebay.* The seller name for the tape is "scribblemagazine", so I really have no idea whether or not Brian Wenning has anything to do with the sale of his sponsor tape, but it certainly seems like he is involved as only Brian Wenning could possibly think his sponsor-me tape was worth the $500 Buy-It-Now price that the tape was listed at the first time it failed to sell.

Whatever the case, I really hope this Selfish/Lockdown beef keeps going, because watching these two idiots make fool of themselves is pretty damn entertaining. But I guess that makes me just as guilty as anyone of feeding the fire. I mean at this rate, can we expect to see a self-filmed, self declared "breakdown" from Wenning too? One can only hope!

*Thanks for the links Mark!

2011-12-25T22:26:00.001-08:00

Thanks for reading everyone.

Elephantitis

2011-12-22T19:20:00.000-08:00

You know, it's funny that I would already be talking this week about pro skaters who are constantly leaving or getting kicked off of their board sponsors despite the fact that they have gotten said sponsor's logos tattooed on themselves. Because right after the whole gonzo-styled video of Wenning announcing he was off Selfish, it was announced that another habitual sponsor hopper, Mike Vallely is now off of Powell.

I went to Mike V's website to see a long epic explanation of why he left the company, and what his next plans were, but all I found was this garbage. Holy site overhaul! What are Mike V's fans going to do without daily posts by Mike V or Mike V's personal assistant talking about how awesome Mike V is?!

Luckily on the Powell post, someone linked to a blog, which linked to a website for Mike V's new project, Elephant Brand Skateboards.

Take a minute and go to the website and read Mike V's blurb about his new company. Sound familiar? It should. Because it's basically the same thing he says every time he quits/joins/starts another company. It's either A) "The reason I've been changing sponsors so much is because I've been looking for the right fit, and with _______ Skateboards, I feel like I've finally found the company I always wanted to ride for." or B) "The reason I've been changing sponsors so much is because I've been looking for the right fit, and now that I'm starting _______ Skateboards, I feel like I've finally started the company I always wanted to."

I mean isn't this basically the EXACT same thing he said when he quit Element to start By The Sword Skateboards, which he shut down shortly after to finally find his proper home back at Powell, which he quit shortly after to do the whole thing again? If I had the time (or desire) I would try and find his press release from when he started By The Sword, and see if he just copy and pasted with some slight changes. Jesus, this guy does not know what he wants. But maybe he's actually found it this time now that he has his own company that sells longboards.

I guess we'll just have to wait approximately 6 months to find out for sure.

Along with the rudimentary website for the brand saying the same old things he's been saying forever, Vallely also released this video for the brand doing the same old tricks he's been doing forever. I'd embed the video for you, but to tell you the truth it's about a million times more boring than the re-edit of his shoulder rehabilitation video I did that had to be removed from Vimeo. So I went ahead and re-uploaded it to YouTube and I'll embed that instead.

Once again, merry christmas, and you're welcome.

Proccult Rituals

2011-12-22T18:09:00.000-08:00

Just in time for the false birthday of the false prophet, Pro Skates in Halifax is now stocked with each board from the 5th run of Witchcraft Hardware, as well as three different styles of t-shirts.

And for you Americans out there who aren't lucky enough to live near Seasons, they put up a couple Witchcraft boards in their online shop, and it looks like they still have the Serpent Of The Light board available. (It says 8.8 but measures more like a 8.75.) So if you like to ride large boards with amazingly illustrated blasphemic graphics made in the best woodshop possible (Generator), then you should probably buy yourself an XXXMas present.

Speaking of presents, I've been making these mix CDs to throw in with Witchcraft packages when I send them out to shops. The first mix I just threw in a CD that I drew a cassette tape on, but then I thought it would be cool to make an actual cover to print out and include with the CD. At first I was going to use some sort of cool downloaded image like this, but then I was thinking about how awesome it is when metal albums have shitty hand drawn album covers, when I realized "Hey! I can draw shitty!" So I decided to draw the cover myself.

So if you're interested in some really good black thrash and black metal that's been played lots lately at the Black Arts "offices", here is a download link for the Black Arts Mixtape 2 along with cover art to print and cut out if you decide to burn the CD.

Track listing:

1. Damnation/Onslaught (Power From Hell) - Onslaught
2. Wrong Side Of The Grave - The The Accüsed
3. Anthem - G.I.S.M.
4. Louder Than Hell - NME
5. Mayhemic Destruction - Mortal Sin
6. Walpurgisnight (Demo) - Holy Moses
7. Taste Of Blood - Slaughter Lord
8. Bestial Devastation - Sepultura
9. Holocaust - Vulcano
10. Tracy - Sarcofago
11. Extreme Noise Terror - Sextrash
12. Pure Hate - Merciless
13. Possessed Haemorrhage - Sadistik Exekution
14. Mutilated Death - Necrovore
15. Necrolust - Mayhem
16. Total Destruction - Bathory
17. Watain - Von
18. Beast Of Damnation - Beherit
19. Black Ride - Sixx

Merry Antichristmas!

Holy Fuck

2011-12-21T22:38:00.000-08:00

Forgot about this tattoo that Wenning got right after getting on Selfish:

Dude is reaaaaaaaaaally bad at making life decisions.

If The Truk Fits...

2011-12-21T16:58:00.000-08:00

Anyone paying attention to HellaClips lately has obviously noticed that Lil Wayne's newest life passion is skateboarding. It's pretty hard not to notice since dude is getting more coverage than 90% of professional skateboarders out there. (Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?) Weezy's having the time of his life out there with private sessions at skateparks all over the world as well as his very own mini ramp which somehow magically transmogrifies him into a weird little dwarf.

(I swear to god that's my favourite skate web clip of 2011. Cracks me up so fucking much.)

So if someone like Lil Wayne is having so much fun skating, and skating is giving him so much, it's only a matter of time before a millionaire such as himself decides it's time to give back to skateboarding, right? Or just try and make money from it. One of the two.

If you're too dumb to guess which one Weezy's going for, well then you're really dumb. Weezy's obviously going to try and makemoney off of his newfound passion, as he's recently announced that he will be starting a new skate clothing line with the absoloutely horrible fucking name of "Trukfit". (Thanks for the heads up Peter.)

If you're wondering whether the clothing line will be horrible or not (first of all you really are extra dumb, just take a look at the way the clown dresses), just refer to the released blurb about the upcoming brand:

“Trukfit, the new clothing brand from Grammy Award winning, platinum selling hip hop icon LIL WAYNE, will debut at Agenda in January 2012. The highly anticipated line of uniquely designed apparel was inspired by Lil Wayne’s passion for skateboarding and quality street wear. Pulling influence from Lil Wayne’s distinctive style and voice, Trukfit is made from quality fabrics and features bold graphics at a moderate price point.”

I'm not even going to ask how clothing can be influenced by someone's voice. But assuming that is somehow possible, there's your answer to how the clothing will look. His voice is annoying and sounds like shit. The funny thing is that many skateboarders (or more likely wannabe skaters) are so fucking stupid that they'll probably buy his shit. I mean, skaters are dumb enough to listen to his horrible shit, why not buy his horrible shit too?

But just as all the poseurs' attention will soon fade away from skateboarding, so will Wayne's attention fade away, and soon after that his ill-fated clothing company too. But in the meantime Weezy's looking to cash in on all that sick coverage he's getting and make a milli a milli a milli a milli a milli. (Is that even a Lil Wayne song? I seriously don't know.)

And you know what? If you don't like it, well fuck you, he's him.

Public Service Announcement

2011-12-21T16:48:00.000-08:00

If you live in Saskatoon and haven't already heard, Jason and myself along with a group of other volunteers including Brennan and Christian from Momentum Marketplace and Sheldon at Undergrind are working towards getting an indoor skate facility for the skaters of Saskatoon. The facility will be run by volunteers and completely free to skate. Our long term goal is to provide a permanent yearly indoor place to skate in the winters.

We have found a place where we will be able to skate, and now all we need to do is raise money for start up costs such as wood for building, supplies, and the biggest one of all: liability insurance.

So a bunch of our suppliers have hooked us up with prizes to raffle off to raise money. We will be selling tickets until Jan. 1st, and the draw will take place the first week of 2012. $5 will get you 1 ticket, and $10 will get you 3. The more tickets you buy, the more prizes you can win. That’s right you can win more than one prize if your name is drawn more than once. Most importantly 100% of the money from the tickets goes towards start up costs for the skate facility. So basically a donation to support Saskatoon skateboarding gets you an entry form into a contest for great prizes. Undergrind and Momentum Market each have their own set of separate prizes they're raffling for, so if you buy tickets from more than one shop you can get different brands. Here's a list of prizes we've been generously provided by our distributors:

- 1 Pair of Lakai shoes.
- 2 Fourstar shirts.
- 1 Fourstar beanie.
- 1 Fourstar hat.
- 1 Chocolate board.
- 1 pair of Spitfire wheels.
- 1 Spitfire wallet.
- 1 Spitfire belt.
- 1 pair of Independent Trucks.
- 1 Santa Cruz longboard.
- 1 Diamond Supply Co. snapback hat.
- 1 Diamond Supply Co. hoodie.
- 1 pair of Fallen shoes.
- 1 pair of KR3W pants.
- 2 KR3W shirts.
- 2 pairs of Supra shoes.

Big thanks to Nate and Kevin at Supra Distribution, Pryce at Centre Distribution, and Macky at One Distribution for the prizes!

IF YOU LIVE IN SASKATOON AND DON'T BUY A TICKET TO SUPPORT THE SASKATOON SKATEBOARD SCENE, YOU ARE A FUCKING BUSTER!

Attack Of The Killa Beez

2011-12-20T17:41:00.000-08:00

Let me put this plain and simple. If you don't own the Beez trilogy on DVD, then you're a fucking retard. And if you haven't even seen Beez, well then you hate skateboarding. Luckily if you're a fucking retard who hates skateboarding, there's still hope for you because the entire Beez 3 video is now posted on YouTube for all you fucking skateboard hating retards.

Beez 2, as well as an unreleased Beez 2 Extras montage are online now as well. Super fun videos which you should definitely watch because pretty much anything skateboarding related coming out of Wisconsin is awesome.

Well except maybe for this dickwad.

But speaking of Wisconsin skateboarding and dickwads, wait... I mean Wisconsin skateboarding and non-dickwads, Roger riders Tim and Eric are also now Alchemy riders, and released another awesome video to celebrate the fact, which I did not get around to posting earlier. (Do I still get some enchiladas Tim?)

And finally, speaking of non-Roger-riding non-awesome-dickwads, fuck Shaun White.

They're Back Baby!

2011-12-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

My good buddies Boosh, O'Dell, and "that asshole from the sponsor me reviews" are back where they belong, on UStream tonight with a DIY Skate Talk Christmas special featuring Jerry Hsu.

This is great news for any fans of Skate Talk because we all know that The Berrics sapped the fucking life out of Skate Talk, just as they so successfully sap the coolness out of everything they're involved with.

The Christmas Special airs at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/skatetalk at 8:00 PM pacific time, so tune in, enjoy, and maybe call Bob and ask him a question, but take a little too long than he thinks you should in asking said question so he gets pissed off and hangs up on you.

Where's Wenning? No One Cares.

2011-12-19T16:19:00.000-08:00

Well, skateboarding's own Kenny Powers is back at it again making videos about himself that no one gives a fuck about. For awhile there it seemed that Wenning may be poised for a comeback. A new brand behind him and a few sober(ish) video clips where he seemed to be actually on the board skating, followed by a noticeable break from making videos. I of course didn't think he was poised for a comeback, but I guess some people did? But then right on schedule when the guy could have just dropped a new skate section to prove what he's been claiming for years (not paying attention to the bullshit and just skating), he comes out with another video with the same old song and dance. But this one with a new twist. He's left another sponsor. Oh wait, not a new twist at all.

Why is it that every time Wenning leaves a company (or gets kicked off and says he leaves, I can never tell), he always claims the same old things? Wasn't getting paid, wasn't getting product, wasn't being supported, etc. News flash dude: Usually you have to work to keep a job. It would be like a guy who's constantly getting fired from jobs saying "Yeah, I left Smith Construction. I only showed up 10% of the time and when I was there I didn't really do any work, but they weren't paying me man. I had to split."

I don't even know why he makes videos like this. Does he actually think these make him look better? And if so, who is he trying to vindicate himself to? The innanet gangstas? I'm starting to feel that lots of skateboarders are like spoiled Hollywood actresses. Thinking they're owed too much based on too little. It's like Lindsey Lohan who just can't bear the thought of not being famous anymore, so she calls the paparazzi, tells them where she'll be, and then acts surprised when they show up. After awhile no one fucking cares.

Quit making videos talking about how you're back on track and back on the board. Just fucking do it, or shut the fuck up because these videos definitely aren't making you look any better. They make you look like a fool. Too long, pointless, and full of all the realism of "reality" porn. Have you guys ever seen a Seymore Butts movie? I swear to god the "scene" where the dude's looking for Wenning and finds him sitting there reading a Playboy, I thought there would be a chick under the table rimming him out. Would have made for a much more interesting video.

Seriously though. It's a 10 minute long video where you announce that you're leaving Selfish, but then refuse to say why. Why not just send out an e-mail that says "I'm leaving Selfish. I don't want to divulge why." Quit holding on to your former glory, Kenny. Yes, you came in quick and made a huge impact on skating. But then you fucking blew it just as quick. You've been obsolete just as long as you were relevant. You're not a legend. It's time to put up or shut up.

The Kickflip Inside

2011-12-13T17:10:00.000-08:00

Saw an amazing link on my friend Alan Glass' Tumblr page "Cocklick Airport" today. (Actually who am I kidding, I was googling how to get my cock licked at an airport and stumbled upon his Tumblr.) The link was for another Tumblr page entitled sKateBush which is comprised of pictures of Kate Bush photo shopped into skate photos such as the following:

I don't know who's responsible for this blog, but they're really fucking good at thinking. Shit is amazing.

I also 100% approve of Kate Bush because in an old interview with Almighty Quorthon he was quoted as saying "Wise up and broaden your horizons! I mean, who the hell do you think I am? Do you think I sit in my basement wanking off to Venom all day? Fuck off!" in response to his love for bands like The Beatles and Kate Bush.

So yeah. Skateboarding and Kate Bush are awesome. So thanks to the dude who combined them. Genius.

Phaggy Phorums

2011-12-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

I was trolling around on the Slap forum yesterday reading about how Alex Olson was dropped (along with a bunch of others) from Vans, when on some random thread I saw someone comment along the lines of "I wonder if Shane O'Neill's girlfriend has her own thread dedicated to her yet?". Now I don't go on the Slap Boards nearly as much as I used to (a few times a month as opposed to a few times a day), but even with my sporadic visits, I've definitely seen Shane O'Neill's girlfriend mentioned a few times. So out of pure curiosity I Google image searched "Shane O'Neill's girlfriend" to check her out. I only found three pictures. These were two of them, from Shane O'Neill's Instagram:

Of course after seeing these two pictures I could understand why she was talked about so much on the Slap boards. I mean personally I don't find her attractive, but whether I do or not, there's still quite a stark contrast between her looks and the looks of her hyphen-mouthed boyfriend. But that's not the point of this post. Good for Shane, I say. If it's his desire to date a stereotypical SoCal looking girl who's out of his league, and his skateboard stardom and Nike and Street League dollars allow him to do so, then good for him. The actual point of this revolves around the third picture that I found of Mr. O'Neill's girlfriend.

Actually the post is not about that photo at all, but rather the source of the photo. The photo comes from a thread on forum.bodybuilding.com entitled "The girl that use to sit next to me in math is Shane O'neil's girlfriend."

The thread was started by a young man named "Rabbadxs AKA The Vanilla Gorilla", whose overall goal is "To make the fellas jealous and the women ogle over my shredded body" (you have to check out the rest of his profile here). In his opening post, Rabbadxd states:

"She sat directly across from me in Pre-Calculus. Mind=Blown

For those unaware, Shane O'neil is a very talented pro skater.

He is in the street league finals this weekend and he has a good chance to do well."

And besides the third picture above, he also provides this picture, although I'm not too sure why:

The fact that this thread exists poses a lot of questions for someone like me.

1. Why would some random dude's "Mind=Blown" because some chick he went to high school with in California was dating a pro skater?

2. Why did he feel this was worth making a thread about? I mean Jerry Hsu's girlfriend grew up in Saskatoon, and I know her, but you don't see me bragging about it. (See what I did there?)

3. Why did he feel this was worth making a thread about on a fucking bodybuilding forum?!

Apparently lots of the other douchebags on the bodybuilding forum felt the same way as me, because responses to thread featured such gems as:

"textbook representation of what money and fame can compensate for"

"He's on of the ugliest people I've ever seen and Facebook proves he is pussywhipped. What a ***got."

"Thought by skater you meant "figure skater." Came in and saw phaggy skateboard kid." (Not sure why "swolebinger" would think skateboarding is more "phaggy" than figure skating.)

"lol skateboarding is so fuking gay
brb practicing 10 times to do a little trick
brb phaggot time"

And I guess the answer to my (and everyone else's) confusion is that The Vanilla Gorilla really really really really really really really likes Shane O'Neill, as he responds to the hay8terZ with:

"He's cool with Justin Bieber and Rob Dyrdek and his crew. I'm so jelly.

I think the picture is just a bad picture of him, he isn't ugly by any means."

And then of course the guy who favours figure skaters has to step in and be the voice of reason and post:

"Lettuce be reality, she isn't attractive in the least bit. She looks like a porcelain doll stuffed with silicone. She's got those massive "shooting comet" eyebrows that take up her entire forehead and already is covered in wrinkles. The worst part is her disgusting mouth, or rather those giant marshmallow filled pillows she calls "lips." I bet Shane can kick back and relax on her lower lip like it was a beanbag chair. ****ing gross and disproportionate as hell.

As if her face couldn't get any faker, she's got two big fake tits that do nothing but make her even uglier. She looks like the kind of girl who has a gnarly vagina. Her labia probably looks like tire tracks in the mud. Shane probably doesn't even use a condom because it'd just melt off upon insertion like a chemical reaction.

Sure this guy is ugly as ****, but so is his girlfriend. They make a very fitting couple. Sickening, but fitting."

But apparently not everyone except The Vanilla Gorilla on body building forums hates phaggy skateboarders because fellow forum member "imunninc" backs up Rabbadxs by saying:

"I still can not fathom half of the flip in flip out **** he does so consistently. Kickflip backtail 270 out. Or kickflip backtail kickflip 270 out.

Street League Finals This Weekend Will Be EPIC."

So I guess what I'm trying to say by all this is fuck all this bullshit mainstream arena sports network bullshit. I'm actually one of those guys who thinks that mainstream exposure of skateboarding usually trickles down and helps the little guys, and that no matter how wack something is, nothing will ever kill real skateboarding.

But, when we have dudes who look like this:

And this:

Arguing with other douchebags about how awesome Shane O'Neill is on body building forums, well then maybe it is possible for just a little bit of real skateboarding to die.

Spinal Slamingitis Got Me Down

2011-11-30T20:47:00.000-08:00

I've had this video sitting on my computer for months. Originally I tried to upload it to Vimeo right after I made it, but it kept getting errors every time I would upload it. Then it sort of just sat in my external hard drive for awhile until one day I tried to upload it again and it worked. But then it's just been sitting in my Vimeo account for awhile waiting for me to post it. Don't know why I haven't yet since it's a quick easy post and it seems like more often than not that's exactly what I need lately.

In any case, back in July our friend Joel was preparing to build a concrete DIY quarter pipe at his house, and decided to use the frame of his old spine ramp to frame the quarter. On the way to his house he stopped by Ninetimes, and I saw the shitty old spine ramp in the back of his truck and obviously wanted to session it before it got taken apart. Luckily for me and Jason, we both had our cruiser boards because the parking lot of Ninetimes is naaaaaasty. Unfortunately for Jason, even some big cruiser wheels couldn't make it over the pothole after the spine.

That was a really good day at work. A mid-day spine session just like people have probably been having at skate shops since the 80s. I'm pretty sure we also went and saw Slayer that night too, so all in all it was a pretty anachronistic day.

Man was that a good day.

Oh And One More Thing...

2011-11-29T20:13:00.001-08:00

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this pansy ass dramatic indie rock bullshit music.

Please, please, please use some classic shit.

Keep It Simple, Shithead

2011-11-29T17:42:00.000-08:00

I was chatting online with my friend Josh way back in the beginning of August, and the conversation began like this:

Fuck, that screen grab didn't work out at all. Well, here's what it says:

Josh: i pray to god
ty doesn't find out about this
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/08/new-phantom-high-speed-camera-shoots-one-million-frames-per-second/

me: Ahahah all Ty Evans productions will now be a lipslide to tailslide to switch crooks kickflip out that will take 20 minutes to watch.

Well if any of you have watched the trailer for the new Girl/Chocolate production, it's pretty obvious Josh's prayers went unanswered.

What in the fuck is this bullshit? I know I've criticized Ty's work an endless amount of times on the blog here, and at this point it's almost like making another post about how much Jereme Rogers sucks, but this is ridiculous. I keep on thinking that maybe he's gonna tame down the bullshit. I keep on hoping that someone over at the Crailtap camp will tell him "Look dude, you're a great filmer and you get shit done, but let's not get crazy here." But time and time again, he just keeps on churning out this over-produced crap.

It's like I've said before. Skateboarding is cool as fuck. You don't have to try and make it look cooler. And even if you did need to make it look cooler, this definitely does NOT do that. This looks like a fucking Mazda commercial or some bullshit with the ultra-super slow mo. This looks like some garbage that would make an old lady say "Oh my! Isn't this neat?!" I know this is just the teaser for the video (Or was this the trailer, and this was the teaser? The teaser for the trailer for the video?), but is there any doubt by the gross over use of editing in the trailer that the actual video is going to turn out an hour long and completely un-re-watchable like Fully Flared?

In the past I've likened Ty Evans to the Jerry Bruckheimer of skate videos, but Josh thought a more apt comparison would be George Lucas "because he's taken our beloved childhood heroes and made them look ridiculous." The guy has a really good point. I really find it hard to explain how bummed I am that so much good footage of so many good skaters is going to be ruined with this over dramatic bullshit. Of course the skating is going to be good, that doesn't even need to be mentioned. This video will probably have some of the best skating ever filmed. So why take away from it with this tripe editing? That's the difference between making a good video and making a bad video. In a good video the artsy shots and editing are subtle and enhance the skating, but the video is still about the skating. In a Ty Evans production the "artsy" shots and editing are blatant and overpower the skating. The video is about the video itself, the skating takes a backseat. Which is sad because with dudes this good, the skating shouldn't take a backseat.

I know this is the same old argument I've made a million times, but I swear I'm not just being some old bitter dinosaur. I'm even over the whole HD vs. VX debate. VX looks cool, but I don't even mind HD anymore. HD has it's place, but that place doesn't have to include dollies, triple angles of dudes riding up to and away from tricks, and Mythbusters style slow motion. Keep it simple. Keep it classic.

Please!

Total Contest Destruction

2011-11-28T18:56:00.000-08:00

Tiki Room in Regina is now stocked up with the Decrepid, Tree Orc, and Corpse Fiend decks from Witchcraft's 5th run.

Witchcraft rider Garrett McNevin and Ninetimes owner Jason Gordon along with Justin Schwan drove down to Regina this weekend to go to and enter the Regina indoor park's 15th annual Welcome To Winter Contest, and hand delivered their Witchcraft package, allowing me to make the box extra offensive.

But the drive down there definitely paid off for the guys as Justin got 2nd place in the best trick contest, and in the main contest, Jason got 3rd place, and Nasty McNevin took the whole thing and got motherfuckin first place!

We all know contest skaters suck, but it's pretty rad when legit skaterscan do well in contests too. Garrett's always killing it at the park, definitely gets raw in the streets, he got 2nd place in our Game Of SKATE we do every year, and now 1st place in this contest. Fuck yeah Garrett! I owe this man some beer.

Here's a couple photos of Garrett skating the contest taken the prairies' number one photographer, Mr. Owen Woytowich.

Gap over the pyramid to back lip the ramp.

Wallie front blunt on the bank to box.

The Good Ol' Days (Two Months Ago)

2011-11-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

Is it also too cold to skate wherever you guys are out in webville? Probably not. (Actually sadly enough it's been warm enough to skate here this week but we had so much snow earlier that the city is a fucking mess.) Whatever current weather situation you're in, whether you're stuck inside dreaming of outdoor fall sessions, or you're in a tropical paradise and not giving a fuck about skating, I have some nice Saturday viewing for you.

Our friend Jeff Thorburn recently put together a nice little video called August, that not surprisingly was all filmed in August of this year in Calgary. The video features a bunch of our friends like Kevin Lowry, Drew Merriman, Andy Lockhart, and others.

It's a nice mellow edit with lots of cruising, a welcome departure from some of this HD, Xtreme slo-mo, over edited fucking garbage that people are putting out nowadays. (More about that after the weekend.)

Enjoy!

It's It. (What Is It?)

2011-11-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

Last week Pulv posted about our friend Leo's interview and video up on the VHS mag, but I thought it got sort of swept under the rug by other posts that day, plus I wanted to talk about it, so go read the interview, watch the video and then proceed.

In the interview, Leo expresses a lot of really interesting opinions on skateboarding. Mainly what I took note of was the concept of boring generic American skateboarding ("I really started to get bored of generic American skateboarding."), and the idea of a minority group of skateboarders performing the type of skateboarding that differs from the mainstream ("We live in a society where mainstream is winning and reflection is being put down." "For my part, I feel like we represent a minority".)

Having hung out with Leo in San Francisco, and then in his hometown of Bordeaux, being the two skate rats that we are, we talked a lot about skating, different types of skating, and what skating meant to us. We didn't always agree (I sometimes enjoy a good ol' fashion huck-fest a la Reynolds or Aaron Homoki), but I did always respect his opinion on skateboarding. Showingly, Leo follow the Ricky Oyola train of thought that skateboarding is all about how you do it. It's not so much about the technicality of your tricks as it is the way you do them, and where you do them.

I found it especially funny that Leo's dissertation on generic American skateboarding and the virtues of style and spot selection over the almighty hammers and bangers hit the worldwide web only a few days after the much coveted 11.11.11 where every nobody and every somebody in the skate industry felt it necessary to drop an online part, including Nyjah's game-changing "Rise And Shine" section. Really unless you look to the far extremes of skateboarding, Leo's and Nyjah's online parts couldn't be more polar opposites.

Skateboarding means all different types of things to many different types of people. Skateboarding to Danny Way is this:

Skateboarding to Todd Falcon is this:

To this dude, skateboarding is this:

And to this dude, skateboarding is this:

Some people's idea of skateboarding is to hit the road, skate fast, skate everything, and never look back. Some people's idea of skateboarding is getting in a half hour session after work of frontside slashers on their two foot mini ramp before their wife yells at them to put the kids to bed. Some people's idea of skateboarding is to always push yourself to your utmost limit in the pursuit of progression. Some people's idea of skateboarding doesn't even involve ollies.

I'm not quite sure where I stand in these myriad of skateboarding viewa. I gave up on serious progression years ago. Sure I learn new tricks, but that just comes about by having fun, not because I feel if I don't progress I'm wasting my time. On the other hand, personally I don't see skateboarding as an art form. To me the streets are not a blank canvas that you paint with your urethane brush or some corny shit like that. But that may be due to the fact that I hate my style and I don't think my skill level leads to great creative breakthroughs. So where does that leave me? To me skateboarding is just skateboarding. It's the best thing in the world, but it's hard to define. You just know what's cool and what's lame when you see it.

But one thing I do know is that skateboarding to me is still about creativity and fun. And to me creativity and fun isn't about adding one more stair to the hardflip stair-count record, or adding a flip in to a rail that's had everything else done on it until you flipped into it. Sure all that stuff may be impressive, but when it comes down to it, it just feels like some jock shit. And that really shouldn't be too surprising since Nyjah was raised from adolescence to be a millionaire skateboarder by his overbearing father.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though I'll never go as far away from the mainstream ideal of what skateboarding is that I'll subscribe to some freestyling kook's YouTube page, I'll still always appreciate someone like Leo with a more creative view of skateboarding than the small percentage of skateboarders in the world who are able to huck down 12+ stairs. Although you may seem like a minority in the world of pro skateboarders Leo, if you look at it, you do represent the majority of skateboarders worldwide who do not identify or give a shit about turning skateboarding into some competition of superhuman proportions.

VHS: Virgin Hell Slaughter

2011-11-22T20:36:00.000-08:00

Posted up a couple of Witchcraft videos yesterday, but this morning French gave me a link to another video of Funeral Fog's trip to Hellfest, this one shot entirely on VHS by Alan Glass, and it's pretty fucking sick. Gotta get me one of them VHS cams for sure.

Season's In The Abyss

2011-11-21T17:18:00.000-08:00

The 5th run of Witchcraft boards have now reached the already grim and frostbitten plains of the home of Black Arts Distribution.

This run of boards marks the largest board Witchcraft has made, the Nun So Vile (which actually measures in at around 8 7/8"), and also the skinniest board Witchcraft has made, the 8' Decrepid board. Every Decrepid board comes with a free CD of Decrepid's Devoted To Death album.

Decrepid are old school death metal and the band was formed by Danny Price, a friend of Witchcraft's who also skates.

There's also good news for those of you who live near Albany, NY. Seasons Skate Shop has just become the very first shop in the US to carry Witchcraft Hardware.

Season is now stocked with the 8.5" Corpse Fiend, 8.8" Serpents Of The Light, and 9" Nun So Vile boards. They also just opened an online store where I don't think you can get Witchcraft boards from, but you can get a really sick Eazy-E shirt.

In other Witchcraft news, the Witchcraft guys have recently released two videos, the first is a lo-fi collection of footage from Funeral Fog's trip to Hellfest.

And the second, released today is a full on production of Witchcraft's 2011 skatepark tour that they went on this summer. Sam Bailey put this one together and did a super fucking good job, so you should definitely check it out.

I was pretty stoked to see one of our 999 Times hoodies show up in the video. Stoked the guys like the hoods Jason brought with him when he was in England.

Shit is worldwide!

We Like Mike!

2011-11-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

Now far be it for me to ever contradict myself on the site here.... ah who am I kidding, I'm always contradicting myself, so why stop now? In the post I made earlier I ended it with "if you're some kid from buttfuck nowhere looking to get sponsored, give it up. Dudes are way too good now". Well I actually wrote that post last night, but didn't post it until today, which is funny because this morning I woke up to the news that Saskatoon-raised Mike Campbell has been added to the Canadian Expedition and Gold Wheels teams.

Saskatoon is definitely considered by many to be "buttfuck nowhere", so it's good to see people from here like Lowry and now Mike making it somewhere with their skating. But really it shouldn't be too surprising when you're skating this good:

Even though Mike lives in Vancouver now, he's still a part of the Ninetimes shop team, and has the last section in our video that I posted up last week. Everyone in Saskatoon is super stoked to see Mike killing it out west since a ton of us have been skating with him since he was this big:

Back then and still to this day, Mike's been a great skater, a really mellow nice guy, and most of all he's very appreciative of everything he's given, so I can't think of many people who deserve it more.

Fuck yeah Mikey!

For Me, Skateboarding Is Crazy Like

2011-11-15T18:10:00.000-08:00

If you're a savvy follower of skateboard-opinion, there's a lot of talk about how the current over-saturation of web clips lessens the holy sanctity of viewing video-captured maneuvers. There's no shortage of 90s nostalgics (Can someone coin a term for these people? Ninedstalgics?) who wish for the "good 'ol days" when besides the 6 issues of 411 that came out, we only had another 5 or 6 videos to look forward to per year. I guess it's the whole "pizza everyday" argument. Like, everyone loves pizza, but would you still love it if you had it every single night for supper? Personally, I fucking love pizza, and there's no way I could get sick of it whether I had it once a month, or every fucking day. And yes, I'm speaking about both actual and symbolic pizza here.

So in general I don't subscribe to this idea that there's just too much skateboarding out there on the internet. But lately I gotta admit that it's getting a little carried away. When Hella Clips first started, I was checking almost every video that was on there every day. Now... not so much. Seems like you really gotta skim through the chaff of Illusion Hamishes, chicks in bikinis modeling hats in pools, and endless Stoner Plaza montages to get to the good stuff. But one thing the abundance of skate clips constantly hitting the web are good for is to bring your attention to some really good dudes that you may never have heard of.

It's always been the case in skateboarding that there's hundreds of rippers in various cities who are probably better than most known ams and pros, that for whatever reason you'll never see in a magazine, or with a solid sponsor. But never has this been more apparent than in this new internet age.

I remember years ago showing some friends old clips of Mark Suciu and wondering how it's possible for someone so young and so good to be virtually unknown and not have a company hyping him up as their second coming like so many Mike Mos and Torey Pudwills before him. Awhile later, lo and behold, young Suciu traded in his red beanie for a 5-panel hat, tucked in his bangs (thank god), and is another full blown Habitat prodigy.

And although these clips may be considered old in internet time (2 weeks old!), there's been a few clips lately that made me think "Who the hell is this guy and why isn't he well known?!"

The first one that really got me thinking was this clip of Quel Haddox from Nashville:

Like really, how is it that someone who rips that hard with style that good is still coming out of nowhere?

But the clip that really blew me the fuck away is this clip of Michael Patterson:

What the fuck dude? That section was some heavy shit. How is this guy not pro? Have you seen some of the shitty fucking skaters out there? Have you seen the garbage some people put out? We have PROFESSIONAL skateboarders, dudes getting paid, with their names on boards, even with pro shoes, who can hardly even get a photo or a clip a year, and when they do it's some mediocre bullshit. How is it that a dude like this, with unique style and such a variety of tricks isn't more well known? How is he not even an official am for any companies? (As far as I know.)

Shit is crazy. I guess the bottom line, and what I take away from this is 1: If you are the team manager of a skate company, get your head out of your ass and look around a little. There's so many good dudes out there that there's no excuse to sponsor some boring, generic dickwad just because he lives down the street from you in California, and 2: If you're some kid from buttfuck nowhere looking to get sponsored, give it up. Dudes are way too good now.

Le Valls à mille temps

2011-11-15T06:05:00.000-08:00

Homeboy Leo Valls' VHS mag interview is up.
VHS mag is pretty much the only solid site for news on the Japanese skate scene.

Also, when Jason and I went to Berlin, we got this fun photo:

Catch y'all in another 6 months or so!

Ninetimes United Nations

2011-11-14T17:34:00.000-08:00

Last week we had our very first snowfall here in Saskatoon, and it was basically instant winter. After our second snowfall a few days later it already looked like this:

(Thanks for the photo Ian.)

So now that street skating is obviously done for the year, when me and Jason and Garrett had the urge to skate, our only option was to head back out of town to the Quonset that our friend Todd lets us skate in. When we called him up to make sure it was okay, he told Jason "Sure. Maybe take a camera and get some footage." So that's exactly what we did. Ninetimes United Nations at The Quonsics.

Shitty Shop Review

2011-11-07T19:58:00.000-08:00

If you're lucky enough to live in Canada, and lucky enough to have a good skateshop in your area, then you've probably already headed down there, bought some stuff, and picked up a free copy of the newest issue of King Shit.

If you're not that lucky, well then too fucking bad. But speaking of good skateshops, the Shopkeeper article in the newest issue of King Shit features none other than Saskatoon's very own, and YouWillSoon's shop of choice, Ninetimes. (And yes I do manage Ninetimes, but that came far after being stoked on the shop.)

I took the liberty of scanning up the Ninetimes article for you guys out there in internetville to take a look at. Jason's got a pretty sick sequence of a wallie boardslide feeble in it.

(I guess Blogger has that new pop up feature for photos, so if that comes up, and you need to see the scan bigger, click on it, and then to the left there is an option for "Show Original".)

Big thanks to Stutt at King Shit for picking us as the featured shop, and for our buddy Orlando for taking the photos and all he does for Saskatoon skateboarding.

To go along with the release of the Shopkeeper article, we've also decided to release the full length video that came out in March of this year. The video features full sections from Cam Buchan, Kevin Lowry, Matt McMillan, Duey Foley, Luke Buchan, Justin Schwan, Jason Gordon (who owns the shop, duh), Witchcraft Canada rider Garrett McNevin, and Mike Campbell (the first guy in this clip who's fucking destroying it.)

The video was primarily filmed by Duey Foley and edited by our creative friend Mr. Sean Sader.

The entire video is posted up on the King Shit site, but the video takes pretty long to load, so here is a Vimeo version which has a little lower quality than the King Shit version, but loads a lot faster:

We're really proud of the video, and we hope you guys like it.

Also, I'm not sure why I never mentioned this before, but in the King Shit issue with that little dingleberry Brandon Del Bianco on the cover, there was also a Shopkeeper article that I wrote featuring the only acceptable skateshop to spend your money at in Regina, The Tiki Room. Check out the article here, and if you're in Regina, go check out Tiki Room. Noel's the man.

SUPPORT LOCALLY OWNED SKATER-RUN SKATESHOPS! (Unless they suck.)

Street? Where?

2011-11-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

"Streetwear" is really funny. (I had to put it in quotations because I still feel corny every time I use that word.) It's always been funny, but it just keeps getting funnier. It seems like with the increasing popularity of skate brands crossing over into the streetwear market such as Diamond, DGK, and Huf there's an increasing wave of brands trying to make money off the skate/streetwear culture and be the next brand like Rogue Status, Crooks And Castles, or The Young And The Reckless, started by Christopher "Drama" Pfaff, who through the power of Dyrdek, MTV, and Streetwear was transformed from a normal looking dude in an Alien shirt to this ultimate fucking dingleberry:

Well the other day at the shop I got a call from one of these wanna be skate/streetwear turd companies. I answered the call and the dude on the other end asked for "the t-shirt buyer", so I said "I guess that's me", and he proceeded to tell me about his brand No Anxiety clothing and definitely dropped the words "skate" and "streetwear" in his spiel. The name "No Anxiety" was such a terrible name for a company that I gladly agreed to him e-mailing me a catalog in the hopes that the clothing was as hilariously bad as the name. Well guess what?

This has got to be one of the worst product catalogs I've ever seen. I mean of course the clothing is terrible. That goes without saying. But it's the poor photoshopping of the graphics on the t-shirts that cracks me up. And the fact that they only got the dude to pose for a handful of shots.

Seriously, you're telling me you thought it was a good idea to use the exact same photo this many times in your catalog but just change the graphic?

Unreal. The best part of the catalog though is the photo for the tank tops, where I'm pretty sure they just used the stock photo from whatever wholesale dealer's website they get their shirts from. Used the stock photo 3 times beside eachother, that is.

But I can't hate on them too bad because at the end of the catalog they have some pretty sick action shots to prove they're down with skate.

Phat pop shove bro!

Fucking classically terrible.

I can't even really say I blame most of these dudes for trying to be the next big brand. Everyone's out there trying to hustle, and t-shirts have like at least a 500% mark up, so if you can get famous for selling $40 t-shirts, you got it made. Plus it's just so fucking easy. All this streetwear shit looks the same. All you need is big font and a picture of a slut in black and white. Maybe throw some bling in there like a roll of money, or a diamond in between her tits. Or wait... how about a chunk of platinum ore? Okay, here we go.

God, that was too fucking easy. All I did was google image search "naked slut" and "platinum" and then spend like two minutes copy and pasting. Seriously, all streetwear is just sluts or cartoons with some big font. All you have to do is take some old saying, blow the font up, and get a picture of a slut or a cartoon to go with it. And maybe throw a gun in there.

Here, let me google image search "cartoon chicken hatch" and "cartoon gun"... Motherfuckin VOILA!

Looks exactly like a DGK shirt.

Both shirts available soon. $65.00 a pop.

YWS Euro Tour Video

2011-11-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

Here it is, the digi-cam footage that I gathered during my trip to Europe.

Featuring in order of appearance:
Leo Valls
Ui Masaki
Leo Valls
Dan Watson
Stinky Dog Balls
Yoan Taillandier

Yes my camera is a piece of shit with shit all over the inside of the lens. I kind of like it like that. But don't worry though, I found a new better camera laying on the street awhile ago. I just need to buy a battery charger for it.

YWS Euro Tour Photos Part 2

2011-10-31T19:47:00.000-07:00

The last few days of my Euro trip, we did a little road trip to Spain. Leo's friend and really great photographer Guillaume Anselin came and picked us up from Bordeaux in his van and then we headed to his home in Bayonne close to the Spanish border.

Euro tour life!

The view from Guillaume's apartment in Bayonne.

And leaning out.

I actually think it may be impossible to have a bad view in France.

The boys checking Guillaume's photos for spot ideas.

Leo modeling the newest in French fashion: Your buddy's girlfriend's leather jacket.

La Cagnotte De Aventure!

After checking out spots and having some coffee, we jumped back in the van, and to a beautiful coastal city called San Sebastian. Our first stop was this crazy plaza with slanted manny benches that actually slid and grinded.

I promptly whipped out the digi-cam to film and Yoan whipped out the VX.

Dude is for real one of the best filmers ever. Have you seen the Magenta San Fran Capsule? Here, give it a watch and pay attention to the filming. Yoan is the man.

Spain was as crazy as everyone makes it seem. Interesting architecture everywhere, both skateable and not. This giant tower was overlooking the plaza we were skating for no other apparent reason than it was cool to have a giant tower to look down from.

I took a walk up a bunch of stairs to get some photos.

Looks like the Van Beuren Boys were here. Good thing I didn't run into them. I haven't seen that episode of Seinfeld in forever, and totally would have failed the secret hand sign like George did.

Kevin and Yoan in the middle of filming some obviously groundbreaking shit.

Besides being crazy for architecture, Spain seemed pretty fucking crazy in general. I mean I only went to a few places in each country, but France seemed really mellow and all the people were chill. Spain was super fucking hectic and noisy and the people seemed crazy. There were people everywhere! Little old ladies who looked like they were 170 years old being walked around, screaming kids everywhere (we saw some little kid soccer kick the shit out of his little sister's abdomen for stealing his scooter), people yelling at the kids, barking dogs running around, and everywhere dog shit. Everywhere! You seriously had to dodge kids to skate, and pay close attention to the ground so you wouldn't run over shit while dodging kids.

Believe when I mean no insult to any Spaniards or your beautiful country which I actually really enjoyed, but this photo of a cigarette butt in a pile of stepped in dogshit pretty much sums up my first impression of Spain.

Like I said there were kids everywhere. And they all wanted a piece of the superstar pro skateboarder Leo Valls. "Leo! Leo! Where can we get Magenta?" "Leo! Leo! Teach me how to powerslide!" "Leo! Leo! Can you sign my scooter?!"

At first glance did you think this was a titty? That's what we were going for.

After we got kicked out of that plaza, we headed to a new spot, but it started pouring rain on us so we hid under an awning until some hot babes walked by, and then we followed them to the bar district.

There's blocks of really small pubs with tapas laid out on the counter that you just grab a plate and help yourself to and then they add it all up and pay for it. The food is fucking amazing.

Just a couple of dudes, sharing some tapas!

Boys club!

Masaki and Guillaume.

Cheer up Leo you superstar!

At the end of the night we headed back to Bayonne buy stopped at the gas station to grab beers and ham flavoured chips. They were delicious. Spain has their snack game down! France: not so much.

The next day we woke up in Bayonne again and as I did everyday for the last 9 days I hit up the closest patisserie. Nothing like some nice pastries in the morning. This thing was called the "caramel nun" or something like that. I have no idea how France isn't full of fatties, but it's not.

"This guy is a beast!"

Cuuuuuuuuute!

After some coffee and pastries we headed to a small town in Spain named Irun that despite it's size (only just over 60,000 people) has tons of good spots. (The crazy spot that Steve Forstner skates in his first line in his new part is in Irun.) So many good spots. We saw this as soon as we got into town. No way this should be in the middle of a street.

The boys got straight to bombing a fun little hill and this old lady got straight to dissaproving.

Guillaume took us to this spot next, a super long, super high tile bank in the courtyard of some random apartment buildings.

Spots like this are why people say Spain is so crazy to skate. This apartment complex wasn't even nice or rich, and they had this crazy spot behind it that if it weren't falling apart would look so nice. In most places in the world the courtyard behind an apartment building like this would feature super rough asphalt, a rusty jungle gym, and perhaps a pissy dirt berm.

Guillaume got a really good photo of Kevin doing a backside flip on the bank. Digi-cam footy to follow in the next couple days.

Spaniards love their candy.

After Irun, we got in the van and headed back to San Sebastien. We spent so much time in the Van on this trip that they even converted Kevin to the religion of Pazelt.

Stopped by a pub near a plaza for some bocadillos. Masaki put it all on the line to show the Spanish ladies what he was workin with.

This sandwich was the most delicious thing I ate the entire time I was in Europe. Eating that sandwich, hanging out with new and old friends, having a nice cold pint, and looking around at the beautiful architecture was a total life affirming moment. CUUUUUUUTE!

Om nom nom nom.

Coming soon: Minuit Clothing featuring team rider Kevin Pazelt.

And the Pazelty Brothers.

After the food we headed back to the waterfront area in San Sebastien we were at the day before when we got rained out. Hit up this amazing spot of banked manny pads/up ledges/flat gaps that went on for the length of a block. All different heights and widths. Pretty unreal spot.

The waterfront area of San Sebastien is unbelievably beautiful and totally changed my mind from the cigarette butt and dog shit first impression I got the day before.

Hey, what are those phat Spanish bootys doing in this photo? Get those things out of here! You're ruining my sunset photo!

Much better.

Went back to the spot we got rained out of the day before to skate this brand new spot that didn't have a single skate mark on it. High perfect granite ledges and a super long composite plastic stage/ledge surrounding this statue.

Skated that thing for quite awhile until cops showed up and were SUPER pissed off about us skating. French cops: Not giving a fuck. Spanish cops: Definitely giving so much fucks. After a long drawn out process of the cops checking our footy and us arguing with them extensively, they took away Kevin's board because he was the only one they saw skating the spot.

They gave him this ticket, which is super funny. They recorded everything on the bottom of the board. "A skateboard brand "Shier" with several stickers. One of "west" and the other with blue and white bands."

If only you get promotion from skateboard confiscation forms, Blueprint, WeSC, and Adidas would be very happy. Luckily we got to keep the footy. Yoan captured a sick line on VX, and I have digi-clips for the mini-video.

After Kevin's board got taken away we hit up some more tapas then headed back to Bayonne. The next morning was my second last day in Europe and the guys were traveling a little further into Spain on their road trip, so it was my time to say adieu and take a train back to Bordeaux to fly home the next day.

Last I saw of these guys. Miss you dudes! Wish I could have gone on the whole road trip.

Had some time to kill in Bayonne before my train so walked around and did some sightseeing, including this truck with a picture of someone with testicles hanging out of their mouth?

Then I headed over the bridge downtown.

Another super old cathedral? Enough already! BORRRRRRING!

Got back to Bordeaux and decided to do the same thing and walk around and take some photos since it was my last day in that beautiful city.

Apparently this is graffiti in France? Goddamn Europeans gotta make everything nice. (Well except for drawing horses. Fuck those things.)

A men's beauty salon called "C-Men"? The joke must have been lost in translation.

This one too.

Found the Bordeaux version of Centennial Auditorium. So bummed I didn't get to skate it!

The mix of old and new (or possibly new meant to look old and new) in Bordeaux is interesting. Behind these amazing archways, there was some sort of really modern sports centre that looked really out of place (but had some juicy looking banks to glass wallrides).

Also found a super old and amazing looking cemetery that was closed by the time I stumbled upon it. Dang, I'm definitely gonna have to go back sometime.

Skate stopping in Bordeaux was pretty rare, but this one was very harsh.

After a nice long walk around the city, I bought some wine, headed back to Leo's place, packed and went to bed to catch my flight early the next morning, eager for the comforts of home but definitely sad to be leaving what I'm pretty sure is my favourite place on earth I've ever been besides home.

Before making it home though, there was one more spot I found in the Amsterdam airport that I obviously couldn't skate, but will be thinking about for a long time. Goddamn Europeans.

I'd really like to thank Leo and his beautiful wife Lauren for allowing me to stay at their place and being amazing hosts, and give a shout out to all the people I got to hang out with and meet in Bordeaux such as Yoan, Masaki, Guillaume, Antoine, Maxime, and the rest of you Frenchies! J'espere vous revoir!

YWS Euro Tour Photos Part 1

2011-10-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to uploading a bunch of my photos from my trip to France. There's not a lot of skate related photos, and I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make some sort of coherent story out of them, so if you don't like looking at photos of really nice buildings, I don't know... you may want to fuck off.

Bordeaux is such a beautiful place. Every where you look the architecture is amazing. I've been to all kinds of places all over the world, but I was honestly blown away the very first day I walked down the street in Bordeaux.

This is the street Leo lives on. If you walk out his door and look right, you see this.

And if you look left you see this.

And if you look down the side streets you see this.

Not a bad way to live.

Even the view outside of McDonalds is beautiful. And you can get beer with your meal. MCDONALDS AND BEER! IT'S PERFECT!

Went for a walk to check out the city.

Oooooooh artsy!

Bitch up top got some phat ass titties.

Horses can fuck off in any country. Doesn't matter where.

Ooooooh artsy!

This guy was just chilling at the fair.

Artsy!

Even the parking lots in Bordeaux look nice.

The view from the river.

This is the beginning of Rue St. Catherine, a really long pedestrian street which is probably about 15 blocks of super smooth marble, a good portion of it downhill. The sides of the street were slightly lower than the middle, so you could ride down the whole street riding off the side, chinese ollieing back up, riding off again, and then doing marble slappies for like half a block. I could never get sick of cruising down this street if I did it every day for the rest of my life.

Super nice buildings everywhere you look.

Really close to Leo's place was St. Andre's Cathedral, which has been there since the 13th century, apparently with some parts of it dating back to 1096. I've seen lots of places like this in pictures but it's pretty awe-inspiring when you see them in person. Church is super gay, but churches can be pretty fucking cool.

The entire cathedral was surrounded by perfect, long granite benches and ledges, that you could actually skate without getting kicked out. Bordeaux was the craziest place I've ever been for skating. Spots like crazy and no one gave a fuck if you were skating unless it was late at night and the noise was disturbing them. You can honestly skate a marble ledge in the middle of a busy plaza and if cops roll by they just don't give a shit. It was crazy.

Beautiful architecture makes for beautiful sunsets.

The next day Kevin showed up.

The view from Leo's apartment. Pretty cool.

This is Leo's roommate Nico. He has a real human skull. On my last day when I was leaving he told me with a very thick French accent "Nice to meet you, have a safe trip, and ummmmmm SEE YOU IN HELL!" Dude rules.

Went out and got some pizza.

Oh a perfect marble plaza with crazy nice architecture that you can skate flatground at and not get kicked out? Yeah, okay.

The next morning before skating we stopped by Riot skateshop. Such a sick shop. It's in an old "wine cave" and the amount of boards they keep on the wall is crazy.

The owner Seb is such a rad dude and always down to hook up kids, and help out skaters. Real good skate shop, really good skate shop owner.

Went and checked out the skatepark. This "bowl" was hilarious. Super low, super mellow transitions, and made out of the roughest cement ever on purpose. Shit was actually pretty fun.

Had a croque madame. Such a good sandwich. Any country that puts a fried egg on top of anything, I'm down.

Leo shows how to eat the croque madame like a real Frenchman. Save the best for last.

Kevin enjoying the evening.

Then off to bed. All Day I Dream About Skating.

Went and did some sightseeing the next day. Just having coffee in the shadow of a 700+ year old cathedral. No biggie.

Must have been a duel in the streets between two fancy lads over the honour of a damsel.

Sick of seeing amazing architecture yet? I wasn't.

This is a courthouse or something like that. All I know is it looked cool and the big open plaza was the local flatground warm up spot.

Some ground breaking skate photography.

Leo was tired, but Kevin wanted to skate, so he gave him a rude awakening.

So Leo got up and showed him how a sensitive Frenchman treats his board.

Spot searching.

Checking some secret back alleys.

Found this ledge and skated it for a really long time even though directly above us was apartments. Blows my mind the stuff you can get away skating. Must have been so loud.

I love countries where you're allowed to drink in public. Makes filming more fun.

Magenta and Minuit's filmer Yoan Taillandier. He's the fuckin man.

Dark strip painted on the wall to prevent wheel grime. Smart move for a skate apartment.

Not sure if you're aware of this, but all French skaters are huge fans of Scott Pazelt. They even all wear their hats like him.

Went out for a real nice dinner while we were there.

Waiting for a table at the restaurant.

Like I was saying, skating in Bordeaux is so crazy. This plaza right beside the restaurant had a shitload of marble ledges. This would be the best spot that exists in all of Canada, but to them it's just like "Oh yeah, that."

New friends Kevin and Leo.

Leo's beautiful wife Lauren, and Leo's beautiful friend Dan.

Om nom nom nom nom.

Another French Pazelt fan. It's like a religion there!

And I was converted!

Miss these dudes. Real good guys.

The next day we headed over to Masaki's place to hammer out details for our trip to Spain.

Out the window of a staircase going up to his apartment.

Awesome combo.

Kevin chillin.

Maxime is down for Pazelt!

These Frenchies have a very intimate way of watching videos together.

The only "touristy" photo I took of myself the entire trip.

Oh yeah, the food in France was fucking awesome too. Great bread and cheese everywhere. And pastries! Soooooooo much pastries. All day every day.

More pictures from the Spain portion of the trip coming soon....

Witchhunt

2011-10-19T18:10:00.001-07:00

Very stoked to announce that Pro Skates in Halifax is now the newest shop in Canada carrying Witchcraft.

Pro has been around for 25 years and is easily one of the most legit shops in Canada, so we're very proud to have them representing Witchcraft on their board wall. They also have been representing the darker side of skating for 25 years, so Witchcraft is a perfect fit.

Oh yeah, they also made this, so they obviously know their shit.

In other Witchcraft/Black Arts news, the fifth run of Witchcraft boards for Fall 2011 will be available for distribution soon. Here's a sneak peek at the graphics:

Also while we're on the subject, Canadian team rider Garrett McNevin recently finished editing all of his digi-cam clips that he got during his several month stay in London with the Witchcraft dudes into a web clip. The video features Garrett, the London Witchcraft cunts, and Ninetimes owner Jason Gordon.

Garrett's also been filming little videos with his new camera at the park, so here's a couple more for you.

Told You Mo

2011-10-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of talk around here at YWS lately about how the internet and it's various social networks can provide just way too much information about our one-time favourite pros and really ruin the mystique of the skateboard world. For the most part this is very true, but sometimes this new world of information can really provide some satisfaction.

If you'll recall, awhile ago I talked about how with Berra as the new team manager for DC, there was going to be a big push to throw money at and acquire as many members of the Berrics Street League Monster Squad as possible. Davis Torgerson, Mikey Taylor, and Chris Cole have all left their solid sponsors for a spot on the new DC team, with rumours of many more following. (Sean Malto is next, write that one down if you want.) One rumour which I already told you guys about (because it's not a rumour) was Mike Mo leaving Lakai and Matix for a head to toe DC makeover. Well like I said it's not a rumour. The first part has obviously come true with the announcement that Mike Mo is now done on Lakai.

It's funny how everything that St. Berra, the martyr of skateboarding does, which he claims is solely to benefit all the little groms, skateshops, and fellow professional skaters out there coincidentally and conveniently benefits himself as well.

- Start a website for your personal park to give professionals a platform to stay relevant to kids raised with an internet-era attention span./Stay in the spotlight and extend professional skateboard career which obviously cannot be based on actual skateboarding anymore.

- Start a program on said website to let all the kids out there know who the real and important skateshops are to keep them in business./Create a network of shops that you can sell your own Berrics merchandise to, as well as make a little advertising scratch (but you know, just to cover costs of course).

- Negotiate really good shoe deals for super talented and popular fellow pro skaters even possibly at the cost of harming the companies they're leaving./Get all the most popular skaters connected to projects that benefit you so you can have First Try Street League Text Yo Self Fridays with the DC team whenever you want on your website.

I've told you guys before that Berra is sheisty. I don't claim to be some big time industry insider, but in the time that's passed since the Unified fiasco, I've definitely had enough industry people e-mail me and tell me about things Berra's done that it's easy to come to that conclusion. And these are people that most definitely used to be friends with Berra. The general consensus that I get is that not many people in the industry are stoked on Berra or how he operates, but since he is now the driving force behind this monstrosity that is The Berrics, they sort of have to just deal with it. But it's good to know that there are still some people out there (like Alex Olson and Leo Romero) who not only are not down with it, but are also willing to put him on blast, much as Lakai Brand Manager Kelly Bird did on his Facebook page on Friday by posting an e-mail that he sent to Berra back in the end of March. The post on his Facebook page reads:

"My email to the man who worked tirelessly to facilitate Mo's exit from Lakai, dated 3/28/2011. Still waiting for the response:

Steve-Doesn’t seem like the phone panned out too well, so I’ll give it a shot here. To preface, I’m not really looking to get into a bunch of heated rhetoric about this, but I do feel like we should have some dialogue about this Mike Mo thing that’s going on right now.

I’m not so naïve as to think that he won’t have his suitors over the course of time, nor am I going to try and deprive the guy of any opportunities he deems suitable for himself if he feels like the ones we provide aren’t enough. However, I am a little taken aback about how aggressive and somewhat negative I understand the approach to have been.

On the one hand, I feel like the basic guideline for what we both do is ‘for the skaters, by the skaters’. On the other, from what I’ve heard, some of what’s being conveyed to Mike Mo is that Lakai will never be a company that can give him what’s on offer outside of here. In essence, a sort of penalization for being run in a manner we both champion. A bit ironic.

I’m not saying Lakai is ever going to be a 500 million dollar company, but we’ve spent the better part of the last year fighting to get it somewhere it can be better than the third option, and we’re finally in the closing stage of making that happen. Whereas in the past there may have been some non-skate element to help justify walking away from Lakai, that won’t be the case going forward.

Even as a third option under pre-existing circumstance, Lakai has finally taken hold in the market and is showing great promise. Going forward, we’re gong to bring in as many skateboarders as possible (employees and riders) to finally help us fulfill the potential we know is there. In doing so, I actually am confident we’ll finally be able to grow to a level where we can give back to skateboarders and skateboarding comparably.

In closing, as I said before, I won’t stand in the way of any decision Mike Mo decides to make when his contract expires at the end of the year. But I am asking that as someone who owns and runs a company under the same premise as us, that you reconsider before offering the idea that a skateboarder can’t get the most out of skateboarding unless it’s through a company that mostly profits outside of skateboarding.

As two people that are interested in keeping whatever commanding heights of the industry are left in the hands of skateboarders, I would like to think this is something we could both agree corresponds with our longer term ideals. If we truly want to get to a level where skate brands can provide the most for skateboarders, it seems like the overall message should be consistent no matter what the context.

Hope you’ll agree. Thanks."

What can I say? The man sums it all up perfectly, and on his page there's enough "likes" and comments from fellow industry people to show that lots of people feel the same. (Including Drake Jones alluding to Berra as a buster. Old dudes: How fucking sick is it to hear John Drake express his disapproval on this matter? Oh man.) Bird brings up an interesting point though in that we all seem used to seeing riders move away from their core sponsors in search of greener footwear pastures with big corporate companies, but how crazy is this that it's now happening with a company that at one time was a small core company but is now as much of a giant force as any Nikes, Adidases, or Converses?

Furthermore I think it just shows the type of integrity that we're dealing with here when one person will try to steal a former friend and roomate's team rider and refuse to respond to phone calls or e-mails when confronted about it, when the other company wishes their lost riders the best of luck and thanks them for their time when they leave. Definitely shows the need to support companies like Lakai who have always been 100% skate and even dropped all of their very profitable DVS-style jock boots years ago to prove so.

Anyway, it's kind of funny when you start to see everything you've said and predicted start to happen. And I'm not the type of guy to say I told you so, but I would like to say that....

Ah who am I kidding? I fucking told you so!

Who's Your Daddy?

2011-10-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

If there's one infallible truth in this oft ambiguous, confusing, and contradictory world of skateboarding, it's that if you are a skater with your own personal website, it's gonna be complete and utter shit. It's definitely not that surprising to see some of the bigger names of mainstream skating whore themselves out by trying to turn themselves into a brand, but every once in awhile you come across a personal website that makes you say "Why the fuck does this guy have a website!?" Well that's exactly what I was thinking in France when Kevin showed me www.keelandadd.com.

Previous to seeing his website, if someone asked me "Who's Keelan Dadd?" I would say "Oh, he's that guy who just got on DGK that I've never heard of.", but now after seeing his website I would say "Oh he's that guy who just got on DGK that I've never heard of, but I guess he has a website." Because really there's not much more you can learn about him from the site besides the fact that along with being a skateboarder, he's also an entertainer(?), and that no one wants to try and slow his roll.

Really I get the whole idea of DGK, and of people rising up out of the ghetto to make a dollar out of 50 cents type thing, but this whole "on the grind" thing has got to end. I'm sure that Keelan Dadd had little to no input on his actual website and just had some company do it because he thought it would be a good way to promote himself, but it's still soooooo bad.

And even if he's not responsible for the absurdity of his own website, surely he's responsible for the even more absurd YouTube clips he puts out:

Holy fuck, this dude is the corniest. But hey, who am I to say? I'm just a bitter Canadian blogger. I certainly don't want to try and slow his roll, so I guess if you're into this kind of thing you will be happy to know that you can represent your man Keelan by picking up some keelandadd.com stickers over at the Keelan Dadd store.

But don't worry, if that sticker's just not enough Dadd for you, hopefully pretty soon he'll have his t-shirts available in the store so you can walk around wearing Keelan just like the mack Daddy himself.

Because there's nothing at all corny about wearing a t-shirt with your own picture on it to a photo shoot for one of your sponsors, right? Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Oh Yeah....

2011-10-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

I've been home from France for awhile now. Photos and video coming soon. In the meantime check out Leo's blog from VHS Magazine for a few tidbits.

Au Revoir

2011-09-30T22:40:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm off to France early tomorrow, so I won't be posting for awhile. Ian should have the rest of the tour videos up soon though.

As for me, I got my Skatecase packed, so I'll be doing nosegrab flyouts at modular parks in Bordeaux in no time!

See you guys in awhile!

YWS/NTB Alberta Tour Days 8 & 9

2011-09-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

Day 8 we woke up in the campground just out of Strathmore. No one really knew where Garrett was so I went searching for him. Dude pitched his tent deep in the brush like a real outdoorsman.

The night before, the lady who told us "This is a family-friendly campground" came walking over to our site and we thought we were going to get in shit for being too loud. She surprised us by telling us "You look like a group of guys who could use a nice big breakfast. I brought you a dozen duck eggs from ducks that we have right here in our petting zoo." The eggs were huge. We were stoked.

Look at the size of those yolks!

Huge yolks = awesome scrambled eggs. Fact.

Communal breakfasts are definitely one of my favourite parts of the skate tours.

By Day 8, Scotty's shoes were pretty fucked up. He would start every morning by Shoe-Gooing and patching them. He also skated hard as fuck every day. Dude's the best.

The campground had all kinds of weird stuff. Like this flag holding robot.

And all kinds of plastic animals.

Some of the dudes went for a dip in the freezing, scummy lake to wake up.

Then we headed back to our site.

Oh, more weird stuff.

Logan decided he might as well finish off the Hennessy at 11:00 AM.

Nice shirt Garrett you nasty S.O.B.

O hai!

This campsite had all kinds of stuff. A lake, a petting zoo where you could feed the animals, and a mini-golf course! Of course we decided to hit the links before we moved on for the day.

Oh hey! More weird stuff!

Scotty slipping past the pendulum of doom.

Logan and the volcano.

Ummmmm....

Are these kids rowing across the River Styx, or what?

Hit up the loop-de-loop, and we're back on the road.

After the golfing, we headed to the Brooks park which is a really weird design, and sort of poorly built, but is really fun. I didn't take any photos here at all, partly because I spent a good amount of time napping in the shade under a tree. After a really long skate at Brooks, we weren't sure where we were going to go, but since there was a Burger King in Medicine Hat, and that would probably be our last BK stop before heading home we went there. Because it was our last stop, we all went crazy, but none more crazy than Scotty who for his last meal ate a Triple Whopper meal, which is this guy, but with bacon and jalapenos:

And then after he was done that he went back up and ate a Mushroom and Swiss Steakhouse XT.

He's also one of the skinniest people on earth. Very impressive.

After the BK gluttony fest, and resulting Pepto chug fest in the parking lot, we were trying to decide if we should camp near Medicine Hat, or knock out a bit more of the road so we had less to drive the next day. Someone suggested we drive a little longer and then settle in Swift Current. As soon as Swift Current was brought up, Nathan lit up. "My Dad's farm is just outside of Swift Current. There's no one there right now, we can do whatever we want." So we all decided that was the plan. So after a couple more hours of driving, we stopped to stock up on Fireworks in a small town then headed for the farm. Heading for the farm entailed another 40 minute drive into the middle of nowhere down a pitch black loose gravel road that if you drove any faster than 80 km/h you would start drifting all over the road. So after the drive where I could see nothing except a cloud of dust and the taillights of Ian's van ahead of me, we pulled into the farm. Since I was the last car in the convoy, before I could even turn off my engine, Nathan had already walked into a little camper trailer, and walked out with a giant Soviet shotgun and fired it off. We all decided the night wouldn't proceed until we all had a shot, so that's just what we did.

That thing had some serious kick that surprised us all. I believe I'm displaying the dictionary definition of a "derp face" here.

Jeremy got kicked so hard he almost dropped the gun.

Logan gets the kick-back.

And Garrett makes us all look like a bunch of pussies with the most bad ass shooting face ever. I really lucked out on the timing here too.

After shooting guns was out of the way, we all set up our tents and got the fire going.

I think all the red meat in that BK turned Scotty into a Werewolf.

We still had a shitload of Cariboo left, so we decided we would try our best to finish it that night. There was A LOT of shotgunning going on, and things got pretty wild. This is pretty much what the night looked like to all of us:

Mackenzie had a pretty good knife, so we set up a pallet, drew a rollerblader on it, and took turns trying to throw the knife into the pallet. Scotty scores a direct hit.

When we were stocking up on fireworks, Garrett bought a couple of those floating lanterns. I'm assuming by the photo you can guess that thing didn't float for very long.

But besides the Soviet shotgunning, like I said there was lots of Cariboo shotgunning. Shotgunning on fires:

And shotgunning on picnic tables.

This is me in the middle of a victory dance after shotgunning way fucking faster than Mackenzie. Then I foam-barfed on the table. It's all in the tour video.

Nathan decided these leftover chemical jugs would make for good fire fodder.

Pretty sure this is the worst idea ever, but farm boys don't give no fucks about no gay-ass environment!

The plastic did melt down to make a nice pile to stand on while shotgunning beers though.

The whole night we were blasting music out of the back of Ian's van. Everything from R. Kelly to Kreator:

Like I said, we stocked up on fireworks. Here's Logan blasting off a big boy.

At some point in the night I was proving how good I was at knife throwing, and threw a knife right through the side of my cooler, rendering it useless for storing cold drinks, but very useful for skeet shoot practice.

The entire trip, Boys Club by Ween had been our unofficial tour theme song. Obviously when you got a tour full of sweaty skate dudez, it's a total sausage fest. But the last night of the trip really solidified Boys Club status. When you're out in the middle of nowhere with no one around at all, well, things can get a little weird. So I suggest pressing play on Boys Club as you enjoy the rest of the pictures.

At one point while Mackenzie was shotgunning a beer on a burning pallet on top of the fire, his pants caught on fire, and burned his leg enough to blister it. But when you're at a serious Boys Club meeting, what choice do you have? Get out your knife and cut your jeans into short shorts!

Earlier in the trip, Ian also slightly burned his pants drying them over a fire, which led to them ripping while jumping the fire on the last night. So you know, more short shorts.

Classic.

Like I said, things got weird, things got wild.

Burning pallet surfing!

O hai guyz! Jus' chillaxin!

At one point, Ian got Mackenzie to pose for a photo with him in their short shorts, which was just a cruel trick to smash him in the balls.

But after he recovered a little bit, Ian got a taste of his own ball-smashing medicine.

My Wal-Mart slip ons got all burned up from burning pallet surfing. Go figure.

After awhile Scott, Garrett, and Mackenzie decided they wanted to go swimming. Since the prairies had so much rain this year, everything was flooded. Including an entire farm field. Unfortunately for those dudes, that was the only place close to swim. And by "swim" I mean "roll around in a foot of disgusting, slimy, stinky, tepid floodwater." That shit was seriously gross.

Serious Boys Club meeting.

And of course if you're covered in disgusting bog water, the best thing to do is to bake it on you with the fire that's burning from plastic chemical jugs.

This single photo pretty much sums up the entire last night of the tour. Boys Club.

Woke up the next morning feeling like a pile of hell, so the first thing I needed to do was shotgun a beer. And when I say shotgun a beer, I mean literally setting up a beer on a fence post and shooting it with a shotgun. It was a great way to shake off the hangover. (It's in the video.)

Then it was time to survey the damage.

Oh yeah, people were getting shot in the back by BB guns the night before too.

Time to say goodbye to the farm.

After that we headed into the nearest small town for breakfast at a local diner where the old waitress definitely was NOT stoked on a bunch of 9-day stinky hungover boys sitting there recounting the night before while chugging coffee. Our table had some serious funk going on. When you got up to go to the bathroom and came back, you could smell the funk aura around us. Not surprising since Scott, Garrett, and Mackenzie didn't dry off or anything, and just went to bed covered in bog water and then cooked in their hot tents in the morning. Yuck.

That was it for the tour. After breakfast we all ran back to Saskatoon to the comforts of our own showers, beds, girlfriends, regular life. Then we had an after party at Ian's where we all got to watch Steve's silhouette take a dump through the window.

Another fucking amazing trip. I can't wait until next year.

YWS/NTB Tour Video Days 1-5

2011-09-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

Better late then never right? Here are the videos from the first five days of the tour, you will soon see the rest.

YWS/NTB 2011 Tour Day 1 from Ian Sargent on Vimeo.

YWS/NTB 2011 Tour Day 2 from Ian Sargent on Vimeo.

YWS/NTB 2011 Tour Day 3 from Ian Sargent on Vimeo.

YWS/NTB 2011 Tour Day 4 from Ian Sargent on Vimeo.

YWS/NTB 2011 Tour Day 5 from Ian Sargent on Vimeo.

YWS/NTB Alberta Tour Day 7

2011-09-27T16:00:00.000-07:00

Day 7 we woke up to another beautiful morning in the mountains and sun of Canmore. Ian realized his dream since childhood to eat a box of cereal like one of those little mini boxes.

I opted for homemade McMuffins.

Logan was steady killin it with the outfits.

And the hairdos.

We decided to film for his Element sponsor me tape. They love this environmental woodsy bullshit, right?

Fun with Antihero stickers part 2.

Ian figured Day 7 was a good day to bust out the good 'ol swasdicka shirt from last year.

After breakfast it was time to say goodbye to Canmore, and unfortunately it was time to say goodbye to a pretty good chunk of our crew as the Shaw brothers, Nubbins, Joel, Jason, and Ryan all departed back to Saskatoon. The rest of us however trekked on.

I looooooove a well packed trunk. (NO HOMO!)

At this point we didn't really know where our next stop should be. We knew we had to start making our way towards home, and we had originally planned on going through Taber, but Jeremy told us there was a cool park in Strathmore, and it was a more direct path home. On top of that there was a modular park along the way in Chestermere with a good half pipe. So we bailed on Taber, and headed for Strathmore. Me and Garrett failed to find the modular park on the way, so we just went straight to Strathmore. I don't think we missed much, besides this totally amazing photo that Scotty got:

But Jeremy was right. The park in Strathmore is small but really fun. It's also covered with a shit ton of graffiti. When me and Garrett got there we noticed that there was all kinds of graffiti all over the park in memorial to someone named "Jon". We asked a couple little kids on bikes how this kid Jon died and they said "Drugs. He took like 5 pills of ecstasy." When I asked how old he was they let us know "15. He only died like 2 weeks ago."

So there were all kinds of messages and notes to him written all over the park from his friends. There was also a little vigil set up. And apparently when your 15 year old buddy dies from 5 pills of E, the best way to honour him is to draw a gangster Ewok with a smoking gun and a bottle of booze.

After we checked out the graffiti, Garrett got this crazy line on my digi-cam which he later re-filmed on a better camera. (The better version made it into the tour video.)

After a nice long session at Strathmore, we made our way to some campground outside of town that a local suggested. We rolled in about 10 minutes before they shut the gates to the campground, and as soon as we walked into the campground office, the lady told us "Just so you guys know, this is a family-friendly campground." We weren't vibed out too hard though so we grabbed a few sites as far away from everyone else as possible.

Total sausage party.

Double sausage party!

And a couple Cariboo by the fire.

Actually more accurately I should say "a LOT of Cariboo by the fire". We all got pretty drunk. It was a super cool night though. The moon was brighter than I'd ever seen it before. It was so bright that we were actually casting shadows on the grass from the moon. I swear I could have read a book just from the moonlight that night. It was awesome. We all stood in the middle of the field and had a conversation about how trippy it is that the sun is bright enough to reflect off the moon and bounce down to earth and still cast a shadow. Classic drunk talk.

Then I took about a million pictures of the moon trying my best to pay homage to the cover of The Return Of Darkness And Evil by Bathory.

Seriously this isn't even close to half the photos I took.

Then I guess someone decided it was a good time for some super late night Hennesy.

And then I guess I decided it was a good time for more photos of the moon?

Oh jeez....

And then I can only assume we went to bed at some point because when I woke up in the morning I was in my tent.

Dyrdekulousness

2011-09-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

Did you guys see this webclip of Tosh.0 calling out Dyrdek's crappy new show?

Now I'll admit that I like The Fantasy Factory as much as the next guy. But it's sort of a "like" in a "I'm hungover as fuck on the couch and I've already watched an entire Cake Boss marathon, and the remote control is way the fuck across the room" sort of way. But you know your new show really sucks when you're getting called out by someone as unfunny as Daniel Tosh, and he's 100% right. Seriously what was Dyrdek thinking with this fuckin show? "Hey I know what's really missing on television. There's definitely a lack of television shows where they show YouTube clips and talk about them. I could bring something new to the table within this genre." The show is so fucking stupid. Have you watched it? Dyrdek's on-air personality is so far over the top now, it's not even funny. You know those weird caricatures that shitty artists on boardwalks draw of people for $10? Well Dyrdek has totally turned into a caricature of his former self.

The dude is obviously really charismatic, and in old skate videos it was always hilarious hearing him joke around, tell stories, etc. But now his over exaggerated inflection and hand gestures actually make me want to punch him in the fucking face.

(Note: These are actually promo photos used by MTV to make you WANT to watch the show!)

I can't believe this is the same dude who "stomped the honk" years ago. Don't even get me started on trying to wrap my head around the fact the he's the same dude as this guy:

I was having a conversation the other day with Josh from Gorf Life/Wiskate regarding Nick Boserio's Life Splicing, to which Josh commented "I like how everyone was so worried when Alien got bought by Burton, but Alien: still killin' it." I love Alien, always have, probably always will, so I gotta agree with this statement 99%. Why only 99? Dyrdek. This guy is such a clown. You guys got rid of the non-skating Scientologist, so why not the non-skating MTV cheeseball? I know he's been with you guys since day one (except for the very short amount of time it took Seek to fail), but I just can't stand to see him tarnish your good name anymore!

A Hot Minuit

2011-09-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

For all of you readers out there who were unable (or too cheap) to get your hands on a copy of Yoan Taillandier's Minuit, you are in luck because our friends from Bordeaux have just posted it on Dailymotion.

Of course Minuit has a full section from our friend Leo Valls who I will be going to Bordeaux to stay with soon, but it also features most of our friends over at Magenta Skateboards as well as a brief cameo by YWS founding member Dan Pulv(enheimer).

Watch it, get stoked, go skate. And if you're really stoked on it, try and track down a copy and buy it. Making independent videos isn't easy or usually very profitable. You can purchase it from the Magenta site here.

RETRO POST!

2011-09-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

Hey Ian and Pulv:

What did you guys do today?

I did this:

It was really fuckin fun.

See ya.

(First person to comment what this is a reference to gets a free leftover YWS/NTB Alberta Tour shirt covered with spilled Red Bull.)

YWS/NTB Alberta Tour Day 6

2011-09-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

Woke up on Day 6 in beautiful Canmore, Alberta and Tour Dad Steve Shaw let us know that the campground that we were staying at again that night had some nice sites open up right by the river. So we headed down the road...

And set up camp again.

My little cocoon full of heaven.

Not a bad place to camp, huh?

The river that our campsite was on was run off from mountain glaciers, so needless to say it was fucking cold as hell frozen over. But that didn't stop Jeremy, Scott, and Garrett from going for an early morning dip.

"Dude, that shit was cold, huh?" "Duuuuuude."

The water was so cold in fact that it made a perfect place to keep our Cariboo chilled. Luckily for us, at each site there was a little rock path in the water that conveniently created a calm swimming area as well as a dam to keep our beers from floating away.

Ian tests out the river's chilling abilities.

And finds them satisfactory.

Watching people dive into the river was hilarious because as soon as they emerged they were in a state of total shock.

Total shock.

Nubbs didn't want to jump in, but decided he needed to rinse his hair.

Ryan decided he looked like Gollum on the rocks so decided to drown him.

Good way to start the day.

Day 6 was originally planned as another chill day where we just stayed at the campsite and drank all day and played wizards, but since we had already wasted so much of the trip waiting out rain, we wanted to take any good weather we could to skate, so we headed to the Canmore park, which is probably the most picturesque setting for a skatepark ever.

The sun came out and blazed right when we got to the park and tons of shredding went down. Logan "Spicoli" Hryciw did an entire lap around the park Greg Louganis style. Totally pitted, bro.

Jason got a frontside slasher on this super steep quarter.

As soon as we got to the park, Scotty spotted this gnarly pole jam and went straight to it. (SCREEN GRAB!)

Garret one upped him with this switch pole jam to fakie though. Take THAT Scott!

But besides the ripping there was also a whole lot of this going on:

After we all got our fill of skating, we met up with former Saskatonian and current Canmore resident Darin Langhorst, who took us to a quarry lake where we spent a couple hours jumping off cliffs into the lake. The cliff jumps were definitely one of the highlights of the entire trip for me, but unfortunately I didn't take any photos. Or fortunately maybe because you guys don't need to see my milky white chubby shirtless body. (Unless you watch the tour video!)

After cliff jumping we all headed back to the campground. Jason's mom had packed up all the leftovers from the feast she made us into a giant pot so we could throw it on the fire and make a stew. It was so delicious.

The stew combined with some chili that Ian had made and brought along made for a real nice family dinner.

After dinner it was fun and games with the mandatory BB gun shooting.

As well as batting practice with a piece of a pallet and rocks. (After he was done batting Mackenzie threw a rock across the entire fucking river. It was very impressive.)

Garrett McNevin pro model Witchcraft hatchet coming soon. Perfect for splitting open nun's cunts.

Before we went cliff jumping, our little AZN friend Marco from Edmonton met up with us. He was really excited to go camping. He kept sending me messages asking me what he needed to bring, claiming he didn't know because Asians don't camp.

Upon arriving back to the campground Marco quickly decided he was going to chop down a tree.

"I FEEL SO WHITE!" he was heard excitedly exclaiming while chopping.

Marco was so excited in fact, that he didn't realize there are consequences to being white, and he chopped and chopped, and chopped until his hands looked like this:

So Mackenzie decided to give him a hand and drop kick the tree down. These are four different attempts at kicking the tree down, but if you arrange them in the proper order, it's a pretty accurate sequence of what happened each time he tried.

Eventually though he did kick the tree over. Good work, Mick. But after all that swimming, then skating, then cliff jumping, then chopping, then drop kicking, we were all pretty tuckered out so we had the obligatory campfire before bed, and most of us headed in early to get a good start to the next day.

Most of us.

Indication

2011-09-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

Working at a skateshop is pretty awesome. Especially when you're a sample size and reps are in town and you get to ask them for samples of upcoming shoes. I'd like to thank my friends Tenaya and Adam at Timebomb for hooking me up with some Emerica samples. First these Chillseekers I got last season:

And then the other day I got a pair of these Emerica Indicators that will be coming out in Spring '12. (This website has all the other colours up already.)

Really stoked on this shoe. It's actually a shoe that Emerica released about 6 or 7 years ago, and before it was just a classic Chuck Taylor rip off. They modified the new version, changing the toe, which I'm stoked on because I've always really liked that shape for a rubber toe. (I was actually really stoked on these Globe Cheapskates that were out a few years ago, but as if I'm gonna fuckin skate Globe. Come on!) The shoe also comes in a low-top which I would actually prefer because I'm not a fan of mid-tops. But none of the low-tops came in the sick black/gum colourway which I'm obviously stoked on because they remind me of my beloved eS SLB 97's.

In fact I'm so much more stoked on the low-tops, I just may have to chop down these Indicators old school style. Hold on, let me get a scissor....

Holy fuck I think these may be my new favourite shoe ever.

Li'l Cheezy

2011-09-22T19:01:00.000-07:00

Just as everything else in the known universe is shifting towards an online presence, perhaps if Transworld Business' Exposure Meter wants to stay relevant, they need to start factoring in web clips in their exposure ratings.

Or maybe that's actually a terrible idea because if we were rating skaters on their web presence, recently it seems like Li'l Wayne would be right at the top of the list.

(Trailing in a close second would be this fuckin painfully unfunny Malibu Illusion guy.)

Srsly doh, are boi weezy B stackin' clips lyke a got damned bawse up in che'ah! Skatepark Of Tampa, Transitions Skatepark, Da Playground, Double Rock, The Fantasy Factory, and The Berrics, Weezy's skatin them all.

This is ridiculous. Just shows how fucking stupid skateboarders can be. Just because a dude is famous for being shitty at rapping, we get giant boners because the dude is also shitty at skating? Seriously who gives a fuck if the dude skates? I know this contradicts what I said in my earlier post about the dudes who aren't that good and just skate for fun are the true heroes of skating, and all that shit. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with dudes sucking at skating, but that doesn't mean I want to watch them suck at skating just because they're famous. I mean okay, the dude wants to skate, let him skate. I'm not dissing him for skating or even being shitty at skating (although his style is super especially heinous even for a beginner), let him do his thing, but do we really need to see videos of him skating all these parks? You're seriously gonna give the dude a slow motion on a shitty shuv on a slight incline?!

Let's put this into perspective. Jereme Rogers is famous for skateboarding, right? But he also likes to rap, although he's fucking horrible at it. So when he makes his rap videos, you don't see hip-hop sites posting them up and everyone being like "Oh man this dude is a famous skateboarder. It's so dope that he's also into rapping! Sure he's not very good at rapping, but he has a lot of fun doing it and he's really into it." No, the comments are probably more along the lines of death threats.

And I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I don't know why so many skaters make fun of Cassanova, while incessantly listening to Li'l Wayne, and using his music for shitty YouTube edits. They're both equally fucking terrible at rapping.

YWS Euro Tour Part 2

2011-09-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

I gotta admit, when Ninetimes magnate Jason Gordon and YWS Japan correspondent Dan Pulv went to Germany and France at the beginning of the month, I was really jealous. Traveling's the fucking best and it feels like I haven't been anywhere cool in forever. So I decided I needed to go to.

Jason and Pulv going to Bordeaux gave me the idea to go there also. I've heard nothing but good things about that city, and since I've previously hung out with Leo Valls in Japan and San Francisco, he's graciously extended the offer to stay with him many times. I also wanted someone to go with and have never gotten the chance to travel with my longtime friend and frequent globe trotter Kevin Lowry, so I e-mailed him to see if he was down. He said if Leo was down to put us both up, he was in. I e-mailed Leo and he was instantly down, so it's all set.

So on October 1st I'll be flying into Bordeaux to meet up with Kevin and stay with Leo. While there, we're going to go south to the Basque Country and some "underrated cities" in Spain for 5 days. I'll be staying until the 11th, and this is going to be my first trip to Europe, so needless to say I'm very, very stoked. This trip is going to be fucking amazing.

My plan is to take along the digi-cam and film some sort of video of the trip for future YWS posting, but keeping up with these two guys is going to be pretty tough. So I guess I have a lot of preparation to do for the trip. Not only do I need to get all my shit together to head to Europe for a week and a half, but also I guess I'm going to need to build some sort of treadmill with a stationary skateboard on it so I can train my right leg into prime pushing condition.

Wish me luck.

YWS/NTB Alberta Tour Day 5

2011-09-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

Jeez louise, a guy doesn't post for a couple weeks, and people go bonkers in comments, e-mails, in person, etc. CAN I LIVE?! Sometimes I just have better things to do than post. And anyone who's been reading the blog for awhile knows it's better to not post than to force it.

But I am going to try (key word being "try" to update a little more over the next two weeks before I take off for a bit on vacation. I suppose I should get these photo updates from the tour done considering we've been back for two months now and I've only done four updates, not to mention that the tour video is done and just waiting for me to finish the photo updates. So I guess let's not waste any more time.

Woke up day 5 at Jason's parent's house in Calgary. That's a lot of stinky shoes to let in to your house.

Not only did they spoil us the day before, but in the morning Jason's parents served us up a giant breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, everything. Me and Mackenzie were particularly fond of the sangria from the night before and the Bailey's in our coffee. Life is good sometimes.

After getting stuffed on breakfast, we headed back to the Airdrie park because it looked like we were going to have some nice weather. (Speaking of Airdrie, check out my buddy Andy from Calgary shredding it.) Spicoli was totally gorfing out the tour life.

I decided to try and play skate photographer so Jason got schralpy in the deep end of the snake run.

The thing is totally way higher than it looks. I guess that makes me a shitty photographer.

Everyone started skating the steep back of the cradle, so I decided to get Adam and Jeremy to do some Andy Mac/Tony Hawk style doubles.

GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SHOT STEVE YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!

Alright man, peace bro, peace.

When you're sitting watching people skate really steep tranny, you gotta watch for shoot outs. That's a goddamn waste of Cariboo right there.

More skate photos. I figured the field of canola in the background would make for a nice photo.

Which it probably would have if my shitty camera were capable of taking good skate photos. This bowl is also way deeper than it looks. Garrett is gnarly.

The yellow canola field also made for some really good team photos.

After the team photos, we packed back into the cars and headed to our next stop Canmore, right in the mountains of Alberta. Not a bad place to camp at all.

Mackenzie quickly went back to his Metis roots and tomahawked the shit out of this tree.

Then we explored the forest and tried to skate some hills and roots.

Video coming soon. Maybe.

Night fell.

So we started up a nice little fire.

This is livin'.

Like I mentioned before, pallets burn real good.

Classic Wigg Dr.

Next post in a couple weeks.

Just joking.

I think.

Tearing The Bible To Shredz

2011-09-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

Shredz Skateshop in Cochrane Alberta is the newest shop to join the Witchcraft coven.

Shredz is now stocked with all four boards from Witchcraft's 2011 summer lineup.

So take your shitty ass Flip board, jam it in a nun's cunt, burn the nun, and then take her ashes to Shredz and trade them for a Witchcraft board. (You will also probably need money.)

Shops interested in not sucking e-mail Black Arts Distribution at blackartsdist@gmail.com.

Nosiris

2011-09-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

Earlier last week, Osiris, the bastard child of the skate shoe industry released "We Are Osiris", an overhyped, stinky pile of claptrap shit that looks like a Gatorade commercial, all wrapped up in 30 seconds. (And directed by the dude who directed Grandma's Boy?)

Poor Osiris. They never really quite figured themselves out after the backlash of The Storm, did they? As evidenced by their team and the 30 second "documentary", they can't quite decide if they're gnarly, or hip-hop, or skate, or BMX, or whatever the fuck.

Not quite sure if they're this:

Or this:

This:

Or this:

They're just trying to be a little of everything, which usually adds up to a lot of nothing.

But while we're on the subject of The Storm, is it just me, or are all the combo tricks that the Osiris guys were doing back in The Storm days, and the Osiris image was sort of based on, now being considered legit? I'm pretty sure those dudes were clowned pretty hard back in the day for the ledge dancing, and now all the cool Girl/Plan B/Berrics guys are doing it. Poor Chris Dobstaff. In his prime 10 years too early.

And while we're on the subject of ledge dancing, is it just me or would Torey Pudwill have fit in perfectly in The Storm? Think about it. Tricks down big stairs back to back with grinds to slides to flips to shoves to slides to flips. Shitty style. The dude is perfect for early 2000's Osiris.

But back to the matter at hand, what does it say about the skate industry when a company as iconic and responsible for so much great skating/skateshoes like eS is frozen in carbonite while a company as infamous and responsible for so much shitty skating/skateshoes like Osiris are still making enough money to hire high profile directors such as the dude who directed Grandma's Boy? One company's legacy to skateboarding is the various incarnations of the D3, the other's is the various incarnations of the Accell. That doesn't seem right.

But while we're on the subject of eS' hiatus, am I the only one who noticed that strangely eS is now done not long after giving a nod to Sheep, another defunct Sole Tech shoe brand that I'm sure a lot of people would still like around if they had their druthers? In a Shoe Vault article I did on Sheep for Concrete Magazine, Don Brown commented that "...I have an eerie feeling that one day Sheep will be back to happily cavort in the light of day." Was that referring to the eS "collabo", or does that mean Sheep is also on hiatus? How many brands can these guys have on hiatus? In another 10 years will Sole Tech have a quiver of shelved brands on hand to bring back from the dead at will like some necromancer with his own personal tomb of ancient dead kings that he can bring back at any time to gain the eldritch knowledge that these once royal corpses may have gathered in the shadow of death beyond time where......

Wait, what was this post about again? Oh yeah. Osiris. Boy do they suck.

Game Of S.K.A.T.E. 2011

2011-09-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

A week from this Sunday, on September 11th, me and my friend Steve will be holding our 4th annual flip trick contest. (Which totally predates Battle At The Berrics, FYI.)

Once again this year we've got Converse hooking us up with shoes, DLX hooking us up with hardgoods in the form of Krooked, Spitfire, and Thunder, and are very proud to be getting Altamont hooking us up with the clothing.

The contest is classic tournament style with 12 preliminary rounds, 6 secondary games, and 3 semi-final games, which lead to 3 people going head to head for first, second and third place. Because of the generosity of our sponsors, we give away a prize for the winner of every game played, with the exception of the semi-final round because everyone who wins those games places in the top 3, which has huge prizes.

There is also a smaller tournament for skaters 15 and under. The adult competition is limited to 60 skaters, and registration must be done by Friday, Sep. 9th in person at Ninetimes or by phoning the shop 477-4663.

Big thanks to Jim and Damon at DLX, Nate at Supra Distribution, Chris at Converse, and Dave at Timebomb for the Altamont clothing. Hope to see a huge turnout this year.

Skateboard Practice

2011-09-02T17:24:00.000-07:00

I've gotten a really good response from the post last week about average dudes being the real heart of skateboarding. Which gets me stoked. One comment in particular reminded me of something:

"Being a full time office worker, it's sometimes a bit embarassing when my bosses ask about my fucked up elbows.... "umm, yeah, I still skateboard...didn't give it up when i was 15 like everyone else..."

When I was a younger lad in the infancy of my skateboard life, my older brother worked at a landscaping business with an older skate dude named Mike Barrows. This dude was one of those dudes who was always the freshest in terms of clothing and skating and style when everyone else was just a scrub. That's sort of besides the point, but my brother told me one day when the work day was over, while Mike was headed to his car, the boss yelled out "Hey Mike! Busy day today, can you put in some overtime?", to which Mike responded "Sorry, I got skateboard practice after work."

That phrase "skateboard practice" always got me stoked. Many years later me and my friend Matt would always use that phrase for our regular Tuesday trip to this indoor park in the winter. "You down for skateboard practice this week?" "You know it buddy." We've been using the phrase regularly for around 7 years now and I still get a kick out of it every time I use it. Over the years the term "skateboard practice" has sort of come to refer strictly to skating our local park. One time a girlfriend of mine even asked me if I would go out for supper with her and her sister, and I replied "Sorry, me and Matt have skateboard practice tonight." to which she responded "Skateboard practice? What do you guys do? Relays or something?" to which I responded "Yes. That's exactly what we do. Skateboard relays." Anyway, I figured since YouWillSoon has sort of officially entered the skateboarding lexicon with the term "yo flip" (I see it all the time on message boards and YouTube comments), I would grace the skate world with the term "skateboard practice" and hope you derive as much pleasure out of it as I do.

I guess what makes the term interesting is the fact that it seems so ridiculous that something as formal as a regular practice could take place in a sport as informal as skateboarding. Which really says a lot about skating. I mean, if you're some regular 30+ year old 9 to 5 schlub and you told someone that you had "softball practice" after work, or that you belonged to a recreational basketball league, no one would bat an eye. But if you tell someone that when you're done filing tax returns you head straight home, stretch out and go to the skatepark, that really surprises people. It's kind of surprising (but kind of cool) that people still think of skateboarding as a young person's sport. Which is totally not true anymore. Look at the life span of pros nowadays. 10 years ago someone in their late 20s would have seemed over the hill. Guys like Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero were relics that were exceptions to the norm of young guys skating. Nowadays you have guys like Andrew Reynolds and Mike Carroll who are considered pretty old for a pro skater, but are still pushing boundaries and show no signs of slowing down.

Even when I started skating at 16 (sort of late in the game for people to start skating), if anyone told me I'd still be skating 3-5 days a week 17 years later at 33 years old, and skating decently, I probably wouldn't have believed it. I can't speak for other cities, but in Saskatoon here we have a really high number of dudes still shredding well into their early or even late 30s.

So I guess don't let anyone tell you or make you feel like skating is only a sport for young dudes. We all know skating's the best shit ever, so why would you quit the best shit ever? Because people think we're too old to do it? Fuck that shit. Keep skating as long as your body will let you. And then a couple years longer.

I've always wondered if I could make sure I could still do kickflips once a year and keep doing them until I was the oldest person to ever kickflip. I wonder what age people can kickflip until? Any thoughts?

YWS/NTB 2011 Alberta Tour Video Teaser/Intro

2011-09-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

YWS/NTB 2011 Alberta Tour Teaser/Intro from Ian Sargent on Vimeo.