austin skate notes

Three unemployed guys and a National Guard Tank Commander skated the Grinder Ledge on Thursday. I shot photos at the session. Several of us hadn’t been to the GL in many months. It was a fun trip back. Bobby showed up and borrowed a board. Now he lives across the street from the GL and rips it consistently. We were looking to bring Daniel out there, but couldn’t track him down.

Ok. So next to the Austin Skatenotes headquarters lives an old, crotchety woman. Her name is Joanne. Hardly a day passes where she doesn’t come by complaining that some tree growing on ASN property is about to drop a branch on her shiny car. Or harass ASN employees about how the ASN grounds could be mowed more frequently. Or even ask if the person sleeping on her front lawn is an ASN employee. Jesus. I think we can all relate. Well, now she’s demanding that we post the recent collection of photos that have returned from the skate expedition to Orcas Island, located in Washington state’s Puget Sound. Will the grim reaper please visit this terrestrial being who has overstayed her welcome? Goddamn.

Can you tell that I lost my job last week? Anyway, here are the aforementioned photos.

Momentum is picking up behind the effort to build a public skatepark in Marble Falls. After the wildly successful skate jam earlier this year, the Marble Falls city council has recognized the demand in the community for a public skatepark. Earlier this week they began to address this demand by dedicating 1.3 acres of land for the project. Here’s the note sent to ASN from Donyelle Green, the head of the Highland Lakes Skatepark Association.

Just wanted to let everyone know that last night at the City Council meeting we received the land we had requested!!!
The Highland Lakes Skatepark Association was officially given 1.3 acres! This includes an area for parking and the actual skatepark size depends on what our designers can do with the shape of the land. The land is located near Johnson Park, as you are going over the small bridge (from Yett toward Pecan Valley) look to the right or toward the Huber Plant and you will see where it has been cleared!!! We still have a long journey ahead of us but we are one step closer. Thank you all for helping us get this far without your support and advice this would have not been possible.

Anyone interested in participating with fund raising, park design, grant writing, or just coming to the meetings to find out more, you are cordially invited!!! Please do not hesitate to contact us for any reason by replying to this email or calling 512.913.2001..

Sincerely,
Donylle Green
Highland Lakes Skatepark Association
donyllegreen{at}yahoo.com

Meetings are at Mr. Gatti’s!!!
1st & 3rd Thursday of every month!
6:30pm - will last no longer than 1 hour.
Please come this THURSDAY and have dinner with us!!!!

The other day mikey brought over a new transworld video for us to take a look at. Somehow that guy lays hands on more videos than you can possibly imagine and he usually lets us watch them with him. A lot of them have been pretty good thanks to interesting skating, inspired editing, and top-notch photography.

The last Transworld video that mikey brought over, “Are you Alright?” was not one of the better videos. Sure, they travel up to some of the best skateparks in the Northwest with some of the best skaters in ther world, but the finished product kind of sucks. The whole video is built from footage shot during a single roadtrip. The problem with this is that the skaters get torn up after a couple days on the road, and then the rest of the time, they’re skating injured and taking it easy. Well, not so much Pat Duffy, but Danny Way and the other guys are. A good, full-length skate video is difficult to make with an 8-day shooting schedule, and in that release, it shows.

The new Transworld video is way more interesting. Subtleties follows the more typical format of here’s a bunch of footage we’ve been collecting for a while and the quality shows throughout. Pat Duffy is back breaking his wrist and maintaining his reputation as a “Gnarler.” Gonz, Jason Lee, and Dune show up for a bit. Some skaters have their own sections. Other parts are collages of skate clips featuring different skaters.

One of the best parts is by a new guy named Kyle Leeper. Keep your eyes on him. He’s a very creative street skater. Kind of reminds me of Jerry Hsu and Louie Barletta’s part in the Osiris Video (Subject to Change) but considerably more technical (that’s a euphemism for ‘the board flips a lot more’).

Just after the video finished, I realized that there wasn’t a heavy concentration of people skating switch. This was very refreshing. We had watched some other video a couple weeks ago with some of the new daredevil kids. A few of them were flying off every staircase they could find switch. I really don’t find that kind of video satisfying. It’s kind of like watching a lesbian porno film. Yeah, it’s some novelty shit that you don’t normally get to see in real life, but after about 15 minutes of it, it gets kind of boring. When those guys are skating switch, it’s all about, “Wow. He did that switch!” while it’s not such a big deal trick if he would have done it regular. What I like to see in skate and porno videos and life in general is people straight-out going for it full-blast. Not holding back. When people skate switch, I feel like they’re holding back and it’s just not that satisfying.

Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s another review of this skate video.

Team Love held its 20th Anniversary Celebration this weekend. One event was a ditch contest at CFAN. It was well attended and plenty of fun. Here are the photos from that event. If someone can email me the results, I’ll post them here. send to seth{at}mk120.mine.nu