austin skate notes

Yesterday I was arriving at work a little late. I’m new on the job, so it’s a little uncomfortable to be cruising into the office 20 minutes after 8:00. No idea what the tolerance is among management for such casual arrival times. As I walked from the parking garage to the borg-like office building, a pickup truck passed me and stopped at the intersection. I heard a faintly familiar beat eminating from the truck. It’s obscurity made me strain to hear it and struggle to remember it. I stopped and looked back at the truck. No fucking shit. This guy was jamming Freaky Tales by Too $hort on his way to work. He pulled into the parking garage for my building! This was significant to me. It meant that I’m not the only Playa working for the government.

When I got home from work yesterday, Brett Roper was sitting in my living room with wife, Allison. She’s pregnant with twins. Brett is the father. They’re stopping in Austin for a few days before celebrating the new year with Houston-based family. We were priveleged to share a session with Brett at the Banana Farm Ramp. P-W moved to San Jose a couple weeks ago, so he missed out. Sadly, Mike Milligan was not at the ramp. Here are the photos I shot during the session.

UPDATE:More photos added to this gallery. Coverage of Carjack’s new year’s day hangover session.

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In the spring of 2004, a race was born between the north and south austin skate residents. Who would be the first to finish a colossal ramp project? The Banana Farm crew embarked on an ambitious design the likes of which no one had ever seen. Jason Schmale, Cary Jackson, and some other south austinites set out to build a huge ramp similar to Jason’s old ramp, but on an even bigger scale. After the framing and plywood was assembled, both ramp projects stalled out awaiting the sourcing of sheet metal. For a while, a real sarcastic writer from Thrasher Magazine threatened to write an article mocking both ramp efforts predicting that neither of them would ever get finished.

As history has written, the Banana Farm Ramp was completed later in 2004, but the future of Cary Jackson’s ramp has been in doubt for some time. Especially with the price of metal and plywood escalating due to China’s rapid industrialization. Then Jason Schmale showed back up on the scene and suddenly hammers are making noise again down on Prather Lane. Doug King recenty showed up and helped bend the steel pipe coping for the corners and also did some welding. Here are some photos I shot of the current state of the ramp today.

But that’s not the only ramp erection Austin is experiencing right now. Schmitty is living up past the Arboretum off 183 and has launched his own backyard project. His is a modest pursuit– a 24-ft wide miniramp similar in dimensions to the ramp Thomas built in his backyard earlier this year.

The cool thing about this new spurt in ramp construction is that the guys from the Banana Farm are helping out on both the other projects.

In other skateboarding news

The City of Austin banned skateboarding around the new City Hall building. The newly-cut limestone ledges had already fallen prey to skateboard trucks and were showing wear. On the plus side, the city is pretty sensitive about banning skateboarding and is trying to remind skaters that they should have a public skatepark finished in late 2005. Following that, the City is working on plans to build another skatepark near the ACC Rio Grande campus.

James is down for the count. He reinjured his knee at the Skatepark of Austin last weekend and he’s off his skateboard until he can get surgery.

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In the tradition of all the other crap websites on the internets, Austin Skate Notes is posting its first annual Holiday Gift Guide. Sure, maybe some corporations will take notice and start sending us products to influence our editorial content. That would be awesome. Unlikely to happen, but awesome nonetheless. So far as yet, this hasn’t happened, so the items listed below are simply things that caught my attention in the past few weeks as potentially good gift ideas. Not just things to get for other people, but perhaps stuff to put on your own wish list. Enjoy!

Freedom: 36″ Bolt Crackers
Harbor Freight tends to rubs me the wrong way in how they sell all these power tools made in China with deceptively American-sounding names like “Chicago.” Nonetheless, I bought something there about a year ago that I’ve found to be unbelievably liberating– a pair of bolt crackers for $12. Thirty-six inchers no less. Strong enough to snip 1/2″ rebar like it’s yarn. Truthfully, I don’t encounter very many situations where I need my bolt crackers, but it’s really nice to know that I’ve got these puppies sitting in my garage ready to get me through whatever might block my forward progress. Pure freedom rarely comes at such a discounted price.

Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art
Several books have come out over the years discussing skateboard-related art and skateboard graphics. There are a lot of different facets of skate-culture art, so there’s a pretty good justification for all these different efforts to document the phenomena. The latest strong offering in this field comes from Sean Cliver. He’s the kid who won a contest that resulted in him getting hired by Powell-Peralta to design board graphics. One of his first was the Ray Barbee deck with the playing cards. I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s creating quite a bit of buzz. There’s a big write-up on it in the new Skateboard Mag and it was on Mikey’s X-mas wish list. Ed Templeton also endorses it, so that’s gotta mean something.

Speaking of the Skateboard Mag, that’s a great gift idea! A subscription only costs $19 bucks and you can get a free DVD produced by Bill Weiss’s company, Digital. The guys over at TSM are putting out some great issues with passion and soul. If there’s a monthly magazine I look forward to, this is it.

For the girl in your life, you might consider a gift card for a haircut at Bradz salon. If you haven’t got a girl in your life, it might be because you failed to give her kickass X-mas presents like a haircut at a nice salon. Regina will do her hair right, so if you’re ordering a gft card online, request Regina in the ’special notes’ section. If you want to turn the gift knob to 11, throw in a massage by Jessie. Regina can also cut mens’ hair, just tell her more rock, less talk and that’s what you’ll get.

iPath Kenny Reed Shoes
I had originally intended to do a full-blown review of these shoes, but hell, this site is getting too review heavy as it is. I won a pair of these through a contest on a cool art website and have been very impressed with them. There was absolutely ZERO break-in period for this pair of shoes. The first session I rode them I was skating dramatically better than I had been for a long time. Apparently my Geof Rowleys had gotten smoother in the sole than I was aware and my footwork was getting very sloppy without me noticing. Prior to skating these Kenny Reeds, I was committed to Rowley Classics. Now I’m all-the-way committed to iPath Kenny Reeds. Don’t let the name fool you, though, these shoes don’t connect you to the internet or play mp3s.

Comedy CD’s
I’ve been getting into a lot of standup comedy lately. There are a lot of people out their beyond Chris Rock and George Carlin, to say the least. The following are lesser-known comics who come strongly recommended from Austin Skate Notes staff.

Jim Florentine- Best known for his work on the TV show Crank Yankers as Special Ed and also the stoner guy. He’s released four CDs full of audio recordings of him torturing the telemarketers who call his house. Here’s a sample. I cry sometimes when I listen to these. He’s also released a DVD of guerilla theater type pranks he’s performed. As an example, he demonstrates the art of an “upper decker“.

Mitch Hedberg- This guy came through and sold out the Paramount Theater with tickets no less than $28 for the balcony. He’s a new force in stand-up. Sort of a consumer-ist Steven Wright, but with more observational humor. His CD, “All Together Now” is very accessible and should find a wide audience of fans. Laugh-your-ass-off-funny. Here’s Mitch’s own website.

Lewis Black- Perhaps best known for his humorous political rants on the Daily Show, Louis Black’s CD, “The End of the Universe,” is a much-needed slap of Bill Hicks’ acerbic wit and social commentary. I made a copy of this CD for Kevin and they’ve been playing it repeatedly up at his work with each new person giving it a well-deserved thumbs-up. One guy, who spends most of his time fabricating knives on the metal-working machines told Kevin today, “They must have to bleep him a lot when he’s on TV.” Yeah, Black uses words like fuck a lot in his comedy. But he’s covering some pretty fuck-worthy topics, so it really works. People who voted for Bush need to stand clear of this, unless they’re looking for leverage in pulling their heads out of their asses.

Todd Barry- This guy is a master of the mono-tone understatement. He’s got two CD’s out, but I’ve only heard his first one, which is the type of funny where if you listen to it before going on a roadtrip, all passengers in the car will be quoting Todd’s jokes for the duration of the trip, guaranteed. No matter how long the road trip is.

SLACKER: The Criterion Collection DVD Release
The Criterion folks have released the seminal Austin movie, Slacker, on DVD this year. What have you released on DVD this year? Nothing?!? Well, then Richard Linklater’s best movie will probably speak to you. Comes with a booklet and all kinds of extra features.

Vice Dos & Don’ts : 10 Years of VICE Magazine’s Street Fashion Critiques
This book is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Addictive to the extent that I know a guy who took this book to his job and read it all afternoon from lunch till quitting time. The format is a bunch of photos each with a clever interpretive passage printed below. It’s a page-turner.

Well, that’s it for now. If you’ve got gift ideas, feel free to post them as a comment with URLs.

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Another year has past us bye. Bye-bye. Yes,yes it is true. 2005 is right around the corner. So I share with you this. The meaning of Life. Yes I know it is different for us all. One thing we all have in come is that television show Friends. Where ever you are you know you can turn on the television and tune into an episode of Friends and think ” Right now another one of my friends is watching Friends” Wow! I love my friends and miss you all. Happy New Year. Love Brother Chode

Check the other photos from their trip to florida.

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More than fourteen years ago, I huddled under a blanket in the cold watching some of the most incredible skating I have ever seen. I sat on a hard, wooden bench for two days straight in absolute awe of the pros and amateurs from around the world who had travelled to the Skatepark of Houston to compete in the annual Shut Up and Skate contest. Allen Losi was raging 8′ airs and ollies to fakie. Tod Swank did a mcTwist. Travis Burke heckled Tony Hawk to do Gymnast Plants. Scott Stanton lofted Madonnas higher than a house. John Shultes skated to King Diamond’s song about his grandmother. As an amateur, Bill Weiss did back-to-back mcTwists until he was pretty much spinning them on the flatbottom and still fit a 720 into his run. And it all transpired on the Hurricane Ramp- a metal-covered behemoth that had been built just the year before with the following dimensions- 11.5′ tall, 10′ trannies. Huge coping and opposing extensions.

In the years to follow, Shut Up and Skate faded as the National Skateboard Association took it over and subsequently collapsed. Eventually, the Skatepark of Houston also faded and closed down. The mighty Hurricane Ramp was dismantled and its steel skin lay in a field rusting for the years since.

Saturday’s session at the Banana Farm began hesitatingly for many of the participants. Mikey, for instance, thought he might need to spend the afternoon with his wife at Bed Bath & Beyond and then have dinner at the Olive Garden. I had studying to do for my certification test on Monday. Adam needed to get his car worked on by James in Round Rock. But we couldn’t resist the gravity of the Banana Farm and committed to come out and skate just a bit. Maybe some relaxed riding to cruise some new lines and such. Adam and Travis went to cannibalize materials from Cary Jackson’s house. The tight quarter pipe that Adam built on the platform in front of the tiki bar needed more than 1/4″ plywood as the sizeable holes demonstrated. It took hardly any time at all for us to bend and apply the metal sheets which had originally comprised the surface of the Texas Ramp @ 51st and Duval. We had an extra sheet left over which we laid on the platform adjacent to the 90-hip to improve manual transfers, backside lipslide transfers, and roll-ins.

Like so many other parts of the Banana Farm Ramp, the blue-star quarter is challenging to ride and yields successful tricks grudgingly to the skaters who can make the speed to approach it and control their quick descent on its fast transition. Immediately, Travis, Mikey, Adam, and Kevin brought grinds across the parking-block channel. As the day progressed, more-and-more friends showed up and also tested themselves on what Craig Moore asks that we not describe as the “New Metal.” The session built momentum and we all found ourselves staying at the ramp far longer than we intended. Food was ordered. Beer was retrieved from the store. Lee Brooks broke out his crazy camera gear and had tripod-mounted flashes stationed on every platform. I ran around snapping pics whenever I wasn’t skating.

By the collection of skaters who had participated, the event seemed reminiscent of the few sessions I had attended at Jason Schmalley’s ramp in the late nineties. Looking at the nü metal on the quarter pipe, I couldn’t help but think that it came at the loss of two other great ramps- the Texas Ramp and then Cary Jackson’s. The Texas Ramp had to be torn down after the complaints of an unreasonable neighbor. Cary Jackson’s ambitious Noah’s Ark has lost the support and momentum of the skate community to see it to completion and Cary has basically pulled the plug, which saddened me to think about what might have been, but won’t.

It wasn’t like I was getting depressed, though. Everyone was on top of their game and shredding. Some of the stuff I saw was unbelievable, like lil’ moot pulling lipslides in the over-vert of the steakhouse. Clint did rock-and-rolls on the tall extension guiding his re-entry with his hand on a treetrunk. Switchy-G commented during one of Adam’s runs, “Am I supposed to ask him for his autograph now?” It was in the context of all this remarkable skating that I looked down at another part of the ramp and remembered that earlier this year Travis had scored several sheets of metal from a field where the remains of the Hurricane Ramp lay biodegrading in the damp Houston climate. Without that haul, it’s unlikely the Banana Farm Ramp would ever have been completed. If you weren’t a participant in Saturday’s session or that Shut Up and Skate contest in 1989, I recommend that you check out my photos and insert your own thoughts on the concept of reincarnation.

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The weekend is upon us and the weather probably won’t be very inspiring. So I thought perhaps I would direct your attention to this image I captured a few months ago. We were skating at the Grinder Ledge and the session was kind of winding down. Somehow Adam wasn’t satisfied with his several accomplishments of the afternoon and decided he needed to cap it off with something truly remarkable. After three brutal slams on the Slayer graffiti, he made this tail-ollie off the pipe into the transition. The photo here is the make.

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