austin skate notes

This past weekend, we shot another super 8 film submission for the annual Make A Film In A Weekend festival organized by the Cinemaker Coop. Missed the San Marcos Skatepark FUNraiser (saturday) because we were all busy working on the movie. It’s an ambitious but true story. Don’t want to give any details away, so I’ll leave it at that. Cast and crew were comprised of myself, John, Adam, and Kevin.

I was told on friday that the Daniel Movie we made last year has been selected to be shown as part of a collection of short films at the South By Southwest Film Festival this year. No free badge, but it’s cool to finally get something in there.

If you’re impatient like me and can’t wait for SXSW to start in order to get your short film fix, you will probably want to check out this skate video preview. It’s shot entirely on location at that new skatepark beneath the bridge in Vancouver, Canada. The guy hosting it told me he’s only leaving it up until March 5th, so download it now. It’s 57 mb, so you’ll probably want to right-click on it and do a ’save-as’ rather than try to view it in your browser. Looks like a bunch of locals absolutely ripping that spot.

UPDATE: Here’s the Quicktime VR of the Vancouver park in case you haven’t already seen it.

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Bestselling author and political satirist, Hunter S. Thompson, is dead at age 67. Initial reports suggest he killed himself with a gunshot wound to the head. His wit and scathingly honest insights into American politics will be missed here at Austin Skate Notes.

Speaking of the loss of liberty, last week we saw more movement by the federal government towards reducing our freedom of speech. Congress passed HR 310, a bill to "increase the penalties for violations by television and radio broadcasters of the prohibitions against transmission of obscene, indecent, and profane material." This is clearly a knee-jerk reaction to the Janet Jackson Superbowl Halftime Show of 2004 by our elected representatives who feel compelled to present the appearance that they’re "doing something."

The most troubling aspect of this law is that it carries no definition of what material would violate the statute. This allows the FCC to apply these punishments arbitrarily against broadcasters like Howard Stern for uttering words no different than those spoken by beloved performers such as Oprah Winfrey. Check these transcripts for an example.

Sadly, our own Representative in the 78751, Lloyd Doggett, voted in support of this bill.

Noted Republican, Jimmy Finley, is moving to the liberal enclave Portland, OR. with social worker wife Carly. Michael and Allison Sieben are in the process of buying a house in South Austin near the Gateway movie theater. Speaking of Michael, he and Adam had a great shooting day for their skate video on Sunday.

The current issue of Skateboarder magazine has an article written by Barker Barrett about the iPath team’s recent visit to Texas. Included is a great photo of a guy named Matt doing a frontside ollie on a dirt jump at the 9th street bmx trails.

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After attending a public input meeting last year, it seemed like the City of Pflugerville was on the fast-track to implementing a public skatepark. Attendance and enthusiasm was strong. One of the City Council members, Pat McCord, had even toured skateparks in other states and gave a very supportive slideshow presentation. We’re about a year out from that meeting and I thought I’d check into their progress.

For starters, the page they previously had on their City’s website about the skatepark effort has been taken down. Secondly, I checked their City budget for 2005 and no money has been allocated for the skatepark. At most, they have an agenda item of "Develop a plan for a skate park in Pflugerville." This is beaurocrat-speak for, "Drag our feet until the citizens push the issue with us." A couple inches down in their budget, they have this on their to-do list, "Complete Texas Parks and Wildlife grant for hike-and-bike trail around Lake Pflugerville." Clearly, if they were serious about creating a recreational facility that will inspire Pflugerville youth to get off the couch and be active outdoors, they’d be applying that grant money towards a skatepark.

Want to take action? Contact Pflugerville’s city administrators and say, "Where’s the skatepark?!?!"

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URGENT NEWS FLASH! We must interrupt this day of no-updates to the Austin Skate Notes website to bring you this breaking news. It has come to our attention that Mr. P. W. (aka P-dub) late last month fell victim to a sudden case of marriage somewhere in Southern California. He had left Texas under mysterious circumstances in January without advance notice and without bidding farewell to his close associates. Very little is known about the details surrounding his case of betrothment, but we can only assume he held himself with the best posture imaginable during the clandestine ceremony. The identity of his accomplice in the betrothing is unknown at this time, however, un-named sources have confirmed that P-Dub’s wife is a former girlfriend of Mr. Todd Prince, a longtime friend of P-Dub. Some have described the P-Dub & Prince connection as being closer than that shared by friends who have undergone blood-letting rituals. No doubt about it, if either one of them had a cadaver to move or dispose of, the other would have been there with shovel, tarp, and pickup truck gassed and ready to go. One can only guess how this latest development must be impacting these Texas-born blood brothers.

In other, less-urgent news, the Center for Young Cinema (aka Cinemaker Coop) is holding a "Make A Film In A Weekend" festival during the weekend of Feb. 25th. Speaking from first-hand experience gained over the past three years, these are a lot of fun. The concept is for everyone to show up on Friday afternoon to pick up their prop. Then they have until Sunday afternoon to shoot a 4-minute movie on Super-8 film (not video) that somehow incorporates the prop. Everyone turns their undeveloped single roll of film in on Sunday to the organizers. This means that the film will exist as you have shot it. No cuts. No splices. The MAFIA folks then send it out for processing. Participants spend another week composing a soundtrack for their films and turn that in on cassette or audio CD. The soundtrack is created without the makers getting a chance to preview their films. Then, two weeks after the weekend shoot, there’s a screening at the Hideout Theater on Congress Avenue. Last year my entry in this festival was a skate film focusing on Daniel Davis. It won several awards. I’m hoping this year more people will enter skate films.

Elsewhere in Texas, the Skatopians are still stuck. Apparently they’ve been awaiting an engine replacement in their limosine which is parked in an improvised shelter arrangement next to the new skatepark in San Antonio. Carter Dennis reports that they are in good spirits with Brewce Martin applying his consumate diplomacy skills to the local skatemoms visiting the park.

I’ve been receiving phone calls that we’re in for some more visitors this weekend. It’s a mishmash of Oklahomans (The Death Squad), Finish, and Irish skateboarders. Expect photos forthcoming.

The Austin Skate Notes DVD is coming along great. I came across a few items last night that made me really step back and recognize that this thing is going to be huge. I hate to overhype anything, and I probably am guilty of that here. But for some people, this disc is going to bring tears to eyes. If you’ve got some edited footage and want to participate, shoot me an email at seth[@]austinpublicskatepark.org.

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Have you ever been in a situation where you have just so much to say that you get toungue-tied and can’t utter anything but nonsense? That’s almost the state you’re finding Austin Skate Notes in today. I’ve got a bit of a content backlog to post. Kevin has written two articles, and then I’ve got one sketched out that I need to finish off. Then I’ve got two kick-ass interviews to type up. But for now, I’ve only got the time to post these shortees.

Looks like Aaron from San Marcos has been doing some great work organizing folks in the effort of getting a public skatepark down there. He’s got a great website that details their progress. Check it out for info on their "FUNraiser" coming up on the 25th of Feb.

Speaking of public skateparks, I’ve recently been invited to participate in a national non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for public skateparks. Skaters for Public Skateparks is still in its infancy, but the website contains some great information for those seeking to build a public skatepark in their community.

Four seperate groups of out-of-town heavy hitters descended on the Banana Farm Ramp over the weekend. As you can see from these pictures, they were all over the place. Sadly, Chaz Pineda from Houston skated, but our schedules were off and I missed shooting photos of him. An eye-witness account credited him with skating it faster than anyone else ever has. Part of his schtick included stand-up grinds in the over-vert steakhouse. On the plus side, though, I got some pretty decent video footage for the upcoming Austin Skate Notes DVD release.

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Austin Skate Notes has recently opened up its own video division. We’re putting together a DVD video zine to be distributed free of charge. If you’ve been working on a skate video and have a short piece edited that you’d like to contribute, please send it to Austin Skate Notes, 4908 Duval, Austin, TX 78751. Due to DVD space constraints, we’re limited to accepting submissions no longer than 15 minutes. There’s no deadline, so you should probably get that DV tape in the mail ASAP or else it’s probably too late for the first issue, but we can hold it for a later edition. We’ve already got two definitely kick-ass submissions and then a couple of pieces I already have in the can, and then there’s a couple guys I still need to call.

Think of it as this website, but on your tv set and sound and the pictures are moving.

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