austin skate notes

I, Weiss, went to Emo’s last night to see The Redneck Manifesto play. They’re from Dublin (see the eastern coast). Sandy went on tour with them to take photos and the like. I don’t know how he met them, but he likes them and they like him. I guess that’s a good fit when you’re in a van for a long time. Check out this photo that Sandy took at the UT library (you’ve seen it here before, but not retouched in such a gritty, "xtreme" kind of way).

Anyway, I saw Wes at the show and he told me that he’d just finished putting a zine online that he’s been working on with his bros. Funny thing is, I’d just seen it about 30 minutes beforehand after seeing a link to it on the Bueno site. (Do I have mighty psychic power? Am I just hip? Or both? I’ll let the ladies decide.) It’s called Prather Ramp Locals (PRL).

Personally, I hate my job. I should be working right now. It’s Sunday, all my friends are having fun, and I’m supposed to be writing about computers. This contract’s ending on Tuesday the 28th. I’m set on letting the great state of Texas giving me flow for a while. If you’ve heard of team Texas Workforce Commission, then you know what I’m talking about.

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The Texas Sizzler Pro / Am Slalom Contest will be held this weekend in Austin. All the details are available at Silverfish longboarding. Free to spectate, which is what I’ll be doing. My camera is still being repaired, so I’ll probably be shooting video. The weather forecast is 50% chance of thunderstorms on Saturday with clouds predicted for Sunday.

Nathan posted this the other day as a comment, but for some reason it didn’t show up.

People gathered at the state Capitol yesterday evening to protest Bush’s wiretapping of domestic US citizen’s phone conversations. Apropriately, I shot those photos with my cell phone’s camera.

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Colby Carter’s (ex-World Industries pro) skatepark design firm, Site Design, is going to meet with Irving, Texas, skaters on February 23rd to further refine the design for that city’s skatepark. Courtesy of the guys at Fourduos.com, here are some links to the PDF of the preliminary design they’ll be introducing at the meeting.

• Design D
• Design E
• Design F

James Juneau called me this evening. He’s healing up pretty well from his surgery last month. Walks around fine, but it’ll be several months before he’s taking charge at Mabel Davis. He had a dispute with a customer over a several hundred dollar debt that hadn’t been paid off in over a year, but it seems to be getting resolved.

Here’s a kick-ass video of a guy named Richie Jackson street skating. You gotta give props to anyone willing to cannonball off any number of steps. I’m really liking this whole youtube.com deal. It needs to get better in terms of being able to dodge the utter crap clips people post, but in time I think it will.

In case you didn’t see messages conveyed on other sites or in Sean’s comment on ASN, Harold Hunter was found dead over the weekend in his New York apartment. The skateboard pro / actor was 31.

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Donylle Green has led a tremendous effort in Marble Falls to get a permanent concrete skatepark for the past couple of years. Her group has boasted great successes at raising funds and has managed to generate moderate support from the city government in the form of a termporary slab where the local skaters can build ramps and props.

Earlier this month, anti-skaters drove trucks over the wooden ramps on the slab and destroyed a newly-constructed pyramid and some other ramps. This is a significant setback for their group as they’ll now have to use donated funds earmarked for the permanent skatepark to rebuild the temporary park. If you would like to help the Marble Falls skaters by contributing materials, money, or expertise, you can reach Donylle @ (512) 913-2001.

Fox 7 news is doing a story about how Mabel Davis is too crowded. I talked to Christine, the reporter for the story, on the phone the other night. She said it’s going to air on the 19th. I’m afraid she’s going to hype the dangerous aspect of the crowding as she told me some skaters have provided her footage of people colliding. She’s planning to visit the park this weekend, so hopefully she’ll see that the crowding is less dangerous than it is suffocating.

I dropped my digital camera in the mail to be repaired by Nikon. Lee Brooks had his repaired under a similar process and it came back double-good, so hopefully I’ll enjoy the same results and we’ll have new photos to post soon.

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After a lot of re-installing video codecs and rebooting my computer, I finally gave up ever seeing Cody McIntire’s winning run in Tampa. Then the other day I was checking Fourduos.com for info about the Dallas skate plaza effort and noticed they have a great clip of the run in Quicktime format. There’s a link on the right scrolling box.

Brett Roper heads back to DC this afternoon. We had a good session with him at Mabel Davis on Saturday. I shot some video footage you can check out here. Just minimal Brett, but lots of Adam. Should download REAL FAST.

An old friend of mine from Dallas, Jack Control, got stabbed a bit more than a week ago at the Parlor on North Loop. He lost a lot of blood and had to stick his thumb into his stab-hole to try to plug it up. Apparently a hobo named Bingo decided to project his anger towards the system by kicking in the glass on the Parlor’s door and attacking the surrounding businesses. Jack attempted to intervene and was allegedly stabbed by Bingo who is now in jail on charges of attempted murder. Rumors have projected his medical bills to be soaring around $80,000. A benefit show held at Emo’s this past Thursday was well-attended and there will likely be more to follow.

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My bad. The Ropers are arriving on friday evening around 9:00pm. Their itinerary is still loose, but it looks like a barbecue in the daytime at either the Banana Farm or the Death Star and then Mabel Davis on Sunday. Hopefully rain won’t interfere. They leave on Monday.

Looks like I’m heading up to Dallas for that meeting. If anyone else wants to ride up with me, give me a call. e-mail is borked for some reason right now.. 789-0009.

In honor of Correta Scott King’s passing, the new Thrasher has a photo spread Sandy Carson shot of Ben Gilley riding that monster handrail on Martin Luther King Blvd. in Austin. The caption says "behind Vons," but that’s just how those San Francisco kooks spell "UT Library." It’s a good time for Ben to get this coverage as he’s shopping for a new board sponsor after Black Label thinned out their roster late last year.

The replacement Ballard Bowl is finished and open for skating outside of Seattle. Here’s a cool photo of Talley ripping a frontside ollie over the hip.

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