Austin’s observance of Go Skateboarding Day was last wednesday, but news of the event was impossible to publish on Austin Skate Notes until now thanks to incompetence at Time Warner Cable. Network access has finally been restored to the ASN server fortress and photos are posted.
The festivities began at Tekgnar with an impromptu game of S.K.A.T.E. followed by a high-ollie contest. Free pizza was available to any skateletes wanting to carbo-load for the journey ahead. After the high ollie contest was finished with a 9.5 board ollie skaters hit Stokes parking garage for a few runs before the fuzz shut them down. Skaters then meandered through downtown streets hitting this and that spot until arriving on Barton Springs Road where they held up traffic on the last leg of the parade to Barton Springs. (more…)
If you like to laugh and then cry, you’ll probably enjoy visiting the website for the Texas X Sports Park. I went to the Leander City Council meeting on Thursday where the proponent of this concept presented before the council. He’s not asking for public money, but he needed the council to change the zoning of the land he wants to use. As he talked about all the horseback riding, mountain biking, golfing, basketball, roller hockey skating, gymnastics, RV’ing, and finally skateboarding that will take place in this eXtreme facility, I kept expecting that he would break into a song about monorails. The Leander City Council ended up approving his zoning change, so now he can drum up investors to fund this $66 million boondoggle.
The third annual International Go Skateboarding Day is scheduled for Wednesday, June 21. Skaters around the world will take to the streets this wednesday to make our presence felt within our communities. In Austin, Tekgnar is hosting a highest ollie contest at 1:00 pm with free pizza and prizes. Not to be outdone, the Skatepark of Austin is organizing skaters to meet at the same exact time down the street at the Dog and Duck Pub where they will drink, eat, and then skate in formation to Barton Springs for a swim.
Skaters in Waco have been dealt a pretty raw hand. They had a slab with some wooden ramps and props that the city paid for, but due to vandalism of the spot, the city bulldozed the place late last year. Now the skaters have organized into a non-profit group (skate254) and are fundraising to buy new props for a tennis court the city has offered. This wednesday evening (yeah, go skateboarding day), they’re hosting a benefit at the tennis courts with bands, etc. Here’s an article in the Waco Tribuneabout their group organizing.
Wes sent me some more photos, which I’ve posted in his gallery.
Found a 1998 copy of Thrasher with a Phil Shao interview and a Pushead cover. If you want it, go bid on the eBay auction. Somebody once told me those back issues with Pushead covers sell big to collectors. We’ll see.
This Thursday Union Skate Shop and Sk8nuts Hardware will host another Thursday Throwdown at Mabel Davis. It’s a free best-trick contest with a prize of $25 cash and a $75 gift certificate. This week’s challenge is the Big 4 Stair set, so if you’re hearing about this for the first time, you might want to get out there in the next two days to tighten up on your frontside half cabs. Starts at 7:30 PM. Ken Fillian keeps dropping by Mabel Davis every now and again. Turns out he’s been going on dates with Cory Thornhill’s sister and is considering moving to Austin.
Kinilau and Wes have been submitting photos to ASN and I’ve finally gotten around to posting them in the gallery. Kinilau’s camera has dust on the CCD, so please be patient with some of the ‘dirty’ images. Wes is rocking the point-and-shoot camera to great effect.
According to a story in a suburban version of the Houston Chronicle, a couple of kids got hurt at two of the Woodlands public prefab skateparks and now some of the residents are resisting the additional construction of neighborhood skateparks. They’ve already got about 11 of these metal-ramps-on-slabs facilities and are planning more. One of the kids has a broken neck from jumping a quarter pipe with his bike, while the other kid’s injury is described as having his scalp removed. Whoah! How does that happen? Sadly, details are thin. Very little discussion is given in the article about how more kids (and adults) are killed while riding bikes in public streets by hit-and-run drivers. Sadly, in early June, another skater was critically injured by a hit-and-run driver in San Antonio. That makes three for the year to date in SA.
Continuing the knee-jerk-reactionism, the ex-mayor of Austin, Bruce Todd, is pushing for Austin to re-enact a bicycle helmet law. He had gotten a similar law passed several years ago when he was mayor, but four months after he left office, the new city council dumped it from the books. Recently, he suffered a bicycling accident where he smashed his face during a group bike ride and is now campaigning for a mandatory helmet law affecting all adult bicyclists. The Austin City Council will host a public input meeting after July 27th regarding this issue.
Lil’ Moot has been dispatched on a deep cover mission to Central America. He mentioned something about scuba diving and surfing, and I noticed that he did not bring his skateboard when I dropped him off at the airport. The only pair of shoes he brought were the Geoff Rowleys on his feet.
Rumor has it that the Lakeway public skatepark will open July 4th.
While in high school on the other side of the globe, I came across an issue of a DIY skate zine from the east coast called ‘Lapper’. It was inspired by lapped grinds, but it featured photos of all manner of skate stunts. More importantly, it documented the scene surrounding one of the most amazing halfpipes ever built– the Cedar Crest Country Club Ramp. A guy has just now posted a website memorial to the long-gone ramp that’s worth a visit.
Last year I asked Lloyd why he supported this morality-in-the-media witch hunt. I asked him if it made sense that a broadcaster should be financially crippled for transmitting words that are legally found by the multitudes in public libraries and on elementary school playgrounds. He told me that "there must be some control over what is piped into people’s homes".
fuck lloyd doggett. Passing laws like this is pure busy-work designed to create the illusion of doing something while dodging the much more challenging issues at hand. Drop the violin and take a look at the newspaper, bitch. Rome is burning.
A large group of skateboarders gathered at Mabel Davis yesterday (June 6, 2006) for a dusk session. Travis Burke is on break from school in Corpus and put in a marathon performance of skateboarding stamina. James Juneau returned for his second session since recovering from knee surgery earlier this year. His runs included sparking 50-50 grinds down the pool-coping escalator and madonna grinds in the deep end. Adam Young was on the brink of landing egg plants on the real steep short wall. Kevin emblazoned an upside-down red cross on his belly, then suffered the hardest slam of the session while experimenting with a rock-and-roll in the deep.
A youngish skater remarked, "This is pretty hardcore." Mission accomplished.
Austin’s observance of Go Skateboarding Day was last wednesday, but news of the event was impossible to publish on Austin Skate Notes until now thanks to incompetence at Time Warner Cable. Network access has finally been restored to the ASN server fortress and photos are posted.
