austin skate notes

The SPoSM (Skatepark of San Marcos) group is gearing up for two events in south central next month. The fifth annual Broderick Memorial Contest will be held on November 15th at the San Marcos skatepark. Street and best trick competitions on that day will be followed by a ditch contest at CFAN the following day. Maybe Aaron will post some more details on the SPoSM site as they become available.

As I’ve been travelling around the country, big-time scene builders, Nathan Black and Jared Ficklin have picked up the Patterson Park revegetation responsibilities and achieved stunning results. This has required multiple visits every day to manage water sprinklers, repair broken hoses, replace stolen timers, and clean up remaining building materials. This amount of time and effort has been invested to give the grass the best chance possible of survival so the spot doesn’t turn into a dust pile like Mabel Davis. There will be some ongoing issues to address, such as keeping BMXers from doing airs off the sides of the ramp onto the grass berm, and hopefully visitors of the ramp will become good stewards of the skate spot so we can maintain a positive scene there and create more in other parks throughout Austin.

So when will the miniramp be open? Well, Jared has been working with Austin PARD to have them inspect and sign-off on the project, which will hopefully happen in the coming week. In the meantime, you can early-vote.

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Galveston skater, Johnny Romano, recently lost his epic battle with cancer and passed away. In the spirit of the Cliff Burton Memorial SUAS contest at the original Skatepark of Houston (on Orange Grove), Houston skaters have organized a contest at Houston’s new public skatepark to raise funeral funds and help his parents cover medical expenses. The Skateboard Mag has an article about the new skatepark in its current (October) issue if you’d like to see a preview of the park with photos.

Rob Bufford’s band has a show coming up at 710 on the 25th and also 29th.

If you haven’t figured out who you’re going to vote for come November, you might want to consider this article about how Sarah Palin opposed a public skatepark when she was mayor of that small town in Alaska. Typical deal, “We don’t have the money to build a skatepark.” and then, “Oh, but we have millions to spend on team sports complexes.” Those high school students are visiting Austin today (10-18-2008) performing at Emo’s as the band, ‘Portugal. The man‘

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Laurie from Tekgnar sent me this message promoting a DIY slab contest:

The Texas Skateboarding club is putting on a contest Sunday Oct 19th at the Shady Hollow Slab. It’s old-school, grass-roots style jam session. No big sponsor, big City park rules contest(ha!). Should be fun for the kids for sure.

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Following the successful footsteps of Mustache skate shop in Round Rock, it looks like some clever entrepreneurs executed on the opportunity and have leased retail space near the site of Austin’s next public skatepark. No idea if it will be open before the skatepark is built, but hopefully they’ll help cultivate a positive scene at the park. Did you know that Mustache Matt held a cigarette butt contest where he awarded a deck to the skater who picked up the most butts at the Round Rock skatepark?

This mini-ramp is listed for free on craigslist.

The Statesman showed up on Thursday’s pour @ Patterson and shot photos. One of them made the online ‘photos of the day‘ feature.

The new Indiana Jones movie is absolute garbage. Lucas needs to have his Hollywood privileges revoked. After the Star Wars prequels and now this, I think that’s at least four or five strikes..

Thrasher has posted essential footage captured during last weekend’s event at Mabel Davis. Congrats to Schmale for getting some coverage out at Bastrop’s Grinder Ledge. 5-hip clip, too.

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As you can see from the poll options to the right, I anticipated a healthy showing of pro skaters at this weekend’s Mabel Davis contest. When I heard that none were coming on Friday, I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. That disappointment lasted just until the first heat started Saturday morning…

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The readers have voted and it looks like the smart money is on Todd Falcon to win tomorrow’s contest at Mabel Davis. Wow. It’s already here! I gotta post this story so I can hustle down there to watch the pros practicing.

Todd Falcon has a new video out. Yeah, that trailer IS unbelievable. I hope he’ll be at the Houston Public Skatepark grand opening.

The Patterson Park Miniramp is nearing completion. The volunteers have been kicking ass out there. To clarify, this DIY concrete project has received zero funding from the city and has been built with donations from Vans, the Austin Parks Foundation, and frog design. If you go out there and see volunteers toiling in the sun, don’t ask them when it’ll be done. Ask them if they prefer Lonestar or Tecate.

The Patterson Park Miniramp project is nearing completion thanks to the countless volunteer hours put in. Grand Opening is scheduled for Go Skateboarding Day, June 21.

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