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ONámsos
Andalsnes
Allied air
assault
on the
continent
1943-45
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EIRL
NORTH
UNITED
KINGDOM
SEA
Steve Caballero skated the ramp far beyond abuse. Here he's caught
midway through a footplant thruster over the channel.
30%
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Bismarck
sunk 1941
Orkney Is
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Nagasaki
GAL
AORDINA
WITH S
THE GREAT
DESERT RAMP
BATTLE
E
D
Stockholm
S
openhagen
45
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Berlin
mia
enna
a
45.
Prus
4
RUSS
50°
regime to administer it. Skaters by their
70°
60°
Archange
43
ikop
Waris PAIN
S
E
very actions redefine the sports boundaries
with every ride, and what was state of the ina
art ten minutes ago may now be totally
passé. Each new movement dominates all
previous ones. The pure and infinitely
complex act of skating is an end to itself.
Skating requires no modifiers or superflu-
ous add-ons to make it cool. Nor does it
sin need any social conditioning value
judgments imposed by the status quo. So
have we heard all this before? Is
skateboarding really punk, surfing, heavy
metal, religion, teenage angst, unsafe,
insane, five-year-olds at skate parks,
promotional puppets, iron workers after
work, good clean fun, suitable for mid-
F America, identical twins, malicious
5
mischief, country & western, illegal in most
places, new image, an honest way to make
a living, suburban revolution, mass transit,
the future, universal, or what? Skating is
skating. Anthing else beyond the essential
activity is just a matter of personal taste, or
lack of it.
The task of creating an "overall" profile
of the modern-age skater is as impossible
as it is reactionary. Do you know many
skaters who aren't individualists? I've
never seen real skaters who couldn't get
along with other real skaters despite their
LI often radically dissimiliar backgrounds.
Skaters generally relate to other intelligent
beings who participate in the same activity.
So what are we all standing around in a
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42
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Seville
Occ./SP.
Casablanca
ROCCO
rench)
PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE
OR
TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT
18.
Dry, dusty, hot, stinking desert. Only it
was wet and under water. Miles from
nowhere with no chance to back out. The
authentic Belchful One, the former prop
movie car turned cheap personal transport
had blown its final headgasket. Two
thumbs and two rides later, I re-entered the
semi-secret compound prepared for the
worst. The last competitive event I covered
for this foul rag some mother from Amerika
proceeded to severely chastise my
West of Greenwich 0° Longitude
East of 10° Greenwich
1
43
Kha
n
ic
Palmdale pasture for anyway? Is it
possible that the past has been perma-
nently flushed in favor of the future? The
175 or so hardcore spectactor/participants
in this skate spectacle are all here to forge
a new competitive format. The great ramp
rage represents skaters taking control of
their own destinies. The Palmdale ramp
e
U terrains. It's as ging edge of neo-skate
terrains. It's as good as any there is now,
Belgrare and tomorrow it will be much better. The
three master architects of this phenomenal Yalt
OPI structure choose to create what they want,
when they want. Perhaps the U2 spy
44uc
planes which repeatedly buzz the ramp on
flyovers are searching for the reasons why.
Perhaps the high technology boys in the
military industrial mode will never ever
completely understand.
ALB
D
Just a few simple rules? The sixteen
selected skaters were all invited because
their accomplishments demanded it. Every
one of them belonged. Every one of them
dug the extremely skateable structure.
Every one of them skated hard and well on
both the pre-sessions and the contest. I
personally don't care who won or lost since
the entire event was important because it
raised the level of the sport/art as a whole.
Each of the entrants accomplished this
advancement in their own unique style.
There were no B.S. fakers, clones or
C. Matawanna-be's. The judging was adequate
and no one disputed the final results.
The loose informal contest atmosphere
contributed greatly to everyone's enjoy-
Jg
K,
associates and I for our heinous crimes. I
was personally charged with skating
-average, and with the far more serious
offense of leading the holy innocents down
the garden path to slimeville. Now I'm not
saying that Mrs. Amerika doesn't have her-
values; for everyone's entitled to their own
point of view. However, the one indisputa-
ble fact is that while manufacturers, rules,
regulations, mags, organizations and
governments may come and go, the
sport/art/lifestyle of skateboarding con-
tinues to evolve. It is the only truly contem-
porary urban sport which requires no
43
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43
E
20°
OSOF
Hosoi thoroughly offended some people's minds, with eye-popping
ballsy moves like this "bomb-drop" off of the 12 ft. section.
AT
'
ment. It is significant that the HBO
television coverage in its initial viewing will
reach around 60,000 homes with an
average of 2.5 viewers. It is more signific-
ant that this is the first TV documentation of,
a skater-created environment. Now as you
multiply 2.5 viewers times 60,000 homes,
that comes to a possible 150,000 ramps
being built in the target area by enthused
viewers. These are numbers I can live
with. Today will be different.
D.I.
Lowboy
I got a ride down there on Thursday the
24th of February with Mr. Wonderful
himself, Gnit Pique. All the way down we
drove through storm after storm. This
definitely was not a good sign. In fact, the
rain has held California under siege for the
last few weeks. Definitely not the good
ingredients for a skateboard contest.
40°
Tbilis
Raku
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on
50°
nc
ar
The event was to be the first of its
caliber, a Pro International ramp contest,
or better put, the Great Desert Ramp
Battle. An effort to take competitive
skateboarding into the backyard of
America. Literally. The contest ramp sat jas
right smack in someone's backyard out in
the Mojave. The ramp is a megastructure
in itself, easily consisting of enough lumber
to build a house.
The ramp was constructed by Keith
Stevenson and his co-horts, Steve
Lawrence and Greg Godfrey.
A few hours prior to our arrival, the rain
ceased. What does this mean? What could,
these strange occurrences lead to?
Already at the ramp were some of the
G&S squad. They were practicing under
the superficially watchful gaze of their
mentor and chaperone, big bad Adrian. He 10
walked over and said, "Do you have any
Schnapps?
I said no and asked who all did he bring;
A
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