Trash
BLOCK BUSTER
Long awaited and much anticipated, The
Chocolate Tour has made its way to a skate
shop near you, featuring top-notch footage
including mindblowing performances from
Richard Mulder and Stevie Williams,
not to mention the complete switchstance
destruction by Keenan Milton and the
effortless skating of his New York buddy
Gino Iannucci. Great Girl humor keeps the
video interesting between skate parts, with
Oscar performances from CHP officer Tony
Ferguson and funnyman Mike York. While
his teammates display urban wonder, Colin
McKay busts groundbreaking tech on vert.
Switch flips, manual mastery, and nollie
heelflip noseslides down an eight-stair rail-
what more could you want?
When Bryan Ridgeway was inexplicably fired
from his longtime tenure as head dog at
Tracker/Orion/Neighborhood, it was said that
Tony Hawk was so infuriated that he immedi-
ately bailed on his signature model truck deal
there and went to Fury. So who was surprised
when Ridge was just announced as the new
General Manager at Birdhouse, Flip, Fury, and
Hook-ups? In the interim Bryan maintained a
low profile doing "special projects" for the Hawk
clothing company while he reportedly turned
down offers from a number of leading companies.
One spurned position is rumored to be Associate
Publisher at Skateboarder Magazine, while another
passed opportunity is believed to be the Marketing
Director slot at Redsand. Hawk, Lance Mountain,
Jeremy Klein, Per Welinder, and Jeremy Fox
are vocally enthusiastic, while the Tracker
clique appear highly agitated.
Swatch hosted a semi-secret crossover board-
sports boot camp in Telemark, Norway. The pur-
pose of this convocation? Elements of
the Swatch organization have taken to
keeping their own Internet time based
upon a day of 1000 beats. (A beat
equals 86.4 seconds.)
Swatch main men
Nicky Hayek and
Bernie Bernthal are
fond of pointing out that
this is the future and that
they are already living
in it. Perhaps they were
there to explain this
Swatch beat time to
their team members?
Concurrent to the camp was a Waveloch
Invitational, in which masters of several disci-
plines competed atop a 30 MPH wave-flow gen-
eration machine. Norwegian snowboarder/surfer
Terje Haakonsen got first, Hawaiian sail surfer
Rush Randle got second, Californian skim-
mer/skater/surfer Bill Bryan got third, Andy
Mac got fourth, and Hawaiian surfer/skater
Conan Hayes captured fifth. Around the event
were Fabrice La Mao, Tom Curren, Takuji
Masuda, Espen Arveson, and Reto Lamm.
Not present but rumored to be potential partici-
pants in a Swatch-sponsored Waveloch portable
wave machine tour are Shaun Palmer, Peter
King, Hawk, Chris Miller, Bob Burnquist,
Mike Frazier, Brian Howard, and Rochelle
Ballard. The interest in this emergent crossover
platform appears to be spreading. At a private
Waveloch San Diego test site, Stryder
Wasilewski was seen sessioning with Zack
De La Rocha of Rage Against The Machine.
FINGER BANG
The anticipated boom in skate collectibles has-
n't peaked yet, and the predicted feeding frenzy
over the more than 200 models of miniaturized
X Concepts Tech Decks being offered for sale
hasn't been overwhelming. Tech Decks feature
the authorized logos of such companies as Blind,
Alien Workshop, New Deal, Zoo York, Zero,
World Industries, Foundation, Birdhouse, Black
Label, Creature, Element, Flip, Maple, Toy
Machine, Santa Cruz, A-Team, and so forth. The
steady appeal of these boards has meant that
now more toy boards are created annually than
Colin McKay still can't figure
out who can fuck off.
actual serious skate equipment.
The undeniable truth of the
collecting scene is that
there is a mad passion-
ate burgeoning demand
for full size, original
issue gear from extinct
companies. Backstock
from recent and not-so-
recent mortalities like
Transit, National Pastime,
Nicotine, Capital, Silverstar,
and First Division are hotly
pursued by astute collec-
tors. Dale Smith is
rumored to be clan-
destinely searching
out vintage Plan
B shit, such as
early Danny
Way shotgun
slicks and Pat
Duffy models.
Teen Dream
The old Jim Greco either on his
way to a court date or a prom date.
Anthems (for the last summer of the XX century), a
fine arts exhibition featuring the efforts of
Jeremy Fish, Tommy Guerrero, Natas
Kaupas, and Marc McKee, opened in San
Francisco at the Terrain Gallery. Artist/gallery
director Armando Rascone performed the
most entertaining feat of the opening by attempt-
ing to explain to a collector the difference
between a Pablo Picasso drawing executed by
Picasso and an identically accurate forgery of
same done by the notorious Elmer De Hory.
The matron was further confused when she
investigated the pedigree of a Kaupas collage,
asking the artist for an explanation. According to
Natas, "Nothing is real."
FALL GUY
The newest incarnation of Alleged pre-
miered in the south end of New York's East
Village with a Mark Gonzales exhibition.
Gonz managed to incorporate aspects of the
site (a meat locker turned dance studio turned
gallery), into his exhibit by prying the mir-
rors off the walls and painting words on their
surface and presenting them as his actual
show. Our favorite was a provocative blank
mirror that Mark and Alleged's leader Aaron
Rose offered for sale for five thousand dollars.
Hall of Meat
Concussions are cool;
just ask Jon Wiltshire
of Auburn, CA. for his
eggnog recipe.
inther
Bombing hills with loose
trucks sucks, right Paul?
Paul Buran from
Burlingame, CA shows
the damage.
Destructo team member, and in his continu-
Poser of the Month ally spoken reworking of his professional life,
Call: Stand-up Luge
Victim: Mark Pedtke, DuBois, IL
Verdict: Suburbia
Seen around the event were Michelle
Lockwood, Luke Blythe, and Harmony
Korine.
SLIM GYM
"Pro skaters, industry icons, and fans join
together to honor Tony Alva for his contri-
butions to skateboarding," says an ESPN
press release. This PR tidbit was the first indi-
cator that the SF "Please don't call them.
'extreme"" X Games might be surreal. Perhaps
the ESPN contingent feels the sting of all the
negative publicity that preceded the games
in the San Francisco press. Maybe they are
running scared from the upcoming NBC
Gravity Games in Providence, Rhode Island.
There, the National Broadcasting Company
promises to deliver "prime time network tel-
evision coverage and major corporate spon-
sors." Despite the ridiculously over-the-top
ramp and adverts for horrifically non-skate-
related entities such as Disney's
Tarzan, Taco Bell, and the United
States Marine Corps, the ESPN crew
tried to come off as the most down-
with-it core skate types imaginable.
The recognition of TA was seen by
many as being the X Games' desperate
attempt to prove themselves as being
anti-corporate and grunge skate
friendly. The vert finals saw Bucky
Lasek beating out Andy Macdonald
and Hawk, as spokesperson Chris
Miller commented. Other ESPN ana-
lysts told the audience many brilliant
things including: "Steve Caballero is
known as Yoda," "It's a lovefest after-
wards on the Masonite," "The surfer
dude from San Diego seeks the line of
truth on Seal Rock," and "Gymnastics
has its Nadia, skateboarding has its
Hawk." Present was some guy from
O'Neill, who claimed that the wetsuit
company would now release Nick
Hernandez's band Common Sense's
new album without a record company
label. This news had nothing to do with
the eXtreme Games.
Mike Vallely has become the latest
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has signed with Hurley and Oakley.
Odd manifestations of "skate culture"
have been seen of late in scary main-
stream mass media offerings.
Peculiarly offensive in its bla-
tant attempt to co-opt was the
skateboard-equipped stock broker-
age house Merrill Lynch's human
achievement advert. Another offering,
the Sprite television commercial that
spells out "the painful realization that soda
can't make you a better skater," is at least
humorously cognizant of its own exploitative
component. Lacking humor or insight is Walt
Disney Studio's inclusion of skateboards into
their films' promotional advertising.
Riding the wave of Generation Next, who are
tired of blistering their thumbs playing weak-
ass video games, Thrasher mag has joined the
intrepid rush of polygons and pixels. A video
game, "Skate and Destroy," is in the works at
a nearby peninsula facility. The braintrust of
Z-Axis, juiced by such names as Jeremy,
Gordon, and Allan, among others, have been
working in a technological warzone for nearly
a year perfecting a game that will realistically
represent skateboarding to the diehard shred-
der. While the Birdman and the corporate
goons at Activision fashion their game around
skaters such as Jamie Thomas and Kareem
Campbell, Thrasher is working on a product
that includes realistic representations of well-
known spots like China Banks, Brooklyn
Banks, and London's South Bank-not to
mention motion-capturing done by top riprid-
ers Cairo Foster, Diego Bucchieri, and
Jesse Paez performing the tech-dog tricks.
An unconfirmed rumor surrounding the game
calls for a possible special guest appearance
by the one and only Rick Blackhart.
allATT
The Cheap P
to Call Col
for
Collect calls
QUOTE ME
World
Industries
now makes their
own money to be
dropped on the masses.
"I never broke my arm until I did a Gap
commercial."
-Tony Hawk
"After seventeen years of being a skateboard
pro you get sponsored by Club Med."
-ESPN announcer Sal Masakela on Tony Hawk
"Snowboarders stole every trick they have from
skating. They are so stupid that they can't even
get the names right of what they stole."
-Andy Macdonald
"Take a miniature skateboard and act out all the
tricks your favorite pro riders can do."
-Tech Deck, Inc.
Sex Games
KAM
During Pride Weekend, I
went to the sex-Games.
I got to meet my
teen
Heartthrob, Kris Mare Kovich.
What a babe. as you get to
see, we hit it
L8,
Ilya
of.
168 THRASHER
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