We’re in Las Vegas and first contact has been made. Tim over at Area 702 skateshop called out his troops to skate their local park, Pro Park, and gave us the green light to shoot a few pics of the session. Pictured above is team rider Jason doing a nice frontside air over the channel. See more pics of Team Area 702 and their rad antics after the turn.
Click on the pics for a larger view.
Anthony – Andrecht (he learned them during the session)
Jason and Anthony – Side by side over the box
Kenny catching some legit air
Keddrick bowl transfer over the spine
Taylor tucking one for the team
BS air shadow play in the bowl
Kenny bones frontside over the box
Jason styling the frontside grind
Anthony grabbing a frontside air to wall ride
Taco helping Wheels with some technical difficulties
Wow, look at all the kids wearing safety gear!
Yeah, but they’re not the really cool kids ’cause they’re riding vert. The really cool kids are the injured ones in the street area attempting tricks that they’ll never make, over and over, in straight lines, unencumbered by annoying pads, and mumbling phrases like, “can I bum a smoke?” to anyone within earshot. Hey, I’m not stereotyping anyone, they’re stereotyping themselves. I’m just an observer of human behavior, and someone who should not drink coffee in the afternoon.
Love Taylor’s style on that frontside air. Why can’t everyone grab like that, just to please me? Alva did it first. Do it like Alva, not like George Orton. There, I’ve said it.
Yeah that tuck-knee air is stylish, but the “style nazi” rhetoric is getting old. So what if Alva grabs around the knee? I prefer a late-grab any way you want 4 feet out rather than a “stylee tuck-knee” early grab barely over coping (which is what Alva and a lot of the tuck-knee nazis do). I wasted a couple sessions learning tuck-knees (late grab and large) in the eighties because of this crap and you know what? They don’t feel as good to me, so i do it my way. Grab however you want. This is not figure skating or synchronized swimming. There ain’t no rules in skateboarding. Its about fun and freedom, not conforming to someone else’s aesthetic standards. Its alright to know what you like but do you really want everyone to skate the same?
Nice pics Rich.
If there were a “tongue in cheek” symbol, I would have used it in reference to my frontside air comments. I honestly don’t care how people grab. Really. Now that you mention it, Orton went a lot higher than Alva. First I’m a “pad-goon”, now I’m a “tuck-knee nazi”. Geez.
The interweb’s a bitch, huh? Don’t sweat it, i just had to vent. Btw, I’m a pad-goon too; i’m ok with that. Remember when you’d be stoked just to find someone else who skated at all? Remember when it was all about doing your own thing? Funny how there’s so many of us now people gotta find ways to weed out the “uncool”. Back then we had skaters and nonskaters. Then we had punks and jocks. Now we got tight-pants posers, street-flippers, bowl barneys, bowl trolls, pad dads, pad goons, vert kooks, longboard larrys, wiggle worms, brobrahs, ramp rats, Y guys, holy rollers, net nerds, dusters, heshers, crusters………
Story #1: In the early 80’s in Boston, on the rare occasions that my roommate and I would hear a skater riding down the sidewalk below our apartment, we would yell out the window for them to stop, and then run down with our boards to meet him. This would always result in a new acquaintance, if not a friendship, simply on the basis of being a fellow skater in 1982.
Story #2: This past summer, 25 years later, I had the misfortune of getting some free tickets to the Dew Tour “Streetstyle” event in Portland. We got there too late to sit in the venue, so we were herded into the Memorial Coliseum to watch on the big screen while the BMX dirt guys practiced below. Sitting next to us was a mother with a whiny 12 year old who was pissed that they hadn’t gotten into Streetsyle. She offered to bring him back the next day to see the Vert finals. He immediately declined. Clearly surprised, she asked him why, and he responded, “’cause vert’s not cool.”
Yes Mo, times have definitely changed. Look for me at the parks, I’ll be the old pad-gooning-tuck-knee-nazi-vert-kook-bowl-barney-pad-dad in the grey helmet. We’ll do some frontside airs. Any grab style will do.
Did you say frontside indy?
Nice Pics! Thank you Rich.